The Demon You Know

by Christine Warren

  Cowardly.

  But Abby’s hormones didn’t care. They were too busy glorying in the feel of his thick golden hair beneath her fingers, the heavy weight of his muscular body pressed against hers. They were too busy urging her to spread her legs, to wrap them around his waist and push him past the next barrier, to care about why she had made this move. They just celebrated that she had.

  Abby moaned into his mouth, moaned again when those lips shifted off hers to blaze a trail along her jaw and down the side of her throat. He nibbled his way along, all but consuming her, tongue and teeth tasting every square inch of pale, heated skin. Her body quaked in his arms, and as she hooked her ankles together in the small of his back she realized her hormones had won that particular battle. She held his hips cradled against hers, the heat of his erection pressed snugly against her center.

  Her eyes flew open and their gazes locked. She saw the fire of passion in his and something else, something simultaneously fierce and protective, greedy and giving. And beneath it, a question. One more step and neither would be able to turn back. He may have led her this far, but as she drowned in the black depths of his gaze she knew she would have to cross that last distance on her own.

  Breath frozen, heart pounding, she slid her hands to his shoulders and braced herself against him. She felt his hands gripping her hips, felt his fingers flex as if to force her into the place he wanted her, then they eased, and he began to lift her away from him.

  No way was she going to let that happen.

  Fingertips digging into his flesh, Abby caught his gaze again and held it while she tightened the grip of her thighs and rocked her hips suggestively against his.

  The dam broke and swept away the last of her doubts in a torrent of rushing need.

  Large hands slid from her hips to her butt, gripping and shifting her, pressing her heat more firmly against him. Abby felt a moment’s astonishment that the two layers of denim between them didn’t spontaneously combust and dissolve in a cloud of ash. No such luck. The heavy cloth separated them, but even through the barrier her center ached, empty and wanting.

  Her entire being felt empty and wanting. With any luck, he wasn’t planning to let that continue.

  Abby felt the earth move. It took a minute to realize it was actually Rule, walking backward across the room to a large leather chair in front of the fireplace. She tightened her thighs around his hips to steady herself and heard him growl in response. Curious, she repeated the motion and got the same response along with a light smack on the ass.

  “Don’t tease,” he rumbled, his gaze burning into her. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Would you?” she asked, leaning forward to drag her tongue over the pulse beating visibly at the base of his throat. She felt as if some other Abby had taken control of her body, but it was too pleasurable for her to care.

  “You tell me.”

  He shifted her weight into one hand and used the other to grasp one of hers. Dragging it between them, he slid it down and down and down until he wrapped her shaking fingers around the insistent ridge of his erection, pressing eagerly against the fabric of her jeans.

  Abby trembled, not with fear but with the force of her desire. He felt enormous, hot and hard and heavy through the dulling veil of the material. Dragging her gaze back to his, she caught her bottom lip between her teeth and managed a little shrug. “Won’t know till we try.”

  Her husky taunt seemed to have roughly the effect on him as a waving red cape had on a bull. Rule cursed in a language she didn’t recognize, something low and harsh and guttural, and took two more giant steps back until the backs of his legs bumped up against the edge of the chair. Carefully he eased himself down, keeping Abby’s hips pressed tight against him, guiding her knees to the cushion beside his legs.

  She felt her breath speed up, saw her field of vision narrow until all she could see was his face, harsh and set in the light of the fire. His features might have been carved roughly out of granite, all sharp planes and angles, weathered by time and experience. Now, lust had made them even more jagged, even more heavily shadowed, and Abby lifted one hand to his cheek to reassure herself of his living warmth.

  Only to feel his teeth close around the plump flesh at the base of her thumb.

  A shiver of need wracked her, and he pulled her more snugly against him. His hands slid down her thighs, pulling her knees forward until they pressed up against the back of the chair and his cock pressed up against the very heart of her. Her eyes closed for a moment as the need threatened to overwhelm her, and she had to fight to force them open again.

  “What now?” she asked, her voice so rough and throaty, she almost didn’t recognize it.

  “Impatient?” His hands slid back up her thighs and around to cup her ass, kneading with heated intent.

  A moan tumbled unbidden from her lips. “Empty.”

  “Not for long.”

  If she had been capable of thought, or voluntary muscle control, she might have tried to move, to lift herself off his lap and fight free of the clothes that had suddenly become her greatest enemy. She needn’t have worried. He leaned forward, a dark, overwhelming presence that blocked off the light, and his lips settled once more on hers. This time, his mouth devoured, hungrier, more demanding. If such a thing were possible. She went under as if grasped by a riptide, barely registering the movement of his hands on the waistband of her jeans. But she couldn’t mistake the sudden wrenching pressure or the loud hiss of protesting fabric as he ripped the thick denim into shreds and tossed the remnants of her jeans onto the floor behind her.

  Gasping, Abby pulled back and stared into his eyes, seeing nothing there but a need that mirrored her own.

  She swallowed hard and shifted, gasping at the feel of him pressing the thin cotton of her panties against her achingly wet core. “I, uh, I guess that superstrength comes in handy, from time to time.”

  “From time to time,” he agreed.

  He slid one finger over the bare skin of her hip, curling it around the narrow strip of cloth that covered her. One tug and the panties went the way of her jeans, leaving her hot and bare and spread open across his lap like a banquet.

  He looked very, very hungry.

  She didn’t even have time to catch her breath. Rule wouldn’t let her. His hand on her bottom held her firmly in place while the other slid relentlessly over the soft mound of her belly and down through the tidy nest of curls between her legs. His fingers parted them, slid lower, discovered the slick moisture that waited for him, and sank deep.

  Abby cried out, high and aching, and arched reflexively into his touch.

  She felt, more than heard, his purr of satisfaction.

  Her head fell back, her neck no longer able to support its spinning, dizzy weight. She felt him shift, felt his fingers slide deeper, parting her soft folds, seeking her center. His lips touched her throat, slid down, his tongue dragging across the hollow above her collarbone just as one long finger pierced her snug opening and thrust inside her with torturous slowness.

  She clamped around him like a vise, every muscle tensing at the unfamiliar intrusion. She heard his murmur of pleasure and squirmed, looking for an ease she couldn’t find. Her whole body felt tight and restless, empty and needing. Not a single memory of her last sexual experience intruded. Rule’s hands felt too right, too perfect on her overheated flesh.

  “Tight,” he whispered against her throat. “Sweet.”

  Abby moaned and squirmed again. His finger stroked deep inside her, but she wanted him deeper, wanted it with a fierceness that shocked her.

  “Please,” she gasped.

  He nuzzled aside the collar of her blouse; teeth nibbled the sensitive skin, the light teasing contact a stark contrast to the invasive intimacy of his thrusting finger.

  “More?”

  She could barely nod, but her muscles clenched around him in avid encouragement. A low chuckle drifted through her fog, and she felt his finger slip out of her. Her hands c
lenched on his shoulder in panic. He couldn’t leave her now.

  “Hush,” he soothed, stroking his tongue in a hot path to her shoulder. “Have more.”

  His touch returned, two fingers this time, the thickness of them stretching her opening with a heavenly, aching burn. He probed deeply, fingers curling to drag along the inner walls of her passage, and Abby found herself thrusting back against him, struggling to take him deeper, to urge him into the possessive rhythm her body longed for.

  Her body had been empty so long that even his two fingers filled her, feeling as thick as a cock inside her. She rocked against them, high, desperate whimpers begging for more.

  The rough denim of his jeans rasped against her inner thighs, and her tightly beaded nipples stabbed at the fabric of her bra and blouse, reminding her he was still completely dressed while she writhed, half-naked and aching, like a wanton on his lap.

  Rule didn’t seem to mind. He murmured encouraging noises against her throat, his hand on her ass dragging her firmly into the thrust of his fingers. She gripped his shoulders, her nails biting into him, trying to steady herself against the raging tide of lust that threatened to overtake her.

  God, it had already overtaken her.

  “Please,” she gasped, her voice raw, reduced to begging for pleasure. “More. Please.”

  She didn’t know exactly what she was asking, whether it was for him to stop teasing and come inside her, whether to keep teasing until she fractured into a million tiny shards on his lap. It hardly mattered. She wanted more. She was begging for more.

  “More.”

  His hand shifted between her legs, two fingers sliding through the hot slickness of her desire, teasing her opening with tickling touches before returning to press against her again. This time, it was three fingers, and the pressure at her entrance stretched Abby wide, threatening pain that didn’t quite materialize.

  “Rule? . . .” Her voice shivered from her, a question, a warning.

  He soothed her with the light brush of his lips against hers and pressed more firmly at her entrance. “Come, little one,” he urged, his voice dark and magic. “Take me inside. You can do it.”

  She swallowed a cry and dragged in a shaking breath. Blowing it out in a long, steady stream, she concentrated on forcing her muscles to relax and let her body ease down around his thick, probing fingers.

  “That’s it,” he praised, his voice all rasping heat and growling urgency. “Beautiful.”

  Abby wasn’t sure she felt beautiful. She felt tense and stretched and shivering on the edge of pleasure. Her nerves were on high alert, registering every shift, every slide, every nudge of his fingers inside her slick sheath. If his fingers filled her this full, she shuddered to think what it would feel like when his cock tunneled through the oversensitized flesh.

  A quick hiss of breath told her Rule had felt every ripple of that shudder. She forced her heavy eyelids up again and found him watching her with almost frightening intensity. She shivered again and watched as he softened, felt as his fingers stroked slowly and steadily inside her clinging body.

  “All right?”

  She managed a nod, barely.

  “Good girl. Hold on.”

  Before she could wonder what he meant, she felt his fingers thrust deep, high, and hard inside her. He kept them there, his gaze searching her face. He must have seen what he wanted, because his gaze flared with hungry satisfaction as his free hand slid from her bottom up over her hip, under her button-down blouse to curl around the vee of the opening, his fingers peeking out from between her breasts. Abby had one second to blink down at his fingers before they tightened and yanked down, sending buttons flying to the four corners of the room and pulling her body down hard onto his invading touch.

  Abby’s scream startled her. Rule just looked pleased.

  He brushed the sides of her blouse out of the way and tugged it off each arm before settling her hands back into their places on his shoulders. Certain she would drown if she loosened her grip for an instant, she clung to him as if he were a life raft. He tossed her blouse aside and looked down at the little plastic tab between her breasts that held her bra closed. The last tangible barrier between her and his devouring gaze.

  “Perfect.”

  With exaggerated care, so incongruous after the ruins he’d made of the rest of her clothing, Rule used his thumb and forefinger to flip open the tab and watched with apparent fascination as the two sides parted, peeling away from the insides of her breasts to expose soft, white skin.

  “Perfect,” he repeated.

  His fingers resumed a slow, steady thrusting between her legs, making her body feel as if it were melting into a little Abby-flavored puddle in his lap. She whimpered uncontrollably as he leaned down and nuzzled her bra away from each breast, baring her nipples one at a time like tiny treasure hoards. He greeted each with a slow, lazy glide of his tongue that made her clench around his fingers, before he finished removing her last garment with excruciating delicacy.

  Abby figured she was about three and a half seconds away from losing her mind.

  She leaned forward, sobbing as the movement drove his fingers higher inside her, and rested her sweat-dampened forehead against his chest. “Rule, please.”

  For one horrible moment, she thought he was going to ignore her. She thought he was going to continue to torture her until her heart gave out and she died of unfulfilled need in the office of the head of the Council of Others. Sure, she wouldn’t have had to witness the snickers of the crowd when they came to remove her body, but it was a fact she’d still rather avoid.

  Turning her head, she pressed one feverish cheek to his chest and closed her teeth over a smooth expanse of heavy muscle.

  That seemed to do the trick.

  With a smothered roar, Rule pulled his fingers from her body and yanked at the fastening of his jeans. In the space between heartbeats, he had the fabric open and out of the way and shifted his hands to close one around Abby’s hip, holding her steady against him. The other curled around his erection, his knuckles brushing against Abby’s clit and making her jump.

  “Don’t move,” he ordered, tense and breathless, as he set the head of his cock against her opening and began to push.

  Abby’s eyes widened and her spine tensed as she felt the width of his erection demanding entrance to her body. He felt even thicker than his fingers, hotter, smoother, and she wondered in a brief moment of panic if she had bitten off more than she could chew.

  Then Rule shifted his grip, both hands clamped down hard on her hips and drawing her slowly, steadily, inexorably, down upon him.

  All Abby could do was take a deep breath and relax.

  Their eyes locked, black on brown and blue, both intent as he forged his way deeper.

  Abby shuddered and froze, every muscle locked against the intrusion. She wanted him inside her so badly, but she couldn’t seem to relax enough to admit him. Frustrated, she whimpered and pressed hard against him.

  Rule’s fingers tightened on her hips. “Slowly.”

  She didn’t want slow. She wanted now. Biting into her lip to distract herself from the sharp sting between her legs, Abby firmed her thighs against his hips and pressed herself steadily down over him.

  He cursed, his fingers biting into her hips for a breathless heartbeat. She could almost see his struggle against the sensations of wet heat and tight welcome closing around him. If it was anything like what Abby was feeling, he probably couldn’t even remember his name just then.

  But she could. It was engraved in flaming script on her mind and someplace else that felt suspiciously near her heart.

  “Rule.”

  She whispered it, sobbed it, as he slid deeper, deeper, mind-bendingly deep until he came to rest pressing up against the very heart of her. Then she tightened her body around him and screamed it.

  “Rule!”

  If he made an answer, she didn’t hear. She leaned against him, trembling and aching, feeling the heat of him thr
ough the soft cotton of his shirt as he shifted his grip to pull her tighter against him. One hand pressed against the small of her back, guiding her hips in a sliding, rocking motion that sent him nudging over and over against a spot high inside her that made brilliant points of orange light burst and shimmer behind her eyelids.

  His other hand slid up the bare, supple length of her spine, tunneling through the weight of her silky-fine hair to settle possessively over the back of her neck. He cradled her with a touch that felt distinctly like a brand, but Abby didn’t care. She wanted him to be possessive, wanted to be possessed by him. If she could have sunk beneath his skin, she would have. She needed to be closer to him, to be part of him, the way she had begun to fear he was becoming a part of her.

  She opened her mouth to cry out, but the sound caught in her throat. She lacked the breath to force it out. He drove it from her with each deep, gliding stroke.

  Her muscles began to shake, pulled tight to the point of breaking. She could feel something looming over her like a tidal wave about to break. She knew when it struck, the undertow would drag her to the rocks and the sand, leaving her battered and bruised in the aftermath. She didn’t care.

  The last vestige of her strength went to forcing her eyes open one last time. Her gaze locked with Rule’s, saw the same dazed acceptance in his that she knew shone in hers. Aching, writhing, keening soft and high with the need, Abby leaned forward and spoke the only word she could remember. The only one that mattered.

  “Rule.”

  It was the crack in the dike. With a roar, he crushed her against him, his fingers digging into her flesh with bruising force. His thrusts battered at her, sending him almost painfully deep inside her, forcing out the memory of what her body had felt like when it had been separate from his. She felt his possessiveness, felt it and gloried in it. Her own fingers tightened on his shoulders and she knew she would fight just as hard to hold on to him. They had become interdependent, one burning, twisting, desperate entity, unable to sustain themselves apart.