by Nina Bangs
“Oh, yes.” She breathed out on a shuddering sigh. The touch of his mouth on any part of her body flipped on her sensory switch.
“You know, Murmur thinks I’m a one-trick pony. But I have skills he doesn’t know about.” Edge kissed the corner of her mouth and then slid his tongue across her lower lip.
He tasted of all that was wild and untamed, of things wicked and wonderful. She opened her mouth as he kissed her lips softly and then moved on. “I love a man with skills. Show me.” Everything. Now.
“We’ll need protection against the thing that’s attacking the castle.”
He covered her breast with his mouth and flicked the nipple back and forth with his tongue. She forgot all about the big bad as she stifled a moan.
“Castle gates badly in need of shoring up should do it. What’s the fun if they’re strong enough to withstand anything? Danger is the red pepper we sprinkle on our pizza.” He kissed a path over her stomach, pausing to swirl his tongue in her navel.
Castle gates? What the heck was he talking about? She blinked. No, those were definitely not castle gates at the foot of the bed. Castle gates that were already partly open and looked as though they would fall over at any minute. “How did you—”
“Shh.” He placed his finger across her lips.
Well, if he was going to wave temptation right in front of her face…She glided her tongue the length of his finger. Then she glanced at him from partly lowered lids. “That’s just a coming attraction. My mouth might not be fully functional right now, but my tongue is just fine.”
“Give me a minute to remember what I was saying.” He traced ever-widening circles on her hip with the tip of one finger. “Oh, yes, danger. Something big, something powerful is trying to get past those gates. Our minutes of pleasure are numbered, so we’ll have to cram every sexual nugget we can into our lovemaking.” He shifted his gaze to the less-than-sturdy gates.
Passion followed his gaze. She sucked in her breath on a terrified gasp.
A dragon peered in through the cracks in the gates. Glowing golden eyes the size of saucers looked as though they were sizing her up for tonight’s appetizer. “Please tell me that’s an illusion.” Frantically, she searched for the door. It wasn’t there. The part of the room beyond the foot of the bed was hazy and indistinct except for the monstrous dragon.
“It’s real.”
The dragon blew out a puff of smoke to emphasize how real it was.
“Relax. It’s a construct of my mind. I control it.” He paused. “Probably.”
Her heart rate slowed slightly. “I get it. This is our own Castle of Dark Dreams fantasy. You’re the heroic warrior who will slay the dragon and save the laird’s daughter—who is perfectly capable of saving herself—before giving her an orgasm she’ll remember until she dies and even beyond.” For a moment, she thought longingly of her bag of chocolates. No, not this time. The dragon’s breath would melt them all before she could even begin her Dance of the Seven Hershey’s Kisses.
Edge inched toward the foot of the bed, a journey marked by exploratory kisses that touched her flesh with heat and filled her lower stomach with heavy anticipation.
He must have touched her “open” button with those sensual lips, because she instinctively rolled onto her back and parted her legs. She was ready, had been ready for her entire existence. He leaned over her to nibble the flesh of her inner thigh. Her legs trembled.
“That would be too stereotypical. No, actually the dragon is your shape-shifting mother who thinks no mercenary warrior bastard would ever be good enough for her daughter. She plans to fry me to a crisp. She’s right. I’m evil to the core, and I plan to seduce you over and over and over.” His breathing was growing labored.
Passion bit back laughter. “So does Mama get you?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
The dragon roared, but Passion wasn’t paying attention.
Edge rose over her in one smooth movement—straddling her legs, slipping his hands beneath her bottom, and lifting her to where he could use his mouth to full advantage.
Had he done this the first time in the greenhouse? The first time that officially had never happened but would always mark the beginning of her real life? She didn’t try to remember, because she knew that every time with him would always be the first, the best, the one carved into her heart forever.
He drew a pattern of almost unbearable sensation along her inner thigh with his tongue. She whimpered encouragement as he neared…What? The epicenter of every nerve ending in her body? That’s what it felt like. Passion simply stopped breathing as he slid the tip of his tongue over that super-sensitized nub of flesh, over every emotion she’d never felt, would only ever feel with him. She clenched around her need. And when he finally slipped his tongue inside her, twenty fire-breathing dragons could have been tearing down the castle gates and she wouldn’t have cared.
Not enough. She wanted more. Mind and body were in perfect sync. Never enough. She wanted her hands on his body, her mouth touching his skin.
It almost killed her to do it, but she tangled her fingers in his hair and tugged him back up to where she could reach him. He cupped her bottom, massaging a message of fast-fading control into her flesh as she ran her fingers over his smooth-muscled chest.
She followed her fingers’ path with her tongue and swore she could taste his desire on his damp, sweat-sheened skin. The scent of the soap he’d used in the shower clung to him, some sort of citrusy smell. She’d find out what it was and buy cases of it, because the scent would always bring her back to this moment, this man.
Mama Dragon’s roar lent urgency to her fingers, her mouth. She didn’t even pause to enjoy each ridged stomach muscle. She spent all of her remaining time torturing him with her tongue. Who knew she had a talent for this? There, right at the base of his cock, when she pressed her tongue to that particular spot, he groaned. And when she swirled her tongue around the head and then gently nipped, he shuddered and gasped. She wished she had more time to discover all his sexual hot spots, but she didn’t.
Passion could feel pressure building, warning that a slow and relaxed loving wasn’t going to be an option. “Why can’t we slow things down, make it last longer?” She ran her hand over his inner thigh in a frantic effort to feel all of him. At once.
“Maybe because a dragon is about to crash through those gates. More likely because I want you too much. I’m a greedy bastard.”
His breath was warm on her neck and sent sensual shivers skittering down her spine.
She moaned as he nibbled a path around her breast before closing his lips over the nipple. At the same time, his fingers slid once again between her legs to tease and torture.
“I can see the colors of sin.” Passion gasped as he pushed one finger into her. “But not my own. Lust is blue, greed is yellow. Right now I bet bright green is spinning around me at warp speed.” Her laughter was choked off as he gently nipped her nipple.
“What color am I?” He seemed to be having trouble breathing between each word.
Rational thought was tough right now, but she still knew she didn’t want to tell him. She could lie, she could…
Passion cleared her mind for the moment it took to really look at what swirled around him. She blinked. Dark blue. Blue? Passion stared harder. Blue with only a few streaks of black. Ted had been wrong. Edge wasn’t irredeemable. Tears filled her eyes. Something hard and brittle shattered inside her, allowing relief to seep through. The relief wasn’t for her, because she was way beyond allowing a color to stop what she felt for him. Her relief was for the man she…loved.
“You’re blue. Deep, deep blue. Lots of lust going on.”
Her emotions spiked at the same time as her hunger—for the feel of him buried deep inside her, for the heat of his body pressed against hers, for the knowing that it would never get better than this.
“Now would be nice.” Translation: I’ll die right now if you don’t.
He didn’t w
aste energy answering her. Instead, he once again knelt above her. She raised her hips to meet his expected thrust.
Edge grasped her hips, but just as he pressed the head of his cock between her thighs, just as she spread her legs wider and felt her body opening to him, just as she knew that waiting even one more second would shatter her…He paused.
Damn, damn, damn. “What part of now wasn’t clear?” Hyperventilation was a real possibility.
“Bourne turned back time. No matter what you remember happening, it never happened in real time. You’re a virgin again.” His explanation was a harsh rasp.
“So I’m unique. I get to be a virgin twice. Please, please, please.” She was beyond more coherent conversation.
He eased into her, the same remembered sensation of stretching, being filled. And when the pain came, it didn’t matter because the sky was falling, the ground opening, the earth shattering around her. The thunder booming in her ears was her heartbeat, and lightning flashes zigzagged behind her closed lids. It was her sexual apocalypse. This was how it felt for the world to end, not with a bang but a giganormous orgasm.
She opened her eyes as it rolled toward her—a Mount St. Helens of erotic ecstasy, gathering speed and power, pressure building right before it blew. Passion wanted to see his face when it happened. Edge’s movements grew more urgent as his body’s rhythm took over—almost drawing out, plunging back into her, repeat and repeat and repeat. Faster, harder, and she arched to meet him with each thrust. Everything blurred—his face, her thoughts, life as she knew it.
Pleasure exploded. She froze in mid-arch, stopped breathing, her existence shrinking to the indescribable sensations of spasm after spasm after spasm.
Somewhere on another planet, she heard Edge’s shout of release. But she could only focus on her own spasms as they slowly faded. She was probably working on some yellow in her personal sin rainbow, because she was definitely greedy. Something that felt this good shouldn’t end so soon.
Passion collapsed back onto the bed. Edge rolled onto his back beside her. She rested her head on his chest, feeling his heartbeat slowing, his breathing easing, and said the words she’d never planned on saying. “I love you.”
He remained silent for so long that she thought her words might’ve been muffled against his chest, that he hadn’t heard her.
Finally, he drew in a deep breath. “Sometimes when people make love, they say things they wouldn’t under other circumstances.”
She took a moment to think that through. “You believe what I said was the orgasm talking?” Okay, that made her mad. “Ask me an hour from now, a month from now, a year from now and I’ll say the same thing.” She shouldn’t have said it at all. He obviously didn’t feel the same way, and now she’d put him on the spot. “Just forget it.”
The dragon roared. That was it. She might not know how to handle the situation she’d just created with Edge, but she could deal with one freaking dragon. Crawling to the foot of the bed, she rose to her knees and punched the dragon in the nose. “Back off, Mama.”
The dragon along with the castle gates disappeared. Behind her, she heard Edge’s laughter. But now that she could see the rest of the room again, something else caught her attention. “Edge, look at Sweetie Pie.”
“What the hell?”
The plant was at least a foot taller than before they made love. It was a bushy burst of sensual satisfaction. “We did that.” Passion couldn’t help her spurt of pride.
“Come back to bed. And, no, we can’t take her with us to wherever we plan to make love.”
Happy, she returned to his side and snuggled in. He planned to make love with her again, and Sweetie Pie was healthy again. Maybe she should keep her mouth shut for now. Why take a chance of ruining her present glow?
Edge evidently didn’t have any qualms, though. “What kind of existence would you have with me, Passion?”
She’d like to find out.
“Would you spend each night following me around so you could bring the people I killed back to life? How long before you hated me? Your hate is the one thing I couldn’t stand.” He smoothed his hand over her hair.
“We are what we are, Edge. You weren’t given a chance to choose your path.” She allowed the steady rhythm of his heart to lull her. “I couldn’t not love you. When I was in Ted’s bathroom, I only thought of reaching out to one person. You. It would always be you.”
She felt his sigh.
“I knew why I was created, but emotions never entered into what I did. I killed, but I didn’t feel. When the Big Boss stopped me from slaughtering whole villages so that I could destroy one person, I didn’t understand. I was Death in its purist form—merciless, focused on the act not the person. Now? I remember the name of each person I destroy. I kill from a distance whenever I can. Sometimes I have…regrets.”
Passion reached out and clasped his hand.
“For you, and only for you, I’ll stop killing no matter what the consequences.” He held up his hand to stop her instinctive denial. “Don’t try to talk me out of it. Let me do this for us.” Edge took a deep breath. “Please.”
He hadn’t said he loved her, but he’d said much more. If he was no longer Death, he was of no use to Bourne. Would Bourne destroy Edge? He might feel he had to make an example of Edge so that others wouldn’t walk away from their assigned paths too. Was Bourne that heartless? Passion realized she really knew nothing about who the Big Boss really was.
“We’ll face Bourne together. And don’t give me an argument or else you’ll get some of the same that I gave to Mama Dragon.” Did she sound fierce enough?
His soft chuckle warmed her heart as he pulled her into the curve of his body.
“Let’s get some rest while we can.” A few minutes later, his breathing slowed. He was asleep.
Passion stared into the darkness and made a promise to the man sleeping beside her. Neither Ted nor Bourne would take Edge from her. She might be Life, but if she had to kill for her man, so be it.
19
The roar jerked Edge from a dream of making love with Passion. Beside him, he felt her sit up.
“What’s that?” Sleep still roughened her voice.
Edge was already leaping from the bed. “The gargoyles. Get dressed.”
Even as he pulled on jeans and a T–shirt, the roars stopped. “Ted must’ve shut them down, but they did their job. They warned us.” He yanked on his boots.
Suddenly, Bourne was in his head. From the shocked look on Passion’s face, he was in hers too.
“I was wrong. He decided on a preemptive strike. It’s two hours until dawn, so Dacian will be awake to fight with us.” Bourne didn’t sound happy about being wrong. “His avenging angels are in the castle. I was also wrong about something else. He did find demonic help. He’s brought twelve hellhounds through the portal.” There was a pause. “I don’t have to tell you what to do. Spare the angels if you can, but feel free to send the hellhounds home with their tails between their legs.” Another pause. “If Ted wins, don’t let him talk you into joining him. Leave the castle and regroup. Choose a smart leader. Don’t regret me. I’ve had a helluva run.” Then he was gone.
The scariest part of Bourne’s message was that he’d even consider the possibility of losing. He must have upped his estimate of Ted’s power.
As much as Edge sometimes railed against Bourne, he couldn’t imagine Ted taking his place. The Big Boss was, well, the Big Boss. No cheap phony archangel could replace him. Bourne had survived for tens of thousands of years. Edge couldn’t conceive of him no longer existing.
“What’s a hellhound?” Passion was almost dressed. “Ted doled out information on a need–to–know basis.”
Edge strapped his sword to his waist. With the power he wielded, he didn’t need any other weapons. “Demonic dogs. Huge. Black fur, glowing red eyes, super strength and speed. They can get into your mind. Do not, I repeat, do not stare into their eyes. Meet one’s gaze and you die.”
; What he didn’t say was that she wouldn’t have to worry about the hellhounds. He’d leave her safely in Dacian’s apartment with Cinn behind a locked and warded door.
Within ten minutes after being jarred from their sleep, Edge and Passion were racing down the stairs. He could hear the sounds of battle rising from the great hall before he even reached it.
Once on the ground floor, Edge took a side corridor that bypassed whatever was happening in the hall, and then led her down the stairs to Dacian’s apartment.
“What’re we doing here? Why didn’t you give me a weapon?” She sounded suspicious.
Dacian opened the door before Edge could answer. The vampire backed away so they could enter and then closed the door. Cinn sat on the couch, glowering.
Edge couldn’t put off telling Passion any longer. “You and Cinn don’t have the battle skills to survive out there. Stay here. Lock the door behind us. We’ll send Zane to ward the door. Cinn will give you a weapon.” Not that it would do any good if Ted got past the wards. But he had to believe that wouldn’t happen.
And in probably the first cowardly act of his existence, Edge turned and strode toward the door where Dacian waited.
Cinn got off a parting shot. “I love you, vampire, even though you’re being a domineering jerk about this. Don’t lose your head, or else I’ll have to turn my plants loose on all those losers up there.”
As much as Edge wanted to escape before Passion could weaken his resolve with an argument, he paused before closing the door.
Tell her. Say the fucking words. He couldn’t. If he didn’t make it through this fight, he didn’t want her saddled with his final words of love. Better that she think he never cared that much. “Don’t leave the room.” He recognized the outrage in her eyes. “Please. I’ll be able to focus on keeping Bourne alive if I know you’re safe.” Then he closed the door behind him. He didn’t wait to hear if one of them locked it.
He raced up the stairs with Dacian. The great hall was a mass of bodies locked in battle. Edge saw Zane nearby. The sorcerer had three of Ted’s angels suspended in midair. Their curses didn’t include words like “heck” and “darn.” They’d shed their angelic natures pretty fast.
