Tall, Dark, and Deadly: Seven Bad Boys of Paranormal Romance

by Laura Kaye

  Clearly, he felt more himself already.

  “I’m glad I can see the light you give off. Between the dark, the glare of the spa lights, and the steam, I can’t see anything else.”

  Can’t see? She’d charged sight unseen into the water after him? “How did you know I’d gone under?” he asked, trying to hold back the anger building in his chest. Why? Why did she keep risking herself for him?

  “Your aura got dimmer for a moment. And then you didn’t respond when I said your name.” Her breath caught. “When you first got back to Megan and Owen’s, your aura was so faint I couldn’t find you.”

  The compassion. The protectiveness toward him. The affection so plain on her face. It was all too much.

  “Stop it, Laney. Just stop.” He hated the gruffness of his words, but couldn’t control it.

  Her jaw dropped open. “What?”

  “Stop…” He tugged his fingers through his wet hair. Tempting me to give in. Tormenting me with things I can never have but want so desperately I can’t breathe. Desire and regret lodged a knot in his throat.

  A range of emotions played over her face. Hurt. Rejection. Anger.

  Determination.

  Laney pushed into the center of the pool. He sat up straight in his seat, his back coming hard against the tub’s side.

  “What do you want me to stop doing, Chrysander? Huh?” She waded closer and stopped right in front of him. “Do you want me to stop caring? Do you want me to stop worrying about you when, for the third time since we’ve met, your brother has tried to kill you? And nearly succeeded? Do you want me to stop thinking about making love with you? About how good you felt inside me?”

  “Stop,” he said again, bracing his hands against the walls to restrain the urges her words were letting loose, heartfelt urges that warred with every bit of his common sense.

  She pushed closer, her legs skimming the insides of his spread thighs. “I can’t stop. I wouldn’t want to even if I could. I lo—”

  He lunged for her and claimed her in a devouring, soul-stirring kiss. He knew what was about to come out of her mouth, because she was wearing the emotion on her face, in her eyes. He just couldn’t hear it. He wasn’t ready for it. He might never be ready for it because he wanted to hear the words so damn bad.

  Laney moaned into the kiss. Cradling her face, he drew her in closer, plundered her mouth thoroughly and deeply with his tongue. He poured every bit of suppressed longing into the kiss until she was swaying, jostled by the flowing, bubbling water. She stumbled and threw her arms out for balance. But what she didn’t do was try to touch him.

  As if he didn’t already care more than he should, at that moment he felt what only could be called love for Laney Summerlyn.

  She pulled her lips free and gasped. “I want you. So much.”

  Arousal, need, desire stormed through him until his body was strung tight, a battle between what was right and what he wanted raging within.

  Gently, she removed his hands from her face. She brushed by him and he frowned. She was leaving. Her loss was like a sucker punch to the gut, but it was for the best. No matter that she was taking his whole world with her.

  Laney climbed onto the bench. “You want me, too. I know you do. I don’t even have to see you to know it. I feel it.”

  The words, so different from what he expected, sent his brain scrambling.

  As he watched, Laney spread her knees on the bench and braced her hands against the tub’s edge. She looked over her shoulder. “Take what you want.”

  Her body drew him like a magnet. And then finally, finally, he surrendered to what they both wanted.

  Hunching himself around her, Chrys pressed his front to her back. His cock slid between her thighs, so very close to her incredible velvet heat. He covered her hands with his against the edge of the spa. “What are you doing to me, Laney?” he rasped.

  She turned her face against his. “Loving you,” she whispered.

  The words slayed him.

  She loved him. This smart, brave, sexy-as-all-hell woman loved him.

  He couldn’t wait another moment.

  Pressing against her lower back, he forced her to arch and grind her rear into his groin. He tilted his hips, dragging the head of his cock against her heat, and drove home.

  He filled her in one long stroke.

  They both cried out. Chrys held her face and captured her lips, wanting to claim the sound of her pleasure, along with everything else. He broke free as his cock withdrew, then he slipped into an easy, languorous rhythm that allowed him to feel every inch of her tight channel. He used his hands to pin hers to the tub’s edge, forcing their upper bodies together as his hips tilted and thrust. It was pure, sensual torture to not drive hard and fast. But this one time, he felt himself wanting to cherish, needing to savor.

  She moaned, a high-pitched sound so full of pleasure. Under his hands, hers gripped and flexed. “Oh, God. Faster. Move faster.”

  He dragged his teeth down her neck, then softly bit the tendon that sloped into her shoulder. “No. Just feel this. Just feel me in you.”

  “Unnh, do that again.”

  He almost didn’t hear her plea over the roar of the jets. “Do what?”

  “With your teeth.”

  Aw, hell. Holding back his arousal had him gritting his teeth. “You want me to bite you, Laney?” She nodded. “Where?”

  “Everywhere.”

  “Yeah,” he whispered against the soft, wet skin of her neck. Still fucking her in excruciatingly good, slow strokes, he nibbled her there, biting her harder along that tendon, on her ear lobe, on the tendon behind her ear. Her approving moans shot right to his balls, making it harder and harder to take things slow.

  “Can I ask you a question?” she rasped.

  “Now?” He couldn’t help but smile. “Fire away.” Chrys caressed one hand over her front. Around the curves of her breasts, stroking over her nipples, drawing teasing circles lower and lower over her belly. She gasped and flinched. “You were saying?”

  Laney let out a breathy chuckle. His fingers slipped between her legs, finding and circling the hard nub of her clit, and she moaned. “I want to make sure I do what you like.”

  The sentiment was as sweet as it was sexy. “You already are.”

  “No, I mean, if I wanted to, um, to go down on you, could I touch your…”

  Holy fuck. Arousal kicked him in the back. He pounded into her harder, and swirled his fingers over her clit faster. “My what, Laney? Say it.”

  “Cock. Could I touch your cock?”

  “Jesus. You’ve been thinking about touching my cock?” Maybe, just maybe, he could be ready for her to try touching him everywhere. And his cock was sure as hell a good place to start.

  She nodded and moaned. “And taking it in my mouth.”

  “I would fucking love that, Laney. The touching and the sucking.” He dropped his forehead against her back and forced his hips to still. It was too good. He couldn’t make it last. But not before she found her pleasure. “You’re going to come for me. And while you’re doing it, you’re going to tell me what else you’ve been thinking about.” An idea in mind, he pushed her forward and a little to the left. “Spread your legs wider.”

  She gasped. “Chrys!”

  He grinned. “You’re going to spill everything that’s going on in that pretty head of yours while that jet pounds your clit with hot water. Fuck me while you get off on the jet, Laney.”

  She ground her hips forward, thrusting her clit into the rush of water, then pressed back, impaling herself on his cock. She trembled and moaned and every bit of it was the most mind-blowing torture.

  “Talk.”

  “O-okay. Um, it’s hard to think.”

  He scraped his teeth on her neck again. “Good.”

  “Well, I…I wonder if you went down on me, if I could touch your hair.” She moaned louder, her movements becoming faster, less even. “Your hair is soft. It makes me want to fist my hands in it. So
I just need to know if I could do that.”

  He loved the contrast between his sweet Laney and the no-holds-barred Laney who came out during sex. “You think about pulling my hair while I’m eating your pussy?”

  “God, yes.”

  “Come. Come right now.”

  Her hips jerked and pressed against the jetting water. Her walls tightened and clenched, and then she was crying out and milking him until he was biting the inside of his cheek to fight back his own orgasm. “That was fucking phenomenal. More.”

  Breathing hard, she sagged against the tub’s edge. “I can’t. I think I’m gonna pass out.”

  He pulled her up, setting her hips in front of the jet again. “Maybe you will, but not yet. I’m not done with you. Tell me more.”

  He stroked her clit as the water pounded, using his fingers to open her lips to the pulsing water. She shrieked and writhed and shook against him.

  Laney slipped the hand he wasn’t holding behind her back and slid her middle finger to the top of her crack. “I…I…was thinking about when you touched me here.”

  Each admission was more sensually devastating than the last. “You liked that?” She nodded, panting hard. “Has anyone ever touched you there? Has anyone ever taken you there?”

  “Nooo,” she moaned, thrusting against the jet.

  “Would you like to be touched there?” She nodded again. “Now?”

  “Please.”

  The need in that one word nearly had him emptying his balls. She was the sweetest fucking temptation he’d ever encountered, and though he wasn’t ready to confront how she really made him feel, he wasn’t obtuse enough to think she wasn’t very, very special to him. And always would be.

  “Hand back on the wall,” he growled. The speed of her compliance put another nail in the coffin of his restraint. Standing behind her, he kept his strokes slow and dragged his hand from her front around to her back. He squeezed her beautiful ass, separating the cheeks and revealing her rear opening. He stroked two fingers over the tight pucker, reveling in the moan the light caresses unleashed, and then he pushed one finger in, just a little.

  “Oh, my God.” Her hips jerked, almost dislodging him from her pussy.

  Chrys held the tip of his finger still, giving her a chance to get used to the feel of his intimate invasion there. Suddenly, she pushed back, impaling herself on his dick in her pussy and his finger in her ass.

  In her arousal, her actions, her words, she was so honest and open and just fucking fearless. He found it sexy and appealing and admirable. He pushed his finger in further and then withdrew, fucking her with his finger while he—

  “Omigod, I’m coming.” Her passages went tight, tight, tighter, and then she was spasming around him and moaning and crying his name.

  It was all he could take.

  He pulled his finger free, gripped her hips, and said, “Hold on tight.”

  Every ounce of desire let loose as Chrys came at her with a series of hard, fast, shallow strokes.

  “I shouldn’t come in you because we don’t have protection,” he growled. “But I fucking want to.” And he did. He really did. And damn if that desire didn’t warrant some close consideration. But not now.

  She unleashed an answering moan. “Come on me.”

  “Oh, gods, Laney.” His brain shorted as the orgasm hit him in the back.

  Suddenly, she pulled away and spun on the bench. Chrys almost lost his balance but then she grabbed his ass, hauled him up to her, and claimed his cock with her mouth right at the bubbling waterline.

  He buried his hands in her hair and lost himself. Absolutely lost himself to this mortal woman. She sucked and licked and moaned around him as he came until he couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t breathe. The only thing he knew, the only thing he could feel, was his Laney holding him up, drinking him down, and accepting him in every single way.

  Their connection—the way they fit together, the way they complemented one another, the fundamental feeling of rightness he felt when he was with her—he couldn’t deny it any longer.

  Whatever happened. Whatever was right or wrong. Whether the world woke up in the morning or was going to bed for the very last time. He loved Laney Summerlyn to the very center of his being.

  The fierceness of the feeling simply wouldn’t be denied.

  Gently, she dropped him from her mouth and sat back in the bench. She peered up at him with the most ridiculously adorable innocent smile. “Hey, this jet works good on the back, too,” she said.

  He burst out in laughter, full-out belly laughter like he hadn’t felt in, gods, months. At least. Bracing his hands on either side of her head, he leaned down and kissed her. He pulled back but kept his face close. “You know, you only asked about touching my cock, not my ass.”

  Her face was already flush from the sex and the steam, but he would’ve bet money that she’d blushed, too.

  “I improvised. Sorry.”

  He grinned. “I’m not.”

  She smirked. “Good. Me, neither.”

  He kissed her again, a soft, lingering pulling of lips. “Thank you. The words aren’t nearly enough, but I need you to know I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. And I wanted to say—”

  Divine energy appeared nearby. A throat cleared.

  Chrys growled. “Z, get the hell out of here.”

  Laney squeaked and sank lower in the water.

  “I’m sorry, Chrys. For real. But we have to talk.”

  Seriously? Just when he’d resolved to tell her how he felt? “It can wait.”

  “It can’t.”

  “Z—”

  “Chrys, it’s Apheliotes. He’s dead.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Rage a living monster coursing through his veins, Chrys guided Laney into Owen’s living room. The pair of them were still dripping wet, having flown over after Chrys manifested them clothes. But none of that mattered. Aphel was dead. And Chrys had sent him right into the lion’s den. Destruction and devastation. His fault. Again.

  But not his alone.

  No question that Chrys’s existence had negatively impacted Eurus’s when they were children. But enough was enough was e-fucking-nough. The child Chrys had been was not responsible—could never have been responsible—for the heinous evil that had become his brother’s M.O. Once and for all, Eurus had to pay. Too many injustices had racked up. Thunder rumbled long and low overhead.

  He surveyed the crowded room. His father, his brothers, most of the ordinal and inter-ordinal Anemoi. Owen had Megan and Teddy tucked under his arm. Boreas and Owen’s neighbor, Tabitha, stood close together, whispering to each other. Without thinking about it, Chrys pulled Laney closer and wrapped his hand around hers.

  Her touch felt natural, soothing, necessary. A small shining joy among the dark chaos.

  Chrys turned to Zeph. “What the hell happened?”

  “I don’t know the specifics. We haven’t found the body. I took Ella to stay with Mars until this passes. On the way back, the pall of divine death was suddenly palpable throughout the Realm of the Gods—the aching emptiness of it just made it feel like it was someone close, someone in the family. We were near Father’s compound so we went to the Hall of the Winds. The light of the Southeast Wind was out.”

  Chrys pictured the enormous compass rose built into the floor of the ceremonial hall. Each of the sixteen points was tipped with a built-in lantern that contained the divine energy of the god who served as that wind’s master. That any of the lights had been put out killed him. That it was one of his men, a god who’d served him true and faithfully for eons, was a blow to the heart. Chrys glanced at Laney. Was this the same light she saw surrounding the Anemoi? He shook his head and scanned his gaze over the group. “Hear me now. I will avenge Apheliotes.” Whatever it took. However long it took.

  Approving murmurs echoed around the room.

  Aeolus stepped forward. “We are all expendable. It is not the god, but the wind he serves, that matters.
So I ask each of you now. Are you prepared to stand and fight?”

  The gods offered solemn agreement.

  Aeolus moved to the center of the room. Anger and determination carved hard angles into his face. Thunder and lightning split the sky. “I say again. Are you prepared to stand and fight?”

  A loud, fierce cheer of approval and commitment shook the room. Teddy fussed but didn’t cry, as if even his divine energy understood the threat they faced.

  “Make no mistake. We are at war. We will not all come out of it alive. Sacrifices will be made.” He held up his maimed hand. “And you must understand the full extent of what you are up against. Eurus possesses the firestone ring. He has power over the winds, over each of you. This is my fault. I fully acknowledge it. And I stand ready to sacrifice myself to set this right.” Murmurs sounded from around the room.

  This…this was the resignation he’d seen on Aeolus’s face. As many grievances as Chrys could voice against his father, he would fight to the last to prevent any of his family from dying. They’d lost enough. Had enough turmoil. For several lifetimes.

  Aeolus continued. “Together, we are strong. He cannot take us all at once. We must fight. To avenge the death of one of our own who has fallen this night. To avenge wrongs against others of our numbers in recent days, weeks, and months. To preserve and protect the human realm, as is our duty and purpose.”

  Boreas pushed off the wall and stood tall. “In the name of the North Wind, I stand ready to fight.”

  Zeph nodded. “In the name of the West Wind, I, too, stand ready to fight.”

  “In the name of the South Wind, and in the name of vengeance for the Southeast Wind, I stand ready to kick some ass,” Chrys said. “So what’s our plan?”

  Zeph’s eyes flared deep blue light. “Take out Devlin.”

  Chrys held out his hands. “Wait. What? I thought—”

  “He was standing on the cliffs,” Boreas interrupted. “When we were attacked. It appears he led Eurus right to us.”

  Devlin was the cloaked figure he saw on Gibraltar? How the hell had he missed that newsflash? Chrys glared at Aeolus. “Sonofabitch. I told you.”