He watched her gag, turning her face against the floor. If he let himself imagine it, Nicholas was sure he’d be losing his breakfast, too.
“I’d let go,” he said. “Because I couldn’t stand to see you do it.”
She nodded, her tattooed cheek scrubbing the floor. “But also because it’s me. If Madelyn did it, you’d be disgusted, I think. But you wouldn’t care if she hurt herself.”
That was true enough. “Yes,” he admitted.
“So if it was someone who hated me, who didn’t mind the blood, it wouldn’t work. But if it’s someone with any humanity, I can hurt myself. I can see how much they could stand before they have to let go.”
“Yes.”
“So it’s not about what I can do at all. It’s about what the human can stand to do. If they are willing to risk being hurt. If they’re willing to stomach a demon being hurt. Everything I did would really be about finding their limits.”
“And yours,” he pointed out. “You could stand knocking my head into a wall. But what if it meant throwing me in front of a bus? Into a fire?”
“No.” She smiled a little. “But I already know your limits.”
“The arm chewing? That’s a sure thing.”
“Not even that. Just, ‘Oh, let’s have sex.’ And off you go.”
God. God. Was it that easy for her? Teeth clenched, Nicholas reared up. Her eyes widened, but he still held her wrists. He shoved her back against the floor. He braced his knees alongside her thighs and pinned her wrists on either side of her head.
Looming over her, he ground out, “Try it now.”
Ash swallowed, hard. “I want to have sex.”
“But I’m not leaving.”
Her gaze darted to her arm.
Nicholas shook his head. “Can’t reach it with your teeth.”
Her eyes began to glow. “I’ll slam my head against the floor so hard that my brains will pop out.”
That would do it. Anything that meant hurting herself would. But he didn’t have to worry about that one.
“Go on, then.”
Her lips flattened, as if in determination. He felt her shake beneath him.
“You can’t,” he said. “There’s a limit for you, too. Maybe you can be pushed over it, but you haven’t been yet.”
“And you?” It came out as a hiss. “I’ll push you past yours, and you’ll let go.”
No. He’d already been pushed past them, and he was still holding on.
He dipped his mouth closer to hers. “Try.”
Trembling, she closed her eyes. “I want you to fuck me.”
If she really did, he might oblige her. “Is that the truth?”
Her eyes flew open, and he saw the sudden, stark terror in them. Fear that she’d broken her bargain. That in her attempt to get him off, she’d inadvertently lied.
Jesus. He hadn’t meant to do that. He’d rather release her from their bargain than ever see her in the frozen field. He’d rather give her permission to kill him than see her hunted down for breaking the Rules.
“No.” She relaxed beneath him, a soft sigh escaping her. “It’s not a lie. It wasn’t something that I meant at that moment, it was just something I said . . . but it’s not a lie.”
And he believed her. Maybe he was a fool for it, but God—he believed her.
Smiling, he pushed her wrists up and over her head, held them together in his left hand. Ash drew a sharp breath.
“What is this?”
“We’re going to see what my limit is. And yours.”
Her lips parted. As he bent to them, she whispered, “How?”
“We’ll see how long it takes before I have to let go. Before I have to touch you with both hands. Before I have to let you touch me.”
Her chest hitched with excitement. “Let me go now.”
“No, you’re still playing ‘get away without breaking the Rules.’ ”
“I’m not trying to get away.”
Playfully, he narrowed his eyes at her. “But how do I know it’s not a trick?”
She laughed. God, he loved when she did that. So soft and clear. Pure enjoyment.
“Can you vanish your jacket?”
Her breath stilled. Her brow furrowed, as if concentrating. Then, “No.”
With only one hand available to undress them both, that complicated things—but probably for the best. He should do better than fucking her on the floor next to a broken table, fully dressed except for what he’d been able to open one-handed.
So he’d just push to her limits, instead. How far he could take her. How fast. His hand slid down over leather, found the hem of her jacket, her hoodie, her T-shirt. So many layers, and he slipped beneath them all, found the hot, smooth skin at her waist.
“Your choice, Ash,” he said, and watched her eyes flare with crimson. “Up or down?”
She didn’t hesitate. “Down.”
“Impatient?” God, so was he. He couldn’t remember ever being this hard, and he’d barely touched her. And he wanted to touch all of her, but he wanted to please her more. He held her hands; he could at least give her control over his.
“Yes.” She laughed again, as if delighted by that. “So impatient.”
Watching her face, he unsnapped her jeans. He’d take her mouth in a moment, but right now he wanted to see her eyes as he slipped his hand beneath the denim. Her lids half-closed in anticipation, her lips parted, her breath coming in pants, she was beautiful. So incredibly beautiful.
And wet.
His fingers slid over slick, burning flesh. Nicholas groaned, already imagining his tongue delving through that soft heat, his cock sliding deep. He shook, his head bending under the effort not to rip her jeans open, spread her wide, take her now.
“Give me more.” Ash’s back arched. “More.”
“More, yes. God. I can almost taste you.” But not yet. Her eyes had closed, and the agonized pleasure on her face deepened as he circled her clit. The small nub had stiffened, the only part of her that wasn’t soft, but still so wet, so hot. “Like this? Or faster?”
Her head turned to the side, cheek pressing to the floor. Her hips rolled, and she cried out.
Jesus, so beautiful. “Like that?”
“Yes. Don’t stop that.”
He never would. Frenzied, Nicholas bent his head, licked the corner of her mouth. Her lips parted under his. Her moans came from deep in her chest, pulled answering sounds from him. Her legs widened as far as his knees allowed, and his fingers slid deeper.
Oh, fuck. Nicholas shook, battling the need to rip off her jeans now, ram deep. Her passage squeezed at his fingers, so tight. With a soft cry, Ash rocked her hips, writhing, pumping against him, her wetness flooding his palm. Pinned by his hands above and below, out of control, her ecstasy so unadulterated, so clear, so obviously her only thought, she was the most incredible, sexiest thing Nicholas had ever seen. He could have watched her forever, taking his own pleasure just in this.
But she wasn’t waiting for him. Her body jerked, stiffened. She cried out, exposing her fangs. Her sex clamped around his fingers, sweet fucking heaven. Her eyes opened, shining red—crimson swept across her skin. Obsidian horns erupted from her forehead, curling back to her temples.
Demon. Nicholas froze.
What the fuck was he doing? Had he forgotten what she was, or stopped caring? Had this been her plan all along, to make him stop caring?
Shaken, he slipped his fingers from inside her. He released her wrists. Ash trembled beneath him, then fell back to the floor, panting. A soft laugh erupted from her, and she looked up at his face. She stilled.
“Nicholas?”
“Well done. You got me to let you go,” he said.
She blinked and half rose. Her head wobbled a little. Frowning, she reached up. Her mouth fell open when she touched the horns. She pulled her hand back, looked at her skin.
“Oh,” she said softly. “I see. I found what disgusts you.”
Disgust? Nicholas rose to h
is feet. Not disgust. His cock was still hard, aching. And he wanted her. He still wanted her. Even now, with all this on display, she was beautiful to him.
No, the problem wasn’t that he was disgusted. It was that he wasn’t . . . but he should have been.
He should have been.
“Nicholas?”
He shook his head. He couldn’t. Rounding the broken table, he headed for the door. He heard her get to her feet, but he couldn’t stop. Not until he got his head together again.
A soft noise made him look back. She hadn’t come for him. She stared at herself in the small mirror over the sink, instead, her fingers tracing the reflection of the horns in the glass.
“This is who I am?”
His chest tightened. His heart told him to keep quiet, to figure this out, to work it through. He didn’t listen to it. Didn’t know if he could trust it.
“Yes. As I’ve said.”
“So you have,” she whispered. Her hand fell away from the mirror. “ Again and again. So you were right . . . and now you’ve fulfilled your part of your bargain. I know what I am now. A demon.”
“No.” That wasn’t all she was. “We’re not done. We don’t know your name. We don’t know where you came from.”
“The bargain was ‘Who I am’—and I’m a demon. Anyway, it’s not your choice. I’m releasing you.”
God. She was right. He couldn’t do a damn thing about that. But he didn’t have to let her go. “You’re still bound to me.”
She fixed those glowing eyes on him. “Only until I find your limit. Then you’ll release me.”
No, he wouldn’t. Not with Madelyn still out there, posing a threat. Not as long as he drew breath.
“I won’t.” He started across the room toward her—and she vanished.
No, not vanished. He heard the door open, and turned just in time to see her leave.
The tightness in his chest hardened to a deep ache. God, he’d fucked up. How many times had he seen her fangs, her glowing eyes? And only thirty minutes ago, her wings. But throw in the red skin and horns, and suddenly that mattered? Jesus. Yes, she was a demon. She was also the only woman who’d ever gotten to him like this . . . and he’d hurt her.
Somehow, he had to pay for it, make it right. He’d get his head on straight, so that he wouldn’t hurt her again.
But he wasn’t letting her go.
CHAPTER 13
Ash came back to the cabin when she heard Nicholas start the bath. Finally washing her off, probably. She was only surprised he hadn’t done it earlier—and she wasn’t sure she blamed him.
No, screw that. She blamed the hell out of him.
But it was difficult to stay angry, though she tried to nurture the emotion. After she’d looked in the mirror, Ash hadn’t known what to think. She had horns. Heavy, shiny horns. The wings looked like a bat’s, but at least they were useful. But horns were just . . . she didn’t even know. For hours, she’d been trying to decide whether they changed anything, whether they mattered, or if they only bothered her because they’d bothered him.
If so, it was too bad she’d begun caring about what Nicholas thought of her. Eventually, though, it would probably fade. So really, the horns didn’t matter at all, except that they’d finally driven home what Nicholas had been reminding himself about all along.
She was a demon.
Now, she planned to act like one. She was going to frustrate him, use him. And even though, judging by her experience, that sounded more like what Nicholas St. Croix would do than what any demon would do, it just made everything more fitting.
A splash sounded as he got into the tub. Though it would be better if she could make the horns, wings, and fangs show themselves now, she didn’t need them. Appearing human, but feeling like a demon must, Ash opened the door to his room.
The small clawfoot bathtub sat in the opposite corner to the bed. She knew Nicholas hated it, that he preferred a shower that washed away the grime and sweat rather than sitting in a shallow, diluted pool of it, but he’d been making do. He’d lain back against the sloped, rounded end of the tub, elbows hooked over the sides, his head resting against the upper edge as if he were exhausted, knees bent and his feet braced beneath the spigot. She’d hoped he would seem crunched up in there, his long body in that short space, but no—and the narrowness of the tub only emphasized the broadness of his shoulders, the long muscles of his thighs.
His eyes opened when she crossed the room toward the bed, and although he seemed tired, burdened, he immediately sat up, his expression alert.
“Ash? Are you all right?”
“Fine.” She gripped the iron rail that served as a footboard, began dragging the bed to the tub. “I’m just coming in to see you naked.”
“Ah.” He smiled a little, but there wasn’t amusement in it. Regret, maybe. Sitting back again, he said, “You deserve that much from me.”
“Yes, I do.”
The feet of the bed frame were scraping up a trail of splinters from the floorboards. She didn’t care. She dragged it to the side of the bath, sat on the mattress, and leaned forward to rest her elbows on the edge of the tub.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Ash.”
She met his eyes. He appeared sincere. And since he’d never had any compunction against telling her how much he didn’t want to care about her, he probably had no reason to lie now.
His lying had never been the problem, however. She finished the rest for him. “But also, you’re not even really sure whether you did hurt me, or whether I just want you to think you did. Am I right?”
His silence was confirmation enough. And if that confirmation made her chest ache, it didn’t matter. It would eventually fade.
And she was here to see him naked, so she looked. A thin trail of silken dark hair ran down the defined line of his lower stomach. His penis lay against his thigh, thickening even as she watched. Her presence, arousing him—and he didn’t attempt to conceal his reaction to her.
That might have mattered, if he’d attempted to conceal his reaction to her earlier.
“The red skin, the horns. That’s what you’ve always seen when you look at me. Isn’t it?”
“No,” he said softly. “But I always remind myself that it’s under there.”
“And you have to remind yourself, because I’ve never done anything to remind you. Except for this one time, when I came around your fingers.” She met his eyes, challenged him to say differently. When he didn’t, she asked, “Do you think I faked that, too?”
He didn’t. He didn’t. She could see that he didn’t. But he didn’t know what else to think. He didn’t have another explanation.
She had an explanation. She didn’t know why, she didn’t know how, but she knew: “You were wrong about me.”
“I want to be,” he said simply.
The constriction around her heart eased. I want to be. Before, he’d wanted to believe she was a liar. It was so much better that he wanted to believe she wasn’t.
She looked into the tub again. His cock now stood fully engorged, rising up out of the water, though she wasn’t even undressed. Though they hadn’t been talking about sex.
He wanted to be wrong, and he wanted her.
And he was just shy of monstrous. The familiar ache started between her legs—something that she hadn’t planned on feeling when she’d come here. She’d been plotting something else.
“I’ve been thinking about the Rules,” she said. “And I’ve realized that it can’t just be that I break them whenever I touch someone without their permission. I accidentally bumped into people in London all the time—especially in the Tube. But I didn’t have any Guardians coming after me.”
“Yes,” he said, his gaze watchful. Maybe wary. She hoped it was wary. “In a situation like that, you’re not impeding anyone’s free will.”
“Unless they’ve already said, ‘Hands off.’ Like you’ve made certain I know very clearly: Hands off, Ash.”
His jaw tightened for
a second. Then, “Yes. I did.”
“But I want hands on. Right now, I want to stroke your cock. I want to take you into my mouth, suck on you until you come, drink you all down. I could do it now. I wouldn’t even have to come up for air.”
Nicholas didn’t respond, but his heart began to pound, a flush sweeping beneath his skin. His fingers clenched on the edge of the tub.
Careful not to touch him, she slipped her hand into the water between his thighs.
“Ash—”
He broke off on a groan when she flicked her hand, splashing water against his thick shaft. Again and again, quick, sharp flicks with the tips of her fingers that transformed beads of water into a heavy massage raining over his cock, his chest. Nicholas set his jaw, dropping his head as he bore the onslaught. When the straining muscles in his thighs began to shake, when a thick drop of pre-come formed at the head of his cock, she stopped.
“Ah, God, no!”
His hips lifted, as if reaching for her hand to touch him, to finish him, before he clenched his teeth and settled back in. He watched her again, his eyes hot.
She’d planned to undress, lie back on the bed, spread her thighs, and make herself come without letting him touch her, but she couldn’t look away from the thickness of his cock. She wanted him, still. She hadn’t planned that—and she could only imagine how he’d feel inside her.
But maybe that would be familiar, too.
Frowning, she swirled her fingers through the water again, watching it run up in tiny waves around the base of his shaft. A hot emotion began to rise up from her stomach, almost choking her. Not desire. Something else, and it tasted like acid.
“Ash?” A soft query prompted her.
“I’m wondering,” she said. “So far, almost everything of Rachel’s has been familiar to me. Even you, that first time you kissed me. So I wonder: If I take you inside, would you feel familiar then? It might hurt a little. But then I’d take you so deep.”
His voice roughened. “Yes.”
“Maybe you’d feel familiar in my mouth, too. Did she do that? Did you let her go down on you?”
She looked at Nicholas for an answer, saw him watching her, his dark brows lowered, shadowing his eyes.
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