* * *
Hours, days, weeks. Time didn’t seem to function in the way I was familiar with.
A flutter danced along my bare chest, the sensation marrying together with my dream of Max until it was a deliciously sinful fantasy. I closed my eyes tighter, desperate to hold onto this image and feel until wakefulness took hold completely.
The soft flutter grew heavier, until my chest started to shake from the force. Brushing the strange pressure away, I turned on my side and buckled back into my dream, desperate to cling onto it as long as I possibly could. I had no desire to open my eyes and stare at the gray, empty walls I knew would be surrounding me.
The shaking resumed and I let out a low, irritated groan. “Get the fuck off of me.”
“Wade,” a soft voice echoed into my ear, lodging its way into my brain.
I blinked harder, filling my mind with the sound of her. This dream was becoming more and more realistic in the best possible way.
“Wade, you need to wake up,” more soft shaking, “please. Are you—are you okay? Did that thing hurt you?”
The blast of the question sent my eyelids peeling back into my skull as I stared at the girl sitting next to me. Her dark hair was tousled and shiny, her brown eyes filled with a sort of concern that sent my chest into a flutter.
Unwilling to move just yet, on the off chance that this was still just an elaborate, wishful fantasy, I stared at her. I took in every curve of her face, eyes following down her neck and then the rest of her body.
My muscles tensed as they always seemed to do here, now that I was transitioning, as that creature called it. My lower stomach flipped at the sight of her plush lips, at her surprisingly full breasts, and the only thing that kept me from lunging at her and claiming her here and now was the sharp voice at the back of my mind. The part of me from before that would die a slow, agonizing death if I somehow hurt her.
My breath hitched as her fingers landed on my chest, the feel of her skin against mine sending chills throughout my entire body. I’d always thought that succubi and incubi simply heightened the arousal of their prey. But since the first moment I saw Max after waking up in this godforsaken torture chamber, I realized that the desire was just as heightened for me, if not more so. She was irresistible.
Pressing my hands into the rough bed and scratchy fabric, I pushed myself up into a seated position, my head almost dizzy with the intoxicating scent of her. I let out a low groan, realizing how much more desirable she was after convincing myself that I would never see her again outside of my dreams.
And the Max in my dreams had absolutely nothing on the Max in front of me right now. The girl here was wild and intelligent and warm and seductive in a way that the version I constructed could never really achieve. All she had to do was sit here with me and I was completely undone.
I shifted, uncomfortably trying to disguise the very real effect she was having on my body right now.
“Wade,” she said, her eyes glazing over slightly as she studied me. “Did he hurt you?”
“Who?” My voice was groggy and scratchy from the mental anguish I had put myself through since she was last here. Apparently I was just as good at torturing myself as my captor was. “How are you here?”
“That shadow creature. Did he hurt you? I wanted to—I tried to stay here with you, but he had some sort of power. Ability. He literally threw me from my dream. I have no idea what kind of creature could even do that. Unless he’s like a superpowered, boss-level incubus.”
I drew in a shallow breath, watching the worry dance in her dark eyes. I hated that expression, hated that she feared for me when she was the one truly in danger. Thinking about the shadow creature would only compound that worry. Especially if I relayed what he’d said to me. About using me as a tool against my people—my real people. My family.
I shook my head and stood up, suddenly desperate to put some space between us as I wove the half lie generating in my mind. “He is the one who occasionally brings food.”
“Did he say anything after I left?” she kneeled on my bed, dressed in nothing but a t-shirt that revealed the smooth stretch of her thighs beneath the baggy fabric.
I shook my head, forcing my eyes away. My fingers were desperate to reach for her, to peel that shirt—which looked suspiciously like a guy’s baggy shirt—off her body. To press her into the bed and show her exactly how much I thought about her.
Wait. Why the fuck was she wearing another guy’s shirt in the first place? Was she wearing it last time she was here too? I shook the suspicion away and refocused on her. “That was the first time he—it—has ever spoken to me. It said nothing once you left. Just left me with some food and disappeared again.” I clenched my fingers into a fist, to keep from tracing them along her legs. “H-how are you here, Max?”
Her slim eyebrows bent down in confusion as she stood up on the bed and moved closer to me, her eyes almost leveled with mine from that height. “What do you mean? How am I here? I’m here the same way I’m always here. It took me a while, after waking up, to fully remember what happened. And then, once I did, I tried desperately to fall back asleep. To get back to you.” She let out a soft laugh that sounded musical and light. It sent an electric thrill through my body. “Do you know how hard it is to fall asleep when your body is thrumming with anxiety and you're desperate for nothing but dreams?”
I knew exactly what that was like.
All too well.
I nodded slowly, studying the graceful length of her neck. I couldn’t tell her that the shadow creature had attempted to banish her completely from reentering this room in her dreams. What would he do if he found her here with me again? Kill her? Torture her?
Keep her?
It wouldn’t be long before he, too, saw in her what I did—that she was the most alluring girl in the world.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I said, stepping back until my skin was completely pressed against the cool, damp wall. The constant smell of mildew would be forever burned into my nose whether or not I ever made it out of here alive.
She stood up, her eyes narrowing and jaw ticking with frustration. “I thought we were past this already, Wade. I’m here. And I’m going to keep coming here until you are no longer locked up in here. Period. I recommend you avoid this argument in the future, because it’s not one you will ever win.”
With three small steps, she closed the distance between us and reached her hand out until it wound around mine. Her skin was so warm that I was convinced it could bring me back from the brink of death if I let it.
Her dark eyes studied me as I pushed further back into the wall, trying desperately to escape my own desire—the weird all-encompassing power she seemed to wield over me. How did such a small girl have such a huge effect on me?
Her face softened as she watched me until she let go of my hand and took a step back. Instantly, I wanted to close the distance, at war with whether I wanted to push her away or keep her against me for the rest of time.
“I’m sorry,” she said, voice a delicate whisper, “I didn’t mean to cross a boundary or to snap like that. I just—I want you to understand that I’m not giving up on you. None of us are. But I’m here for more than a visit this time. A favor.”
“Anything,” I said, desperate for the distraction, something to keep my mind off of how delectable she looked right now and how badly I wanted to wipe that small frown from her face and turn it into something much more appealing. “But I’m not sure what I’ll be able to help with from here. I’m not exactly swimming in resources at the moment.”
Her face broke out in a small, guarded smile, and I noticed that her dark eyes were filled with a sort of fear that wasn’t there the last time she was here.
“That’s just it. I think you’re the only one who can help with this.” She exhaled and walked back towards the bed so that she could sit down. Suddenly it seemed like the weight of the entire world was on her shoulders. It was a strange feeling, to be mad at the world for
doing that to her. “Eli’s been attacked. And it’s—”
She broke off, her words watery. I looked at her face and saw her eyes were glassy with tears. My stomach squeezed at the sight and I instantly walked over to her and squeezed her hands between mine.
She shook her head and blinked a few times as if she could just clear the emotion away with a bit of willpower. “It’s not looking good. The last time I was here, I couldn’t quite remember what had happened. But there was a vamp ambush and Eli was bitten. Several times.”
It felt like someone had punched me in the gut with a metal fist. Eli had always been like a cheeky, slightly obnoxious older brother to me. A single vampire bite was difficult enough to overcome, but I’d never heard of someone surviving multiple. “How long—”
I couldn’t frame my thoughts into anything coherent. How would Atlas handle losing another brother? And Declan? She liked to pretend she hated Eli, but it was a sibling’s sort of play-fighting they engaged in.
“I know that when we visited Izzy—” she started, her shoulders slumped slightly with guilt that did not belong to her, “but I thought maybe—”
I nodded instantly, picking up on her plan. “Let’s try to reach him.”
It took a few minutes, but now that I knew it was possible, so long as she was with me, we reached Eli.
He was in a lush room, lying around in a giant four-poster bed with a grin on his face like he was a goddamned king.
His amber eyes locked on me as soon as I came into view.
“No fucking way,” he said, as he shoved himself off the bed and ploughed into me like a freight train. “It’s fucking great to see you man.”
I patted his back softly for a second until he pulled back; I tried to rein in the fear in my voice. “You too, Eli.”
It was strange. In the dream world, he seemed fine. His usual self, if not a bit more energized than usual. Could he really be dying in his corporeal form?
He arched a brow as he took me in. “You look good, man. Like you're more...just more, somehow, if that makes sense?” His face fell and he took a step back. “Ah shit. It’s happened to me too, hasn’t it?”
“What’s happened to you?” Was he aware of the fact that he was in the middle of a struggle for his life?
“I’ve gone and become an incubus.” He shook his head and studied his arms like the limbs didn’t belong to him. “I mean it makes sense, I guess. I’ve always had an alarmingly high sex appeal. So if anyone was going to die and come back as an incubus, it makes sense it’s me. Was sort of shocked it happened to you first, if I’m being honest.” His brows pinched together as he ran his hands down his sides and then his legs, like he was trying to identify any differences. “But still. Would be nice if we could all stop turning into monsters. Getting a bit predictable and all.”
“That’s not how you become an incubus, you wank,” I said, unable to keep the smile from my words, despite the grim reality. “You know that’s not how it happens. My mother was a succubus. It just didn’t get triggered properly in me until I was killed and had to rely on those genes to bring me back. The protector side shrouded them, is all. Or something like that. I still don’t completely understand it.”
“Max,” he said, the word a low, reverent whisper. “You’re here.”
Not waiting for her to respond, he shoved my shoulder and roughly pushed me aside a few feet so that he could look at her properly. I tried to see her from his eyes. She was dressed in nothing but a baggy t-shirt, her luxurious waves of hair rippling down until they reached midway down her back. Her eyes were wide and filled with emotions that I couldn’t quite decipher or identify; her lips plump and kissable.
When I looked back at him and saw the lovesick expression on his face, I knew that he saw her in the exact same way that I did. She was delectable.
“I thought you were dead,” he said, his voice cracking slightly on the words. “I thought we were both fucking goners.”
“I’m a—”
Without letting her finish, he closed the gap between them so quickly that I was almost convinced he was a vampire and swallowed the rest of her words with his lips.
She stood frozen for a moment, but eventually melted into him so that her lips and tongue were moving just as furiously as his were.
He lifted her up so that she could wrap her legs around his waist like a snake, and he carried her a few feet over to the wall, his one hand coiling through her hair while the other swept all over her body like he was desperate to touch every single inch of her.
I’d seen Eli make out with plenty of women. Having shared a house with him for the last few years, he’d made it into sort of a game, trying to screw the girls he brought home in various places around the house. I’d even walked in on him fucking Sharla in my own bed once—payback for accidentally ruining his favorite jeans in the laundry.
But in all of those instances, I’d never seen him kiss a girl like this. Like it mattered.
Watching the fervor with which they met each other, I couldn’t help but feel myself getting aroused. Strangely, it wasn’t really jealousy going through my mind as I watched them—the way her head rolled back as he drew heated circles down her neck with his tongue. I was jealous that I wasn’t a part of it, but not jealous that she was with someone else.
“But Wade,” she whispered, her words ending in a moan as Eli pressed his dick, which I knew would be hard as a rock—mine was—into her.
“Forgot he was here,” Eli answered, not even bothering to glance in my direction. Or stop what he was doing. “He can watch if he wants. I don’t mind.”
Strangely, I found myself wanting just that. The thought of her pulling away from him, of this encounter ending left me with an unfamiliar ache.
Her eyes met mine, brown and wild with heat. I nodded, and held her eye contact as I pulled a chair out from the desk, sat down, and gripped my dick. I wanted her to know just how much I didn’t mind.
The sight of me slipping my hand beneath the band of my sweatpants made her suck in a deep breath, the desire in her expression amplifying.
Eli turned momentarily to see what she was responding to and cocked a brow as his face broke out into a sly smirk. “Atta boy.”
He pulled her from the wall, earning a surprised noise from her, and walked her over to the bed.
“You good?” he asked.
She nodded, her chest heaving with each breath.
“I need you to say the words, Max. If you want me to stop, tell me to stop. And if you want me to keep going, I need to know that too.”
And as much as it would have pained him to pull away from her in that moment, with her lips swollen and red, her hair tousled seductively, I knew that he would.
“I’m good,” she said, her face lighting up with expectation. “Do your worst.”
There was so much heat in those words that I almost came right then and there, like I was a goddamn teenage boy and not a powerful fucking protector. Er, or incubus.
How the fuck did she have this power of me? Over us?
As if that was exactly what he was hoping to hear, a wicked grin appeared on his face. In one swift move, he ripped her shirt off, grabbed her leg, and pulled. She fell back with her head on the pillow, dressed in nothing but a lacy bra and skimpy pair of underwear.
Seeing her in that position was intoxicating and I pulled my dick out and stroked slowly, up and down, as she opened her mouth in surprise.
A short giggle erupted from her until Eli ripped her underwear off and separated her legs. With a devious smirk, he ducked his head down, his tongue slowly licking up and down over her clit. She bucked off the bed with each lap, eyes squeezed tight.
God I wanted her to look at me, wanted her to see the effect her euphoria was having on me.
As if she could hear my thoughts, her eyes sprang open and they lazily traveled from my face to where my hand sat stroking my cock. At the sight of it, she bit her bottom lip, nearly sending me into overdrive. I wanted those
lips around my cock desperately.
Without realizing it, I moved the chair closer to the bed so that they were only a few short feet from me. She didn’t break eye contact as her hand crept around her back to unsnap the latches of her bra. Slowly, she peeled it off her and tossed it at me playfully, her brow arched in challenge.
I picked it up, hand pumping harder as the scent of her hit me full force. Her chest heaved with each breath as her left hand wound roughly through Eli’s hair and her other started to massage into her right breast.
I pumped faster as we stared at each other, her body tensing deliciously as Eli pulled more and more from her.
Eli slipped a finger into her and she melted into him, her body quaking like she was on the edge of a cliff.
“Oh my god,” she said, each word coming out on a rough exhale. “Fuck.”
Eli chuckled softly—smug ass—as he tilted his head up to watch her. “I’ve got you,” he said, his words both husky and reverent, “you can fall.”
It was surprisingly tender for him.
I matched each thrust of his fingers with my hand and I watched as she erupted, her orgasm sending her body into spasms as she screamed.
Unable to sit as the voyeur for a second longer, I walked over to the bed and brought my lips down to hers, swallowing the final whimpers with my mouth as Eli bent down to bring her to round two.
My skin sang as her tongue met mine with a heavy intensity, like she wanted me as much as I wanted her.
I slid my hand lazily down her neck and drew circles around her nipple until I pinched, eliciting a squeal-turned-moan from her.
I grinned into her lips as her hand made its way down to my dick and pulled back for a moment to look at her—to stare at this girl who was fast becoming my undoing.
“I love when your eyes swirl like that,” she said, her body already starting to quake with another wave as Eli crawled up her body, nipping playfully along her skin.
I sat back like she’d slapped me, suddenly realizing what I was doing. Incubi heightened sex drives. They took any small inkling of libido and attraction and amplified it until that’s all the dreamer could feel.
Hell and Back: The Protector Guild Book 4 Page 10