The Unlikeable Demon Hunter

by Deborah Wilde

  I’d bet money that he was one of the Jewish men who said his morning prayer thanking God for not making him a woman with great sincerity and mean-spirited glee.

  It was a no brainer, then when asked if I had any questions for them, to pipe up, “How come you don’t bring some female rabbis into the fold?”

  Baruch shook his head at me, though his eyes danced in amusement.

  Rabbi Mandelbaum, showing great restraint by not declaring outright that that would happen over his dead body, explained that female rabbis weren’t really rabbis.

  “Pretty sure they are,” I said. “You know, on account of having the rabbinical title. It’s not something you can send away for on a matchbook. Or wait, can you, Rabbi Mandelbaum?” I asked in breathy sweetness.

  Baruch kicked my leg.

  The sexist jerk on the other end of the conference call then switched tactics, saying that the few rabbis that worked for the Brotherhood were all descendants of previous rabbis who’d been part of the organization.

  “Exactly.” I wanted to reach through the phone and throttle him. “You missed me as a potential Rasha. How many other women, rabbis and potentials both, have the Brotherhood missed? All those traditions weren’t rules. They were assumptions. Wrong assumptions. Plus, the name needs to go. Brotherhood is no longer applicable. I’m thinking–”

  Baruch leaned across the table to cut off my access to the speakerphone, wrapping up the conversation–in Hebrew. Once disconnected, he steepled his fingers together. “Tell me, are you trying to get on their bad side?”

  “Nope. It comes naturally.”

  “Nava.” His tone was pure warning.

  “Lady Shock and Awe, Tree Trunk,” I said brightly. “It’s the only way I know how to live.” Damn it! Ari had been right.

  23

  I gave up on the urban fantasy novel that had seemed so engaging a couple weeks ago, tossing my phone on the bed. Fictional supernatural beings failed to hold the same allure given my new career. Chances are Drio and Baruch would go home soon, leaving me with Kane, who was great. But how weird was it going to be living here with just the two of us? What if he was reassigned? How small was my world going to become? Who would train me? Sure, Rabbi Abrams would arrange for someone but I was attached to my Tree Trunk.

  This mattress was too hot. I kicked off my covers. Giving in to my loneliness-induced insomnia, I got up to get some water. Everyone was asleep, but I tiptoed down the stairs anyway wearing my black sleeveless nightgown that hit mid-thigh.

  An ajar door threw a slash of light into the hallway on the main floor. I veered away from my original destination of the kitchen and toward the door, because it was Rohan’s bedroom and I was curious.

  I knocked.

  “Yeah?” Rohan pulled his sweater up over his head, leaving him in a black button up shirt whose fit left very little to the imagination.

  I had a very active imagination.

  “You’re back.” I tore my eyes away from him to take in the space.

  The rest of us had rooms together upstairs, all in varying shades of beige, which I planned to paint soon. His room, however, already featured dark green walls with gorgeous black and white framed photography and warm wood furniture all bathed in the soft light of his bedside lamp.

  “What’s the deal?” I asked. “Me, the local, is in the institution special and you, the transient, gets VIP treatment? What’d you bribe Ms. Clara with?”

  One corner of his mouth quirked up. “We have an arrangement.” He lifted a small roller board suitcase off the bed, stashing it in his closet, allowing me a glimpse of his clothing arranged just shy of color-coded.

  “What kind of arrangement?” Okay, that came out sulkier than I’d intended but gawd, they’d be pretty if they hooked-up.

  He threw me a look that was far too shrewd.

  Seconds and now, please. I stepped into his room, shutting the door behind me. Then in a move I hoped looked sexy, pulled my nightgown over my head, pitching it to the floor.

  Silence, though Rohan did rake a very slow gaze over me.

  I leaned back against the door, my palms flat, pushing my rush of nerves into the cool wood and calculating how fast I could grab my nightgown in case I’d made a horrible mistake. “Tell me if I’m being presumptuous.”

  “About me wanting to fuck you?” He closed his eyes briefly, his “yeah, right” coming out on a rush of pent-up breath.

  Cuntessa woke up with a vengeance.

  Pushing Rohan onto the bed, I straddled him, rubbing over his very hard cock straining against his pants.

  Rohan gripped my hip, gently moving me off of him.

  Here it came. His reasons why this was a bad idea and not going to happen. Instead, he leaned over to snap off the light. Moonlight streamed in through his blinds.

  Mental fist pump!

  “This time, we do this my way.” Rohan kneeled at my feet.

  “Works for me.” I spread my legs but he ignored my invitation to get in and get going.

  Cuntessa was not his destination. He took my arm, placing a kiss to the inside of my wrist, massaging his way up the skin with a combination of kisses and his fingertips.

  I watched him, a frown puckering my brow. No one had ever paid attention to my arms before. Guys tended to dive in to the sexytime body parts of tits and pussy. Not that that was necessarily successful but if I couldn’t will myself into a happy ending with those, what was the point of spending time on an arm?

  Rohan acted like those parts didn’t exist. He lay me back on his bed, sucking my big toe into his mouth.

  I jerked off the bed.

  “Should I stop?”

  “No.” I tried to explain my hesitation. “I’m not sure this is doing anything for me.”

  Rohan leaned in to lick my clit with a long, slow stroke. “Is this what you want?”

  In response, I opened my legs wider, leaning back on my elbows.

  He closed my legs. “Tough. Like I said. My way.”

  “Or not at all?”

  Smirking, he squatted back on the balls of his feet.

  Bah. I waved a hand at him. “Have at it.” My tone made it clear that I didn’t think he’d be all that successful doing this his way.

  “Turn off your brain.”

  “What?”

  He stared at me, impassively.

  I crossed one leg over the other. “Women think about stuff to help them get off.”

  “Not with me.”

  Head tilted, I raised my right eyebrow. “Wanna bet?”

  “You are not seriously going to fight me about getting you off so hard you can’t see straight just to make a point, are you?”

  I opened my mouth and then snapped it shut, because, yes, I had been about to do that.

  Moron. Cuntessa despaired.

  “Shut off everything except the sensation of being in my hands.”

  “What if your way isn’t working for me?”

  “I stop. Or,” he brushed a hand along my hip, “I have rope.” He waggled his eyebrows at me.

  I burst out laughing. “Yeah, right, Mr. Grey.”

  He pretended to look affronted. “Are you mocking me?”

  “Incessantly, though if you are a billionaire I’ll temper my snark to the occasional gibe.” I lay back against his mattress signaling my agreement to do this his way. But I was still tense, dreading orgasmic failure with Rohan. I bunched the pillowy softness of his blanket in my fists.

  “I dunno, Nava.” Rohan said, in a voice smooth as honey. “I think you’re bent that way.”

  “Come at me with a rope, buster, and find out.” Though the idea of tying him up held great appeal.

  “Turn.” He twirled a finger around and I flipped obediently onto my stomach, my left cheek pressed to his covers, figuring he was going to give me a massage to put me at ease.

  Nope. He trailed his finger over my body. That’s it. Again and again. He dipped into the hollow of my knee, gliding up along the inside of my thigh o
nly to veer away toward my hip.

  At first I found it ridiculous. But after a bit, his caress soothed me, my spine softening, my pliant self sinking deeper in the mattress. He lifted the hair off my back to expose my shoulder blades, writing my name on my back, my body shivering in delight and a small smile tugging my lips. A whisper of a caress, a leisurely stroke along my spine–I craved that single point of contact, his feather-light touch, never knowing where he’d abruptly leave off, only to commence stroking me somewhere else.

  Relaxation thrummed into arousal. My skin pulsed a split second behind his touch, my entire body sparking in desire, igniting a long, smoldering burn.

  “More,” I breathed, wanting anything, even him kissing my arm again.

  His hand stilled. “I told you,” he said, in a maddeningly calm voice, “my way.”

  “I have to keep silent?”

  He chuckled, the sound spiking my nipples into hard peaks. “You don’t like something, you want me to stop? Speak up. You try to direct the action? Game over.”

  I growled, hating his bossiness, and myself for wanting this enough to put up with it. “This better be worth it, Snowflake.”

  He raked a nail up my spine.

  No. Not a nail. A blade.

  I moaned.

  The tip of his blade ghosted in long, lazy circles over my body. “What do you feel?”

  “It’s like sensory phosphorescence trailing in the wake of your touch.”

  “Cool.” He sounded like such an eager little kid that I had to smile.

  Rohan rolled me over, continuing his slow exploration, tracing his blade reverently over my left breast, his breath blowing warm gusts over my flushed skin. The focus on his face was absolute. His eyes were molten pools lingering hungrily on my body.

  Hypersensitive from his playing, I was wound tight, vibrating with a corked fizziness that was almost too much and not nearly enough. I clamped my mouth shut so I couldn’t beg for more.

  The feeling of him sucking my tit into his mouth was as intense and amazing as the best orgasm any other guy had ever given me. I clutched his hair, feeling his ragged breathing against my skin. The press of his shirt buttons into my breastbone as I arched against him caused a twinge that did nothing to distract from my pleasure but did remind me he had way too many clothes on. I fumbled at the buttons.

  He helped me undress him, shrugging out of his shirt.

  “Pants, please.”

  He lifted his head, his pupils dilated. “I’m busy.”

  “Multitask.” I snapped my fingers at him, figuring that he was too into this to follow through on his “game over” threat at my command.

  Rohan rolled his eyes but pretty much ripped his pants and boxers off in record time, leaving him naked and magnificent. “May I return to what I was doing?”

  “You may.”

  He stretched out along side of me, his skin hot against mine.

  The air was cool on my back and I wriggled against him, wanting more of his warmth. More of his everything.

  He pressed his hand between my shoulder blades, keeping me close as he swirled his tongue along my nipple. My tits grew full and heavy. I placed his palm underneath one to fondle it.

  Even during sex, Rohan possessed a graceful elegance, a precision. He veered between an economy of movement that was obscene in its effectiveness on me and a drawn-out languidness that left sensations sinking so deep inside that sparks literally shot off my skin.

  One singed his eyebrow. Rohan jerked away.

  I blushed beet red.

  He gathered me in his arms, turning me to spoon me. “The dangers of lightning girls,” he murmured.

  How would I ever explain that to any other guy? Was I only going to be able to sleep with Rasha from now on?

  Rohan sighed, nudging at my jiggling leg. “Quit thinking.” He reached between my legs.

  Cuntessa pulsed in a steady slow throb. His stroking was an exquisite torture.

  “Fuck, you’re wet,” he said.

  “That’s on you.”

  “Yup,” he said in a voice 150% smug.

  Our bodies were curved tight around each other. His stubble rasped my skin as he sucked my shoulder. I reached back to stroke his cock, loving its hot, hard fullness. Giddy with anticipation of having him inside me.

  Our hips rocked. Rohan hooked his leg over mine to open me wider, a second finger plunging inside me.

  “I don’t want to come without you inside me,” I gasped.

  “Tough. Because I need to taste you.”

  Hello, lucky sixty-nine.

  He started with a slow tease of my clit, either forgetting or totally remembering that his dick now hovered over my mouth and two could play that game. I licked the head of his cock, tasting those first salty drops on my tongue. A pioneer in the land of Rohan, I surveyed the length and girth of him with my lips. Not yet taking him into my mouth, simply enjoying a leisurely exploration.

  Rohan groaned. There was a squirt of lube and then his finger rimmed my ass.

  “Wrong hole.” I twisted, all squirmy.

  “Or very right if you’re up for it.”

  He pressed some spot at my opening and my stomach clenched in a delicious swoon. Oh. If I could get more of that feeling, I was open to reconsidering my “no buttholes here” stance. Plus, his dirty side was incredibly hot. What the hell. I pushed back against him in answer.

  He inched his finger into me.

  I gasped, my muscles clenching tight around him.

  “Good?” he asked.

  “Uh, I don’t know?”

  Rohan see-sawed his finger in and out.

  I practically came right there. A wanton moan ripped from my throat.

  He laughed. “You’re so bent, Lolita.”

  I deep-throated the smirk out of his voice. Rohan’s dick hardened further, jumping to a new level of swollen arousal.

  Miracle of miracles, for once in my life my brain shut down. Got to hand it to the guy, it was more fun when I stopped thinking. I was lost in the increasing tempo of his tongue and fingers at play on me, and focused on returning that same level of pleasure to him.

  I fumbled on the bed for the bottle of lube he’d tossed there, squirting some into my hand and getting my finger well-oiled up for some play of my own.

  Rohan mumbled a whole bunch of words in a language I didn’t understand when I slid my finger into his ass, but his hips pumped with more urgency so I kept going, almost as heated by my own actions as his.

  Behind my eyelids, I saw white. My muscles tightened, my body flushing hotter and hotter. I rocked against his fingers in an ever-spiraling circle of wild abandon, until I shattered.

  Every other orgasm prior to this was relegated to a boring black and white, but this was glorious Technicolor. 3D IMAX. And I came not once, but twice! The incredibility of achieving that Holy Grail made me forget everything else–like my name and his cock in my mouth.

  Didn’t matter though because the second I stopped orgasming, Rohan started, half-arched on the bed above me, biting my hip as he came. He fell back against the bed, his head by my thighs, turning to press a soft kiss against my flesh. “That was round one.”

  24

  Round two? People had those outside of movies? Yowza.

  I eyed my nightgown because round one’s conclusion was when I should have been getting dressed, but it was way on the other side of the room, and Rohan was lazily stroking my arm, his eyes the color of melted honey, and really how much of a hardship could round two be?

  I nestled into the mattress. Even Rohan needed some re-up time so I curled in close, being the one to do nothing more than run my hands over his body.

  Gawd, what a beautiful body it was. As the interwebs had shown me–time and time again–plenty of guys were ripped and chiseled. That was their endgame. Rohan was a fighter. He was functionally fit, all sinewy grace. His body had a purpose and while it was obvious in the hard planes of muscle, his tapered torso, and long leanness that he took
great care of it, he also displayed an ease and lack of ego in his own skin that I found refreshing.

  He had nothing to prove.

  Rohan’s body wasn’t a temple, it was a finely honed weapon. Though that didn’t stop me from worshipping it now. I nudged him to turn over, noting the silver scar from his sakacha encounter at the base of his neck. A gorgeous black script was tattooed between his shoulder blades. “Hindi?” I guessed, tracing the letters.

  “Yeah. It says ‘Kshatriya.’ It’s the warrior caste.”

  “It’s beautiful.” I trailed my hands down his back, rubbing at a patch on the base of his spine that was a bit darker than the rest of his skin.

  His gluts tensed. Ooh. Pretty.

  I rubbed the spot again, then gave in to my urge and bit his ass cheek.

  Rohan yelped, flipping himself flat on his back. “Teeth. Not a kink of mine.”

  I propped myself up on one elbow, batting my eyelashes at him. “I’m betting that’s a very short list, Mr. Mitra.”

  He grabbed my hips, pulling me across him, while giving my ass a swat. I squealed in laughter which ended in a smothered yelp as his mouth got close to mine.

  He froze. “Right,” he muttered.

  I bit my lip, then wriggled onto my side to face him, running my hands over his body in long strokes. “How was L.A.?” As a distraction technique, my question was only moderately successful. It didn’t dissipate the tension that had come over Rohan at the kiss thing, but he did answer and let me keep touching him.

  “Got to see my parents, so that was good.” The affection in his voice triggered a stab of longing for something I’d never had. “As for the mission? Supposed to be a quick and easy kill. Instead?” He scratched his stubbled chin. “Too much mishegoss.”

  “You know Yiddish?” I couldn’t believe he’d used the slang term for craziness.

  “Just the good words. Jewish grandmother.”

  “Can you imagine if demons spoke Yiddish? Oblivion would be filled with the kvetching of the damned.”

  Rohan giggled.

  I bopped the tip of his nose with my index finger. “Aww. Cute.”

  He scowled at me, more embarrassed than angry given the way he ducked his head. “I am a former rock god and current Rasha. Not cute.”