Her brow creased. “You aren’t hurt by any other fire?”
“No. And this close, I can also protect you.”
Her gaze held his. Deliberately, she leaned back, suspending herself over the dancing orange and yellow tongues. Only his hands at her hips prevented her from toppling over into the bed of coals.
He didn’t need to ask if she trusted him. Earlier, she had given him control—even though that wasn’t her nature, any more than it was his nature to control her.
Perhaps that was where they had stumbled.
He pushed aside a charred piece of wood, sending up a shower of sparks. When there was an even bed of embers with no sharp edges, he lowered her into the hearth. She lay before him like a pagan sacrifice, her upper body surrounded by fire. The air shimmered around her; her eyes glowed as fiercely as the coals.
“Tell me, Irena.” He slid his fingers beneath her loosened apron. “Tell me to keep my promise . . . and to keep you safe.”
Irena vanished the apron. Her nipples were the delicate pink of an oyster’s shell, brushed with coral by the orange light of the fire. It took everything in him not to bend his head and suck at her wildly.
A smile curved her mouth. “Keep your promise, Olek.”
She didn’t say the rest, he knew, because she thought it was both obvious and stupid. Of course he would keep her safe.
Still, he didn’t move. “Tell me how.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Put your mouth on me before I kill you.”
Better, but not enough. “If you kill me, you will burn.”
With a snarl of frustration, Irena reared up and grabbed his hair. She dragged him down into the flames with her, shoved his lips to her breast.
At the first lick, her snarl softened into a moan. Pleasure skimmed over her psychic scent, then plunged as he drew her deep into his mouth, circling his tongue around her hardened nipple.
She pulled at his hair. “More.”
Both the demand and gentle pain rippled through him, sweet and hot. Yes. This was what he’d needed, too. For Irena to make demands, so that he could fulfill them. He licked and teased his way across her chest. He rocked against her, his heated shaft grinding against her core. Sparks shot into the air around them.
“More,” she said, and this time the word was both a demand and a plea.
His fingers tore at the laces of her leggings before he remembered. He stopped.
“Tell me, Irena.”
She looked at him down the length of her body, past her heaving breasts, the tips reddened from the heat of his mouth. “Keep your promise.”
He tugged a lace free. “How?”
“Push my legs apart and taste me.” Her hands fisted around burning charcoal. “And do not stop, even if I scream.”
He wouldn’t. She’d scream his name, hers, and every one of her gods before he finished. But that was not what his promise had been.
“Even if you beg,” he corrected.
Her laugh dared him to try. “We will see who begs.”
His fingertips met, as if the lace had been plucked from between them. Alejandro looked down and struggled not to forget his promise, not to ram inside her heated depths and pound against her. Her leather stockings and leggings had vanished. He wouldn’t have to push her legs apart. She’d already spread them to make room for his hips, and braced her heels on the edge of the stone ring. At the juncture of her sleekly muscled thighs, a small triangle of auburn curls guarded her glistening pink cleft.
He’d have begged. Oh, yes, he’d have begged. And then worshipped. Her beauty destroyed him.
He stepped back so that he could bend and press his lips to her bare hip. “I make a new vow, Irena.”
“First fulfill this one—if you can from that position. My hip is too far north.”
A soft laugh escaped him. Gliding his mouth over her flat stomach to her navel, he flicked his tongue into the indentation.
“I vow that your ankles will soon be on my shoulders,” he said.
Her hands tightened in the coals. Pale gray ash dusted her fingers. “That is . . . a good vow.”
With the barest pressure, he stroked his fingertips up the inside of her thigh. “I vow that I will soon sheathe myself in you, inch by inch, until I can push no deeper.”
Her eyes closed and her hips rolled, as if she imagined taking him inside her. An ember popped, sending a glowing chip to land on her stomach. Alejandro brushed it away. His tongue traced the crease of her torso and thigh.
“Lower, Olek.” She unfurled her fist, scattering crushed charcoal and ash. Her fingers threaded into his hair, directing him to her center.
She stopped, holding him there. He looked up and met her eyes. She had hesitated, but it didn’t have the flavor of anger or shame.
“I haven’t allowed this. Not since—” She moistened her lips. “It is too . . . open.”
Alejandro nodded his understanding. Fucking didn’t require intimacy. It didn’t make her vulnerable. The same couldn’t be said when tongue and teeth were against the softest, most unprotected part of her.
She released his hair and let her hand fall back into the fire. “It is easy to open myself to you, Olek. But know that I expect the same in return.”
She already had it. With his Gift protecting her from the fire, she felt his every emotion. His awe, his overwhelming need. She might have even felt his vulnerability, that she held his heart in her hand.
He swallowed past the tightness in his throat and dipped his head lower. He spoke to prepare her; anticipation made his voice rough.
“My mouth will be hot.”
A sound like a purr vibrated from her chest. “I know.”
Not just his mouth. He parted her soft cleft with a lick and the clenching need tore through him, stiffening everything but his lips, his tongue. One lick, and he was on the burning edge of release. One lick, and Irena became still, so still—but the serpents on her arms writhed in a primal dance. She felt as he did, then. She would contain this, or shatter.
He drew his tongue through her center before circling her clitoris, sucking lightly. Irena’s body shook. His hands clamped on her hips and he increased the suction. Irena broke into motion, her upper body twisting violently. She cried out. Alejandro held her, stunned by the frantic throb of her flesh beneath his tongue.
That quickly? He glanced up. Irena lay still again, her heart racing. Flames heightened the flush on her cheeks; heated air currents moved gently through her hair.
She looked down at his expression and laughed. “It has been a very long wait, Olek. And then I looked at you. Your lips were . . .” Her body made a single, rolling undulation. “I could not hold after that.”
“You should close your eyes.” Amused, Alejandro slipped his fingers down, sliding them through her silken wetness. “For although you are already spent, I am not near to finished.”
“I am not spent.” Her eyes glittered with challenge. She didn’t close them.
He would wear her out, then. So be it. Alejandro lowered his mouth and began to play. Slow, she told him, and so he moved faster, until she gasped and tried to break away. He slowed, and she moaned for him to quicken his tongue. He eased his fingers between her slick folds, and had to withdraw his mouth and tease until the need to taste her again overwhelmed the desire to work his shaft into the tight heat his fingers invaded. She snarled in frustration and he devoured her. She shook and he didn’t stop when she closed her eyes, when she twisted and screamed his name. Then she lay still for a brief second and laughed again.
It had been a long wait. And he still wasn’t finished.
He drove her hard, his mouth and fingers ruthless. Had it been any other woman he would have stopped, would have tired of it, would have been ready to seek his own pleasure. But he’d never found as much pleasure as this, watching Irena try to hold back, watching her give in. Listening to her breathless laugh each time.
He felt a gradual change in her response, a softening beneath his mout
h and hands. She had opened to him, yet the tension within her hadn’t only been erotic. And she’d reveled in her arousal, but now, she luxuriated in it, like steel that had heated to melting. Still hot, but no longer trying to hold a shape.
He eased up, each lick a long slow taste, sliding his hands up her sides. Irena arched, her head tilting back.
“You lied, Olek.” Her breath was ragged. “I am burning.”
But not from the fire. His Gift still kept her safe. She came, not with a violent twist, but on an endless cresting wave that lifted her against him, her fingers clutching his hair—not in demand, but as an anchor.
He lifted her out of the hearth and found his legs would not stand. With Irena’s thighs circling his waist, he sank to his knees. Her lips found his in a slow melting kiss.
He settled her over his erection, felt the heat of her sex through his trousers. That would be all for now. And it would be enough. For although the need in his body still raged, hers was satiated. She would welcome him in, meet his every thrust, and find another release with that liquid ease. But her anticipation, her urgency would not match his, and he needed her wound as tightly as he was more than he needed to bury himself inside her.
She must have noted the change in his touch. Her lips left his, and she leaned back to study his face.
“You do not fulfill your second vow?”
To his relief, Alejandro couldn’t sense any disappointment in her, only curiosity. “Not this night.”
Her mouth curved. “You have finished me well. It would be difficult to follow that.”
For an instant, his pride demanded that he prove her wrong. Then he admitted, “Yes.”
She laughed and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, rocking forward against his shaft. He tensed; she stopped.
When she looked at him again, her eyes flashed with green fire. “You did come. I felt you.”
“Yes.” Only a man of iron could have tasted her, could have watched and sensed her pleasure for that long and not found his release. But his erection hadn’t softened. For a Guardian, the spirit only needed to be willing, and the flesh was capable. “I am finished, Irena.”
“But not satisfied.” She pushed her hand between his legs, pressing her palm to his heated shaft. “And not finished.”
“I do not need—”
Irena threw herself at his chest. Unbalanced, he fell over, his back smashing into the hard earthen floor. Irena rode over with him, straddling his stomach. Her mouth fastened to his.
This time, it was no slow, melting kiss. She licked past his lips to duel with his tongue. Alejandro’s body ratcheted tight, as if she’d already wrapped her mouth around his shaft and drew on him. Her hand stroked beneath his trousers. Almost deranged by pleasure of it, he fought for sanity.
“Irena—” He could barely speak. He would explode at any moment. “I don’t need repayment,” he forced out.
Her hand froze. Her gaze clashed with his. Heat filled it, followed by determination—but no anger. Softly, she said, “You stupid man.”
He couldn’t remember her using man as an insult before. Briefly, he wondered if he should pride himself in being the first who drove her to it, and tried to appear as if he had a modicum of sense left. “You will enlighten me, I hope.”
“You think women do not take pleasure in it. Repayment.” She repeated the word like a curse.
He struggled against his pride. “Many do not.” And sensing emotions was not always an advantage in bed. “Not for themselves.”
And he could not enjoy the act if his partner didn’t.
“Because they could not own you. Because you did not open to them.” Her fingers unfastened two of the buttons on his shirt before ripping away the rest. “I would not bother to suck you, either, if you gave me nothing in return.”
Just as she’d said they’d been right to leave. She watched him with a steady gaze and he fought not to throw his psychic shields up.
Her hands moved to his trouser fastening. “And so you give pleasure with your mouth, and you take your own when you fuck. But that is not how it will be with me. You will be taken, Olek. And I will enjoy it all.”
Taken. A part of him rebelled, though he realized this was what she had demanded from the beginning.
He hissed in a breath as her fingers circled his erection, aroused to the point of pain. She raised his straining length toward her mouth. His anticipation was a physical ache in his shaft, through every muscle in his body. Her tongue wet her bottom lip. His hands fisted.
She met his gaze and opened her shields.
Her desire jolted through him like an electric shock, more powerful than any physical sensation. She hungered to please him, to taste him—hungered for him, as fiercely as he had for her.
She lowered her head, and wet heat engulfed him in a steady, deep slide. Alejandro clenched his teeth, trying to hold onto sanity, onto control. God! Is this what she had felt? This ecstasy as he’d taken her with his mouth and his Gift open? He’d never experienced anything like it. He hadn’t prepared for it.
And she had softened beneath his lips, but he became harder, steel forged by the heat of her mouth, shaped by the strike of her tongue. Folded and worked until he thought he might fracture beneath the pressure.
She made him. She could destroy him. And if she ever tossed him aside, he would be nothing.
Panic threatened, and he fought not to push her away. His fingers dug into the floor. His body shook, and he stared up at the wooden beams supporting the forge’s metal roof.
He looked down when he felt a light touch against his hip. Irena’s fingertips traced his skin. As if she was forming a statue, her Gift pulsed, and her emotions washed over him, more than need and desire. Reverence. Admiration. Joy. Her fingers moved higher, and his body shaped the trail her fingers took.
Alejandro unclenched his hands, sought hers. At his hip, her fingers threaded through his and tightened. Her mouth took him deep, and she drew so hard he dizzily thought that she would also take his heart, his soul.
So be it.
The orgasm lunged through him with teeth and claws, ripping away his breath, throwing his head back. Irena growled her satisfaction deep in her throat and drank him down. When he could breathe, when he could think, he saw that she watched him. With a few leisurely licks, she finished, and crawled up his body until she lay on his chest. Her fingers stroked his hair. He closed his eyes, certain he’d never felt this lassitude, this contentment in his life.
He was stretched out naked on a dirt floor. He’d never been happier.
“I should have come back before this, Irena.” No—he should have made the forge his home while she’d been gone those two centuries, and been here to welcome her when she returned. “I have missed you.”
“I have missed you,” she said, her cheek against his shoulder. “And I should have dragged you back.”
He smiled and passed his hand over her hair. They had not settled many of the problems between them.
But they had settled the most important one.
Deacon left the warehouse, hit the sidewalk, and started going, headed for nowhere—and wishing that he could still get drunk. A nice, falling down stupor.
Unfortunately, nothing could make a vampire less than clearheaded but drinking live blood—and he couldn’t stomach the thought of it now. Couldn’t stomach his own company, but he was stuck with himself.
Three nephilim. And Irena.
It didn’t take a fucking genius to figure out that the message he’d sent had pushed them straight to her. She’d survived, but according to the description Dru had given the novices, it had been close. Closer than Deacon had ever gotten at the hands of the demon.
Maybe Guardians couldn’t take care of themselves against this.
So he’d go back. He’d tell them everything. And he’d probably die.
He started back, anyway.
About four blocks from the warehouse, a black car with dark-tinted windows rolled up beside
him, kept pace. He could sense a human in the front, but that wasn’t what was behind the rear window. It slid down, revealing a blond male with a little too much polish to be hanging around an area like this—at this time of the night. He smiled at him.
“Mr. Deacon.”
Deacon kept walking. He’d seen the news, heard the buzz around the warehouse. Demon, with a murdered wife.
Irena had been involved in that investigation, too.
“Mr. Deacon, please get in. You are done here. I am taking you home.”
“I’ve got friends who can fly.” Not many would be left. But it was much better than what a demon might offer him.
“And I am an associate of Mr. Caym’s. I only have to make one phone call to him, Mr. Deacon, and tell him that I am displeased—and you will have a few less friends.”
God damn them. Deacon stopped.
“Get in.”
He got in.
A dark partition divided the front and back seats. He couldn’t see the driver, only an outline.
“That’s Maggie,” the demon said. “She can’t hear us back here, and she won’t help you. She’s very loyal. And she has a contract.”
Maggie, whoever she was, might be loyal—but she was clearly broadcasting worry, and a distinct sense of uncertainty. But maybe the demon liked that, too. Maybe, he’d get her to a point where she wasn’t sure what was going on, but she felt scared and trapped—then he’d offer her an out.
And she wouldn’t know until too late that the out he offered was worse that being in.
He eyed the glass. Was she watching them? Could she see anything other than shadows?
When the demon smiled at him, Deacon grinned back, showing every inch of his fangs. Surprise and doubt dropped into the mix of Loyal Maggie’s swirling emotions. Doubt, then rejection.
The demon laughed. “No humans believe what they see anymore, Mr. Deacon.”
“Fuck you.”
“That is what you have left?” The demon smiled at him again, but Deacon sensed a little disappointment. Or maybe he was supposed to sense disappointment, and react to it. He remained silent.
Demon Forged Page 29
