by Jory Strong
The thought made her laugh, a husky sound that elicited a curse from him as their hands fumbled in their hurry to get undressed, his on her clothing, hers on his, their lips meeting in a frantic thrust of tongue against tongue.
“This is getting to be a habit with us,” she panted.
“A good one.”
She shoved his shirt off his shoulders. He did the same to hers, peeling her out of her bra at the same time.
His pants followed. Her skirt.
He lifted her. Took her there against the wall in a frenzied, fevered reaction to what had happened in the garage.
It wasn’t enough. Not for him. Not for her.
They made it to the bedroom. But when he would have tumbled her onto the mattress, she went down on hands and knees, thighs spread, flushed swollen folds exposed in an offering he didn’t refuse.
“I can’t get enough of you,” he said, filling her again, his cock hard, hot, pulsing inside her.
He tried to slow down. Conscience dictated it, but that voice was drowned out by ecstasy. After fighting it for long weeks, in the span of days she’d become a drug he couldn’t get enough of.
In the shadow of nearly losing her, all pretense had been stripped away. He felt raw, out of control now that they were here.
He fought against gripping her hips so tightly he left bruises as he slammed into her. He didn’t question how he could be rock hard again.
Mindless pleasure took him. Consumed him.
He was helpless against the lust that had ridden him since his first visit to this house. White heat filled his head as she rocked back on him, her channel squeezing mercilessly as a second release took her, demanding his as well.
He came, his heart rushing, pounding in his ears. His breathing harsh.
It should have relaxed him, left him sated. Instead he felt edgy when he pulled from her body, both of them stretching out on the mattress.
Cuddling wasn’t enough contact. Covering her with his body, her hands pinned by his, wasn’t enough.
Jesus, what was wrong with him? Only he knew. He knew.
There were things he hadn’t done since Heather. Things he craved.
His skin was on fire. He attempted to douse one type of flame by replacing it with another.
He covered Seraphine’s mouth with his. The thrust and rub of tongues sent blood roaring into his cock but it only pushed him closer to the precipice.
“What do you need?” she whispered against his lips, sleek legs lifting, locking around his waist, holding him tight against her mound.
A little bit of maneuvering and he’d be inside her again. He’d come again.
Hell, he’d probably come four or five more times.
His mind shied away from thoughts of magic as an explanation for the impossible. His cock didn’t protest.
She tried to free her hands and that small struggle was enough to ratchet up the desire to render her as helpless as he felt when it came to her. Carnal demand ripped away the barrier he’d tried to erect between them.
“Tell me,” she urged.
He didn’t deserve her trust but he couldn’t fight the need.
“I want you helpless. I want you begging for me to take your mouth, your cunt, your ass.”
Her lashes dropped. “I don’t keep handcuffs in the house.”
Not denial, but acceptance, and his cock responded by hardening fully.
Without a word he left her, returning to the scattered clothes just inside her front door. The tie he’d discarded after leaving the garage was in his jacket pocket.
He retrieved it, ignoring the police-issue cuffs. He wanted her comfortable, wrists bound together and tethered to the headboard.
And yet the wariness, the hint of feminine fear in her eyes when he reentered the bedroom turned him on. He’d known she wouldn’t be a woman to easily surrender control. Hell, if she summoned demons, she couldn’t afford to.
Not going there.
But here…
He shouldn’t.
He didn’t have anything to offer her. He wasn’t the right man for her.
The ring he slipped back on his finger after leaving the garage said otherwise.
Jesus, from the very beginning he’d fought the urge to put it on his left hand.
But there was no way to stop himself from straddling her, from deftly binding her wrists, using knots he hadn’t tied since junior year in college. He pulled her arms above her head and secured them, need driving out all thoughts of the past.
She tugged on the restraints and it was like a shot of molten lust delivered straight to a vein. Heat scorched through him.
He’d said he wanted her mouth. Her cunt. Her ass.
All of her.
His hands clamped around her wrists. His lips covered hers in a kiss that ravished, possessed.
There was no thought except to take everything. Her breathless moans of pleasure. Her screams of ecstasy.
To thoroughly claim every inch of her.
Raw passion peeled away the skin of civilized man. Demanded the complete and utter submission of his mate.
He swallowed the sounds she made, lay heavily on her, subduing all movement until she trembled, begged, pleaded for more, and he allowed himself to move lower, to latch on to first one nipple and then the other.
Sucking. Laving. Biting.
Unable to keep from moaning.
She writhed beneath him.
He used his strength against her.
It made her more aroused. Deepened her trust.
He craved all of it.
Fought and silenced internal warnings that her vulnerability widened his.
He couldn’t care.
Didn’t care as he kissed downward, inhaling the scent of woman. Of sex. Of his semen between her thighs.
He captured her clit the way he had her nipples. Sucked. Licked. Used his arms to limit her movement, to reinforce the point that no one could pleasure her like he could.
An image of the blond he’d seen her with drifted in. He growled against her hot flesh, renewed his sensual assault until she was fighting him, trying to drive her engorged clit deeper into his mouth.
Arousal gushed from her slit, drawing his thoughts to the rosette of her ass. He lifted his mouth from her cunt, his chest heaving as fast as hers.
“Please, Dylan,” she said after he crawled up her body so his face was inches away from hers. He thrust his fingers in her channel, fucked her with them as he held her gaze, saw how thoroughly he’d become all that mattered to her.
He coated his cock with her juices. He’d intended to flip her onto her stomach, but now he wanted to watch as he claimed her ass. He wanted to see the ultimate surrender of trust.
She moaned as he worked his fingers into her back entrance. Her face as flushed as her breasts, her cunt.
Her lips were parted, as if she pleaded for his cock. And Jesus, he was tempted to straddle her face and let her take him that way.
But a touch of his dick to her back entrance and it was all he could do not to come. A moan escaped. And then a second, as inch by inch he worked himself in, his eyes never leaving her.
She was so tight. So hot.
It was hard to breathe. Hard to go slow.
And then it was impossible to think at all.
He lost himself in emerald-green eyes, to incredible sensation.
He surrendered himself to ecstasy, to shuddering release and exquisite agony. Inescapable pleasure that changed into guilt after he’d unbound her, holding her close before they showered and returned to bed.
Seraphine cuddled against Dylan’s side and draped a leg over his, her hand resting on his chest, palm above his heart.
She couldn’t discern his thoughts, only that he was troubled. Possibly open, at last, to discussion. “Are you okay?”
“I should be asking you that.”
“Mmm.” She lazily traced pectoral muscles, detoured to circle a small brown nipple. “I’m more than okay. In fact, somet
ime soon I might just have recovered enough to go another round.”
His cock twitched against his thigh. She laughed.
“A guy can dream,” he said.
He played with a strand of her hair. His sigh signaled they were moving into territory he’d prefer to avoid but no longer could.
“I felt the prostitutes bleeding out.”
“You’re tied to the dark realm.”
A small jerk. The race of his heart. “Hell?”
“Not in a religious sense, but yes, for all practical purposes, at least for a human, hell.”
Arioc’s warning about sharing what she’d learned at Malik’s was fresh. It didn’t keep her silent. Understanding Dylan wouldn’t take comfort from knowing Lucifer’s Blade was tied to a portal, did.
“I hear screams. Mostly I hear whispers. Except here.”
A shudder went through him. Her hand left his chest to stroke his side.
“The wards around my house are strong, nearly impenetrable. I’ll strengthen the charm again.”
Something in her voice alerted him. Or maybe some part of the bond promised by the heartmate stones allowed him to hear her thoughts, to know the truth.
“But at some point even that’s going to be useless as long as the blade is in play.”
“Yes.”
She moved to lie partially on him, her mouth hovering inches above his. “For the duration we can stay here. I’m in protective custody after all.”
He laughed and it was music to her soul. “Why am I starting to think I was brought here under false pretenses? Could someone actually get in?”
“Not easily.”
“Do I want to know?”
“Probably not.”
“Yeah. You’re right,” he said, using her hair to guide her lips to his. “I think maybe this is all the magic I need to care about for now.”
Chapter Thirteen
Ianthe hoped to spend the majority of her days assisting Miguel in his investigations by changing form and infiltrating a suspect’s world, as she had when he and Conner were assigned the Ricky Moreno homicide. But for now, she found she looked forward to spending her day with Aislinn at Inner Magick.
She enjoyed handling the items in the shop and answering questions from those who ventured in. Most of all, she enjoyed Aislinn’s easy companionship, the way she treated everyone fairly, and more importantly, equally.
The dark realms were hierarchal, based on power and ruthlessness. You owned or were owned.
“They’re here!” Aislinn said, her enthusiasm charging through Ianthe.
Ianthe turned from where she was arranging a new shipment of tarot cards on the shelves, thinking to see something other than a deliveryman entering the shop as Aislinn raced to hold the door open for him.
“Just put it on the counter,” Aislinn said.
Aislinn’s excitement drew Ianthe to the box that was being yanked open before the uniformed deliveryman had taken more than a step toward the exit.
Out came squat carvings in stone, an array of gargoyles done in miniature, so they could easily rest on a palm. They were followed by wildlife, some so finely detailed Ianthe expected them to walk across the counter or lift their heads to howl or roar or bugle.
“These fetishes are made by a friend of a friend,” Aislinn said. “A woman I believe will be a match for one of the dragon princes.”
Ianthe laughed and shook her head. She looked beyond the glass front of the shop. The dragon guards had retreated, becoming unobtrusive once again as the media flocked elsewhere to feed their stories.
“Which one, Hakon? Or Malik?” she asked. She hadn’t met either of them, but thanks to Storm’s Pierce, and Aislinn’s friend Sophie, married to a dragon prince, she knew quite a bit about them.
Aislinn’s smile was full of mischief. “I can’t say, not until Alexandria comes into the shop, but I can practically guarantee she’ll be right for one of them.”
Ianthe glanced at the ancient sorcerer’s mirror on the wall near the rune sets. Aislinn had restored it using heartmate stones.
Already today a couple of women had entered the shop as friends and left to become so much more after having the mirror react. She’d read the desire they felt for each other, and their fear of exposing it and being rejected, as easily as a human child might recognize letters of the alphabet, but then lust and love where part of a succubus’ trade.
The bells above the door tinkled as it was opened by a blonde woman. Her physical appearance was lost in the miasma of her soul’s aura. Not demonic, but tainted, streaked through with black and red, death and blood.
Ianthe moved immediately to stand in front of Aislinn and the woman stilled, not the freeze of a prey animal but that of a predator on the point between full commitment or hasty retreat. Their eyes met and Ianthe saw a type of madness in the woman’s, crafty, sly, the cunning of evil let loose in the world. The desire to torment coupled with pleasure and tied to focused purpose.
The blonde backed out of the shop, turning and moving from sight with quick strides. Ianthe followed, trusting her instincts, though moments later her quarry had lost her.
She returned to Inner Magick. “What did you sense?” Aislinn asked.
“She meant to do you harm. She came here for that purpose.”
A shudder went through Aislinn. Her skin paled. “Nicole Harper sent someone to kill me when she became afraid that Trace and Dylan would discover she and her husband practiced black magic, and had used a demon to kill someone.”
Ianthe recognized the name immediately, understood instantly the taint on the blonde’s soul. She’d wielded Lucifer’s Blade, she’d killed with it. “Did you get a good look at her?”
“Only a quick one.”
“Can you draw her face?”
“Yes. Not perfectly, but close enough.”
“Do it. I’ll call Miguel.”
By the direction and feel of the familiar bond stretching between them, she thought he was at the police station. It wouldn’t take long for him to arrive.
Aislinn nodded, the excitement bursting through her aura telling Ianthe she understood this might be the break the detectives needed.
Ianthe made the call, still thrilling at the marvel of technology in this modern-day world.
“What’s up?” Miguel asked.
“A woman tainted by Lucifer’s Blade came here.”
“Are you okay? Is Aislinn?”
“Yes. Something in the woman recognized the danger I posed. She left without fully entering the shop.”
“If I show you a picture, you could identify her?”
“Yes. And Aislinn is drawing her now.”
“Conner and I are on our way. Trace will be too when I break this to him.” Miguel laughed, his voice like Aislinn’s aura, bursting with excitement. “Be prepared to see The Caveman in action.”
Ianthe put the phone away, and though she knew Aislinn was safe, she discovered she didn’t feel at ease until she pushed the curtain of beads separating the store from the working area aside and positioned herself in the doorway.
In retrospect, she should have signaled the dragons and involved them. But it had happened so quickly. The woman would have registered as fully human to the dragons and not been perceived as a threat, given Ianthe’s presence in the shop and their expectation she would sacrifice herself if necessary.
Next time she’d think faster on her feet. This time pleasure still filled her at having been there to prevent harm from coming to Aislinn.
Slowly, one good deed at a time, she hoped to atone for the harm she’d caused as a demon. Perhaps developing a conscience was evolution for her former kind, or a subconscious decision made after centuries of existence. She knew only that the dream of being human had taken hold along with a longing so intense that, when opportunity presented itself to become mortal, she’d grasped it.
Aislinn rose from her seat just as Ianthe heard sirens approaching. Closing the distance between them, Aislinn tilted t
he sketchpad so Ianthe could see it. “What do you think?”
“Only a photograph would capture her as well.”
The praise made Aislinn smile. And that smile widened moments later when Conner and Miguel arrived and saw it, simultaneously saying, “Got you.”
“You know who she is?” Ianthe asked, warmth spreading through her when Miguel caged her against the counter and pressed his lips to her neck as Conner dropped a folder next to the sketchpad, then opened it to reveal a driver’s license picture. There was no mistaking that they were the same woman.
“You’re looking at Camille Cunningham,” Conner said. “She was Nicole Harper’s personal assistant. Thanks to the money trail one of Severn’s e-wizards found, we were already looking at her and Harper’s defense attorney as possible suspects.”
His eyes met Ianthe’s and she felt a quiet joy at having overcome the hurdle of distrust that began when she’d been bound to a medallion in the possession of Khemirra’s enemy. “How sure are you that Camille has had contact with the blade?” he asked.
“Not just contact. She’s wielded it. She’s killed with it. It’s marked her aura. I’m certain of it.” There could be no other explanation given the facts she did know.
“Good enough.” His attention shifted to Aislinn. “Trace is going show up any second now. You and I both know he’s going to demand you go home and stay there until we’ve got Camille in custody.”
Her delicate features firmed with resolve. “I’m not abandoning my shop. Ianthe and the dragons can keep me safe.”
Conner laughed. “Then I’ll call in reinforcements. With Khemirra here as well as Ianthe, you’ll at least stand a chance in convincing The Caveman not to haul you out forcibly if necessary.
Ianthe snickered at hearing the nickname the others had given to Aislinn’s husband. Miguel turned her in his arms, heat crawling up his neck when he said, “Maybe Ian needs to make an appearance.”
“This form is just as effective,” she murmured. It was impossible not to kiss him, to reward him for his care of his friends and his public admission. Just as it was impossible to stop at one kiss.
The door crashing open broke them apart. Trace paused only long enough to glance at the pictures and say, “Get the search going but keep it low profile so she doesn’t spook and make it out of the country. I’ll catch up with you.”
