by Jill Myles
Noah leaned forward to press kisses on my forehead and cheeks. “You’re perfect, curse or no curse.”
The soothing feeling of his mouth against my flesh calmed my locked-up nerve endings. “I have to keep having sex more and more often,” I explained as he kissed my neck, his mouth sliding to my collarbone. “Remy says that I could starve to death in the middle of an orgy.” The horrible image had been burned into my mind.
He bit gently at my shoulder, sending shock waves through my body. “And Remy’s been cursed so many times before that she’s the expert?”
“Well, no,” I said, finding it hard to concentrate when he was nibbling on me like I was some sort of delicious fruit. “That’s why we’re going to New Orleans, to ask Delilah. She’s a voodoo priestess and a succubus.”
Noah made a sound of approval, even as he kissed the soft flesh at the bend of my arm. “Sometimes I don’t give Remy enough credit.”
I shuddered at the soft caress, digging my fingers into his scalp and winding them in his thick mane of hair. The slow, soft kisses were driving me crazy, the throbbing in my body reaching almost epic proportions. “Noah, can we please just have sex now? Foreplay is great and all, but my body hurts.”
His eyes were as blue as the ocean, telling me that his own urge was upon him, fueled by mine. “You need to come fast?”
My frantic hands unbuttoned his pants. “Understatement of the year.”
Noah laughed. “Your wish is my command.” His hand pressed on my shoulder until I lay flat on my back and he hovered over my naked hips, then leaned down and kissed my stomach again.
I nearly came off the bed with a hiss.
“Hurts?” Noah stilled over me.
Oh, but it was a good kind of hurt. “I’m okay,” I said, my voice tight with tension.
His hand stroked down my hip and across my thigh, then parted them. He kissed the springy curls at the apex there, and I grabbed the pillow beside my head, clenching my fists to stop the moan building in my throat.
“Tell me if I hurt you,” Noah said, his breath brushing over my heated flesh. My body tensed in anticipation and was soon rewarded. His thumbs parted my soft folds and he licked my clit, long, slow, and reverent, like a dying man with his last meal.
My breath exploded from my throat.
Noah froze and pulled away. “Are you okay?”
I put my hand back on top of his head and shoved it back down toward my thighs again. “Do that again.” Oh, please, let him do that again.
He leaned in again, flicking his tongue against that most sensitive of spots. He swirled it around the tender flesh, teasing me with the soft, insistent touch, and then sucked.
My entire body locked into a spasm, and a scream of relief tore from my throat. Noah took that as a sign of encouragement, and continued to suck and lap at my clit until I stopped shuddering.
It took a while.
When my body finally uncoiled, the relief was immediate. The haze over my vision cleared, and the most languid, wonderful sensation rolled through me. No more pain and tension. No more aching throbbing. I sighed with contentment and reached for my lover, boneless and happy. “Mmmm, you’re the best, Noah.”
“Don’t thank me just yet,” he said, pulling me into a sitting position and pulling me into his lap. His erection—hard and thick—cradled between my hips as he pulled my legs over him. “Now that we’ve got the business out of the way, we have time to enjoy ourselves.”
And then he proceeded to show me over the next two hours exactly what he meant.
CHAPTER TEN
Sometime later, I hopped out of the shower and dressed in the clothing I’d worn last night. It was wrinkled and reeked of casino and cigarettes, but my other stuff was down the hall. I finger-combed my tangled red hair in the mirror.
“Dr. Morgan has been calling my cell phone night and day,” Noah said, pulling his shirt on over his head. “He seems to think we’re having relationship troubles, and he’s concerned that I’ll pull my funding if we don’t work things out.”
I stilled, my eyes following his form in the mirror. “What did you tell him?”
Noah sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on one of his shoes. “I told him that the only way I’d continue to support the dig was if you shared my tent, regardless of whether you wanted to.” He grinned at me, his eyes twinkling.
I went back to finger-combing my hair, relieved. “I’m sure, he offered me to you on a silver platter. ‘Please, screw my newest archaeologist. She’s a hot piece of ass!’”
“Surprisingly, no,” Noah said. “He defended your honor. Said you could sleep wherever you wanted, even if that meant with him.”
“That’s sweet . . . I think.”
Noah’s warm chuckle made me tingle all over again.
I glanced at his broad form in the mirror as he finished dressing. God, he was delicious. And so good to me. My legs felt boneless again, just thinking about the things he’d done to me a short time ago. Why did we ever fight?
He returned my gaze in the mirror. “So, how did you end up in this room?”
Oh. Right. We fought because Noah couldn’t let stuff go.
I hesitated, not wanting to ruin our truce. “Someone helped me back from the casino last night. I thought he was taking me to my room.”
Noah stiffened, then busied himself with tucking in his shirt. “He?” His voice was cold.
Irritated, I snapped, “Yes, and if I had done anything with him, I wouldn’t have been in such pain this morning, would I?” I shoved my feet into my shoes. Count on Noah to ruin my good mood.
Warm hands touched my arms, and he pulled me against him. I stiffened, not wanting to be mollified, but it was hard to stay mad at someone as delicious as Noah. “I’m sorry, Jackie. It’s hard for me to adjust. Despite our curse, Serim have issues with relationships.”
The Serim? What did they have to do with me and Noah? He never talked about others of his kind, and I’d never met any. I thought back to what Remy had mentioned earlier and wondered. Pulling back from his embrace, I studied his face. “Is something going on, Noah?”
He looked torn. “It’s nothing I can’t work out on my own. Don’t worry about it. I’m just . . . unsettled. My kind does not share their mates.”
Flattered and horrified, I pushed out of his embrace. “It’s a good thing we’re not mates, then. I’m just your indentured servant, and you’re my master.”
“It doesn’t have to be like that.”
“No? How should it be?” I stalked away to the bed and began to smooth the sheets, remembering all the careless commands he’d shot my way last night, forcing me to stay here. “When you say jump, I jump. When you say stay, I stay. When you say—”
“All right, Jackie.” His voice was low, conceding. I felt him come up behind me and touch my shoulder. “We’ll work out our problems later, okay? For now, let’s just focus on you and your curse.”
Just like that, my anger evaporated, and I turned to give him a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you, Noah. You’re always there when I need you.”
“Always.” There was an odd light in his bleached eyes that I couldn’t identify, but I decided not to bring it up.
“We need to get on the road before long. I think Remy has another engagement outside of Dallas this afternoon.”
He clasped my hand in his. “Let’s go get her, then.”
We shut the door of the hotel room behind us, and I stared at the room number, thinking. I pulled my hand from Noah’s and dug through my purse for a moment, fishing out the business card that Luc had given me, and extending it to him. “Have you seen this symbol before? I thought it might be one of yours.”
Noah examined the card. He shook his head. “It’s not angelic, if that’s what you’re asking. It’s familiar, but I can’t quite place it. Where did you get it?”
I took the card back from him. “Luc gave it to me in Colorado. He was here last night, too. I think he’s following us.”
Why else would he be at a porn store in Colorado, then an Indian casino in Oklahoma later that same day?
“Luc, eh?” He plucked the card back out of my hand and flipped it over, reading the scrawl on the other side. His expression darkened when he read the threatening message. “What is this supposed to mean?”
“He was trying to warn me,” I said dismissively and took the card back, shoving it in my purse. “So far he seems harmless.” I just didn’t know what Luc was up to.
“Is he a vampire?”
I thought back to Luc’s bright white smile and perfect teeth. “I don’t think so. He was at the porn store midmorning. Long past vampire bedtime.”
Noah pulled me possessively closer. A rush of warm heat slid between us, a nice feeling. “He could be dangerous, Jackie. I want you to be careful around him. Understand?”
I wanted to ask why one of the Serim would be interested in what I was doing, but I noticed the shuttered look on Noah’s face. Whatever was going on, Noah wasn’t sharing. “Want me to read his mind if I see him again? If he’s immortal, it won’t be quite as easy as a regular man—”
He shook his head at me. “It’s too dangerous. If he finds out what you’re doing, it could push him over the edge, make him act rashly.”
Well, there was that. For some reason, men didn’t like anyone rifling through their thoughts, hot succubi or no.
We grabbed a few doughnuts from the continental breakfast in the lobby. I was starving and polished off a neat dozen before grabbing a box while the desk clerk wasn’t looking. Remy’d probably be hungry, too. And Drake.
Noah declined any doughnuts, having only coffee. “What’s Remy’s room number?”
I tucked the box under my arm and headed back out of the lobby and into the bright midmorning sunlight. “I’ll show you.”
We found Remy’s room easily enough; I could hear her cries of pleasure from around the corner. Her room—114—had the “Do Not Disturb” sign hanging from the doorknob.
“Obviously she’s not quite ready to go yet,” Noah said, smiling ruefully.
“Not a big surprise there,” I agreed. “Let’s wake up Drake, instead. I’ll go get him if you’ll get my things out of my room.”
He took my room key and disappeared into 115 while I headed two doors down to Drake’s room.
I knocked once and got no answer. “Wake up, Drake,” I called through the door.
It was useless. The TV was on, blaring the local news loud enough to make me wince from this side of the door. I banged on the door harder.
It cracked open a bit; a bit of paper—a road map—wedged against the doorknob had kept it from shutting entirely. Fear prickled over me.
I’d seen enough episodes of Law and Order and CSI to know that this was bad news. Fearing the worst, I jerked the bit of map out of the door and swung it open.
The hot, sticky smell of blood was the first thing I noticed. His room was stifling—the air was turned off and muggy heat permeated the small room. I fumbled for the light switch, hoping that it would reveal something different than what I was imagining.
The reality was much, much worse. Drake lay sprawled across the ugly coverlet on his back. His throat had been ripped open and he lay in a pool of dark blood. Worse, it looked like he’d fought whatever had attacked him. His arms and legs were mangled and covered in scratches, and blood sprayed the walls of the small room.
On the mirror someone had written in blood, I’m coming for you.
Obviously a message for me and Remy. Or just me. And Drake had been the unfortunate recipient.
It was too much for my hangover, and the smell and the horror and twelve doughnuts in my stomach made me double over. Outside the door, I vomited on the sidewalk.
“Jackie?” Noah’s questioning voice approached. He paused near me, and then I felt him go still and he cursed in a language I didn’t know.
My body trembled, but my stomach was good and purged. I wiped my hand across my mouth. “Someone’s trying to leave us a message.”
“Your friend Luc?” Noah sounded grim.
“Not unless he likes eating people’s throats.” I swallowed hard.
I had thought the same thing, though: Who else knew that we were at this hotel? Knew what we were? Luc wasn’t a vampire, nor a Serim, either, since I’d seen him in evening hours, as well. But if not Luc, then who?
My mind skittered back to Zane, but I shut that firmly out of my head. Zane would never threaten my life. He might be a bailing-out son of a bitch, but he wouldn’t hurt me.
But there were a lot of factors in play that I was barely scraping the surface of. Angels. Demons. Vampires. Noah’s kind, the Serim.
And Remy, with a possessed soul trapped inside her.
Shit.
“Remy,” I said weakly. “We need to check on Remy.”
The sounds of lovemaking had died down, and Noah helped me to my feet. Her door was locked, but the room had fallen eerily silent. I knocked urgently.
No answer.
I wrung my hands, looking at Noah. “What should we do?”
“Step back.” He pulled me to one side, grabbed the door handle, and shoved against the door with a mighty heave, using his shoulder as a brace. The door frame splintered and the door fell off its hinges.
I stared at Noah in surprise. Oh, my. That strength was a side of him I hadn’t seen before. It made him a little more sexy and dangerous. It also made the Itch stir inside me again, but I clamped my thighs together.
Noah charged into the room ahead of me. “Get off of him, Remy!”
The bedroom was dark, and my eyes took their sweet time adjusting to the dim light. I heard someone crash against a nearby wall, and I flicked the light switch on.
Noah stood over the bed, an over-the-hill trucker staring up at him in disgust. Blood poured down the man’s fat, unshaven neck. Across the room, Remy huddled near the wall, her eyes glowing eerily red. Blood ringed her mouth, and she panted heavily.
“What’s the big idea, buddy?” The man yelled at Noah, struggling to sit up in bed.
I went to Remy’s side, crouching next to her and using the hem of my T-shirt to wipe her blood-spattered face. “Remy?”
Those red eyes stared back at me, and a wicked grin curved Remy’s pretty face. “Guess again,” Joachim whispered from inside her body.
Aw, hell. I swiftly scanned the wrecked motel room. The bedding was tossed everywhere, but I found Remy’s purse in one corner of the room and began to rummage through it.
Success—I found the holy water and held it aloft. Remy cackled wildly at the sight, her lips rolling back in an evil grin. “I’ve got what I need . . . for now.” With that, the red color began to drain from her eyes, returning them to the sated silvery-gray I was used to. Her entire body went limp, and I guessed that Joachim had retreated again.
This time, though, Remy was aware of what had happened. She looked at me with horror and then bolted for the bathroom.
“Remy?” I followed after, shooting Noah a look.
“What’s the problem with you people?” the man on the bed shouted. “Can’t a guy and his date have a little fun around here?”
In the bathroom I watched as Remy chugged half a bottle of Scope, then scrubbed at her mouth again. “Don’t let Zane fool you,” she said to me, sounding sick. “Blood tastes awful.”
“What happened?” I handed her a cheap towel from the rack and patted her back, trying to comfort her.
She wiped her face, looking weary in a way that I’d never seen before. “We were just enjoying ourselves. I got back from the casino late after my date with the waiter, and George—”
“George is kind of disgusting, Remy.”
She shrugged. “He’s dying of cancer—I can taste it on him. I wanted to give him a send-off to remember.” A disgusted look crossed her face, and she sat down on the edge of the tub. “We were having a nice little party when Joachim surges into my mind and decides that he wants to play, too. I think George
was too drunk to care that I was drawing blood.” She shuddered.
I gestured at the wall that separated her room from the one we’d just left. “Is that what happened to Drake? Joachim?”
She gave me a puzzled look. “What do you mean?” Remy stood slowly, an uneasy look on her face. “Did something happen to Drake?”
I eyed her skeptically. “You mean, it wasn’t you—or Joachim?”
“I was sharing the whole experience this time—he didn’t push me out of the way entirely. Just enough to take control, but not enough for me to miss out on what was going on.” She shuddered again.
“Sir, I need you to sit back down,” Noah said loudly from the other room. “Leave them alone—”
A hand grabbed my arm and tried to pull me out of the bathroom. I jerked away from him, the touch making the Itch stir and flare again. “Don’t touch me!”
“Now, see here, miss,” George said. Then his eyes widened and he dropped to the floor in a boneless heap. A snore escaped him, even though his eyes stared up at the ceiling.
Not again!
Noah looked at my horrified expression, then down at the collapsed man. “What just happened?”
“My powers,” I said, pulling my hands close to my chest so I wouldn’t touch anyone else. “They sometimes go out of control and I wipe people’s minds.”
“The curse?”
“Yeah,” I said in a small, ashamed voice. Now he’d really be horrified.
But Noah just put his hand out to me, helping me step over the sleeping man. “Come on, then.”
“What do we do now?” Things had just gone downhill at a rapid pace. No one could see George’s comatose body and Drake’s murder scene and not think they’d been done by the same person. Remy was in trouble. I was in trouble, too. The police could think it was me.
“You’ve got to get out of here,” Noah said.
“Good idea.” The only other option was to wait around for the police to get here so they could grill us. And if we got locked up, waiting to be found innocent, I could die before I had sex again. Running was the only option. “I’ll pull the car around, then I’ll come back and get you and Remy—”
