by Cameron Dane
He gritted his teeth above her.
“No chance of that.”
He spread her legs wide apart and straight out until she almost looked like an upside down capital T. The shift in position made her pussy pulse and spasm, and her body clutched at him in a way that felt amazingly different than before. He didn’t slow down his fucking of her one bit.
“What else?”
She cupped her smallish breasts and made them an offering to him. “Put your mouth on me.” He dropped his head down and kissed the inner slope of her breast. “Don’t tease me, Connor. Suck my nipples. Bite me. I want to be marked by you.”
“Good Christ,” he swore, almost viciously, “you turn me on like no other.”
His growl reverberated through her entire body, but it tormented her nipple the most where it was held trapped in the wet heat of his mouth. He suckled on her voraciously, alternating between biting the tip of her breast and soothing it with his tongue, sending shivers of longing and need straight to her channel that quivered around his plunging penis. She was almost ready to beg him to stop, to confess that she couldn’t take any more feeling, when he moved to her other breast to do the same. His fingers latched onto her abandoned wet nipple and played, just enough to keep her right on the edge of what her body was capable of experiencing.
Then, he broke his rule and touched her without her guiding words. He slid his hand down her stomach and through her curls, and pushed his middle finger through to the top of her slit where her clit was sticking out proud and hard, just waiting for that one last touch. He gave it to her without her having to ask.
The pad of Connor’s blunt fingertip abraded the tip of Cassie’s clit, and every chaotic sensation running throughout the length of her body pulled up so tightly that it bordered on pain. He pushed another finger through her damp nest to join the first and squeezed her engorged little nubbin of flesh between his strong fingers. The insane tightness coiling within her suddenly snapped, splintering into a million shards of searing pleasure and light.
“Oh, yes…yes…Connor. I think I’m coming. Oh God, you’re inside me, and I’m coming…” Cassie clumsily bucked up against the rod impaling her flesh as the walls of her sex clamped down and released, clamped down and released. Over and over again her muscles contracted as every nerve ending within contact of Connor’s flesh exploded with life.
She locked her legs around his waist and held on tight as his thrusting became erratic and disjointed. She burrowed under his arms to get at his rippling, sweat-soaked back, determined not to let him pull away when he completely lost his control.
Connor felt Cassandra’s soft fingers run along the spiny ridge that bisected his back, and her touch over those ultra sensitive nerve endings severed what little control he had left. He manhandled her pliant body and reared up on his knees, bowing her half off the bed as he manipulated her core over the aching hardness of his cock without finesse or cool. Her body was arched up in offering as her head tipped back and balanced on the bed. Her rigid nipples pointed toward the ceiling, and no other image had ever been so gut-wrenchingly carnal and innocent at the same time in all of Connor’s two hundred years of life. His balls drew painfully tight, and he knew it was all over for him.
“Cassandra, Cassandra…” He yanked her hips against his and slammed all the way inside her tight heat one last time. He threw back his head and roared his pleasure as his orgasm jetted through his buried cock, spurting his cum in endless, convulsive jerks within Cassandra’s womb.
Eventually, gently, he lowered Cassandra back to the bed, his semi-hard cock sliding from her body as he did. For long minutes afterward, it was all he could do just to breathe. He looked down at the woman lying before him, her dress still bunched around her stomach, a flat plane of smooth flesh that lifted and lowered with deep, labored breathing. He soberly surmised that she looked to be just as affected by their coupling as he had been.
Damn it all; she had been a virgin. That was all Connor’s head could process. That, and a fierce sense of possession that he could not believe was now even stronger than what he’d felt before. He’d been the only one to have her. Cassandra had given herself to him.
He couldn’t let what they’d done pass as if it were nothing. It wasn’t in his DNA to walk away.
Connor got to his feet and put his jeans to rights. He reached down and grabbed his shirt, sliding his arms through the sleeves. He looked over at her and declared, “There is only one thing for us to do now.” He watched her arch an eyebrow at him as she put the top of her dress back in place. It didn’t deter him. He finished his thought. “We will be married as soon as possible.”
Chapter Seven
“Excuse me?” Cassie squeaked as she scrambled off the bed. She’d just come down from the most mind-altering, natural high—the most glorious moment of her life—but all of a sudden she felt a tremendous weight sitting on her chest, suffocating her. “What did you just say?”
“You heard me.” Connor’s eyes were trained over her shoulder as he spoke, deliberately not meeting her gaze in a way that froze her blood. A chill went through Cassie, sprouting goose bumps all down her arms. “You made a choice that bears consequences, Cassandra. We will be married. This weekend, if I can clear my schedule and arrange it.”
If he could arrange it? If he could arrange it!
What should have been a scene created to burst Cassie’s heart to overflowing -- that in truth, she’d dreamt of often -- in reality felt like the coldest one in her life. “Why? Because I was a virgin?”
“I respected your father a great deal, Cassandra,” Connor said by way of a direct answer. “I will not couple with his untried daughter without making it right for all parties involved.” I “Couple? Untried?” Cassie mimicked, her mind flying in a hundred different directions. Right now, none of them were forgiving of Connor Hawkins arrogant, noble plight. Her hurt was pushed aside for pride and saving face. “Well, maybe you should have run this plan by me before you fucked me. The night would have ended in a very different way if I’d known how archaic a man you’d turn out to be in the face of my virginity.”
He took a step toward her. “Cassandra --”
“No,” she cut him off as she backed her way to the door. “You listen to me. I am twenty-three years old. I am a full-grown woman, just as I was thirty minutes ago before I had sex with you.” Her butt hit the door, and she reached behind her to turn the knob. “I don’t need to be coddled and taken care of, and I certainly don’t need to tie myself to a man who only wants to marry me because the guilt of shoving his penis in his friend’s daughter’s vagina would eat him up inside otherwise.”
Connor took a big step in her direction. “Don’t you walk away from me.”
“I’ll do whatever the hell I want!” Cassie tore the door open and ran before Connor could issue another command.
“Cassandra!”
Connor leapt for the door as it slammed in his face. He jerked it open to the party still going at full steam outside. He pushed past groups of people crowding the hall, uncaring of how ferocious he must look right now. To all that could see him, he was blazing with fury and anger, out for blood. That’s what it looked like to everyone around him. That was the only way Connor knew to process and compartmentalize the searing rejection of his marriage proposal to Cassandra. He wanted to kill and hurt and maim because he didn’t know how to cry and wail over the hurtful fact that she had run.
A hand suddenly shot out and grabbed his arm, jerking him to a stop. He spun around to deck whoever had been stupid enough to interfere, and found Caleb there with a fist pulled back ready to hit him first if necessary.
Connor shook his brother’s hand free.
“Back off, Caleb. I’m losing her. I have to go.”
“Yes, I just saw her. She blazed past me cursing up a storm, tears streaming down her face.”
“Fuck,” Connor swore as a fist of pain clamped his chest. “We…something happened between us.” He felt his c
heeks heat at the memory. “I told her we would marry. I perhaps did it clumsily.”
“Perhaps?” Caleb parroted dryly.
“Shut up. I did not mean to make her cry. I must find her before she gets away. If she is upset, I do not want her to drive.”
“I sent Cain after her,” Caleb told him, his manner as calm as Connor’s was frantic. “You, my friend, need to settle yourself before you do something else that ruins the one shot you have at becoming human. We only have a few more hours, and then the opportunity will go away again for many years.”
“Do not speak to me of that.” Connor shoved Caleb against the wall with a hand to his chest. “Cain already tried. I will never tell her what I am.” His stomach roiled just thinking about it. “I cannot.”
“Then you intend to marry her and never tell her you’re a demon?” Caleb asked. “You intend to deceive her and let her believe that you’re human? All the while knowing that with such a lie you will never be able to give her a child? You do her a cruelty with that decision, Con, and you know it.”
“I have no choice.” Connor’s voice was stripped bare. “To tell her is to risk her disgust. It is to risk losing her forever. I will not lose her, Caleb. In two hundred years of merely existing, she is the only one who has ever made me feel alive. She is the only one who has ever gotten under my skin, who has ever even made me question if it is possible for a demon to possess a heart that can feel love.”
“It is possible, and now you know it. But Connor, I believe Cassie can give you the humanity that you crave. I believe she possesses the feelings that make it possible, but you must tell her. Otherwise, she cannot do what is necessary. She cannot drink --”
Connor slapped his hand over Caleb’s mouth. “Do not even say it. Do not torment me with something that I cannot let happen.”
Caleb pried Connor’s hand off of his mouth. “Will not let happen.” His blue eyes were icy chips of disappointment. “It is Halloween --”
Caleb’s cell phone trilled to life in his pocket, cutting off his impending lecture. “That will be Cain.” He opened the flip phone and put it to his ear. “Yes?”
Connor waited in absolute stillness as every nerve ending in his body stood at attention. Waiting. Waiting to hear about Cassandra.
Caleb closed the phone and slipped it back in his pocket. “They are on their way home,” he said, and Connor started breathing again. “Luke gave them a ride.”
Connor started moving toward the exit.
“Luke?” he asked over his shoulder as they made their way outside. “You mean the bastard that wanted to grab her ass while they danced?”
Caleb chuckled. “That is not what was happening, Con, but yes, that Luke.”
Connor growled. “You do not know how to read people as I do. That is why you did not see it, but I know.”
“Yes,” Caleb muttered under his breath. “Through eyes that are blinded by love there is no one who sees quite so clearly as you.”
Connor didn’t miss the sarcasm. “Shut up and get in the truck,” he ordered as he slid behind the wheel, “else I will leave without you.”
Caleb decided to let Connor have the peace of the ride home before he started in on round two.
* * * * *
10:30 p.m.
Connor let himself and Caleb in through the back porch. He threw open the kitchen door and found Cain drinking a cup of coffee. Solo.
“Where is she?” Connor demanded as he scanned the room, as if by a miracle Cassandra would appear if he only looked hard enough.
“Relax, brother.” Cain threw him an amused look. “She’s upstairs changing her clothes, and is spitting mad. I heard her bedroom door slam, and I’m pretty sure I heard the lock click, too.”
Cain turned to Caleb and continued. “Since this one here is a little bit on edge as well” -- he jerked his thumb in Connor’s direction -- “that might not be a bad thing. No coffee for him while we wait to see if Cassie cools off any, huh?”
“No,” Caleb agreed as he moved to block the coffeepot. “Now is time for talk.” He settled back against the counter, crossed his arms against his chest, and Connor knew the conversation he’d been dreading wasn’t going to be squashed any longer.
Connor’s eyes slid closed, but he knew that his brothers watched him. He leaned forward and braced his weight against the table for stability, and within seconds the ridges on his forehead smoothed down to mere worry lines, the horns retracted into his skull, and his cheekbones, although still striking, became much less exaggerated. It couldn’t be seen under his shirt, but his spine sucked back into his body where it was supposed to be and left his back smooth with only muscle once again. A hard-chiseled, but nonetheless arresting, man remained in the demon’s wake.
“Thank God that is over.” Connor began to pace the kitchen with deliberate steps. “I could not stand to wear that face and body for even five more minutes.”
Cain grinned in Connor’s direction. “Yet you managed to live with it long enough to make love to Cassie.”
Connor jerked to a halt, and was towering over Cain in two strides. “She spoke of what happened between us?”
“Not hardly,” Cain answered. “But she damn well looks like someone who’s been made love to, that’s for sure.”
Caleb stepped into the line of fire again. “There is still time for it to happen again, Con. Tell her you’re a demon. Tell her of the ritual that will make you human. It’s what you’ve always wanted, and Cassie can give it to you. Tell her the truth.”
“No.” Connor’s dark eyes flashed fire.
“Yes,” Cain insisted, his face suddenly turning hard. “You don’t know how fortunate you are to have this opportunity, Connor. Cassie is completely besotted with you, any fool can see that. Chance allowed your relationship to change tonight. Choice can change it even more. I might fall in love one day, and that someone may feel the same for me. But all the love in the world will not give me this opportunity you’ve been given.”
“You do not know that,” Connor protested, his heart breaking for Cain. “Your feelings may change one day.”
“No.” Cain’s gaze darkened to the deepest blue of the ocean. “That’s not going to happen. But you, you’ve been Cassie’s friend for years. There is no doubt that her heart is true. She can make the demon living inside of your body disappear forever. You only have to guide her in the right direction.”
“You make it sound easy,” Connor whispered.
“It is,” Cain replied.
“Yes,” Connor sniped sarcastically, “it is so very simple. I should just go to her and explain that I am a two-hundred-year-old demon who hates what he is. I should tell her that I despise being a demon, but if she could spare a minute to suck me off until I come in her mouth, then that would be great because then there is a chance that I might become human. Oh yes,” he finished savagely, “I should just tell her all of that, and surely she will smile and fall to her knees before me in gratitude for the opportunity. Nay, she will be honored to do it.”
“It wouldn’t be that way, Con,” Caleb chided, “and you know it.”
“How do you know that, Caleb?” Connor snapped. He got right up in Caleb’s face with a snarl. “Because you’ve already told her that you are a demon, too, and she just laughed and smiled and gave you a great big hug? Is that how you know?”
Cain pushed his way between the two men and shoved Connor away. “Calm yourself, brother.” He placed his hand on Connor’s chest to keep him at bay. “We’re just trying to help you get what you want. You don’t have to tell Cassie the truth right away. You only need to guide her in the direction you need her to go.”
From the hallway, Cassie could barely breathe through the tumult of revelations that she had inadvertently overheard. She’d heard every bit of it too, starting with Cain’s assessment that she looked like a woman who’d been well made love to. She couldn’t care one damn bit about that right now. Instead, hearing about the Hawkins’ lies and deception
s from the moment she’d met these men hurt her deeply, like a bruise spreading on her soul. The worst of it, though, was the debilitating pain of betrayal from Connor.
She moved out of the shadow and into the doorway of the kitchen.
“In which direction does Connor need to guide me, Cain?” She turned her gaze to the man she thought of as a brother. The hurt vibrating through her was too great to let Connor see her eyes yet. It would show him far too much, so she focused on Cain instead. “Should he guide me down to my knees and shove my face in his crotch while he smiles down at me with victory for his success in duping me?”
“Cassandra.” That came from Connor.
He moved across the kitchen toward her, but Cassie held him off with both arms stretched in front of her like a shield. She could not believe the things she had overheard these men saying. Not men, she corrected herself as a sliver of cold rippled down her spine, demons. They were demons. Logic told her to run. From all of them, Cain and Caleb too. Absolute fury and hurt kept her feet rooted in place, trumping her confusion and fear. Every last emotion she had ever felt for Connor boiled hot within her belly, and she couldn’t hide them from him any longer. She lifted her gaze to his.
“Cassandra, please.” Connor reached for her again.
“No, no.” She backed up when he got within touching distance. She wouldn’t be able to stand that right now. She looked him up and down through slitted eyes, and determinedly ignored the catch that always stopped her heart when she looked upon his striking face. “Well, I see that your makeup” -- she threw her fingers up sarcastically, indicating air quotes around that word -- “has been removed. But it wasn’t makeup at all, was it?”
“Cassandra, you don’t under --”
“How stupid of me,” she cut him off. She blinked rapidly to hold back the tears that wanted to fall down her cheeks. “You never go to parties. Why should I have thought that you’d put on full costume makeup to go to this one? But you just let me believe it, didn’t you? You just let me stand there and make a complete fool out of myself while I marveled at it, and you never said a word to correct me.”
