Embers

by Suzanne Wright

  It made her glad they were on a private beach, or there would be females ogling and batting their eyelashes at him. Then Harper would have to kick some skanky ass.

  “Hey, baby.” He bent and pressed a soft kiss to her mouth, tasting of salty water. Her body hummed, and her toes curled. The feel of his wet hand sweeping across her back felt so good on her heated skin.

  A loud splash was followed by, “Da!”

  Knox ended the kiss with a nip to her lower lip and then straightened to smile at Asher. “I got something for you.” Squatting, he emptied the bucket of sea water into Asher’s pool to top it up, and the little guy flashed his dimples. “I half expected him to climb out of the pool and crawl everywhere, looking for trouble,” Knox said to her. “But he really does love the water. When the temperature cools, we’ll take him to the shoreline, so he can paddle in the sea. You sure you don’t want to take another dip? Tanner and Levi will watch him when they’re done racing.”

  It was tempting to have a reprieve from the heat, but … “I’m not taking any chances with the jellyfish.” No way.

  Knox sighed. “There are no jellyfish.”

  “I saw it with my own eyes. It came right at me.”

  Fighting a smile, he slid onto the double-lounger and traced the length of her spine with his finger. “You need more sunscreen.”

  She snorted. “No, I don’t.” She was in the shade, for God’s sake. “You just want to put some on me.”

  He gave her a very boyish smile. “Busted.”

  She chuckled and handed him the tub of lotion. “There. Have at it.” He sprayed the lotion on her back and then rubbed it in, digging his fingertips into her skin just right. Closing her eyes, she moaned.

  “You can’t make that sound in public, baby,” he admonished, voice dropping an octave. “You know what your little moans do to me.”

  She shot him a glare over her shoulder. “And you know just what you’re doing to me right now.” His smile said that, yes, he did. Maybe that bit of smugness should have annoyed her, but his self-assurance totally flipped her switch.

  “When Asher has a little nap later, I’ll show you what else I like doing to you.”

  “Promises, promises.” Hearing jet skis whizz by, she looked up in time to see that … “Oh, Tanner’s now winning.” Though he and Levi had come along to the island, they were giving her, Knox, and Asher enough space to enjoy family quality time. Meanwhile, Larkin and Keenan were working with the Force to find where Alethea had been staying in North Las Vegas.

  Before they left, Knox had made a short announcement throughout the Underground that Sherryl Malloy had been working with Alethea and, as such, was partly responsible for what almost happened to Asher and Heidi. His announcement had been accompanied by a short excerpt of Malloy’s torture. According to Keenan, most had been as shocked as the Primes to realize what mercilessness lived inside Harper.

  Jonas had called Knox after seeing the clip, insisting that Alethea would only have worked alongside the Horseman if she’d had no idea who he was. Jonas had also wanted to know what Malloy had had to say, but Knox hadn’t told him any more than he’d told the other Primes over the video conference call.

  Harper had worried that Ciaran might be hurt by Malloy’s death, but he’d assured her that the only thing he felt about it was utter satisfaction. As far as he was concerned, if the female was truly the type to risk the safety of a child—his own sister—Malloy wasn’t the person he thought he knew, and he couldn’t grieve a person he’d never known.

  Feeling Knox’s hand slide into her bikini bottoms and massage the lotion into her skin, she said, “I really don’t think my ass is at risk of getting sunburned.”

  “You know something, baby? This lotion would act as a really good lube.”

  Harper tensed. “Don’t you dare try shoving your finger up—”

  “I’d never do that in Asher’s presence,” said Knox, chuckling. “But later, when we’re alone … ”

  Rolling onto her side, she propped herself up on her elbow. “Want to know what I think?”

  “Always.”

  “I think you’ve been far too preoccupied with my ass ever since your demon put the damn brand on it.”

  Knox smiled at her haughty tone. “Know what I think, baby?”

  “What?”

  “I think you like that brand far more than you’re willing to admit.”

  “Why would I like having a ‘K’ on my ass?”

  “I’m sure that, given your line of business, you’ve seen crazier tattoos than a simple initial on someone’s ass.” Which he didn’t really want to think about, since he didn’t like the idea of his mate looking at another guy’s bare ass.

  A slow smile spread across Harper’s face. “A woman once came into our studio blitzed out of her mind, wanting a tattoo on her ass that said: ‘Exit Only’. You should really think about that.”

  A cell began to chime. “That’s yours,” said Knox as he dug the phone out of the bag next to the lounger. The name he saw on the screen made his lips thin. “It’s Lucian.”

  Taking it, she answered, “Hello?”

  “Baby girl, why have you not called me?” Lucian whined.

  She sighed. “I take it you got wind of all the trouble that’s been going on.”

  “If you mean the incorporeal on your tail, yes, I did. Why didn’t you call?”

  Honestly, it hadn’t occurred to her. It wasn’t like he could help, and Lucian had never cared to receive “courtesy calls” in the past. Plus … “Because then you might have come home, and I don’t want to spend yet more time trying to stop you from tempting Knox to kill you.”

  “That psychopathic bastard—”

  “Enough with the ‘psychopathic’,” she snapped.

  “Fine.” He sounded like a rebellious teenager. “Tell me how my grandson is.”

  Glancing at her son, a smile automatically curled Harper’s lips. “He’s currently having a grand time playing in an inflatable pool.”

  “Good, good. I’m coming for a visit in the next few weeks.”

  “Great,” she said, though she wasn’t convinced. He always meant to come, but he often got distracted by one thing or another.

  “I’m going to take my baby girl and my grandson out for dinner.” He gave a long-suffering sigh. “You can bring the psychopath if you must.”

  “Lucian.”

  “Just because he hasn’t yet tried to kill you doesn’t make me wrong.”

  “I’m hanging up.” Because there was no reasoning with him—he was determined to hate Knox, probably due to the simple fact that her mate had once called Lucian on his poor idea of parenting.

  “When you find yourself locked in a basement where you’re routinely tortured for his own sick pleasure, you’ll wish you’d listened to me.”

  “And I’m done.” Ending the call, she groaned. Lucian was a trial at times.

  Knox took the phone from her and returned it to the bag. “I’ve said it before, Harper, and I’ll say it again: that demon is a waste of skin.” His mate believed that by raising her to not need anyone, Lucian had been trying to ensure that she wouldn’t be anything like him. Maybe that was true. Maybe it wasn’t. But it didn’t change that Lucian had let her down in a whole host of ways.

  If Jolene was right, Lucian hadn’t been purely selfish in dragging his daughter around the world—he’d actually thought it would be good for her to be exposed to different cultures and lifestyle and, in doing so, he’d shared with her the only thing other than Harper that brought him joy. Even if that were true, Knox didn’t find it a justifiable excuse for Lucian’s emotional neglect.

  Before she could start jumping to her father’s defense—something that would piss Knox off, since the bastard didn’t deserve it—Knox said, “Thought you might want to know I had a call from Elena. McCauley’s doing well.” The annoyance on her face faded, just as he’d hoped.

  “Really? Good.” Little McCauley was a cambion who had
been switched at birth with a human child by his late mother, a demon drug addict who’d been raped by a human. Oblivious to the switch, a human couple had taken him home and raised him, but they hadn’t done a great job of it. As such, McCauley’s inner demon had sort of stepped in and become the parent, which explained why the kid was robotic.

  “It is indeed good,” agreed Knox. “Especially since he helped us by telling you that Nora had taken me into a portal. I’ll always be grateful for that even though he did it for a selfish reason.” McCauley had wanted Harper’s protection from Linda, a woman who had killed most of his maternal relatives and had also helped Nora in the hope that she’d get her hands on Asher. McCauley was now staying at a house with other demonic children who had no family to care for them.

  “I think that—” Seeing a spark in her peripheral vision, Harper looked to see hellfire flaring in Asher’s hand. It winked away fast. “Did you see that?” she asked Knox.

  “I did.”

  Asher’s little face scrunched up, and then hellfire once more flickered in his hand. It wasn’t quite an orb. More like a spurt of fire. Again, it vanished quite quickly. He glanced at his hand curiously, and then his mind touched hers—there was a question there.

  “I saw it, baby,” Harper told him. “Here, play with this instead.” She handed him his sieve and, bam, he was distracted. Which was good, because she’d rather he didn’t set his pool on fire. “It wasn’t an orb, but that’s not to say he won’t be able to shape the hellfire into a ball once he’s had a little practice, right?”

  Knox stroked her arm. “I know you think it a weakness that you can’t conjure an orb of hellfire. Maybe it would be if you couldn’t produce hellfire at all, but you can. I don’t see your ability to only infuse it into objects as in any way a limitation. In fact, I’d say it’s more destructive.”

  “Yeah, unless I need to throw a ball of hellfire. Then it’s a problem.” Glancing at Asher again, she asked Knox, “How old were you when your abilities first started to surface?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Knox. “I don’t remember ever not having abilities. It wasn’t a question I’d ever asked my parents. I remember being excited whenever a new ability surfaced. My parents would always panic, though, and urge me to hide them. They didn’t want the other demons to know what we were.” As an archdemon, Knox would never stop growing in power. That was one of the things that made his breed so dangerous.

  People believed that what was born in hell should remain in hell. His breed tended to live in hordes deep within hell itself. Despite that the children were born from the flames, the adults all shared in the care of them. Some adults “adopted” children, treating them as their own, just as his parents had done.

  “You said your horde separated when it came to Earth. What happened to the others?”

  “Lou told me they’d returned to hell of their own accord well before the law had passed that archdemons were forbidden from leaving it.” After a rogue archdemon once almost destroyed Earth, Lou agreed to keep the breed in hell. But since he hadn’t agreed to round up any archdemons still roaming the Earth, he left Knox well alone. “People here don’t exactly welcome our kind. No lairs would accept them. No one trusted them. They felt they had no place here.”

  “Why didn’t you go back to hell after your parents died?” Harper asked.

  “It would have felt too much like running. Hiding. Accepting defeat. That’s not who I am.”

  “So … you’re, like, the only archdemon on Earth?”

  “Yes.”

  Her eyes clouded. “Must be lonely to be one of a kind. Cool too, in some ways. But mostly lonely.”

  “It never really affected me one way or the other. And how can I be lonely when I have you?” Cupping her nape, he took her mouth, keeping the kiss slow. Deep. Lazy. Indulging in a thorough taste of her that never failed to enliven him … so it was pretty annoying that they were disturbed by the laughter of the sentinels.

  Knox looked to see them traipsing through the shallow part of the sea, heading for the shoreline. “Who won the race?” he called out.

  Tanner snorted, as if offended by the question. “Me, of course. I wanted to—shit, jellyfish!”

  Harper raised a brow at Knox. “What did I say?”

  He just shook his head.

  Digging her fingers into his shoulders, Harper did her best to keep her moans low as he ate at her pussy but, dammit, it was hard. God, he was ravenous as he licked, nipped, and savored. Every flick of his tongue to her clit made her wind that much tighter. Every light scrape of his teeth made her stomach clench. And when he began pumping his tongue inside her, stabbing and swirling, she felt herself start to fracture. He growled, the vibrations rumbled up her pussy, and then her release barreled into her, making her back bow and her fingers claw at the bedsheet.

  Cock as hard as a steel spike, Knox kissed his way up her shuddering body. “Fucking love making you come, baby.” He latched onto her nipple and suckled, plumping her other creamy breast with his hand. Her skin was soft as silk. He loved fucking her breasts, but not tonight. Tonight, he needed to be inside her.

  As her lips parted and she went to argue, he took her mouth. Sank his tongue inside and glided it against her own.

  Her fingers dug into his shoulders, and she arched into him with a throaty moan he felt all the way in his balls.

  The moment his mouth had touched hers, her entire body just lit right up. No one had ever kissed her the way Knox did. He didn’t just stroke her tongue with his. He licked at her teeth, nipped at the corners of her mouth, sucked on her bottom lip, rubbed the inside of her top lip. Devoured her until her brain was mush and her emotions were spinning.

  The sexual aggression pouring off him made her pulse quicken, her nipples pebble, and her pussy clench. His cock, hard and long and thick …

  He pulled back, and she would have chased his mouth for more if it wasn’t for the hand fisting her hair and holding her in place.

  As she wrapped her limbs around him and arched her back to grind against his cock, Knox delivered a sharp tweak to her taut nipple. “Roll over.”

  She frowned. “Huh?”

  “Roll over.”

  Knowing he just wanted to look at his brand while he fucked her, Harper almost rolled her eyes. “Will you just fuck me already?”

  “I won’t tell you a third time, baby.”

  “But I want—”

  He slapped her clit. “Right now, this isn’t about what you want. You’re here to make me come. To satisfy me. Once you’ve done that, you’ll get what you want.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “You mother—”

  He gave her clit another slap. “Last chance to do as you’re told, baby.”

  Grinding her teeth to hold in the stream of curses going through her head, Harper slowly rolled over.

  He stroked over the brand on her ass. “There, that wasn’t so hard, was it? Now arch your back. Push your ass in the air. Good girl.” Knox lodged the head of his cock in her pussy, and they both sucked in a breath. She was so hot and tight and deliciously slick that he could have come right then. “All mine.” He slammed home.

  Harper’s breath got caught in her throat as she found herself stuffed full of his long, hard cock. He felt almost impossibly thick as he stretched and filled her until it almost hurt. She could feel him throbbing inside her. What she needed was to feel him coming inside her.

  His body folded over hers. “Feel good?”

  She nodded, nipples tightening at the weight of his hard body and the graze of his teeth on her throat. She felt crowded. Unable to move. But she liked it.

  Bunching her hair in his hand, Knox snatched her head back. She moaned, pussy contracting around him. A low growl rumbled in his chest. “Don’t come.”

  Harper fisted the bedsheets as he pounded into her pussy, riding her so hard he took her breath away. All the while he grunted and whispered in her ear, telling her how good her pussy tasted, how he loved going down on
her, how he loved that no one else would ever have her.

  “You’re close, aren’t you?” he gritted out as her pussy tightened and fluttered around him. He slid his hand around her body and thumbed her clit.

  Harper groaned. “Oh, God.”

  “Don’t come yet.”

  Her eyes snapped open. “What?” He couldn’t play with her clit and expect her not to come! But he did. He thumbed, circled, plucked, and rubbed at it until she wanted to cry. “You bastard!” She couldn’t hold back. She just couldn’t. She—

  He pulled out.

  Harper blinked. “What the—”

  Knox flipped her onto her back, slid a hand under her ass, and tilted her hips just right. “Wrap me up tight, baby.”

  She locked her limbs around him, and then he was fucking in and out of her like he’d never get enough. She clawed at his back, relishing every hard slam of his cock, wanting more—always more. His teeth scraped over the hollow beneath her ear just as an icy-cold psychic finger stroked her clit just right.

  “Come,” Knox rumbled.

  White-hot pleasure lashed through Harper like a whip of lightning as she came with a silent scream. He bit out a harsh curse against her neck as he hammered into her even harder, his pace furious, his cock filling her to bursting, making the headboard slam against the wall. She felt pure power gather in his muscles just before he jammed his cock deep and exploded inside her, his hot come splashing her quaking inner walls.

  It could have been minutes or hours that they lay there, panting, shuddering. She didn’t mind having him slumped over her. Liked that she could make him so sated he was reduced to a dead weight. “You bring real game to this sexual relationship,” she slurred.

  Shoulders shaking, he slid a hand under her back and then rolled, taking her with him. “You’ve got enough ‘game’ of your own.” Skimming his fingertips down her spine, he asked, “You okay?”

  “Will be when I can feel my legs again. Playing with my clit and ordering me not to come was just plain mean.”

  “It made you come like a fucking freight train, though.”