by Ivy Asher
“Why not?” I say with disappointment as I set the bottle of water down and start nibbling on another piece of toast.
“Because. The second I kiss you, the second I taste you, this,” he says, motioning between the two of us. “This is gonna combust. And I’m going to let it.”
My chewing stops abruptly, and I have to work to swallow down the toast as I stare at him, hearing what he’s saying. “Oh.”
He looks at me with that serious face of his. “Yeah, oh. So eat your toast and drink your water and sit here with me while your demon blood burns through the alcohol,” he says in a bossy tone. “Because then I’m going to burn through you.”
Oh God.
I swear to fuck, my stomach just heard him, and it’s started barking out orders to all of my internal organs to hurry up and digest everything double-time so that we can get us some of that lava demon lovin’.
Jerif reaches forward and closes my mouth for me, since I guess I went all slack-jawed on him. I immediately start eating again, and the corner of his lips tilts up slightly, pleased.
I eat faster than I ever have before, managing to take down all four pieces of toast and both bottles of water. When I’m done, I get to my feet, noting that I’m not as wobbly. My bladder is full again, so I head into the attached bathroom, which has the same wood inlays that are on the bedroom floor, as countertops. I pee and then quickly wash my hands before taking a look in the mirror. There’s a flushed look to my face, like my cheeks are preheating for him.
Coming back out, I find that the curtains are all drawn, dropping the room into darkness, and the only thing casting off light is the now-lit fireplace. I walk over to it, transfixed by the pretty flames. They swirl and sway in a way that makes them look just a hint abnormal, like they’re dancing instead of just burning the logs stacked behind the glass.
“That’s pretty,” I murmur as I lie back down on the comforter. I let my head rest against the pillow, scrunching it up so that I’m propped up enough to watch the flames dance.
Jerif grunts, but I smile across at him where he’s still resting back against his hands. For a few minutes, I just watch the flames as they turn sensually around each other, moving to the tune of their own crackles and sparks. Jerif watches me.
I sit up and lift up my hand, appreciating the soft glow the fire emits on my skin as I look over at Jerif. “What’s it like having fire power?” I ask curiously.
His eyes briefly go to the flames before settling back on my face. “It can be addictive,” he admits. “I’ve always had more of an issue tamping it down instead of not having enough power. I have to expel it often, or it gets uncomfortable, like when you eat too much food and you feel like you need to hurl.”
“Nice visual.”
“You asked,” he counters.
Can’t argue that. “Is that why no electric lights?” I wonder.
“Yes,” he replies. “Being able to expel my power for everyday little things helps to take the edge off.”
I nod and scoot over to him, taking his dark hand in mine. He lets me, though his body tenses. I really want to see him lose the tension that radiates off of him. I want to see what Jerif looks like when he stops holding back. Maybe it’s the Gate, his personality, or a combination of the two, but he always seems like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop. At first, I thought he was just an arrogant prick, but now I think he’s an arrogant prick who carries a lot on that big strong back of his.
I gently hold his palm in mine, and then trace over his lines like a palm reader might. Except, instead of looking to tell his fortune, I just want to feel his presence. I want him to feel me, right now, and not have any doubts.
As the pads of my fingertips softly trace his hand, I smile when I see him shiver. I brush a single finger across his palm again and then start tracing the edges of his fingers and thumb. “I wish I could make fire like you,” I muse. “I’ve been a proper Nihil demon for a full two days now, but I still haven’t done any cool tricks,” I say, slightly put out.
He stops my palm petting by taking my wandering hand and threading our fingers together. I love the feeling of him taking my smaller hand in his, clasping me in his heat. “You don’t need fire power of your own. You have me,” he states matter-of-factly.
I smile shyly at him, and then I turn and swing a leg over his hip, straddling his lap. He pauses and looks down at me as I sit on him, and in the firelight, his eyes look like they’re practically glowing. “Do you know what you’re doing, Warrior Princess?” he challenges me.
“Yep,” I answer without hesitation as I thread my fingers around the back of his neck. “I’m playing with fire.”
His lips notch up an inch before dropping back down, and I shift on his lap, noting that he’s hard as a fucking rock. No half hard-on here. Jerif is like a steel rod beneath my ass.
I’m no longer slaphappy from the demon spirits. Instead, I simply feel uninhibited. I want Jerif. Badly. I want to combust just like he promised. I want to light up what we have and let the ashes of our passion rain down on us as we claim a permanent place in each other’s existences. I want to pull him into this moment with me, but he’s not there yet. I can feel him holding back, doubting, and there’s just no place for that between us anymore.
A flash of Jerif methodically being stabbed and cut as he battled to get to me in the Vestibule flickers through my mind. I play with the hair at the back of his head and release a deep breath.
“I thought I’d lost you,” I confess, closing my eyes as I try to chase the rush of images and sounds away. “I hated myself for running, for not being tougher and better. For not being the kind of demon who could stop all of the bad shit from touching each of you.”
I open my eyes to find Jerif’s flickering flame eyes studying my face, like he’s trying to see where I’m going with this. My fingertips skim the back of his neck, but I focus on my words and not the rightness I feel in touching him so intimately.
“When I woke up in Nihil, I thought I had died. All I could think about was the fact that I had failed all of you...and myself. I had spent too much time seeing all the ways being a demon and a Guardian would change who I was and the life I had built. But when I woke up alone that morning after the Vestibule, I realized that I didn’t let myself see that I was better with all of you. That each of you, in your own way, helped me find parts of me I’d always wanted to have but didn’t know I possessed.”
My gray eyes settle on his, and I stare into him, latching onto all of his tension and making sure he’s hearing my every word. “I want who you are at the core. I need every gruff, brutal, sharp-tongued, unforgiving, self-sacrificing, honorable part of you. I want you, as is.”
Jerif’s gaze flits back and forth between mine for a moment before he snorts. “So only my soul will do then?” he teases.
My lips curl up. “I mean, I am a demon.”
“That you are,” Jerif confesses piously, bringing one hand forward and threading his fingers through my bright violet locks.
“I hated that I had to tell you to run.”
I get lost in the look in his eyes and the intensity of his words as they slip like silk out of his mouth. Time to fix the cracks that the battle caused. Time to reinforce ourselves and come back better and stronger because of what happened.
I lean forward and kiss him, taking his top lip slowly and then dropping to his bottom lip, sealing our fates and letting him feel what I’m offering him. And then he offers something right back.
Our mouths start out chaste as we taste and tease and learn the curves and edges of each other’s lips. His tongue is warm as it flicks out to test mine, and it’s like sinking into a perfectly warm bath at the end of a grueling day. Inch by inch, I lose myself to his warmth, and we open up and remove all the doubt and hesitancy between us.
His kiss owns me in all the best ways that a glorious kiss can. Heat pools in lapping waves through me as his soft palm skims under the hem of my shirt and splays across my
lower back, pressing me harder into him. His other hand fists in my hair as our kisses get more fevered and need spreads out between us like molten lava.
I move against him, the friction between my thighs the perfect complement to the way my peaked breasts press against the hard planes of his chest, sending strikes of pleasure straight to my clit. With a smooth movement, he rolls me onto my back, and I suck on his tongue and bite back a moan at how good the weight of him feels on top of me.
He nips at my lips and grinds into me, inhaling the breath I release at the contact, as though my sounds of pleasure are his new oxygen. I reach up and tug at the hem of his T-shirt, just as a flash of heat comes over me. I pause and look down, seeing bright red embers move through the fabric of my tank top. My mouth drops open in awe as I watch my shirt quickly burn off of me, like a flame across a gas puddle as it consumes the accelerant.
I feel heat, but no burn. Nothing hurts, and I can’t take my eyes off the quickly disintegrating fabric.
A small puff of smoke wafts up into the air between us, and just like that, I’m naked from the waist up, not a singe to mar my skin. My mind is blown over the control he has over his ability. I’ve never seen anything like it.
“Dude,” I tell him, my eyes swinging up to his face in awe. “Ooohh, do yours next,” I say excitedly, my eyes dropping to the fabric of his T-shirt, ready and waiting to watch the incredible trick again.
In a whoosh, every stitch of clothing on Jerif vanishes in a flash of flame and poof of smoke. His cock is suddenly pressing unhindered between my thighs, and I lick my lips. “Even better,” I confess, completely impressed.
He rumbles out what could be a laugh or just the sound the earth makes before an impending earthquake, and starts to unlace the crotch strings on my pants.
“Can’t burn these off too?” I ask.
“I think they’d just melt, so better to be safe than sorry.”
“My lower half appreciates your caution,” I tell him. And win-win for me, I now get to revel in the feel of his deft fingers as they undress me.
I chuckle and watch with amusement as Jerif undoes the laces, pulls off my boots, and slides the leather pants off of me slowly, like he’s savoring each inch of skin as it’s revealed to him.
It’s fucking hot.
He kisses back up my leg, painfully slowly, teasing my inner thigh, activating the tickle spots low on my abdomen, and coaxing out a deep moan to break up the panting I’m doing when his hand settles possessively on my pussy. He rubs the base of his palm on my clit and pushes two fingers inside of me as his lips trace the underside of my breast.
He hooks onto my G-spot right away and starts moving in and out of me while his palm applies pressure on my clit. His mouth traverses my peaked breast, and he wraps his sinfully delicious lips around a hard throbbing nipple and heats his mouth and flicks his tongue so I feel like a hot suction cup was just applied.
“Holy shit!” I cry out as he sparks all kinds of sensations through me. His mouth moves and does the hot suction cup to my other nipple, and I start to feel the familiar tingle of an impending orgasm.
“Mmmm, love feeling you grip my fingers like that,” Jerif declares as he drags his lips up the column of my neck and picks up the pace between my thighs.
“Yes,” I encourage as more pleasure starts to coalesce inside of me, and I start grinding up into his palm.
“That’s it, Princess, take what you want. Make me give it to you,” he coaxes, and then his lips consume mine as an orgasm rips through me.
Jerif drinks down my cries and moans, sampling my pleasure with his tongue and savoring it on his lips. I grind on his hand, riding out the waves of bliss as I feel his palm get slick with my release.
I lift up from my back, and Jerif pulls his fingers out of me as I push him back on his ass and climb into his lap again, my wings automatically moving out of the way. I reach down and stroke him twice before aligning him with my entrance. Then I drop down on his thick cock, my eyes fixed on his and flaring with my turn to play.
He groans and unfurls beneath me like my pussy wrapping around his cock was the key to finally getting him to relax. I swivel my hips as I drop down to his base, a puff of breath getting stuck in my chest.
“Fuck,” I grit out as I look down at where we’re joined. He’s big, stretching me wide and making me feel so fucking full. When I don’t move for a moment, he squeezes my ass and lifts his hips, pushing up into me as I’m getting acclimated. “Oh…” I lean forward and nip his lips. Jerif isn’t patient. He wants me now.
I lift up until only the tip of him is inside of me and then drop back down again. We both look down to watch the erotic sight of him disappearing inside of me as I move. His cock is wet and glistening as I pump up and down on him, and I’m addicted to the sight.
His hands move up from my ass to skim up my ribs and palm my breasts as I roll and grind my hips, taking him exactly how I want. I kiss him, feeding off his groans and pants as I ride him and work out the pent-up sexual frustration between us.
Just when I think I’m going to run this show into another blazing orgasm, Jerif pulls a dick move and pushes forward until I’m tipping back. He grips me tightly, and his hands around my waist are the only reason I don’t teeter-totter off his cock. Next thing I know, I’m lying back on my tucked wings, Jerif is angling my hips right where he wants me, and he’s pumping into me fast and hard.
The angle he has me at sets off electric sparks in all kinds of different nerve endings. I have no time to be annoyed at him for stealing the reins, because I’m too busy moaning out and shouting for him to go harder and faster.
He holds my waist, his large hands almost encasing it entirely, and then waves of heat start licking over my body, almost as if his tongue is suddenly tasting me all over. I watch, mesmerized, as his flames move over my skin, heating me up and leaving me flushed. He’s enveloping me in his heat, consuming me, combusting us, just like he promised.
He thrusts so deeply inside of me, and the kisses of his flame as they dance around my naked skin take everything to an intense, overwhelming level. Before I can even observe it building, an orgasm blasts right through me, and I feel it go off like fireworks on the Fourth of July throughout my body.
“Jerif!” I shout out, and then I hold onto him for the ride as he slams into me repeatedly, triggering more exploding pleasure all through me as my pussy goes vise-like around his cock.
“That’s right, Delta,” he rasps, his teeth gritted above me as he slams into me again and again. “Squeeze down on me. Wring me out until I’m empty. You gotta work for it, you hear me? Let your pussy show me how hard you want it.”
Like his demanding words pressed some internal button inside me, my pussy responds. I don’t get to come down from one high before another orgasm is taking its place, and this time, I tense up so much that my back arches up off the floor. “That’s it. Fuuuck, that’s it, Princess,” he moans.
I groan loudly, and the peak of it all comes slamming into me like a fast moving brush fire. Jerif moves his teasing flames, concentrating all of them on the apex of my thighs. Hot suction cup magic fits right over my clit, and I swear I see fucking stars.
Universes collide, collapse, coalesce, and rebuild in the span of seconds it takes me to scream through the gripping, suffocating orgasm. It consumes me, and I know it consumes him too, because his movements become jerky and rushed, and I feel my pussy pulsating around him, strangling his cock, just like he wanted.
“Fuck yes.” Jerif shoves up inside of me deeply one last time and growls out his release in an aggressively angry, Jerif-like fashion before collapsing on top of me, his flames going out with his harried breaths.
I’m a panting, mewling, begging mess below him, so fucking out of it with blissed-out pleasure that I can’t hold still. I keep stroking his naked skin, moving my hips, and even start mumbling incoherent things about Smokey the Bear and his fire-hating stupid ass. Clearly, that bear did not play with flames and
fire in the right ways.
With a rare chuckle, Jerif places a pleased, possessive kiss onto my lips before scooping me up and carrying me into the bathroom, even managing to do it without crushing my wings too much. I’m relishing this surprisingly sweet moment, melting against his chest as I hear him turn on the shower.
I’ve done it—I’ve battled the beast. Just one sex sesh with me, and this wild wolf feels more like a cuddly Husky. I’m smug about that for about two point five seconds...until he puts me down and pushes me back into ice-cold fucking water.
17
“AHH!”
My post-coital bliss feels like it just got bitch-slapped by the ice queen. I was all warm and cozy and flushed, feeling as relaxed as a cat. But now, freezing cold water is pelting down on me, and all of the delicious heat Jerif gave me is completely gone.
I try to leap out of the shower, but Jerif holds me back with a hand to my chest, not letting me move an inch. “Stay.”
“It’s freezing!” I yell back, spitting water out of my mouth as the spray assaults me.
“Yep,” he says, like the arrogant ass he is. “You were about ten seconds away from curling up in a ball and falling asleep.”
“So?” I demand, shivering. I try to get away from the spray or reach for the shower valves to make the water warmer, but he doesn’t let me budge.
“So Tazreel is waiting. Your obstinate ass got drunk at lunch before you could hear what he has to tell you. I fucked the sober right into you, but this shower is doing the rest. We need to get back out there. I want to make sure you’re alert for what’s to come.”
“I’m alert!” I snap, my harsh tone amplified by my chattering teeth.
I glare daggers at him, my entire body covered in goosebumps, my arms crossed around me like I’m trying to become my own blanket.
“Good,” he says with an arrogant smirk before motioning to the soap in the corner. “Wash up. I want to make sure you’re taking care of my pussy.”
