Wicked Pleasure

by Nina Bangs

  “I’ll get her out of here for you, Kim.” Asima had finally decided to enter the room.

  Liz was still screaming obscenities. Luckily, it was early in the evening, so most people with rooms on the second floor were somewhere else. But the noise would eventually draw attention. And more attention was exactly what Brynn didn’t need.

  “For crying out loud, Liz, you’ll be able to see again in a half hour. Cut the screeching.” Kim frowned. Her assurance hadn’t lowered Liz’s volume one decibel.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of her. You take care of Brynn.” Asima stared at Liz, and the vampire grew silent. “Come with me into the hallway.” Strangely passive, Liz left the room with Asima, only knocking over a lamp and walking into the wall once.

  Kim couldn’t begin to wrap her mind around the kind of power she was seeing from both Ganymede and Asima. All she cared about now was getting Brynn some privacy. “Thanks for your help, Ganymede, but Brynn can handle it now. And Asima could probably use your help.” She didn’t try to make eye contact with Brynn.

  Ganymede ignored her and spoke to Brynn. “Hell, talk about crazy broads. Okay, so some people like their sex kinky, but it looked like she was the only one having a good time. Why’d you let her tie you up like that?” Something furtive shone in Ganymede’s amber eyes.

  Brynn didn’t try to cover himself. He didn’t care about his nudity. Kim had seen him tied, whipped, and helpless. She’d rescued him. He should feel gratitude. He only felt anger. She’d stripped him of whatever little pride he had left after Liz got through with him. So now she could look at his body or not, because he didn’t give a damn.

  But Ganymede wanted an explanation. Brynn would tell him the bare-bones truth, because he found that he did have a little pride left. He didn’t want the cat to think he’d given in to Liz without a fight.

  “I’m a demon of sensual desire. If I spend more than an hour with a woman, she owns my body for the night.” He shrugged. “I have to give her pleasure in whatever way she wants.” That’s all Ganymede needed to know.

  “So you’re a sex demon? Cool. Bet it’s good most of the time, right? Sex with lots of different women? You gotta love it, right?” Ganymede looked a little too hopeful.

  Was he crazy? “I hate it. I don’t know who or what made me, but turn me loose in a room with the bastard for five minutes, and there won’t be enough left to chuck back into hell.”

  Ganymede’s gaze skittered away from Brynn. “Yeah, I guess I see your point.” The doubt in his voice said he didn’t see it at all.

  Brynn had purposely avoided looking at Kim. He looked now. She must’ve gone into the hall while he was talking to Ganymede because she was just returning.

  “Donna took Liz away. After Eric explained what Liz was up to, Donna yelled at all of them for not telling her sooner, and then she rushed up here to help.” Kim didn’t look ready to meet his gaze either. She was studying a spot about a foot above his head. “Donna is really ticked off. At Liz for being such a bitch and at all of you guys for keeping her out of the loop about what Liz was doing. She said you needed to lose the ego thing and let your friends help. She promised that Liz would never bother you again.”

  Bother you. Such a weak phrase to describe what Liz had in mind. “Yeah, that’s great.” Now he’d have to listen to Donna’s lecture. Didn’t any of them understand that he’d rather spend a thousand nights with Liz rather than be viewed as a powerless sexual pawn?

  “Well, since everyone’s okay, guess I’ll get moving.” Ganymede seemed a little too anxious to leave. “Maybe I can catch up with Asima. Hot babe.” He paused in the doorway. “Oh, how about not telling Sparkle what I just said.” And then he was gone. The door closed behind him.

  “Thanks for your help.” Brynn knew his voice didn’t say thanks. It said, Butt out of my life. “I need to get my head together for tonight’s fantasies.” He swung his feet to the floor, stood, and walked to where he’d carefully folded his clothes over the back of the chair. He dreaded feeling the scrape of cloth against his welts, but at least Liz hadn’t broken the skin, so he wouldn’t bleed on his white costume.

  “You’re kidding.”

  He met her gaze. She didn’t look particularly apologetic about anything. “I have a job to do.” Brynn forced himself not to grimace as he pulled on his costume. Damn, that hurt. The castle’s Handsome Prince wouldn’t be carrying any fair maidens to safety tonight. Liz had really put a hurting on him.

  “Don’t you dare leave this room. I’ll buy some cream from one of the stores in the lobby to put on your back and . . . Um, on your back.” She edged toward the door. “And you’re crazy if you try to work tonight.”

  “Don’t bother. I’m fine.” Lies. All lies. He wasn’t fine. He hurt inside and out. Brynn waited until she’d hurried from the room before making his way slowly and painfully to his kitchenette for a glass of water.

  As much as he hated to admit it, Kim was right. His costume rubbing against his skin was torture. Exhaling in disgust, he called Holgarth to let him know he needed a sub for the night. Holgarth didn’t complain or make one sarcastic comment. Brynn wished he’d done both. Right now, he viewed all kindness as translating into pity. He didn’t want people’s damned pity. Raking his fingers through his tangled hair, he consigned all vampire bitches to the deepest depths of hell. Oh, wait, couldn’t do that. He was already there.

  Ripping off his costume, he flung it to the floor. Then he paced naked. Would she come back with the cream? He didn’t care. But if she did, let her walk in and find him like this. He didn’t care. Would she apologize for calling humiliation down on him? He didn’t care. Would she offer to smooth the cream over his body? He . . . did care.

  As much as he hurt, the thought of her fingers sliding over his flesh had one part of his body on the road to a quick recovery. How could she do that when he was so ticked off at her?

  While he was busy trying to convince his cock it needed to get with the program and buy into his I-don’t-care philosophy, she opened his door and walked in.

  Kim froze with the cream in one hand and Fo in the other. For a moment her eyes grew wide with shock. With her hair a tousled halo around her face, and her prim suit warring with her sexy top, he briefly sympathized with his cock’s point of view. But the sympathy died a quick death.

  She jammed Fo into her pocket even as Fo complained loudly.

  “That’s not fair, Kimmie. You never let me see the good stuff. I bet this place has an adult channel on their TVs, but do I ever get a chance to observe human sexual behavior? Ha! Not a chance. How can I learn if you don’t even want me to see a naked man? I’m not a baby, but you treat me—”

  Kim sighed. “Give me a break, Fo. This has been a rough day, and it still isn’t over. I can’t help Brynn if I have to fight with you. So will you be quiet until we get back to our room?”

  Fo continued to mumble from Kim’s pocket. “I’ll be quiet for Brynn because he saved my life.”

  Carefully averting her gaze, Kim took off her jacket with Fo in it and laid it over a chair. The sexy top clung to her, accentuating the curve of her breasts. He focused his attention on the lotion in her hand while he silently repeated his litany of grievances against her.

  She’d enraged Liz, thereby causing his punishment. Yeah, yeah, so he’d had a little to do with it, too. She’d interfered where she wasn’t wanted. Fine, so she’d had no way of knowing he didn’t want her help. She’d involved Ganymede and Asima—two more who now knew his secret. Maybe she didn’t purposely involve them, but it was still her fault. His logic wouldn’t bear close scrutiny, but it worked just fine for him now.

  He finally lifted his gaze to her face. She watched him out of those big green eyes that reflected confusion, outrage for him, and the beginning of awareness.

  “You’re naked.”

  He allowed himself a bitter smile. “That should bother me? I’ve spent five centuries giving women what they want, and I guarantee they don
’t want anything but my body. Getting naked stopped embarrassing me a long time ago. Does my body bother you?”

  She’d get red now and tell him he was a jerk. Then she’d storm out of here never to return. Good. He wanted to be able to pigeonhole her response as he had the responses of all the other women he’d known. Yeah, she’d run. She’d expected gratitude from him, and she had to be pissed at his whole attitude now.

  “Yes, it bothers me.” She purposely dropped her gaze to his cock. “Looking at your body makes me hot for you, but if I did what I wanted, I wouldn’t be any better than Liz.” She lifted her gaze back to his face. “Now let’s get this cream on you.”

  Brynn stared at her. For the first time in five hundred years, a woman had surprised him.

  8

  “And since I’m into honesty mode, I’m not sorry I saved your bare butt from the vampire bitch. No one should be used like that.” Kim swallowed hard at his thunderous expression. Had she been a little too honest?

  “You can leave now.” His voice was a dangerous murmur.

  How could he scare her witless and still ooze sex from every pore? It would be so easy to run back to her room. But then who’d put the cream on his back? He certainly couldn’t do it himself. And he’d probably spend the night in agony rather than bend his pride to ask anyone else for help. She sighed. “No.”

  “No?” His expression said he’d misunderstood her reply.

  “No. I’m going to put this on you, and then I’ll leave.” She stopped short of telling him to lie down. He’d probably had enough of women telling him to lie down tonight. “If you’ll turn around, I can get it over with. The cream will take some of the sting from the welts.” Too bad she didn’t have a magic cream that could heal emotional wounds. Uh-oh. She hoped he wasn’t in her mind. He’d hate that kind of thought. “You’re not in my mind, are you?”

  He’d turned his back to her. “No. Why would I want to wade through all that overblown sympathy?”

  “Not as sympathetic as you’d think. You’re a hard man to feel sorry for.” She uncapped the tube of cream and squeezed some onto her fingers.

  “Demon, sweetheart. You seem to have forgotten that. What would your family say?” If he was trying to goad her into an angry response, he was halfway home.

  “I don’t know. I’ll ask them when they get here tonight.” She probably shouldn’t have blurted that out just yet.

  “Like to explain that?” He sounded casual, but the muscles in his back tightened.

  She stepped close and smoothed the cream over the first welt with the tips of her fingers while trying to ignore his scent of warm healthy male. Up close he overwhelmed her. It wasn’t just that he was over six feet tall with a beautiful body. She could find plenty of men on the Galveston beach who fit that description. It was the sense that like an extraordinary piece of architecture, he’d remain breathtakingly magnificent while refusing to lose his roof in high winds. And even though he might sway in the face of a hurricane’s blast, he wouldn’t collapse. An awesome blending of form and function.

  She hadn’t known him long enough to really get a handle on his character, but demon or not, he’d survived centuries of being forced to service women. That any kindness remained in him at all was a miracle. By now he should be nothing more than a savage beast.

  She had the feeling, though, that like her imaginary building, he’d be tested by category-five Hurricane Lynsay blowing into town. She wondered who’d be left standing when it was over.

  “Remember the call I got from my sister Lynsay? She and Uncle Dirk—whoever Uncle Dirk is—are paying the castle a visit because Uncle Dirk heard rumors of demon activity here. Know anything about that?”

  “Lots of people come through here. I don’t check all of them out. So how would I know?” He’d neatly sidestepped a straight yes or no answer. “Just so we’re clear on this, I’m going to warn the others about your sister and uncle. From what I’ve heard, your family isn’t choosy about who they label as a demon. If they do to guests what you did to Liz, we’re going to take a financial hit.”

  “Financial hit? Lynsay and Uncle Dirk will destroy you if they can, and you’re worried about money?” Kim humphed her disbelief.

  “Contrary to what you saw tonight, when I’m not under the compulsion I can take care of myself.” She heard the amusement in his voice.

  “Why not have Holgarth tell them they can’t stay here?” She’d survived smoothing the cream on his first welt with only some minor tingling and a little shortness of breath. She put more cream on her fingers and started on the next welt.

  “Uh-uh. Wouldn’t work. They’d want a reason. We wouldn’t have one unless we ratted on you. Whatever we told them, they’d be convinced we were protecting a whole castle full of demons. They’d just bring in people we wouldn’t recognize. People even you might not recognize.” Experimentally, he moved the muscles in his shoulders.

  “Makes sense.” What didn’t make sense was the heat pooling low in her stomach. “Okay, since you’re probably the only demon in the castle, why don’t you take an extended vacation somewhere? After Lynsay and Uncle Dirk zap the first guest, Holgarth can throw them out without arousing any suspicion.” Arousing. Not the best word to use under the circumstances.

  Kim was now down to the welts low on his back. It was getting tougher to maintain her Nurse Jane mentality—I’m here to heal your body not drool over it. As she moved lower, she found herself using more than the tips of her fingers to smooth on the cream. The copa-feel officer in her brain was shouting at her through its tiny megaphone, Move away from the body and drop the cream. Ha, like she was going to do that.

  “This is my home now. I didn’t run from Liz, and I’m not running from your family. Holgarth, Eric, Conall, and I stand together.”

  Did he realize he was starting to lean into her strokes? She lingered on the welt at the base of his spine, allowing the heat and texture of his skin to drive her senses crazy.

  “Then things could get ugly fast.” She eyed the welts on his taut, beautiful cheeks. Did she want to go there? You bet. Did she dare? Uh, yes?

  She drew her fingers slowly and lovingly across the rounded perfection of his buttocks, admiring the way each one clenched at her touch, wondering at how her stomach clenched in time to his clenching. They were obviously on the same clench . . . er, wavelength.

  “Don’t you think you should put some cream on your fingers first?” He sounded like he was talking through clenched teeth. Probably trying not to laugh.

  “Oops.” Between the two of them, they had the market cornered on clenching. She put the cream on her fingers, and then followed the same breathtaking path of a few seconds ago.

  She’d like to blame her pounding heart, her obsessive fascination with his body, and her really wow fantasies about what she wanted to do with said body, on demonic pheromones or something. The sad truth? It was pure—okay, not so pure—lust. She, the descendant of legions of dedicated demon destroyers, was in lust with one of the evil ones.

  “Getting a little melodramatic, aren’t you?” Without warning, he turned to face her.

  She remained frozen in place, poised to administer one more soothing sweep of her fingers across his luscious bottom. Kim now found her fingers poised over his erection. His very impressive erection. If the old wives’ tale was true about big feet being an indicator of the size of a man’s sexual equipment, then Brynn must wear size twenty-five shoes.

  “You can put the cream away, Kim. I don’t have any welts on my cock.” He was laughing openly at her now.

  “Melodramatic?” Right now, Kim could only manage one five-syllable word at a time.

  “Yeah. I’m not an ‘evil one.’ I’d know if I were. I’m more of a cursed one. There’s a difference.” He walked into the bathroom and emerged a few seconds later with a towel knotted loosely around his waist. It rode low on his hips, teasing and taunting with what it hid.

  She avoided meeting his gaze by slowly and c
arefully screwing the top onto the tube. “I’d appreciate it if you’d stop rooting around in my mind.” There was just so much screwing she could do to the top—oops, another Freudian slip—so she finally looked at him. “You know, I can’t believe you got hard after what almost happened to you a little while ago.”

  He watched her from those incredible eyes that made her breaths come quickly but told her nothing about the man inside. “Over the centuries, I’ve learned to compartmentalize. Once a compulsion is finished, and the woman leaves, I forget her.” He reached out to slide his fingers lightly along her jaw. “You, my demon destroyer, might be a memory I choose to keep.”

  Oh boy. He was good. Time to change the topic. “So how are you going to handle my family? You can’t avoid them for the whole time they’re here.”

  His eyes darkened, and for the first time she got a hint of exactly how dangerous he could be. “I won’t go out of my way to confront them, but I’m not going to hide in my own home. I have a few powers tucked away for times like this, and Holgarth, Eric, or Conall will always be close by.” His oh-so-sensual lips lifted in a cold smile. “Your family will get more than they expected if they mess with anyone in the Castle of Dark Dreams.”

  Kim swallowed hard. Chilled to her heart, she backed toward the door. “Guess I’ll head to my room.” Potential disaster loomed on her personal horizon. She was caught smack-dab in the middle of a war zone without a clue how to head off what was to come or how to distance herself emotionally from either side.

  When he made no attempt to soften his stand or stop her from leaving, she grabbed her jacket with Fo still in the pocket, and fled. Just outside the door she found Ganymede.

  Kim looked around to make sure they were alone before talking. “Didn’t you find Asima?”

  “Yeah, I found her.” Ganymede’s narrowed gaze said it hadn’t been as erotically fulfilling as he’d hoped. “She got really pissy when I told her I was a friend of Sparkle’s.” He looked resigned. “Sparkle has that effect on lots of people.”