“You meant it.” She looked determined. Like the warrior she was. She jabbed a finger at him. “This has nothing to do with my loyalty to you. If you don’t have the guts to accept my help, too bad. I’ll do it on my own. You aren’t my boss, my father or godfather, or anything else. You can’t stop me, Durian.”
He nodded. “No, I can’t. However, I am permitted to express my concern for your safety. Leonidas is a very powerful mage, and unlike most of the other kin sworn to Nikodemus, you have no protection against being taken mageheld.”
“I appreciate the warning. Thank you.” They stood there, inches apart, staring at each other. “I’ll try not to do anything stupid, okay?”
His hands slid to her shoulders. “You are an honorable woman, Grayson Spencer.”
“Isn’t this much better?” she said. “When we agree like two civilized people?”
“I haven’t agreed to anything.”
Her smile was so heart-stoppingly tender he knew he was in trouble. “You don’t really need to, do you?” She closed the distance between them.
“I suppose not.” He didn’t back away. When she kissed him, he did nothing to discourage her. In fact, he kissed her back with the thought at last echoing in his head. At last, he was kissing her where they would be private. At last. At last.
She pushed up on her toes because he was taller than she was, and there she was, pressed against him the way he’d been thinking of all too often. His body reacted with a surge of pure lust, and he was unable to think of anything except her. She kept kissing him, her mouth was soft and gentle on his. Her breasts pressed against him, her hips, and he wanted this.
Gray pulled back, her eyes searching his face. “Wow,” she said.
After a very long time, when he was reasonably sure he had himself under control, he said, “I promised I would not require sex of you. This is not required, Gray. You can say no to this.”
“You did promise me that.” She cocked her head and gave him a smile that belonged in the bedroom. “But I didn’t promise that.”
“True.” His fingers tightened on her, and he brought her back to him. “You didn’t.”
This time he held back so little that holding her, kissing her, was as blistering hot as he’d ever imagined. He wasn’t even in her head and this was still hotter than anything he could remember.
There must be a reason, Durian thought, that he should not do this. But he couldn’t think of one that outweighed her acceptance of him. Gray had her arms wound around his shoulders, and she had already taken him to task for deciding without consulting her, so he didn’t stop her. She could certainly push him away if she didn’t want the intimacy.
He pulled back, not far but far enough to realize his hands were low on her hips, keeping her hard against him. “What we have just been through—” His hands stayed on her hips, almost to her backside—hell, he had his hands on her ass “—The fighting. It makes the need for contact more intense.”
“Got it.”
“You’re certain?”
“I know what I want, Durian.”
He drew a breath and said, “Good.”
“Very.”
He slid a hand along her throat and up to cradle the back of her head and press her mouth to his neck, silently demanding that she do more than kiss him. She did. She bit him, not as hard as he might have liked, but hard enough. He lowered his head to hers, allowing her plenty of time to pull away. She didn’t. She stepped forward and while her head tipped up and to the side, one of her hands cupped the nape of his neck.
So he kissed her again. Gently to start, familiarizing himself with the softness of her mouth. He ended up holding her head between his hands. The edge of his left palm rested partially at her temple; at the point of contact, his skin twitched whenever any of her traceries moved underneath.
Her lips were soft. So soft. For him, the world dropped away. Gray in his arms was heaven. One of her hands moved to his waist then down, around his hip to his ass, pulling him against her while he broke apart inside. He didn’t want her to think about the last time she’d had sex or any of the things Tigran had done to her, and yet he was not certain he could be as gentle as she needed.
His other hand moved downward from her shoulder, along her ribs, slipping, skidding, fumbling a little, then sliding underneath her shirt so he could spread his fingers over her bare skin. His skin to hers. A low growl came from the back of his throat.
This need for her, he knew, was not usual. Touching was common among the kin. They craved such contact almost as a matter of course, but this sexual response, his need to possess her because she was female, that was not an impulse he should indulge. But he was going to do it anyway.
His fingertip brushed over the piercing in her navel, and when he felt the echo of her response to that touch, he went back and brushed over the metal again, swept down the skin beneath and around, then tugged on the charm, lightly, but it was enough to make her press against him. She had a firm, muscled body, and he already knew how precisely she commanded her physical form.
He was nearly out of his mind with wanting her, slipping away into territory far from a safe return. He drew back, though his arms stayed around her. Her upper body bowed against him, bridging what little space there was between them. She opened her mouth beneath his, kissing him harder, and he struggled not to respond in kind. Not too rough. He had to keep himself under control.
Except her fingers tightened over his shoulders, and she bit his lip. Not hard, but enough, and that was not the response of a woman who was remembering past trauma.
He drew away and met her gaze and his hands went on moving despite his better intentions. He cradled her head, tangling his fingers in her hair, and angling her head for another kiss. She opened herself to him so that her physical state was absolutely unmistakable. The moment threatened to incinerate them both.
“Gray…”
She said, “You’re holding back. Stop it.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I know what you are. You won’t frighten me.” She slid her hands down his back until her palms rested in the small of his back. Her eyes were half lidded so he got only a glimpse of her pale blue eyes. “I’ll tell you if I’m not okay with something you do, all right?”
“As you wish.”
“Oh, yes.” Her voice was low and sultry. “I wish.”
He kissed her with a great deal less delicacy than before. Much less. God knows, she was strong. Resilient. And she was right. If he crossed a line she didn’t want crossed, she’d tell him. Gray leaned into him and held on tight, giving back as good as she got.
She put her hands on his chest, just below his shoulders and pushed him backward to the futon, following with him so they remained touching the entire time they walked; him backward, her forward. She was in his head, and at first he welcomed the contact because it meant he felt her arousal even more intensely. They ended up with him on the mattress and her straddling his hips. He went still. She gave him a look that smoldered and pressed him down.
On instinct, he resisted, then realized she must be interpreting his reluctance as stemming from some lack of desire on his part. He lay back.
When he was stretched out, with him carefully controlling his reaction, she propped her hands on either side of his head and leaned over him. It helped that he wanted her so badly he hurt. And it helped, too, that he was moving his hands up and down her spine, sliding around to her breasts, and yes. Hell yes. He wanted her like this, moaning for him. Because of him. Once he had his hands full of her softness, passing a finger over her nipples, he acknowledged there wasn’t any going back. Whatever happened, she would never harm him. That wisp of magekind magic would never be used against him.
She gave him a questioning look. “You okay?”
“Come here.”
“Maybe not quite yet.”
He watched a wicked smile appear on her mouth when she reached down and covered his sex with her hand. Her head bent to watch what
she was doing. The urge to put her on her back and strip her naked was just about irresistible. Until he caught a glimpse of her pale blue eyes before her lids lowered. The heat there sent a thrill of arousal through him. He stayed right the hell where he was. He was outrageously aroused.
Her fingers closed around him and stroked up through the material of his pants. He caught his lower lip between his teeth and lifted his pelvis toward her hand. Her lashes fluttered, and he saw glimpses of that icy blue that, right now, were about a million miles from cold.
“Jesus, Durian,” she said in a voice so full of frank appreciation that he had to laugh. She unfastened the buttons at his waist and drew down the zipper. Slowly. Lithe creature that she was, she got his pants off him with a minimum of fuss. He had on a pair of close-fitting cotton boxers and those were next. She hooked her fingers in the waist of his boxers and pulled down, careful but quick about it. Before he closed his eyes, he got a glimpse of her red hair and thought it was the most erotic thing he’d seen in his life. He opened his eyes to watch her again.
She addressed his pelvis with a heartening reverence. “God, you’re beautiful.”
His breath hissed when her hand touched his naked cock. She was already bending over him when he put his hands on her head. Her fingers angled down and she cupped his balls in her palm. “Your mouth,” he said in a voice that rumbled from deep in his chest. “Please.”
He lifted his hips toward her as she obliged him. The heat and pressure of her fingers, her mouth, and her tongue rocketed him toward orgasm. His fingers touched her lips, feeling her around him, and it wrung him out. As the crest hit him, he shouted.
When it was over and he could think again, he got his hands around her waist and with a twist of his hips and thigh, put her on her back. She stretched out beneath him, in no different a state than he was, shoving herself back just enough to sit up. He leaned in and stripped off her shirt, and while her arms were still in the air—her abs were damned ripped—he reached in and divested her of her bra. Up and up, and her arms raised up. There.
There were no niceties between them. This wasn’t a moment for sweet words or slow caresses. He was caught in the raw heat of her need for him. She shook her arms and her shirt and bra fell to the floor and while he was getting a riveting eyeful of her naked torso, she reached for the waist of her jeans. With his weight on one elbow, he helped her get them off, but mostly he was touching her and looking his fill.
Her body was sleek and lush all at the same time. She’d shaved her pubic hair at the sides, nothing extreme, just a trim neatly done. She was more slender than his usual taste in women, but she wasn’t merely skinny. Her body was lean and muscled, her breasts lovely, her skin pale, nipples pale brown, more than enough to fill his cupped palms.
He put her naked back to the mattress. While he covered one breast with his mouth and sucked, his hands were busy everywhere else. He trailed his mouth down the midline of her body to that ridiculous barbell through her navel and took the thing in his mouth with gratifying results. She squirmed under his touch, and let out a gasp.
“God, Durian. That feels good.” She buried her fingers in his hair and arched toward him while she brought one of his hands back to her breast. “More.”
Oh, yes.
He threw a thigh over her which was when they both came to the realization that he still had on his shirt. She put a hand to his cheek and said, smiling impishly, “You have on too many clothes.”
He froze.
He’d forgotten.
Gray’s hands slid underneath his shirt, pushing up. He resisted until she let out a frustrated cry and got her hands far enough up that she felt his scar. Their eyes met. Hers cautious, wondering. And his? He could only imagine what she saw in his eyes.
If the scar repulsed her, then there was nothing he could do or would do about that. When she pulled up his shirt again he ducked his head and let her drag it off him. She didn’t say anything for long enough that he thought he had his answer.
And a bitter one it was. He cut off her contact with him.
“No,” she said. “Don’t do that.” She sat up and, eyes on his chest, set her palm to him. He didn’t move.
He knew what she saw. A still-healing wound ran from the top of his sternum to just above his diaphragm in an irregular line. The scarring there twisted through and faded into, out of and across the interior edges where his skin still burned deep crimson. From her face, he surmised she understood what she was looking at.
“You were mageheld?”
He took command of himself. Buried himself far from anyone. Far from her. “Yes.”
“And this mage—”
He ought to be dead. He shouldn’t have lived once he’d been cut open. When he spoke, this voice came from far, far away. “Not Christophe. Álvaro Magellan.”
“—he tried to kill you.” She touched his chest and glanced at his face. “The way Christophe killed Tigran.”
“Yes.” He closed his eyes. His memories were not pleasant ones, and though he didn’t want her to pick up any part of them, she did. “Nikodemus and his witch, Carson, prevented that.”
She cradled the side of his face. “No wonder you’re loyal to him.”
He shouldn’t let her see what had been done to him. “After Magellan died that night, I was unlucky. Another mage, Rasmus Kessler, took control of me.” He leaned away from her touch, but she followed him, touching, and he wanted that from her and knew he would never recover if she rejected him. “Later, another fiend and his witch severed me. Xia and Alexandrine.” He cast around for his shirt and grabbed it, except she was faster. She snatched the shirt and threw it as far as she could.
He watched her, eyebrows raised in question.
“This matters to me, Durian,” she said. “But not the way you seem to think.” She touched his chest and followed him when he flinched away from her. Her fingertip slipped along the edges of his still-healing wound. “This means you understand what happened to me. What it was like for me.”
The tightness in his chest eased.
“This wasn’t long ago, was it?” She touched him gently.
“Longer than you think. It is healing slowly. But,” he said because this was not the time for anything but plain truth, “not so long ago.”
She pressed her mouth to one side of that twisting scar then moved to his nipple. The tip of her tongue flicked over him, and he felt that all the way to his balls. He hadn’t been touched like that since long before Magellan. Far too long ago. The sensation was entirely pleasant. More than pleasant. She was putting him in a fair way of forgetting about all but where else she might use her tongue. He lay back, open to her in every way possible. His breath caught when she got a hand between them and found his sex. She had a way with her fingers, too. Hell. Oh, hell.
A growl rumbling in his chest, he grabbed her by the hips and pulled her underneath him. Her scent was musky with sweat and desire, her skin salty when he kissed her shoulder, the edge of her mind tinged with a darkness that echoed in him.
Durian re-established eye contact and took their desire and kicked it higher. Because he could. Because he could make this even better for them both.
She gasped, but he was running his hands up her athlete’s body, spreading her legs as the heat between them continued to build, with her magic and his cranking them both into this state of frantic desire. He kissed her there, between her legs, and she groaned and the next thing he knew he had his mouth between her legs as he worked her toward an orgasm, which was easy because he knew when she was close. She wasn’t the least shy about telling or showing him what she needed to get her there, either.
She came, with him racheting her to the point of no return. Then her release. Her giving in to her body. Gray untangled her fingers from his hair and slid from underneath him. Once again he ended up on his back with her straddling him.
“I want you inside me.” She threw her head back when he levered himself up to kiss the tip of her breas
t. Her nipple contracted in his mouth. “Jesus,” she breathed. “That’s good. Do that more.”
He grabbed her right wrist and brought her arm to his mouth and then he touched the traceries with his tongue and perhaps nipped at her skin. The magic so close to the surface of her skin set off a buzz in his head that made him open to her wider than he had to anyone else. Even Nikodemus. Made sense, that they so easily reached that kind of closeness. She was his sworn fiend. Not that he cared much about anything but where this was headed.
Her breath hissed in, and he didn’t care if it was because of his mouth on her arm or because of the tactile contact with her magic. The sizzle had them both holding their breath. They were right back where they’d been before his scar. He slid a finger along her arm and then did the same at the tracery at her temple. The anticipation of being inside her was turning him inside out. And she knew it. They both knew it. She smiled at him, dared and invited him to touch her more.
More.
“Come on,” she whispered. “It’s time.”
Her voice was low and smokey and she was in close and at the light brush of her fingers along his penis, he was out of control. He didn’t object when she guided him into her. One thrust. His or hers?
Her body was ready for him. Hot and soft and tight. He put her on her back, his body over hers, and pushed farther inside her and then he bit her again until there was blood he could lick away, to taste and savor and, there was that faint shivering of the magekind about her, and hell, yes. Their connection pulled on them both and he didn’t do anything to stop it. He knew what she wanted. He’d seen it. Felt it.
She came apart again. He wasn’t far from finishing himself, but they were belly to belly and he was driving inside her.
The skin down his back quivered and that was new for him, too. She wouldn’t be the first human woman he’d taken in his other form, but the last time he’d been this close to an unintended change during sex, the rules had been different. In those days there hadn’t been any. There were rules now. Even as far gone as he was, he knew he had neither requested nor obtained permission to have sex with her in his altered form.
My Immortal Assassin Page 19
