It wasn’t the kind of temptation he could resist for long, so he gritted his teeth and lowered his mouth to her neck. “Do you want it now, sweetheart? Tell me what you want.”
Her gaze snapped to his, and red eyes stared up at him even as power prickled along his skin. Her voice was nothing but a husky whisper, but he could sense her sudden fear. “Do you still want me like this? Can you love a demon?”
She expected him to shy away, to say no. He nipped her lower lip and kissed her softly. “You’re beautiful, baby. Fucking gorgeous.”
When she bit him there was nothing soft about it. Her teeth caught his lip and she hissed out a low, desperate breath. “Fuck her. Fuck us. It’s been so long since I let her out. She needs -- she needs --” A tiny hitching breath left her, and he caught another flash of vision, this time tinged with an edge of shame. Her fingers curved around the footboard, his hand tangled in her hair as he rode her hard and out of control.
His cock twitched, and he groaned as he pulled his fingers away. “I’ll give it to you now, Iris.” Zack rolled away and came to his feet beside the bed. His boxers hit the floor, and he gripped his shaft with a hand still slick from her pussy. “On your knees.”
Her moan sounded both relieved and aroused. She was a little clumsy as she crawled to her knees and reached for the headboard.
Zack slipped onto the bed behind her and teased her by rubbing against her ass. “I’m going to start slow. Then, when you’re begging, I’ll ride you. Fast and hard.” He didn’t know how long he could keep that up, but he’d waited too long to screw things up now. Not when she was so close to being his.
“Fast and hard,” she echoed, her voice shaking. She arched her back and rocked into him with a needy sound. “I want you so much.”
He leaned over her, his hands on either side of hers, and slid into her with a slow, steady thrust. “Tell me how. Why.”
“I --” The word disappeared in a low moan. Her body was every bit as tight as he’d imagined, but she pushed back eagerly as if she couldn’t get enough of him. She made a tiny little sound of pleasure, then twisted her head so his lips rested against her cheek. “It’s because… because of the way you look at me.”
Zack groaned against her skin and fought the urge to pull back and plunge into her. “How do I look at you?”
“Like you’ll never let anything hurt me.”
“I won’t.” He whispered the words into her ear and then bit the lobe. “Nothing can touch you. You’re mine.”
He felt her shiver underneath him. “You don’t think it’s wrong for me to want these things. Everyone always -- always told me --”
“It’s who I am, Iris.” He straightened and gripped her hip with one hand. The other he twisted slowly into her silky hair. “Does this feel wrong?” He yanked her back to meet one quick, rough thrust.
Her back arched as she cried out, answering his question without saying a word. “That’s right,” he whispered. “It feels right. This is who I am, baby. How I was made.”
“I want you like this.” Her voice shook, heavy with pleasure and a raw desperation. “I need you like this.”
“Damn straight you do.” Her submission threatened his already brittle control. Zack rubbed his hand up her back and forced himself to rock gently as he growled, “Say it again.”
“Need you, Zack. Need --” A gasp, and her body clenched around him. “Oh God, God it’s too good…”
It was all too much. The feel and scent of her overwhelmed him, and he plunged into her again. She screamed this time, something that sounded like his name, and his next thrust drove her down to the bed. He set a hard pace, fast and demanding, knowing her need would answer his own.
And it did. The back of her head slammed into his shoulder. The grip of her body around his cock grew impossibly tighter, but even that wasn’t as hot as the breathless, panting way she whispered his name before she fell apart underneath him, all desperate noise and absolute surrender.
Her orgasm spurred his own. Wet heat rippled around his cock, and her cries of fulfillment echoed in his ears. He thrust harder, slamming into her, his teeth scoring her skin as she dragged him down into an abyss of pleasure.
She was still trembling when he finally stilled, her soft whimpers filling the room and mingling with the sound of their frantically beating hearts. “Zack…” His name sounded hoarse and unsteady, but full of such satisfaction it sent a rush of warmth through him.
Mine. He’d taken her, claimed her; there could be no doubt about that. “Are you all right?” He didn’t move.
“Yes.” She turned just enough to rub her cheek against his jaw. “You can’t hurt me by mistake. I’m one of the weaker demons, but I’m still… sturdy.”
Zack smiled as he nuzzled her face and neck. “I didn’t necessarily mean physically.”
“You’re the one who found out that the sweet, shy social worker next door wants you to tie her up and do dirty, wrong things to her sometimes.” The light, sleepy tone of voice couldn’t hide the same tense shame that had plagued her from the moment he’d set foot in her apartment.
“Mmhmm.” He rolled carefully to his side and kissed her shoulder. “I’m also the one who thinks those dirty, wrong things… aren’t.”
She turned her head and rested her cheek against her arm, and her eyes drifted open. “I was raised in a different time. And as a human. I don’t think I’ve adjusted to the changes in the world as well as people like Leo.”
Zack kept his arm draped over her, his hand tracing sweeping figure-eights on her back. “Is that your way of explaining that, even though you’re a demon, you’re something of a prude?”
Color rose in her cheeks. “Maybe. But it’s not just that. Everything moves so fast now. The computers and all of the technology… sometimes I drive them crazy at work because I can barely access my files.”
His chest ached for her, for the confusion that must come with watching the world spin crazily around you. “Starting to feel the years, baby?”
“I think I just need time to catch my breath.” The corner of her mouth lifted in a tiny, shy little smile. “Leo kept trying to give me money. I had to take it at first, but I wanted to learn how to take care of myself. I was mostly doing it, too, until you came along and started feeding me.”
The soft bow of her lower lip beckoned, and Zack kissed her quickly. “Uh-uh. You’ve been feeding me. I just bought the stuff.”
“I liked eating dinner with you.” The color in her cheeks deepened as she lifted a hand and brushed her fingers lightly over his lips. “You wouldn’t believe the things I wanted to do every time you came over here.”
“I think I would.” He tapped his temple with one finger. “I got the gist in those mental pictures you were sending me. And let me just say…” He grinned slowly, letting every bit of his approval show. “I’ll get right on all of it.”
That earned him a smile, an honest one this time. “My bed’s not very comfortable, and the fridge is empty. If you wanted…” A tiny pause, but she seemed more nervous than ashamed now. “Maybe we could go over to your place? I could make us something to eat, and maybe… maybe stay the night?”
In his bed. Zack nipped at her lip and laughed. “Get some clothes on. Hell, I’ll even make sure the hallway’s clear if you want to dash over there naked.”
Iris sat up with a sleepy laugh and moved toward the edge of the bed. “No, I don’t think so. I have a nightgown, but you’ll probably laugh at it. I… bought it a long time ago.”
“All I care about is what’s under it.” He rolled to his feet and looked for his pants.
Her feet whispered against the cool hardwood floors as she moved toward the bedroom door. “I’ll be right back. Or I can meet you over there in a few minutes, if you want.”
“I’ll wait for you outside.” He let his gaze roam her naked body and cursed the arousal that threatened again. If he stayed longer, he’d bend her over the bed again. “Uh… yeah. Or at my place. In a few m
inutes.”
She paused and glanced at him over her shoulder, another of those wicked little smiles curling her lips. “I won’t take long.”
Zack clenched his hands around his pants and yanked them on. He didn’t bother to find his shirt or shoes, just dug his keys out of his pocket and dashed down the hall.
His apartment was neat, at least, not that he gave a damn. All he cared about was the fulfillment of a fantasy -- Iris, naked in his bed, moaning his name while he made love to her.
He stood at the end of his bed, hands shaking, unsure of whether he should get on the bed or wait for her. Fucking hell, Elliott. You’re thirty-five, not seventeen. Snap out of it.
“Zack?” He could hear her bare feet against the floor as she stepped into the room behind him. “I locked your door behind me.”
She was wearing some kind of demure silk gown that shouldn’t have been as sexy as the smooth expanse of her naked skin. But his heart stuttered, and he nodded stupidly. “Okay.”
“Okay.” She reached out a hand and pressed it lightly against his chest. “Are you sure you want me here?”
He laid his hand over hers, trapping it against his skin. “Iris, all I’ve ever wanted is you here.”
“For tonight?” Her eyes drifted shut. “It would be too easy to never leave. You… you need to tell me.”
He moved her hand over until it rested over his pounding heart. “I don’t want you to leave. Not after a night. Not for a long time.”
She moved slowly, her hand slipping out from under his as she sank to her knees. Her hands came to rest on the waistband of his pants as she opened her eyes and stared up at him. “Not for a long time,” she agreed in a whisper.
There were a thousand things Zack wanted to do to her. “I don’t know where to start,” he told her self-consciously. “Everything feels so different with you, and I still can’t really believe you’re here.”
“I’m here.” She tugged at the button on his pants and smiled when it came loose. “And I have a few ideas about where to start.”
“Tell me about them.” Zack slipped his fingers into her hair. “You showed me the hot fucking. What did you imagine when you thought of taking it slow?”
“Do you want me to tell you?” Her fingers got his pants open and she stroked her fingertips lightly along his cock. “Or can I show you?”
He couldn’t tear his gaze from her face, even as he gasped and thrust against her hand. “Whatever you want, sweetheart. Both. Anything.”
She closed her hand around the base of his cock, and her breath feathered over him as she spoke. “It starts like this. With me on my knees, your cock in my mouth. And you’re in control until I close my eyes…” Her eyelids fluttered shut. “And I do this.”
Her lips closed around the head of his cock as her magic flared. A vision took him, one of Iris in his bed, her wrists bound above her head and her voice rising in hoarse, needy whimpers as his tongue rasped over her clit.
The combined sensation of her hot mouth around his cock and her fantasy in his head stripped him of control, and a low groan ripped free of him. “Jesus Christ, Iris. Fucking hell.”
She pulled back and stroked him. “You’d have to tie me down, because I’m not very patient. I always want to go faster and harder, but you could stop me. You could make me feel every touch, every kiss. And when I couldn’t take it anymore…”
Her mouth returned, and this time the fantasy was of her on her side with Zack curled around her, joined but barely moving. One of his hands held both of hers trapped over her head, and the other slipped between her legs as he accentuated every slow rock with a teasing caress. His lips brushed her ear, and he whispered to her, whispered how much he wanted her, how he’d fuck her so slow and deep that she’d never want it to stop.
His head fell back with another curse and a raspy groan. If she didn’t stop, he was going to hit his knees. He gave her hair a firm tug and growled. “You know exactly what you’re doing to me, don’t you?”
She moaned and pulled her lips back again. “You said you wanted all of me. Can you handle all of me?”
“Could do it a lot better if I didn’t have to stay on my feet.”
“So put me where you want me.”
She felt slight and delicate when he lifted her in his arms and crossed to the bed. “Here.” Her dark hair spread out over his pillows when he lowered her to the mattress. “Look inside me again, Iris. See how badly I needed you here.”
Her fingers brushed his chest and settled over his heart as her eyes drifted shut. He felt the tingle of magic, and her lips parted on a soft noise, one of wonder and longing.
Zack kissed her eyelids, her cheeks, the corners of her mouth, and listened to her heart race in time with his. “I love you, Iris. Ianthe. Whatever you want me to call you.”
“Yours. I want you to call me yours.”
A familiar wave of emotion washed through him, lust and love and longing, along with a completely new, almost content, sort of possessiveness. “You’ve always been mine, Iris.” He began to gather the worn silk of her nightgown, baring one leg. “Always.”
She smiled slowly. “Leo told me a few years ago that the sort of sins that damned my soul are so common now that people hardly blink. Maybe he’s been right all along. Maybe…” Her eyes drifted open and she lifted her fingers to touch his lips. “Maybe you’re safe with me.”
“You can’t hurt me, baby.” And, even if she could, the hell of being without her would outweigh anything she’d possibly put him through. “I’m tough, and I know what’s right for me.”
“You’re tough.” Her fingers smoothed along his cheek and down his neck. “And you love me. Hundreds of years, and you’re the only man who’s ever loved me. You’re the only man I’ve ever loved.”
There was no way he was the first to love her, but it didn’t matter. He’d be the one who counted. The one she loved in return. “Kiss me, sweetheart.”
She curled her fingers around the back of his neck and dragged him into a hot, drowning kiss, a kiss that claimed him even as she gave herself to him with every soft whimper, with every eager movement.
His hand reached the top of her thigh, and he stroked his tongue over hers while his fingers searched and then slid inside her. She moaned into his mouth, and Zack steeled himself against the soft allure of her body. He could wait, all night if he had to, to make sure he’d drawn forth and exhausted every ounce of her pleasure.
Her body trembled as she tore her mouth from his and panted against his cheek. “You’ve seen everything I want. Tell me what you want. Tell me your fantasies.”
“This is all I want,” he rasped. “You, calling out my name when you come. Being inside you, feeling you around my cock…” Need shuddered through him, and he bit her neck. “Stay. That’s all I want.”
“Zack.” It was a whisper, soft and needy. Her breath tickled against his forehead as she rocked up against his hand and said it again, and a third time. She chanted his name as he lifted his thumb to rub her clit.
“Come.” He alternated gentle thrusts of his fingers with firm pressure on her clit, and gritted his teeth when her body tightened around his fingers.
She screamed his name when she came. Her head dug back against the pillow as her eyes squeezed shut, and her fingernails dug into his shoulders until they broke the skin.
Instinct took over, a drive more primal than rational, and Zack settled between her thighs. He pinned her wrists to the bed and thrust into her with a growl. He knew he must have looked wild, almost feral, and even after everything they’d shared that night, he half expected her to recoil.
Instead she moaned and dragged her legs up his sides, urging him deeper. Her eyes drifted open and he saw nothing there but acceptance, nothing but blind need. She licked her lips and spoke in a voice gone hoarse. “You don’t have to do this for me. I -- I think with you I’d even like soft and gentle.”
“This is what I like,” he panted, his arms trembling with the
effort his restraint cost him. “This is what it means to be mine, Iris.”
He heard her heart skip a beat as she offered him her throat in perfect, trusting submission. “Then give us both what we want. Let go.”
He closed his teeth on her neck with a tormented growl, then whispered against her skin. “I trust you, Iris.” And he did, with everything he was, and every bit of his heart.
He let go.
There was something vaguely sacrilegious about the realization that she’d finally found Heaven, and for once it wasn’t the fact that she was a demon. Zack’s fingers tightened around her wrists and she thought for a moment that she’d come just from the sheer thrill of being able to give up control to the man she loved and know he wouldn’t be hurt.
Zack drove into her with another growl. “Say it. Say you belong to me.”
The possession in his voice soothed all those dark places inside her that had yearned for this, the places that had never been satisfied by the fake submission she’d offered the string of men she’d corrupted over the years. “All -- all of me… All of me belongs to you.”
He lowered one hand to her leg and raised it higher. This time, when he plunged into her, it was deeper, sharper. “Again.”
It was hard to speak with her body trembling on the verge of another orgasm. This time she could only manage one word, but she let everything she felt show in her face as she whispered it. “Yours.”
“Fuck, Iris.” His lips descended on hers, wild and bruising, and his pace quickened. Every thrust came faster, harder, and his muscles tensed as his tongue swept her mouth.
She wanted to revel in it, to bask in the anticipation, but his next thrust snapped the tension inside her and scattered it to the wind. She’d never come so many times before, never come so hard or out of control, but she could feel every spasm as she screamed into his mouth and gave herself over to madness.
Zack closed his teeth on her neck as he froze and then shuddered over her, a low growl rising in his throat. He stayed like that, unmoving, though he braced his weight carefully on his arms. “Jesus Christ.”
Tequila Sunset (Last Call #4.5) Page 3
