by Patti O'Shea
“It started when I saw myself from your point of view as I knelt in front of you, your cock in my mouth. You liked that—want me to do it again?”
“Not right now.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. He figured if she went down on him he’d come in about three seconds, and Marax didn’t want this to end that quickly. “Uh-uh! Hands behind your head.”
“How long do I have to stand like this?”
“Until I tell you to stop.” As much as he liked gazing at her, it wasn’t enough. His cock was so hard, he felt as if he lumbered back to where Chloe stood, but she didn’t look at him oddly so maybe it hadn’t been that awkward. He ran his knuckles along the underside of her breast and then bent to take a little taste. When she arched into him, he pulled back, decided he liked the wetness around her nipple, and swirled his tongue around the other one. “Nice,” he murmured, studying his handiwork.
“Marax.” There was a sultry, demon-ish growl to her voice.
He cupped her sex, using his thumb to circle her nub. “You’re wet. It’s wicked to enjoy standing naked in front of a fully dressed man, a man you’ve known for only a few hours. A good girl wouldn’t be fucking my hand.”
“I want to come,” she said.
“You better not. You don’t get to come until I say you can.”
Chloe moaned and tried to stop moving. This wasn’t going to last much longer even if she was getting off on it. He needed to come. She had him so far into overdrive that it wouldn’t surprise him if he had a big wet spot where his cock-head pressed against his trousers.
“So hot for me.” Marax slid a couple fingers inside her and slowly thrust them in and out. He watched her face and liked what he saw there. Chloe’s eyes were all but shut, she bit her lower lip, and her body trembled as she fought the need to rock into his fingers. The little sound that escaped her told him she was this close to an orgasm. He wanted to watch her as she came, but not this time. Reluctantly, he withdrew his hand.
She cursed at him.
Marax put the two fingers he’d fucked her with into her mouth. “Lick your juices off. Maybe that will sweeten your language.”
The glare she gave him spoke volumes.
“Did you want to come tonight?” he asked.
The first touch of her tongue was tentative, but she must have learned what he already knew—she tasted good—because the next lick was more certain and the ones that followed, enthusiastic. Her eagerness pushed him to the edge of his control and this time, Marax didn’t fight it too hard. They both needed to come.
He lowered his arm and leaned forward for a kiss. The traces of her sweetness on her lips was nearly more than he could take.
Clearing his throat, he told her, “Take my cock out. No, I didn’t say lower my pants, I said take my cock out. I’m taking you fully dressed.”
Chloe had trouble working his hard-on through the flap of his shorts. She knelt in front of him to get a better angle and he had to grit his teeth and go back to reciting philosophy theorems. The sight of her in the same position she’d used to go down on him was bad enough, but the fumbling as she tried to maneuver him free was excruciating. He finally had to help her.
“Stand up.” That came out less as an order and more as a desperate plea, but she followed his direction. “Turn around.”
When she’d done it, he went behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist and walked her to the wall. He realized he was rubbing his cock against her ass and made himself stop. He was shaking. She had him so worked up that he was actually shaking. He muttered his own curse and said, “Spread your legs for me.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to fuck you standing up—like you wanted. Only we’re going to do it my way, not yours. Spread those legs for me.”
Raising her arms, he linked their fingers and held their hands against the cool plaster. He bent his knees and came up. It took him four tries to get his cock-head inside her, but she was trembling as hard as he was. They both groaned as he slid home.
“Damn, you’re tight.”
“Fuck me,” she ordered.
Since that was exactly what he wanted to do, he obeyed her command. One thrust and she started to squeeze him. Marax froze and bit her shoulder. “No, I didn’t say you could come.”
He moved slowly, afraid if he didn’t, it would all be over. Dragging it out like this was excruciating, a sweet torture, but it would pay off with an incredible orgasm later. If he could hold on long enough to get them both there.
Chloe went out of her way to try to derail his plans. With every forward thrust, she moved her ass against his groin. Ordering her to stop was beyond him—he liked it too much.
Marax fucked her faster, harder.
“Marax! Marax, please!”
When he was one forward stroke away from climax, he said, “Come for me, firebrand.” And as he surged into her, she did. Each of her spasms increased the intensity of his own orgasm until all he could hear were her cries of pleasure.
Chapter Eight
Chloe folded her dress and stuck it in the bag along with her heels. What she was wearing now was much more practical—cream-colored trousers, a white shirt, and shoes she could run in without risking a sprained ankle. There was one problem with the outfit, though. Its cost.
They were staying in Bel Air, and when Marax had called down to the hotel boutique and told them to bring up clothes for them to look at, she’d known the damage would be high. She hadn’t been wrong. The shoes alone cost more than she made in a month, and she’d nearly hyperventilated when she’d looked at the price tags on the other things. Even now, thinking about how much she owed him made her stomach churn.
“Don’t worry about it,” Marax said, coming into the bedroom. “We needed new clothes.”
“I know,” she grumbled and tried not to sound ungrateful. She was wearing panties again and a bra and Chloe was thankful. But she hated accepting handouts and she had no choice. Between her student loans and the rent on her apartment, it would take her years to pay him back.
Marax used two fingers to tip her face to his. He brushed a kiss over her mouth and then said, “You don’t owe me anything and I can afford it, so why keep thinking about it?”
“You’re a demon. How can you have enough human money to pay for this stuff?” A new thought occurred to Chloe. “And how can you have a credit card, let alone one without a limit? It’s not as if you can put down ‘demon earl’ as an occupation and ‘The Other World’ as your address.”
He grinned at her, making both dimples appear, and she lost her breath for a moment. He looked even better in the late afternoon sun than he had in moonlight. Maybe it was the new clothes he wore. The olive khakis and navy Henley shirt seemed to highlight his muscles. Or maybe it appeared that way because she was intimately familiar with how awesome his body really was. She was thinking about undressing him while she stayed fully clothed—at least for a while—but his voice intruded on her planning.
“I worked and lived full time in the human world until around ten months ago,” Marax told her. “The card is legit and so is my net worth.”
His thumb rubbed a light circle on her chin and it was surprisingly erotic. Why didn’t she feel awkward with this man? She should, especially after what they’d done together last night in this very room, but being with Marax seemed natural. It seemed right. Chloe shoved that thought away quickly. He read her more and more easily and she wanted time to think things through without him knowing about it. “What happened ten months ago?” she asked.
The smile left his face. “My father and older brother disappeared and the earldom came to me.”
Chloe sensed a stab of pain and then it shut down as if it had never been. Marax, she realized. He didn’t want her to know how hard this hit him, so he’d blocked her. She put her arms around his waist and leaned into his chest. “You don’t know what happened to them?”
“No.” He tried to break away from her, but Chloe tightened her hold and he sur
rendered, his own arms going around her. “They were in this world. The assumption is that demon slayers got them.”
Marax might have concealed his emotions, but she picked up a stray thought. “You can’t blame yourself,” she told him. “You don’t know if your presence would have changed anything or if you would have suffered the same fate.”
“I was supposed to be with them. I cancelled because I was more interested in making a business deal than I was in spending time with my family.” The evenness of his tone was belied by his intensity.
“I’m sorry,” she crooned and held him tighter. “I’m sorry.” There was nothing else she could think of to say and certainly nothing that would take away his guilt or pain.
He hugged her hard, but it didn’t last long before he put distance between them physically, as if that would erase how closely he’d let her in. Marax was staring out the French doors when he said, “We’re going to need to check out soon. Will be you be ready to leave in half an hour or so?”
“Leave? But we’re safe here.”
The sunlight picked up the lighter brown strands in his dark hair as he shook his head. “No, we aren’t. Galghoans are probably the best energy trackers among the demons. It doesn’t matter that LA is big—if we stay in one place too long, he’ll find us.”
That sobered her. “How long do we run?” Chloe asked quietly.
Marax turned away from the window. “Until one of us comes up with a way to create an antidote and we have to do it before the green fades on its own. The cure is the only bargaining chip we’ll have to negotiate our lives.”
“My life,” Chloe corrected.
He stalked to her, not stopping until he was toe-to-toe with her. “Our lives, Chloe. We’re mated.” He shook his head, forestalling her protest. “We’re mated and that means instinct will overwhelm common sense. It means if you’re attacked, I’ll do whatever I have to in order to keep you safe. Even if I die trying.”
Chloe nearly accused him of being melodramatic, but a split second later she realized he wasn’t exaggerating. He would give up his life for her and she didn’t want that.
“We aren’t mated—I’m only a quarter demon and you said half demon or more—so there’s no reason for you to fight to the death.”
His lips curved, but the expression held no humor. “Reason doesn’t enter into it. A demon male’s instincts insist he protect his mate at any cost. As for you only being a quarter demon, I’ve been thinking about that and believe I have an answer.”
The urge to put her hands over her ears and tell him she didn’t want to hear it was strong, but she wasn’t five and that wouldn’t make the problem go away, anyhow. Marax was insistent that they were mated, and no matter how much she argued with him, she was scared he was right. Something had shifted the first time they’d had sex, and the biting, that meant something.
“A bite in this location—” Marax pointed to where his neck and shoulder met “—is part of a how a demon claims his or her mate, although it’s not strictly necessary.”
“We can’t be mated.” Chloe sounded as desperate as she felt.
He took a step closer, but stopped. “I tried denial for a while myself, but the self-delusion only works for so long. We have a special connection, one that puts us inside each other’s head easily. That’s not a normal channel—it only forms between two mated demons. It’s how I can read your thoughts and how you know what I’m thinking.”
Swallowing hard, she shook her head. They weren’t mated. They weren’t.
Marax studied her closely, and Chloe tried to block her thoughts. “Too late,” he said quietly. “I have no wish to be mated, either, but you’re nearly panicked. Talk to me.”
She wanted to run, and yet oddly, she also wanted to wrap her arms around Marax and let him comfort her. The dissonance froze her until he hugged her. Before she could stop herself, Chloe clung to him, hiding her face against his throat. “Why do you think it’s possible for us to be mated?”
It was a stalling tactic and Chloe knew Marax was aware of it. He answered her, anyway. “That amplification energy you sent me while I fought the galghoan is the same energy you surround us with every time you become highly aroused. I thought about it for a while last night and I think that when you did that, you bolstered the demon part of yourself.”
“Genetics don’t change.”
“No, but being a demon is more than DNA—it’s also the magic we possess. My theory is that you raised your power level to that of a half demon.”
Chloe had no memory of amplifying energy while they had sex, but she didn’t doubt Marax. Everything had been so different with him, so far out of her control that it wouldn’t surprise her. She frowned. Accepting that, though, didn’t mean she believed they were mated. Those were two different things and he said he was guessing. He was wrong.
He had to be wrong.
Marax stroked her back, running his palm down the length of her spine and then back up. “Why are you so afraid?”
She buried herself deeper in his embrace. Chloe wished she could lie to him and say she had no idea where the fear was coming from, but she couldn’t. Something inside her balked at the thought of being anything except truthful with him and she didn’t know why.
“It’s part of being mates,” he told her.
“That’s a bitch,” she grumbled.
Marax chuckled. “Tell me about it. Look on the bright side—I’ll always be honest with you, as well, and mates are completely faithful to each other.” His fingers brushed the back of her neck. “Now come on, tell me what’s going on with you.”
“You can read my thoughts,” she said, her voice laced with sarcasm. “Why don’t you tell me?”
Tension entered his body, but Marax’s touch remained comforting. “I can do that. Because we have this bond between us, I can delve in your head at will. Normally, going that deep in your mind isn’t something I would do unless there was an emergency, but because you gave me permission, I’ll put aside my scruples and—”
“Don’t.” Chloe tried to break free from him, but he tightened his hold and she settled herself against his chest once more. This was where she wanted to be—with him, their bodies so close that there was no space between them. He wouldn’t understand, but maybe once she told him what was bothering her, he’d leave her alone. “You know why I’m scared? Because if we’re mated, that means the amount of demon in me isn’t negligible, and I can’t be a demon.”
“Why not?” It wasn’t a question, but a demand.
Angry, she straightened, looking him in the eye as she said, “Demons are irresponsible and selfish and they can’t be relied on or be trusted to hang around when life gets difficult. I’m not like that.”
“No, you’re not and neither am I, so let’s talk about your father. What did he do to make you think this is how demons behave?”
His insight surprised her enough to make her gape at him. A second later her brain started working again. She wasn’t any of those things, but she’d worked hard at it. And her mom had done everything she could to ensure Chloe didn’t have any of those demon traits. Marax, though, was pure demon. How had he avoided it? And he had. He’d defended her against the galghoan, he’d bought her clothes and gotten her shelter somewhere safe—and not in some hovel, either, but in probably the most expensive suite in Bel Air.
Marax had gone beyond that, too. He’d never made her feel cheap, although he was supposed to be nothing more than a one-night stand, and he hadn’t been a greedy lover. He’d always made certain she was enjoying herself as much as he was and he always made her come.
Another realization hit her. She might have been hugely aroused last night, but she’d noticed how he’d made sure she was okay with the games they’d played. It was his care and consideration that had allowed her to let go and follow his orders. Chloe never would have given up control to a man who wasn’t trustworthy and unselfish.
Blinking, she brought him back into focus. Marax watc
hed her, probably seeing more than she wanted him to see. There was intensity in his gorgeous blue eyes, but there was compassion there, too, and patience. He continued to take care of her.
“My dad,” Chloe said softly, “died when I was a baby, but not before he walked out on my mom. He told her he didn’t want the responsibilities of being a husband and father, that he felt strangled by the demands she put on him.”
“And human men never walk out on their families?” Marax asked. “Human men never decide they’re not ready to be tied down? Is that what you’re saying?”
Chloe found herself gaping at Marax again. He was right; humans abandoned their families, too. It was her mother who’d equated that with her father being a demon, but what if that wasn’t true? He might have been just as careless and irresponsible if he were 100 percent human. Walking out on his wife and daughter was a personality failing, not genetics.
It shook her to the core. She’d always believed— Unwelcome tears filled her eyes and Chloe blinked hard. “Damn you, Marax,” she said softly, voice thick.
He swayed gently, using the motion to soothe her. “You already knew this, you simply didn’t want to look at it, but it’s going to be all right. You might feel unsettled now, but when you’re grounded again, it’ll be on a stronger foundation and in the meantime, use me as your anchor. I’ll keep you safe, always.”
Reaching up, Chloe stroked his bearded cheek with the backs of her fingers, then leaned forward to kiss him. She could trust this man and would be able to trust him for her entire life. Not because he was her mate, although she knew he was right about that, but because of who Marax was—a responsible, conscientious adult who cared about others.
Reluctantly, she eased back until she could see his face. “Do we have time to make love?” she asked.
“Maybe if we don’t spend hours, we can—”
Her cell phone rang. She ignored it, but Marax didn’t. He walked over to the dresser, picked it up, and looked at caller ID. “It’s your sister,” he said, holding out the phone.