We climbed several flights and exited the stairwell into the end of Devon’s office opposite the elevator. Stupidly, I scratched my head. I should have known there would have to be a way to enter and exit other than the elevator in case the electricity went out, but when Devon closed the door, it blended so seamlessly into the striped pattern on the wall that it was near impossible to see.
“So why are you in a bad mood? Is it the sylphs or something else?”
I glanced over my shoulder as I paced in front of the wall of one-way windows that provided a view of the main dance floor. Devon’s office was soundproof, which made the spectacle two floors below amusing. People looked silly when they danced if you couldn’t hear the music.
Devon stood over his computer while it booted. No tie for him tonight, and he’d abandoned the all-black look, substituting a deep blue shirt that he’d left artfully un-tucked. It brought out his eye color, and once again, I had disturbing thoughts about how good he looked.
Not my type, I told myself. I liked guys like Lucen with his jeans and leather jacket, and his broad shoulders and chest. A guy who portrayed a rough-around-the-edges appearance, but who was anything but. A guy who could kick bad-guy ass, then go home and prepare a four-course meal and pair it with the perfect wine.
Which, of course, didn’t explain why standing next to Devon got me all hot and bothered these days. Devon did not do jeans and T-shirts, and although he might be hiding the compact body of a martial artist under his expensive clothes, he struck me as the sort to shun physical violence except when left with no alternative. Devon would whip out a gun or a knife sooner than throw a punch. Or, more likely, he’d call someone else to do it for him. That was the benefit of being Dezzi’s lieutenant. He was—almost—the boss.
Even with my immunity to pred-magic, I could have blamed my attraction to him on his power, except my blood quickened at only the thought of standing near him. That, no matter how desperately I rationalized it, could not be blamed on satyr pheromones.
I should not have come up here.
“Distracted?” Devon’s smile was all too knowing. “I asked why you were in a bad mood.”
I cleared my throat and sat on an arm of one of the several couches by the window. “No, it’s not the sylphs. I finally told my best friend that I’m not human, and she reacted pretty much how I was afraid she’d react. She stormed off in the middle of dinner.”
Devon tapped a few keys, then sat on the front of his desk. “So you were hoping your friend—who, if she’s anything like a normal human, loathes us—would miraculously be okay with your revelation?”
“Yes. I mean, it would have been nice.”
He made a thoughtful noise. “I never pegged you for an optimist. Reckless, yes. But this sounds delusional, even for you.”
“Gee, thanks. You’re really doing a good job of making me feel better. I should go home.”
“Jess, you can’t accept what you are. How can you expect anyone else to accept it?”
I’d gotten off the couch, but Devon’s accusation stilled my feet. I plopped back down. If he wanted an argument, I could do that. Bad moods provided me with plenty of energy, and I felt ready to channel it. “I do accept it. I am accepting it. That I could tell Steph the truth is proof that I’m okay with it. That I chose to live in Shadowtown is also proof.”
“Yes, you’re finally willing to call yourself a satyr. It’s a first step, but it’s not acceptance. Deep down inside, you don’t believe that’s what you are. You’re afraid.”
“Afraid?” I laughed, but it was a fearful laugh. Yet I wasn’t afraid. At least I hadn’t been until Devon’s words had sparked some fear in me. What the hell? “Your emotion-sucking sensibilities are on the fritz. What can I be afraid of? Losing my humanity? It was taken from me before I knew it was gone.”
“Exactly.” Devon slid off the desk and stalked toward me, hands in his pockets. His eyes shone with that same intensity Lucen’s got when he was riled up. It was both unnerving and mesmerizing. “You say that, but you don’t feel it. I think it’s a fear of losing the image you have of yourself as human. You have this ideal version of who you are in your head. You’re Jess the Martyr who was denied entry into the Gryphons because some evil people ruined your gift. So you became Jess the Vigilante, fighting the good fight for humanity against the terrible preds. And now you’re Jess who is a pred, and you can’t be the rejected martyr or humanity’s savior anymore, but you want to be. That’s who you believe you should be because that Jess is a good person. And this other Jess—you’re afraid she’s not good because she’s not all those other things. So you hate her, and you fear letting her to the surface.”
I moved away, trying to keep distance between myself and Devon. My stupid hands shook, so I balled them into fists. He was not right, and I didn’t need to hang around here and listen to him psychoanalyze me.
But if he wasn’t right, then why had his speech cut me to the bone? Why was I shaking? Why was my mouth dry?
“You’re wrong.” Brilliant rebuttal, but it was all I could get out. Wrong. Devon had to be wrong. I didn’t carry around some idealized version of myself in my head. I knew I wasn’t perfect. I was so very far from it that the idea was absurd.
Case in point—I wasn’t watching where I was going and I backed up into his desk and almost fell over.
Devon shrugged. “I could be. So prove it.”
“And how am I supposed to do that?”
“Idealized Jess is the perfect should-have-been Gryphon, but an edgy one. She’s even tamed a powerful satyr and is determined, despite all logic, that she can make her relationship with him work exactly the way she believes it should.”
“I’m well aware that my relationship with Lucen has to be fucked up by all human standards.”
“You are. You’re also aware that Lucen takes a satyr’s view of relationships and is encouraging you to do the same, and you’re resisting. Why? Because you’re afraid. Because even though not all human relationships are monogamous, you associate that sort of behavior more strongly with satyrs and don’t want anything to do with it. So you bury your fear and lie to yourself.”
I gripped the edge of the desk, wishing I could crush it. “I’m just not the sort of person who can dissociate sex from emotions. It has no interest to me.”
He laughed, pushing his hair out of his face. “You don’t have to dissociate anything to prove me wrong. That’s another lie you tell yourself.”
“I am not—”
But I didn’t get to finish my denial because suddenly Devon’s mouth was on mine, stealing my denial along with my breath. Stealing my resistance.
His lips were fierce, demanding I yield. The sweep of his tongue, his teeth lightly pulling on mine—the sort of insistence that drove pangs of longing straight through me, pooling between my legs.
I didn’t put up much of a fight. One heady whiff of his clove scent, one hint of aftershave the next time I breathed in, and I lost myself. I opened my mouth and welcomed him. His arms pressed against my own, the heat from his body making every muscle in mine tense. A soft moan rose in my throat as his hands cupped my cheeks, less forceful now that I’d surrendered, and I melted into his kiss.
Stop this. I don’t want this. But my body paid no attention to my brain. It knew the truth, just like Devon had. I wanted this. I didn’t want to, but I had for too long.
What if Devon was right about why?
Tentatively, I released my grip on the desk and slid my hands over Devon’s shirt. Beneath the smooth fabric, I could feel the firm outlines of his stomach muscles. And pressed against me, I could feel his arousal. Growing harder, growing stronger, the more I explored his body.
Need strengthened inside me, aching to be released. I had to have more of him. So much more.
Oh, shit.
Devon pulled his face away before I could decide
what to do, and I wasn’t sure whether to be grateful and relieved or sad and frustrated.
He breathed as heavily as I did, and the scent of cloves hung in the air between our faces, leaving me dizzy and disoriented. “Prove me wrong, Jess. No more lies. Admit that you want me, that you like me. Admit that no one has a problem with that except you because you hate the thought that you’re capable of wanting Lucen and me.”
His breath was so hot on my skin. His body so deliciously hard through his clothes. I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to look at him too. The longing on his face was enough to seduce my better judgment.
No one else had a problem with it. It was true. Neither Lucen nor Devon seemed to care, so why did I?
Because I didn’t want this to be me. I wanted normal, and by normal, I meant normal human. Even when I’d told Lucen I was ready to embrace my satyr side, I’d never let go of wanting that normal human relationship.
But this? This was doubling the non-normality of my life.
I couldn’t have normal human. How many times did I have to be faced with that before I let the idea go? Before I let the fear of not having it go? Devon was right about that too. I was afraid of letting go of the life I’d pictured for myself. I didn’t know if I’d call it my idealized self, but it was my idealized life.
“Jess?” Devon ran his thumb over my mouth, and I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out for it, taking it between my lips slowly and sucking. I wanted to taste him, to take every part of him inside me. His eyes widened, and I could sense him growing more aroused. One hand rested on my hip, and he squeezed. “Admit that you want me because I have wanted you for weeks now.”
I was trembling, and I forced my hands to unclench his shirt. “Of course I want you. You’re a satyr. You do that to people.”
“True. So why can you sense my power and not other satyrs’? It’s because you like me. Just admit it, and admit that it’s okay.”
When it came to relationships, one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do was admit to myself that I trusted and cared about Lucen. He was so different from me. Entrusting your heart to someone was scary enough normally, but with him, all my fear was amplified.
In some ways this was worse. I wasn’t just making myself vulnerable to Devon. I was allowing my entire life to be flipped around.
My heart pounded so hard I should have passed out, but I managed to fling the words off my tongue. “Fine. I like you. Are you happy?”
Devon rested his forehead on mine. “You don’t have to sound so miserable about it.”
“If I’m miserable right now, it’s because you’re an awful tease.”
“Oh, I can be. But I always deliver in the end, and you’ve been at the top of my list for too long.”
I slipped my hands under his shirt, and still my brain screamed that I shouldn’t be doing this. But I couldn’t stop. He felt so good, smooth skin over tight muscle, and I needed to be touched. “Then deliver. I said it, so finish this. I want to be rewarded for my honesty.”
Devon stiffened as I glided my palms around his ribs, higher up his shirt, feeling his body rising and falling with his breaths. He waited for me, unmoving except for the rhythm of his breathing. Waited to see what I did. What I would do, maybe.
I waited for the same, willing the last of my fear to release me.
His hands rested like weights against my hips, so heavy they pinned me in place with no force at all. And still he didn’t move them. A few inches in either direction, that was all I needed.
So I slid mine down him instead, letting my nails lightly brush his skin, entranced by the way he held his breath as they caressed his abs. Lower still, as though they were drawn to the bulge in his pants, and my gaze drawn with them.
Then my hands faltered, hindered by the waistband. It was like the air had turned to honey, thick and sweet, making it hard to move. I knew what I wanted to do, glide my hands lower, unfasten his belt, wrap my fingers around the erection pressed against me. I wanted to breathe him in, taste every delicious inch of his body. Wanted him to burrow himself inside me. Wanted him to make me forget my fear, my hang-ups, myself. Just like Lucen had done our first time together.
I wanted to be changed by his hands.
But I also wanted to pause. Or was that the last traces of my fear slowing me down?
“Jess.” Devon’s fingers finally trailed up my hips. My clothes shielded me, but it didn’t matter. I tensed, my skin coming alive beneath those faintest of touches. My ache growing stronger with each inch of me he covered—hips to stomach to breasts. My nipples hardening as his thumbs grazed them. My eyes closing in my best effort to remain in control.
His lips found mine again, still insistent but gentler this time, teasing as I tried to kiss him more deeply. When I reached for them, he left me groping at air. My tongue longing for a taste denied.
Instead, he nibbled down my throat until he reached my collar. My shirt landed on the floor. I wasn’t sure how, and I moaned as he slipped from my grasp, his mouth working down my chest, lingering over the skin between my breasts, licking and biting, making it hard to breathe. Then I was back to squeezing the life from his desk, succumbing to the throbbing between my legs, while he took his time unbuttoning my jeans.
He toyed with me, as promised, slowly and deliberately sliding my jeans down my hips. His face was a study in focus, his eyes lit with a beautiful hunger. And I had to look away. Had to close my eyes again in order to hold still.
I released the desk to grab his shoulders, urging him on.
“Oh, Jess, I’ve been waiting for this.” Desire had thickened his accent. “You’re not going to make me go faster.”
“I don’t want you to go faster.” I did, but I didn’t. The ache between my legs was growing more intense by the moment, harder and harder to fight.
Devon slipped his hands up my thighs, and I held my breath as his fingers wrapped around the lace band of my underwear. “No, you don’t.”
I whimpered as he drew his face over the satin fabric and draped the waistband in more delicate kisses. My hips gave in to him, wanting and needing to move.
“I think you’ve wet these things through. Best to remove them.” He tugged my underwear off, and it fell to the floor with my jeans. I swallowed, feeling his breaths on my most sensitive skin, the way he barely touched it with his lips. Closer and closer, until we met.
With just one delicate kiss, my knees threatened to give out.
He looked up at me, smiling. “I think I’m going to have to tread very carefully here, aren’t I? Why have you been fighting so long against something you want too much?”
I couldn’t answer him in words.
He didn’t seem to expect any. He grasped my backside with one hand and slipped a finger through my folds with another, and I lost track of everything but his touch. His tongue.
My breaths came in ragged bursts, and I whispered his name over and over to keep from letting him tear me in two. Each syllable felt heavy in my mouth, each letter like a note to myself, a reminder of who I was with, the life I was embracing.
And that it was okay. More than okay. It was fucking amazing.
“Get up here, please.” I tangled my fingers in his hair, trying to pull him onto me.
He took his time obliging, but when I moaned again, he clasped my ass tightly and straightened. I gasped for air, fighting to bring him closer, deeper. My hands fumbled with his pants button, and his sharp breath when I wrapped my hand around his cock made me shiver.
“Now.” I burrowed my face against his neck, hungry for the salt of his skin, but he cupped my cheeks and lifted my head away.
“What are you, Jess?”
There were too many choice answers to that, but for once, my smart-ass mouth couldn’t be bothered. I had to give him the one he wanted, or he was going to leave me desperate like this. The sweet agony of hi
m pressed against me, but not in me, was too much.
“I’m a satyr,” I whispered.
He leaned into me, nipped at my lip, then pulled harder at it with his teeth until I cried out. “Yes, you are.”
Then he lifted me onto the edge of the desk. My legs curled around his hips and my arms around his back, and he plunged inside me. I grabbed him harder, tighter, working toward his mouth again, then wrestling with his tongue and tangling my hands through his hair. Trying to take everything he was able to give until I finally did with a scream torn from my throat and my hands locked around fistfuls of his shirt.
Devon shuddered with me, his moan increasing the residual spasms still flowing through me. Then his breathing settling into pace with mine. His arms held me upright, and I clung to his back, feeling sweat drip down my neck. When I rested my head against the hollow of his throat, it was the scent of cloves I breathed in.
It wasn’t the same as cinnamon, but it was damned good too.
Chapter Twenty-Four
I rolled over, and my eyelids cracked open. A sliver of light peeked around the edge of a heavy, gray curtain.
I frowned. This was not right. The window was way too close to the bed.
Wakefulness intruded on my sense of peace, and more wrongness occurred to me. The sheets felt strange, and they smelled stranger. This was not my bed. Nor was it Lucen’s.
I sat up with a start, and memories of last night rushed to the front of my thoughts. Letting out a breath, I checked the clock and sank back onto the mattress. I needed to go home.
Next to me, Devon stirred. For once, he didn’t look so perfectly put together. His hair was a mess and he needed to shave, but under the sheet, his naked body called to me. Those memories threatened to stick around for a while.
“What are you doing?” The way he forced his eyes open looked painful.
I bid the memories and the feelings they aroused to go away. “I need to leave.”
“Already? It’s only…” he rolled onto his side to see the clock, “…early. Too early.”
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