by Mary Calmes
My eyes flicked to his. “What?”
“You heard me.”
I went still sitting there, staring. “When?”
“Last night.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“We haven’t been speaking.”
And we hadn’t. The sum of our communication had been me bottoming for him.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.” He chuckled. “Do I look hurt?”
But around his eyes, he did. “Yeah, kinda.”
His brows furrowed as he lifted his legs, pulling them free of my grip only to slide them over my right leg, down into my lap, and shove under my left thigh. “It was harder than I thought it was going to be, and his mate—a dark witch—she got away.”
I was listening, but I was also watching, and the way he was fidgeting, his hands restless, picking at the couch cushion, made me wonder what he wanted. “Are you scared of her?”
“Not of a witch,” he said, his eyes darting all over like he was getting ready to run.
“You wanna get in my lap?” I asked.
He didn’t answer; he just moved. He rolled forward, fast, like he uncoiled, and shifted over, straddling my thighs, his long legs folded on either side of my hips as he shoved his groin into my abdomen.
My head tipped back, and I looked up into his eyes. “Are you hurt?”
He shook his head. “Are you?”
“From what, a little rough sex?”
He cleared his throat. “It was necessary.”
“It wasn’t necessary. It’s your kink, and you loved it, and you would have gone on loving it if I would have—”
“No.” He caught his breath, his fingers lifting, reaching, sliding over my chin to my jaw until he had my face captured in his hands and was staring down into my face.
I took hold of his wrists, realizing suddenly that the eyes that I had found so ferocious and feral were now soft and simmering with need.
“Jackson.” He whimpered.
I lifted my head and he bent and took absolute possession of my lips. The whine that came out of him was heartbreaking, and he kissed me like it was the only thing in the world he wanted to do. All the hunger and need and craving was still there, but now it was tempered with a new, shivering anticipation that I felt tumble through me.
He wasn’t pawing at me, pulling, or trying to rip off my clothes; he was instead intent only on my mouth, licking, sucking, his tongue pressing against mine, one kiss flowing to the next and the next, creating a rising pool of need in me.
I’d had no idea he would taste so good.
When I finally pulled back, breaking the kiss, he leaned forward to recapture my mouth.
“I wanna talk to you.”
“Why?” He was breathless, hands on my shoulders, as he ground his mouth back down over mine, kissing me deep. His moan a second later was very sexy.
My hands slid the length of his arms, over bulging biceps and triceps to muscular shoulders, tracing his deltoids, marveling at the definition. The man was toned and beautiful, his frame strong and powerful, and having him in my lap was pure pleasure. My body was definitely ready to play.
He slid his wet, swollen lips from mine and looked down at me with heavy-lidded eyes.
“You’re so pretty, Raph.” I smiled.
He lifted his arms, and I pulled the T-shirt up over his head, revealing a broad, carved chest, dark-brown pierced nipples, a washboard stomach, and sexy lines on each side of his stomach that I traced with my fingers.
He jolted under my touch.
“You just expect to come over here and get laid?” I asked, leaning forward without even thinking about it, pressing my lips to his hot bronze skin.
“Oh, Jackson, please.” His breath caught as he buried his hands in my hair.
I pushed up, and he made the most amazing noise at the same time he pressed his crease down over the hard bulge in my sweats.
“Wait.” I looked up, confused. “You’re a top.”
He shook his head. “I’m whatever I want, just like you, so could you… please?”
I let out a deep breath as I saw how red-rimmed his eyes were, how hard he was working to hold himself together, and how the slight tremble was giving him away.
“Would you come get in my bed?”
He fell forward, arms wrapped around my neck, face buried down in my shoulder, and just breathed.
I felt the shudder run through him, felt him surrender, and felt the wall collapse. The faith he had to have, his belief that in this vulnerable state I would not attack him—I was humbled.
With the taste of him in my mouth, the warmth of his touch on my skin, and the deep sound of his exhale, I grabbed him tight, one hand on the back of his head, the other on the small of his back, anchoring him to me.
“Don’t let me go.” He spoke the words onto my skin. “Just keep me.”
Amazing.
If there was anyone more stupid than me, I had no idea who that could be. The man in my arms had been right in front of me for months, waiting, watching, mine for the taking, and I had been crying over a man who didn’t want me anymore. He had taken chances for me, killed for me, stood between me and death, and still I had persisted in not seeing him. And then when he had me, just a part of me that I would give him, because I would not recognize goodness in myself, he had met me, blow for blow, with only the cruelty and violence that I thought I deserved. But truly, in his deepest, most secret heart, the man wanted to be loved and cherished and to simply belong to me.
“I’m an idiot,” I told him.
“Yes,” he said, pressing even closer to me, his legs tightening.
I smoothed my hands slowly over his thighs because I really wanted to shove them down the back of his pants and grab his ass hard. It was a raw need that I couldn’t shake.
“Get up,” I ordered him, my voice deep, commanding.
His eyes narrowed, suddenly heavy-lidded, as he clasped his hands above his head, stretching his rippling muscles and smooth bronze skin for me just in case I was stupid enough to not see him.
“I get it, asshole,” I growled. “You’re a god, and I’m a clueless mortal.”
“Good,” he breathed out, rising up off of me in a seamless, fluid motion.
I rose beside him, leaned in, kissed his cheek, and was rewarded with a smile that would melt butter. “Just c’mere.”
When I reached for his hand, he was there to take mine and hold tight. Halfway down the hall, he shoved me into the wall, ground up against me, and pressed his groin to the inside of my thigh. His hands went to my waist, burrowing up under my T-shirt.
“God, your skin is so hot,” he groaned, forcing my head back against the wall, his lips on my throat.
His mouth sealed to my skin felt so much better than good. I couldn’t help jolting under him.
“You like me all over you.”
There was no denying it, and as his hands moved higher, circling my pebbling nipples before he pinched them, a hard throb of desire washed through me.
“Jackson,” he murmured.
I bent and kissed him, the deep whimper from the back of his throat making me smile against his lips. I put my hands on his face, holding him, and devoured his mouth. My tongue tangled with his, sliding over his, sucking, licking, and pushing, seeking dominance.
Walking him backward, I eased him through the doorway of my bedroom and then tore my mouth from his at the same time I tackled him, driving him down under me onto my bed.
My bed.
I had never thought I would get the man in my bed. I never thought I would want him there.
“What was that?” He was laughing, and the sound was deep and husky.
I loved the deep lines around his eyes, the smile that lit his face, and the way his hands slid up my thighs. He enjoyed touching me, just the simple act, and I had missed that, as well.
“You’re mine,” I growled, and the way his eyes fluttered shut, the way he savored the declaration, was anoth
er epiphany.
I reached for his belt buckle, and wonder of wonders, the man was ticklish.
“Big, bad-ass demon tracker,” I muttered as he giggled, rolling off the bed so I had more leverage to yank off his jeans and the boxers underneath. They had blue stripes.
“Cute,” I told him.
He flipped me off but gasped in the middle of his show of bravado as I dropped to my knees beside the bed and took the enormous uncut penis that had been inside me so many times down the back of my throat.
He had no idea what he’d been missing. I gave head like a rock star.
“Jackson!”
Oh yes.
“Jacks… baby,” he groaned, his hands in my hair. “Your beard feels amazing.”
Yet another sensation he had been missing out on.
The mantra of my name began.
I wrapped one hand under my mouth; the other went to his balls as I coated him, sucked, smiling around his leaking shaft, hearing his breath catch in his chest. I made the suction strong, let him feel my tongue swirling over the head, down the side and up, my lips sliding fast and fierce. When I raised my eyes to his, I saw his mouth open in a frozen gasp, saw the bliss on his face and how clouded with passion his eyes were. I nearly came right there.
“Want you inside,” he begged me, hand in my hair, trying to get me to stop, tugging. “Need you inside. I claimed you. Please.”
I pointed to the drawer in the nightstand at the same time I let his saliva-coated shaft slip from between my lips.
He rolled over fast, and it was a treat to watch his perfect ass lifted in the air as he crawled across my bed. Finding the bottle, he scrambled back to me, handing it over before turning and getting into position on his hands and knees.
“Not a chance.”
He looked over his shoulder, and when he spoke, his voice was hoarse and full of sand. “Please, baby.”
“Come here.”
He didn’t understand and then suddenly did.
“Oh yes.” I grinned, noting the surprised expression. “You will look at me when we do this, the whole time. Do you understand?”
He nodded, but he was overwhelmed, and it was there on his face, in his eyes.
“Put your legs on my arms.”
He slid his icy feet up my chest and then scooted forward, his knees in the crooks of both elbows as I opened the bottle with a quick snap and dribbled cold, slippery gel into my palms. I warmed it in my hands and then fisted his rock-hard shaft that was straining for me.
“Feel good?” I asked as he arched up off the bed.
“Just turn me over and fuck me,” he pleaded.
“Look at me!”
His eyes flew open and locked with mine as I slid a finger deep inside him. The rapture on his face, the wince at the same time, was captivating. In seconds he was pushing down on my finger, begging for another. I complied fast, stroking his cock at the same time, scissoring my fingers inside him, letting him get used to the intrusion.
When he was squirming under me, trying to increase the pressure, I slid out of him, changing my angle, hands on the firm, round ass, spreading him, aligning my cock with his fluttering hole.
He lifted, inviting me, and I slid into him easily, burying myself to the hilt in his tight, quivering heat.
His back bowed, he raked claws through the sheets, and I smiled because my bedding was shredded. His eyes glowed bright topaz, inhuman, and when I saw the gaze full of me, only me, I eased out and plunged back down into him as hard as I could.
“Jackson, please… please.”
The panting, the growling whimper, and the muscles in his ass squeezing me so tight all worked together to drive me right out of my mind. I grabbed hold of his hips and hammered into him, pressing forward, spreading his legs apart.
I felt my body tighten, and then the orgasm surged through me, powerful and blinding, and there was not the quick flash of climax but the euphoria I got when it meant something, when it was a joining, when it was more than just sex and mutual satisfaction and instead love.
Love.
There was no way.
But when I filled his channel, when I was left sated and empty, he pulled me down on top of him, over his warm body, and wrapped arms and legs around me. He didn’t let me pull out; he told me I could stay inside of him forever.
“Oh yeah,” I said, my voice a low rumble in my chest. “You sure?”
“Very,” he promised, and I heard his complete and undeniable need.
I stayed where I was.
VIII
I COULD tell when I walked in that Ryan was surprised to see me. The look got even funnier a minute later when Raphael walked in behind me. His face went completely blank. Julian’s reception had been warmer, as always, and after he hugged me, he had gone ahead and hugged Raphael.
“What’re you guys drinking?” the hearth of my fellow warder asked us.
It was Phoebe’s idea. It was just an open house. Nothing important, nothing formal, just an “everyone come on by when you can drop by and say hello and see the new baby” party. Her voice on the phone had been upbeat, casual, but there was an underlying thread in her tone. I knew mom guilt when I heard it, still missed my own, so when she said it was up to me, show up or not, I heard the order clear as day.
My ass had better be there.
I figured I would multitask, unveil the new guy in my life and see the baby at the same time. I was looking for her in the house, and when I finally saw her, I was surprised at how wrung out she looked. She was still beautiful, but her radiance had dulled, her glow faded. And I understood, new baby and all, but after observing for a few minutes, I realized it was even more. The cherub from heaven, Gabriella, Gaby, immediately started wailing if anyone but her mother had her. As a result, Phoebe was holding her while she tried to eat and talk and visit with friends and family.
She had been so happy to see me, had chided me for not coming to the hospital, but understood, or thought she did, when she saw Raphael.
“That is one beautiful man you have there,” she told me when I took a seat beside her on the couch as she was trying to burp her daughter.
“Why did you go in the other room?” I asked her.
“When?”
“Just a little while ago.”
She thought a minute. “I was breast-feeding, you perv.” She giggled, reaching out to run a hand over my cheek. “And you should get rid of this beard of yours and cut your hair. What are you hiding from?”
I ran the backs of my knuckles up the side of my face over the close-cropped hair. “A man with a beard and mustache is trustworthy; a man with a goatee is scary.”
“And who told you this?”
“I think I read it on the Internet.”
“Uh-huh.” She wasn’t listening, staring at Raphael as he crossed the room to us instead. “Your man is making Ryan really twitchy.”
“I know.”
“You’re enjoying it.”
“Just a little.”
“But why?”
“Why do I enjoy annoying Ryan?”
“No, I get that. Why does Raphael freak him out?”
“It’s because he’s a kyrie.”
“A what?”
“Demonic bounty hunter,” I told her.
“Just like you.”
“I don’t hunt, warders don’t, we protect, and I’m human and he’s not.”
“Really.” Her face lit up.
She watched way, way too much TV.
When Raphael sat down beside me, his hand went immediately to my knee.
“Aww.” Phoebe sighed, and then her eyes popped open. “Crap.”
“Crap what?”
“Crap, I’m supposed to call my sister and give her directions to the sushi place. She’s picking up sashimi and the edamame for—”
“Eda-what?” I asked.
“Soybeans,” Raphael educated me.
Oh. It was food. “We can go grab it for you,” I offered.
“No,” she said, getting up and presenting her daughter to me. “I know she’s fussing, but just hold on to her until—”
“No no no,” I told her. “Just—”
“I’ll hold her,” Raphael said confidently, rising up out of the seat and taking the squirming infant like he did it every day of his life. He put the blanket over his shoulder and then gently tucked the baby against it, patting her back softly.
I was stunned.
Phoebe was stunned.
Gaby was not stunned. She burped, scrunched up her face, blew out a tiny baby fart, yawned, stretched, and fell asleep.
“Holy crap,” Phoebe said flatly.
“No poop, just gas,” Raphael corrected her.
“No, I mean—holy crap, she’s not screaming.”
“Oh.” He was unimpressed. “I didn’t think babies cried if you held ’em.”
She scoffed.
We drew spectators.
Cash was there, and so were Ryan and Julian, and moments later, Phoebe’s mother, Lila. She volunteered to put Gabriella down in her crib and went to take her before anyone could say a word. The second she put her hands on the infant, the little girl squawked.
Grandma let go like Gabriella was the hot potato in the kid’s game.
Cash tried with the same result.
All eyes in the small group were on Raphael.
“What?”
“You and the baby.” I grinned up from where I was still sitting on the couch.
“C’mon, there’s nothing safer than a bounty hunter that can kill demons,” he told me. “And she must know. Babies know who to trust.”
It was so sweet what he said, so gentle and—
“What did he say?” Phoebe’s mother asked.
Crap.
“What’d I say?” The man was at a complete loss.
I bumped his knee with my foot. “I can’t take you anywhere.”
His smile, because I had touched him, was brilliant, and Phoebe finally saw the fangs. “Awesome,” she breathed out.
“He has your child,” Cash reminded his wife.
“And what’s he gonna do, eat her?”
Ryan looked at her in complete astonishment.
“You won’t, will you?” Phoebe asked Raphael.
“Kyries don’t eat babies, just full-grown men.”
