by Laken Cane
“Fuck,” he muttered, under his breath, then turned and strode from the jail cell.
One of the guards stuck his head into the cell. “Ms. Sinclair?”
“Get away from me,” I told him. “I’m not going anywhere.”
And because I couldn’t possibly hurt Angus more than he’d already been hurt, I stretched out half on top of him and rested my head on his raw chest. They’d shocked him so many times he was covered with burns. There were splinters embedded in his wounds and bloody gaps in his flesh so wide and deep that I could have slipped half my hand into them.
The doctor might have set his broken bones. He might have halfheartedly cleaned his wounds. He might have shot him full of drugs. I could see evidence of little else. He’d only stitched up a couple of the cuts on Angus’s head, leaving the ones on his body to seep and drain.
Angus’s breath was labored and wet. Likely some shards of broken rib had punctured his lungs.
He should have been home. He needed his family. But if his family had walked into the police station, they’d all be sharing cells alongside him.
I dug my phone out of my pocket, brought up the camera, and took a nice long video of the brokenness that was Angus Stark.
And I made him a promise as I digitally cataloged his wounds.
“You’ll live,” I told him. “And you will come home.” Someday.
I couldn’t bear for Angus to pay for what the humans had done.
He was coming home. I just had to figure out how to make it happen.
Then the realization hurtled through the air and it hit me like a train, leaving me breathless with hope. I knew how to save him.
I leaned over and kissed his battered lips. “I’m going to fix this. Hang on, Angus. Hang on for your kids. Hang on for me.”
And then I raced down the hallway to find the one person who could save our shifter, even if that saving might make Angus hate me forever after.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
I met him back in the woods because that’s where he was when I called him. When I entered the doorless cabin where the sick incubus had been sleeping, he straightened, then slipped something into his jacket pocket.
“Clayton,” I murmured. Then cleared my throat and walked to him, unflinching and brave in my desperation.
His face, set in lines of habitual hardness, softened. “Trinity.” His voice was a caress. He’d been unleashed, and he’d been filled with an incubus. Lust came off him in clouds, touching me everywhere. Touching everything.
I closed my eyes for a second and tried to gather myself. Tried to ignore the heaviness between my legs, the quivering of my muscles, the dryness of my mouth. My heart pounded and goosebumps covered every inch of my skin.
“How does it feel?” I reached up to touch his face. “To be free?”
His flinch was as much a habit as his blankness. “It’s…” He shook his head. “It’s indescribable. I’d forgotten.” He swallowed, gathering himself, and there was the emotion, coloring his eyes and changing his face. “It’s everything.”
And I was going to take that away from him.
I tried to draw a deep breath, but my chest was too tight to allow it. “Why did you come back here?”
He patted his pocket. “The Foam of Aphrodite. He had a stash hidden. I'll destroy it.”
But really, I didn’t care. “Clayton,” I whispered.
He studied me, silent, sober, and with a little of the hopelessness I was so familiar with. He sighed, finally, softly.
“He’s dying.” I released a weak sob and clenched my fists, not only because Angus was dying, but because I was about to shatter Clayton.
He lifted his hand, hesitated, then rubbed his thumb through my tears, closing his eyes as he concentrated on that one touch.
I shuddered, because he was Clayton, and because he was the incubus, and they both were full of sex and promise. Clayton had been restrained for so very long, and the incubus…he was an incubus. He was sex.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “God, I’m sorry.”
His eyes darkened, but the spark didn’t leave them. Not then.
“The demon can save him,” he realized.
I nodded.
“Can you imagine Angus with a sex demon inside him?” He laughed, sort of, but there was something close to a sob wrapped up in that laugh.
I put my palms on his chest. “He’s dying.” I could only whisper, because I was too full of pain and the words couldn’t push past the lump in my throat.
“Would you do it?” he asked. “If you were me, and you were this.” He slammed his fist against his chest. “Would you?”
I nodded. Then, “I don’t know.” And I dropped my gaze.
He was silent for so long I was afraid he’d deny Angus his life. I was terrified. I was horrified. I was a terrible fucking bitch to even ask but…
“Save him, Clayton. You’re the only one who can.”
“Give me today.” His voice was hoarse, but it was strong. “One day.”
“I would give you anything,” I said, fiercely.
But when Miriam held his reins once again, would I be able to keep my promise?
Would it even matter?
“I’ll find a way,” I swore. “I’ll find a way to release you from her.”
“This was my way.” Then he shrugged off the inevitability of his circumstances, and his stare went from despairing to predatory and very, very hot. And not just hot, but dominating. He’d been forced to submit to Miriam’s power, but right then, he was Clayton. He was the Clayton he’d been before Miriam had fucked him up. Before she’d turned him into a slave. Before she’d forced him into submission.
I took a shaky breath and tried to calm my galloping heart. “How long has it been for you?” I asked. “Did Miriam and you ever—”
His laugh was surprised and completely genuine. It was also low and masculine and pleased, because he saw in my parted lips, my breathlessness, and my nervousness one fact I could not hide from him.
He made me hot.
He always had, but now, I couldn’t hide it. And I didn’t want to.
“No. No one could touch me. She wasn’t lying. I couldn’t even touch myself.”
I shivered at the thought of him touching himself, and quite inadvertently, I dropped my stare to the front of his pants. From the size of the bulge, I was not the only one turned on. Of course, I’d already known that.
His lust was so intense it swirled around him, an almost visible thing.
I cleared my throat and averted my gaze. “The incubus. Can you feel him?”
I knew he could, though, because I could see the incubus. He peered out Clayton’s eyes, interested and quiet. Watchful.
“Yes.” With an unexpected suddenness, Clayton grinned. I’d never seen that grin on him, and it took my breath. He was gorgeous in his freedom.
“It’s a struggle to control him,” he continued, “and I won’t envy Angus his battle with this thing.”
Maybe he was just trying to make me feel better.
“Can he…” I hesitated, afraid I’d give the demon ideas. But I wasn’t going to put anything into his head that wasn’t already there. “Does he still want to suck the life from me, do you think?”
Clayton frowned. “All I feel is his interest in your body.” He ran his stare over my face and down my body, and that stare was like a physical touch. “Or maybe that’s just my interest.”
“I should go,” I murmured, even as desire shot through me. “And let you enjoy your day.” It didn’t occur to me to doubt that he would save Angus, once he’d had his day of freedom.
He lifted one corner of his lips in a sort of smile. “You’re the way I’m going to enjoy my day, Trinity.” He didn’t touch me. He stood with his hands at his sides, his face calmly blank, but his eyes blazing with passion. Need. Desire.
It wasn’t just Clayton with his years of forced submission and bondage but the demon inside him. Of course, in Clayton’s case, the incubus would
not be the only demon in there.
I took a tiny step back.
“Despite Miriam’s hold,” he said, smoothly, darkly, “I have lain awake at night, wrapped in my phantom chains, and imagined touching you.”
I released a shaky breath, then I took my need and went to him. I wrapped my arms around his waist and pressed my pelvis against his.
He cried out, and it was more a sound of agony than pleasure. He rested his forehead against mine, shuddering. He didn’t lift his hands to hold me there, and I knew he was torn. He wanted me as much—even more—than I wanted him, but something was holding him back.
Then he told me what that something was.
“Sex with me won’t be gentle and kind. The incubus is…” He swallowed and closed his eyes, but only for a second. “He is depraved. Vicious. And the only thing he wants is sex. He knows he can no longer use you to gain his freedom, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t want to fuck.” Again, he shuddered, then wiped sweat from his forehead and regained control.
Sort of.
“I won’t be the only one inside you, Trinity. And I won’t be any less of a freak than Seth Damon.” He shook with the effort of controlling not only himself but the demon inside him. “I’ve been deprived for too long.”
There wasn’t a spot on my body that wasn’t screaming to be touched. “Clayton…”
Still, he didn’t move. “Say it.”
I slid my hand over his flat abdomen and cupped his thick erection. “I want you.”
“Why?” he whispered, but fiercely.
I realized he thought I either pitied him or was offering him sex in exchange for saving Angus’s life.
“Because you make me hot,” I said, squeezing him through his pants. “Because my body wants your body. Because you are so dangerous and sexy and hard, and because I want to be the first and only person who gives you everything you’ve been denied since she brought you back. I want to be the one who makes you feel good. I want that bond with you. I want you, Clayton.”
Part of me was terrified that Miriam would suddenly appear and announce she’d found a way to reclaim him, even though he’d been possessed, and would rip him out of my arms.
And right then, I wasn’t thinking of Angus lying at death’s door, his hand poised to knock. Shameful as it was, lust battered at my brain and my body, and I cared only about satisfying my need. And Clayton’s.
God, I did want him. So much. I grabbed his hand and dragged it to my body, then guided it between my legs. “I need you,” I said, breathless and weak beneath the onslaught of desire.
Finally, Clayton lost his control.
He and Seth Damon flung me to the floor and followed me down with a growl that heated my blood even as it scared the hell out of me.
I was about to taste two supernaturals so full of lust they were terrifying and dangerous and almost feral in their desperation. And one of them was so extremely vulnerable and wounded and mine.
I’d never been so excited in my life.
Chapter Forty
It had been so long for Clayton that he couldn’t wait. He couldn’t take time to explore my body or whisper into my ear or see what I’d taste like. He couldn’t let me take time to touch him or kiss him or do everything he’d been deprived of since he’d returned from the grave.
Not the first time.
The first time, he yanked my jeans to my knees, shoved me onto to my side and lay behind me, pumping into me so hard I thought I might break. His hunger was as extreme as a starving vampire’s need for blood. He plunged into me, filling me up, holding onto me with a bruising grip, groaning as he climaxed.
He came so hard and violently I felt him release inside me. All he wanted, at that moment, was that release.
But the second time…
He lay on his back, his heart thundering beneath my ear as I rested my cheek on his chest. He was covered with a thin sheen of sweat, and he stared at the ceiling, his limbs loose and heavy as he swam through the aftereffects of his release.
“Trinity,” he whispered, finally, hoarsely.
I kissed his chest, my hand on his ribs, unable not to touch him. “Do you have more?” Desire screamed through me, wrapped around me, battered me.
He sat up, his energy climbing with his lust, and kicked off his shoes. He didn’t take his stare off me as he undressed, and with each new part of his body he revealed, I became a little more impatient. A little hotter.
I fell deeper into Clayton.
When his clothes lay on the floor, he reached for me. He buried his fingers in my hair and shuddered, his forehead against mine, then he tilted his head and took my lips with his.
It had been forever since he’d had the freedom to kiss a woman, or make love to a woman, or even touch a woman, but he wasn’t hesitant. He might have forgotten what it was like, but he hadn’t forgotten how to do it.
His kiss went from warm and deep and languid to intense and almost frantic, and with that kiss, the heat between us began to grow into overwhelming need. He slid his tongue into my mouth and tasted me before he drew back to look at me.
He took a deep breath and blew it out slowly, struggling to control himself.
His stare was no longer blank. It was filled with a man’s heat. It was full of wonder and appreciation, darkness and mystery, love, even, but behind all that was the fear and the knowledge that it wouldn’t last. That his freedom wasn’t real. I could see it as clearly as I could see his hunger.
I wanted to make him forget everything but his desire. I wanted him to have nothing in those eyes but that moment, that moment in my arms.
And I was wearing too many clothes. When I reached for my shirt he stopped me.
“I’ll do that.” He stood, lifting me with him, and paused to kiss the corner of my lips, to gently bite the edge of my chin, and to brush his lips over my throat before he began to undress me.
I released a shuddery breath and forced myself to stay still as he dropped my shirt to the floor and stared down at me. He slid a thumb over the scars on my chest, then cupped my breast, his hot, rough palms scraping the nipple with an almost agonizing gentleness.
Chills shook my body and goosebumps arose on my skin. I was both hot and cold. I grew heavy and wet between my thighs even as my mouth became dry, and my chest tightened as my legs grew weak and shaky.
And he was just getting started.
An image of Angus floated into my mind, not the image of him injured and in a jail cell, but the image of him shoving his huge hardness against me, followed immediately by the memory of Shane thrusting into me, of Miriam caressing my arm, and then of Amias holding my legs open as he shoved his mouth against my wetness, sucking and licking with an intensity that was so vivid I cried out.
We were all linked, at that moment. We were all there.
The demon inside Clayton was no longer powerful enough to suck the life force from me or take me to a place of despair, but he was a sex demon, and he was strong enough to force-feed me images and memories that filled me with overwhelming lust.
Clayton fed that lust with his torturous care and slowness and lips and tongue and fingers and need, and when I finally stood naked and trembling before him, I was consumed by him. There was nothing else.
I put my hands on his shoulders for balance as he urged my legs apart and slid his fingers between them. He closed his eyes as he probed, sliding his fingers through the wetness, rubbing the softly swelling flesh, then slipping a finger inside me.
“Oh, God,” I cried, and he opened his eyes to watch me, something dark and fierce and proud in his hot stare.
“I missed the feel of a woman,” he murmured. “I missed the scent. The taste.”
He shuddered and closed his eyes for a second, then withdrew his fingers and leaned his forehead against mine. “The demon doesn’t want to go slowly. He doesn’t want to do anything but fuck you.”
I tightened my grip on his arms. “Then we will take our time. And the demon can go fuck himself.�
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That surprised a hoarse laugh from him and unable to resist, I pressed my lips against his smiling ones, then whispered his name into the warmth of his mouth.
Then I stepped back, and when he reached for me, I shook my head. “Let me look at you.”
He dropped his hands to his sides and stood still for me, but his body vibrated with hunger and need and impatience.
He stared over my head, and when I got a chance to look at his body, really look at it, first, I wanted to cry, and then, I wanted only to make him forget. Like that would have been possible.
I’d known he’d been tortured. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I’d known Miriam had hurt him. But his body…
His body.
“It wasn’t all Miriam.” He spoke gently into my devastated silence. “I lived a rough life. And it no longer matters. Only this matters.” He took my hand to his cock, folded my fingers around it, and squeezed. “Have your feels, Trinity, but hurry. Because I want to be inside you.”
I looked away from his scars, scars that were on top of scars, and I nodded. His pain was from the past, and he no longer lived in the past. There was only this moment, and…
“You’re perfect,” I told him, hoping my eyes were as clear and sincere as my heart.
Because he was.
His body was lean and smooth, but for the scars, and scars didn’t make a person imperfect. They only told a story.
“I wish I’d known you,” I said fiercely. “I wish you’d been mine.”
Because I would have saved him.
I wanted to cry for him.
His hot stare nearly set my hair on fire. He grabbed my shoulders and pulled me to him. “Stop it. I’m not a broken man. I’m just a man. I need something more than your pity and your horror.”
“Then take it, Clayton. Take what you need.”
He groaned, then yanked me against his body, and his grip was tight as he carried me to the sofa. He dropped me to it and followed me down, his passion feeding mine.
I caught glimpses of the demon in his eyes, and I felt his influence in Clayton’s touches. I heard him in Clayton’s moans, and I knew Clayton wasn’t the only one enjoying his freedom. The demon was no longer sick—at least not physically.
