by Jenn Stark
She lifted those hands, and he watched in almost stunned fascination as she pressed them to her breasts.
The moment Warrick felt the soft, heavy weight of her breasts in his palms, he exhaled a ragged breath, surprised to realize he’d not allowed even the flow of oxygen to interrupt that moment. He palmed Maria’s breasts, squeezing them gently, and she gave a soft, strangled moan of her own, her eyelids fluttering shut. She swayed toward him, her lips parted, and as she lifted herself up on her tiptoes, he bent down, his hold firming on her breasts as he brushed her lips with his. She tasted exactly like he remembered, a mixture of salty and sweet, blood and heat and sky, and Warrick felt his own need redoubling. She leaned into him, her hands dropping once more to cup his ass, and he hissed against her mouth.
Maria didn’t stop, didn’t slow the steady palpating rhythm of her palms, but she pulled back enough to stare at him, her eyes wide and hot, her skin glistening with the spray of hot water. The movement of her leaning back tilted her hips forward, and Warrick gritted his teeth as she pressed his erection into the sensual curve of her belly, her core radiating heat.
“Do you want…this?” she asked, pulling him in close to her. It wasn’t the question of a seductress. It was honest and straightforward and unflinching, and Warrick’s response was barely more than a gasp.
“I want it,” he managed. “But I’m a demon, Maria.”
“I know what you are.”
He winced. She didn’t. She couldn’t, not really. And yet he wasn’t strong enough to show her the truth…was definitely not strong enough to deny her.
“Then you should know you are in complete—control,” he said, gritting his teeth as another surge of desire shot through him. “You can ask anything of me, and I will give freely—not that you can compel me, no.” He moaned, seeing the flicker of worry that skated across her eyes while her hands continued to roam along his back, his buttocks, his thighs. “It’s simply that you…drive. The process. That it is your choice first.”
She chuckled, the sound one of such feminine power that he would never tire of hearing of it. “Then let me be as clear as I possibly can,” Maria said, stepping back from Warrick far enough that her hand could reach between them, her fingers encircling his thick shaft. She squeezed, hard, and he hissed a strangled breath. “I don’t care that you’re a demon. I see you. I want you. And if you’re willing, I’d like you to make love to me, Warrick, wherever, however, and doing whatever you want.”
I see you. She didn’t, he knew. She didn’t, and yet…
Warrick paused another precious second more, his gaze searching hers almost desperately, his pulse pounding, his cock in her hand seeming to swell yet further in response to her slow, rhythmic squeeze—
Then he grabbed her.
Chapter Fifteen
Maria had never felt so close to playing with fire as she did this moment—and she’d never felt so alive either. As Warrick lunged at her, she stepped into his embrace, reveling in his strength as he wrapped his arms around her, lifting her high and pressing her hard against the shower wall. His mouth claimed hers with the intensity of a brand, his weight supporting her as she pressed back into him, wanting him closer, so much closer, wanting to feel every part of him against her skin.
She lifted her hands and tangled them in his hair, causing him to growl against her, a feral, almost primal groan of demanding need. A moment later, he wrenched away, blindly staring around the shower, then swung her to the facing wall where he could push her flat while she still stood, brace her and slide down her body, his mouth teasing, tasting…tormenting.
“Warrick,” Maria moaned as his mouth found the hardened peak of her breast, the responding cry of her own need melting the last vestige of her restraint. Once again, she twisted her fingers in his hair as he closed his mouth around her, gently tightening his teeth and then sucking hard enough that Maria’s back arched in reflexive response. One of her hands fell to his shoulder, but Warrick wasn’t finished, turning his attention to her other breast as his right hand lifted to palm the first, squeezing and kneading, the twin spikes of sensation making Maria gasp. How long had it been since anyone had touched her, let alone spurred her to such heights of exquisite sensation? How long had it been since she’d allowed anyone so close, so intimately close?
As if Warrick could hear her thoughts, he sighed against her, his body shivering despite the heat surrounding him. And then, so quickly Maria felt she was being carried along on a dream, his mouth dropped farther to skate along her waist, her hips, arcing toward the part of her that was practically throbbing in panicked desire. Will he stop, will he continue? What do I really want? Is he really going to—
“Warrick!” Maria gasped, her eyes snapping open as the first touch of his tongue slipped along the most intimate part of her body, laving the sensitive folds. She gripped his shoulders, but she might as well have been trying to move a mountain. She heard—felt him whisper words of reassurance against her, and though she had no idea what he was saying, his hands on her hips steadied her, his mouth shifted to her inner thigh, letting her catch her breath, letting her heart rate drop, letting her—
Just that quickly, Warrick returned, and Maria’s need flared even more hotly as he danced his tongue along the tight nub of nerves that was now on high alert. She didn’t want to break, didn’t want to tumble so quickly into the flood of orgasm, but he seemed to read her body like a map. Her every shift, every tremor, taught him something new, and every subsequent touch made Maria’s breath hiccup, her heart stutter.
“Please,” she moaned, and once again, she didn’t know what she was asking for, until Warrick’s hand slid from her hip to ease over her thigh, sliding up between her legs. Then, as he licked her with a long, intimate stroke, she felt the pressure of a finger at her entrance. With another sensual flick of his tongue, he slipped the finger into her. Then a second one. And then as his tongue circled and flicked, he—
“Oh…” Maria couldn’t breathe, could barely think as she tumbled over the abyss, the orgasm that had been building suddenly shooting her up and over the edge in a burst of crazed sensation. She convulsed against him as he pulled her away from the wall and wrapped a powerful arm around her body, steadying her on her feet even as her legs threatened to give way.
“I’ve got you, I’ve got you,” he gritted out, speaking with so much conviction that Maria had no choice but to believe him. When she finally recovered her breath, however, she realized he had not withdrawn from her, and even as the initial paroxysms of her orgasm receded, he moved his fingers subtly, sensually, and she was building anew, building and then racing as his mouth dropped once more to the vee between her legs, his lips moving to speak words she had no hope of hearing against her frail flesh. Blood raced out of her head so quickly, she couldn’t think, couldn’t reason, could only feel as the second wave crested higher and higher—and then it didn’t so much as break as explode into oblivion, shattering her as well into a hundred thousand crystals of white-hot light.
She sagged forward, leaning heavily on Warrick as he stood in one fluid motion, his warm arms cuddling her close. “Beautiful,” he murmured against her hair, and Maria didn’t know whether she should laugh or cry, the onslaught of her emotions too fraught, too fragile for her to fully understand. Her spasms of need gradually relaxed into more gentle trembling, but Warrick’s embrace never loosened, his arms steady around her as she leaned into his strength, his certainty.
Finally, she lifted her head, and his mouth was right there, meeting her more than halfway and somehow sending a new sensual thrill through her as his lips met hers. It suddenly felt so—right, standing here, with a man she’d barely met, in a room she hadn’t known existed—
Not a man, her mind urged her to remember. A demon. A demon! That seemed like it should be bad…very bad. And yet, Warrick had come when she’d summoned him, had protected her time and time again. And all the fears she knew she should be having were distant…so distant while his
arms were holding her close, his mouth was pressed against hers, his heart was thundering in time with her own as the evidence of Warrick’s own need pressed against the soft sensitive skin of her abs.
She reached for him, certain her intentions were plain, and Warrick slid his mouth alongside hers, consuming her with a fiery trail of kisses as he dragged his lips to her cheeks, her brow, her temple. He reached the edge of her ear and breathed out harshly, his whispered words sounding choked. “I—I cannot harm you with disease or illness. But I…” He swallowed, his body bucking hard against hers. “No demon is sterile, no matter how forsaken.”
“It’s okay—it’s okay. I’m covered.” Maria could hardly wrap her head around having this conversation. She’d barely had sex with a man in years, yet here she was with a perfect stranger. What was she doing?
She didn’t know, and right now, she didn’t care. She was on birth control, had been since she’d been a teenager, never willing to trust that she would make the right decision when the time came, and definitely sure that she didn’t want to trust a man to tell the truth about something so important, even a worthy man. “I’m—you don’t have to worry about that. You won’t make me pregnant.”
Warrick narrowed his eyes at her but accepted her answer. It seemed he could do nothing other than accept it, his jaw set tight, his eyes hard with desire. Maria shifted, and his body bucked again. He straightened, still holding her. She nodded, and he lifted her again, leaning her against the wall as her legs settled naturally around his hips. They were perfectly proportioned, she thought, their bodies fitting together as if they had been made for each other.
Warrick sought Maria’s gaze, his eyes wild, but she used the advantage of her leverage to adjust her body until his shaft was poised at her entrance, her body practically dissolving into a flood of heat. She tilted her hips forward, inviting him inside her, but he stood rock still, not even his fingers twitching, as if he would break her, as if he would surely do her harm.
“I want this,” she said again, her gaze never leaving his. And then, when he still didn’t make a move, she slid him deep inside her.
Warrick couldn’t breathe. Didn’t want to breathe. Didn’t want to do anything but hold Maria close and preserve this moment for another eternity. The pressure of her tight channel around him was the most exquisite torture he’d endured in centuries upon centuries of finely tuned pain, and he reveled in it, his body convulsing as she contracted around his cock. Positioned the way she was, her legs resting on his hipbones, her ankles crossed behind his back, he could thrust himself so deeply inside her that he was seated all the way to the hilt. And she took him too, welcomed him into her body and hummed with purely female satisfaction—which in turn only made his cock swell further with his own desire.
She was going to kill him, he knew, and he was more than happy to have found this way to die.
“Maria,” he murmured again, only the word sounded different to his ears, too short, too abrupt, and when he pulled his head away to look at her, her eyes met his with a dreamy, unfocused look, as if she hadn’t fully heard him either, but she didn’t care. All he could do was focus on the way she felt as he slid deep into her, then pulled out, her core pulsing with molten fire. He could carry on like this for hours, he thought, and then Maria’s eyes cleared, her smile tipped into a satisfied smile, her skin warmed at the intensity of his stare.
“You like it?” she murmured.
“Like it…” Warrick understood the words, but he couldn’t quite grasp their meaning as she shifted and writhed over him, her body suddenly mobile. Her hips rotated, then began pumping in slow, rhythmic thrusts, and Warrick suddenly went from peacefully riding the wave of sensation to being caught up in a hurricane. His breath caught, his legs went rigid, and his grip firmed on Maria’s hips.
“Careful,” he muttered.
“I don’t want to be careful,” she said, and the frank honesty of her reply somehow managed to jack him up further. “I want to ride you as long as you can stand it, and then I want to feel you come inside me, Warrick. Can you do that?”
Warrick’s gaze narrowed to a pinprick. Had she really just said that, or had he imagined it? But as if to punctuate her request, Maria’s hips began to grind into him again, her hands sliding down his waist to rest on the curve of his ass, pulling him into her in time to his own thrusts. The pressure in his cock grew impossibly heavy, and his breath now came in shuddering, explosive breaths. She laughed then, the sound low and hungry and female, calling to the very basest point of Warrick’s nature—and to its highest point too. He couldn’t wrap his head around that at this exact moment, but that didn’t change the fundamental nature of its truth. Maria wanted him—all of him, pouring into her completely. He could understand that, consider it dispassionately, distance himself from it—
They continued like that, his need ratcheting up, cresting then ebbing then building anew, as their bodies twined together, their faces touching, their lips, their foreheads, their hands. Then, when he’d thought he could take anything she could give and still maintain control, Maria leaned forward, her body arching into his, straining both his cock and his control as she placed her head against his temple, her hot, sweet breath fanning against his ear.
“Come inside me, Warrick,” she ordered.
He could no more deny her than he could deny his own next breath, and with a rumbling growl, Warrick slapped his hands hard on Maria’s hips, lifting her high as he thrust into her, pulsing once—twice—and staggering under the wave of satisfaction as Maria cried out in surprise, her own body jerking with telltale force as Warrick finally tumbled over the edge and into the oblivion of orgasm.
His sight went white again, but this time not because of the pain, the agony of a horrific memory buried deep in his past, but for the visceral rapture of the present, the heady rush of release so powerful, it nearly made him roar. It was only the last shred of awareness about where he was and with who that forced him to remember himself long enough to keep his essential nature from shining through.
As it was, though, he half careened against the facing wall of the shower, his body still pulsing inside Maria’s as his mind gradually cleared. He eased her free again, helped her find her feet, but he wouldn’t—couldn’t let go of her. They stood under the shower for a long time, their breathing gradually slowing, their bodies loose and lax under the falling water of the shower. The water that was still steaming hot, sizzling as it struck him and turning instantly to steam, Warrick realized.
Maria realized it too. Her eyes grew wide as she watched the tiny rivulets disappear into smoke. “Are you doing that on purpose?”
Warrick grunted, a genuine smile stretching his lips as he cradled Maria close. He bent his head and brushed a kiss over her head, wondering at the events of the last forty-eight hours. Too much had changed too quickly for him not to be at least somewhat wary…but wary of what, or who? He had thought his heart hardened long ago against any temptation a human could offer, yet here he was, standing naked and sated and unable to conjure up even the slightest remorse for the act.
They rocked together then, timing seeming to vanish for this precious moment, everything seeming to vanish outside the water’s spray.
“So…” Maria said in his arms, her voice light, teasing. “This demon thing. Beyond showing up when I need you, and the extra special healing powers, is there anything I should know?”
“Know?” Warrick repeated. “What do you mean?”
“Like, can you conjure up a pizza?”
He blinked. “A what?”
“A pizza? Or, say, a calzone. I could really go for a calzone right now. No?” She leaned her head back against him, lifting her gaze. “What about supernatural speed? I think you’ve got the whole strength thing down, but—I need to make sure I know all your superpowers.”
He couldn’t help himself, he laughed, and she laughed too. It seemed so—natural, he realized. As if he’d been born and lived all his life to stand
here in this space with this human woman, as if this had been part of the plan all along.
As if he had been created only for her.
“I’ve never taken stock of my abilities,” he said, truthfully. “I’ve only done what was asked of me, what was needed.”
“Well then, we’ll have to draw up a list.” She rose up on her toes, kissed him. And for a long, blissful moment, he simply kissed her back, unable to keep from sighing when she finally pulled away.
“You good?” Maria asked the question warily, no doubt sensing Warrick’s thoughts—sensing them but not able to penetrate them, not in the way he could do with humans…any humans except those who’d taken care to ward themselves. And Maria still wore the cross around her neck, he noticed. He wasn’t even sure she was aware she did.
“I’m good,” he rumbled. He reached out and turned off the faucets, then guided Maria out of the shower. He reluctantly let her go. To give his hands and arms suddenly aching for the loss of her something to do, he grabbed up a fistful of towels and shoved them at her.
She chuckled, taking the pile, then handing half of them back. “Unless you’re planning to evaporate all that water on you from the inside out, you need these too.”
They toweled off, and she once more wrapped herself in the bathrobe, while Warrick opted for the towel wrapped around his hips. He eyed his clothing, dropped in a heap on the bathroom floor, but the thought of anything next to his skin except for Maria was too much to bear. She was at the counter, opening a bottle of water when he emerged. The sight of her there, damp and clean and wrapped not only in a bathrobe but in the smug aftermath of physical pleasure, jacked him up again. He was grateful for the towel that he’d settled around himself as he paused, watching her from a safe distance as she padded toward the sitting room. He still didn’t move as she sank onto the couch, instead pulling in long, slow breaths, exhaling with equal steadiness.
