Asher didn’t speak, but he didn’t have to. She knew he agreed with her. The purpose of this break-in had been at least as much to hurt her as to find whatever they’d been looking for.
“I don’t see anything obviously missing,” she said, picking her way carefully through the wreckage, “but like I said, how could I tell?”
“I’m less worried about the things in here,” Asher admitted. “I agree they weren’t after your sister’s belongings. Which is why I want you to check the bedroom. You need to make sure none of your things are missing.”
For a moment, Daphanie just frowned at him. It took several seconds for his meaning to sink in, for her to remember what Erica Frederics had told her.
A practitioner of voodoo might steal a woman’s scarf, for instance, or a man’s handkerchief and use the fabric to make the doll’s clothing. Some of the person’s energy is tied up in his or her possessions and that helps to forge the link so that the actions performed on the doll are experienced by the intended victim.
Daphanie felt herself go pale. “Do you think…?”
Asher urged her forward. “Go look.”
The bedroom looked like a replica of the great room, only in miniature. Even the mattress had been knocked askew, hanging drunkenly off one end of the bed frame.
Daphanie felt her heart clench. She hated the idea of someone having invaded the apartment this way, not for her own sake, but for her sister’s. Danice didn’t deserve to have her things pawed through, her mementos broken, her belongings disarranged. She should never have invited Daphanie to stay.
We’ll be out of town for three weeks. Trust me, you’ll be doing us a favor, Danice had said, her smile radiant with excitement and love for her soon-to-be-husband. If you don’t stay here, we’ll just have to have someone else come in to water the plants, bring in the mail, keep things looking lived in. C’mon, Daffy. Say you’ll stay. You can even use our room and sleep in the big bed. The guest room is full of boxes and wedding presents, anyway. We’re still only three-quarters unpacked.
God, Daphanie did not want to look at the guest room. She thought seeing her sister’s wedding gifts broken and violated would just kill her.
She stared down at the floor, at the clothes emptied from her still half-packed suitcases strewn all about, through watery eyes. “I don’t know … I don’t see—I … I can’t tell.”
“Keep looking.”
His voice sounded so gentle, as if he knew how hard this was and he hurt right along with her. But he remained insistent.
Daphanie shook her head, but she kept looking. Slowly she made her way across the floor to the closet—a single one of Mac’s dress shirts hung lonely and forlorn on its hanger—then on to the master bath. Tubes and bottles and lotions and creams lay scattered across the floor and counters. Her own bottle of shampoo—which she perpetually forgot to replace the cap on after she used it—had been knocked into the tub, the contents spilled out into a pool of pale, aromatic green. A container of powder had broken and dusted every available surface with fine grains of dusky tan. Daphanie’s hairbrush lay drunkenly in the sink, shed hairs clinging to the bristles.
“I don’t know,” she said softly, almost despairingly. “I don’t see anything … But I just don’t know.”
“All right.” Asher laid an arm across her shoulders and guided her gently back toward the apartment’s entrance. “You’ve seen enough. Let’s get you back to the Winters’. I need to let Graham and Rafe know what’s happened, and Missy can keep an eye on you while we go and take care of this once and for all.”
Daphanie jerked to a stop in front of the upside-down coffee table. “What? No!”
“No?”
“No. I’m not going back to Missy’s,” Daphanie insisted, trying to figure out what had ever made him think she would. “I need to stay here. Someone needs to start cleaning up this mess, and then I need to figure out a way to explain it to my sister.”
Asher’s mouth hardened. “If you think I’m leaving you here alone to deal with all this, you’re crazy. I’ll find someone to come over and clean it up, but you are not staying here alone. Hell, after this, you’ll be lucky if I let you go to the bathroom alone.”
“And you’ll be lucky if I don’t kick your balls up into your sinuses,” she shot back. “Let me tell you, I’m getting real tired of you managing my life for me, Grayson. I’m a grown woman, I’m a capable woman, and I can decide whether or not I want to spend the rest of my damned life hiding in my sister’s friend’s house.”
“I’m not asking you to hide, damn it. I’m just asking you to stay safe!”
Daphanie’s eyes narrowed and she drew herself up, even standing on her toes to give her a couple of extra inches of height. She glared at Asher and used her finger to prod his chest for emphasis.
“Stop trying to fob me off on other people like I’m a problem you can’t wait to get rid of,” she hissed. “You want me safe, you can damned well keep me safe yourself. And if you don’t like that idea, you can just kiss my brown ass. How would you like that, Mr. High-and-Mighty Grayson?”
He didn’t answer. Not unless you counted a suppressed roar as an answer.
A suppressed roar and the wildest, hottest kiss Daphanie Carter had ever experienced in her independent, adventurous life.
Eleven
Mating rituals among the Others vary as much as they do among humans—the modes and methods may change, but the end result is always very much the same.
—A Human Handbook to the Others, Chapter Fifteen
Asher thought his head might explode. Either one of them. It was a toss-up which would go first. With Daphanie Carter, the possibilities were simply endless.
He hadn’t intended to kiss her again. In fact, he’d made a vow to himself stating exactly that. In spite of his conversation with Graham, or maybe because of it, he had come to realize how ill suited he and the human really were for each other. He might … harbor feelings for the woman, but he knew perfectly well that to act upon them any further would be folly.
As he had told the alpha, he had been more than five hundred years old when Daphanie was born. Part of being a Guardian was the ability to suspend aging. It would be difficult to battle demons and fiends and other assorted threats against humanity, after all, if one had to worry about advancing arthritis or the inevitable decline of muscle strength inherent in the aging process.
Once Guardians reached full maturity and took up their duties under the auspices of the Watcher, they ceased to age, remaining forever at the height of their physical powers for the entirety of their careers. Asher, then, could conceivably live, quite literally, forever. How was he supposed to reconcile that with loving a human? With watching her slowly fade, year after year, into old age, infirmity, and finally death?
If he were a vampire, he could share his immortality, and he knew that if that were his situation, he wouldn’t hesitate to bind Daphanie to him for eternity. But he wasn’t a vampire, and Daphanie had never said she wanted to be with him, let alone be with him forever.
When their lips met, he knew he didn’t care.
She flowered beneath him, responding to the anger and frustration and desperation in his kiss as if she understood every nuance of the emotions. Instead of shrinking from him, shunning him for his aggressive ardor, she met it, pouring her own heat and passion into the embrace. Her arms lifted and clasped around his neck, her body bent and pressed against him, and her tongue tangled with his as if she could fit herself to him so securely, she could prevent ever coming dislodged.
Gods, how he wished that were possible.
His hands slid down her sides, yanking her even closer, adjusting her hips against his until she tilted her pelvis to provide a natural cradle for his arousal. He shuddered at the utter perfection of the fit and moved his hands behind her to cup the lush, firm cheeks of her ass in his palms.
She felt like heaven and tasted even better. He wrenched his lips from hers, ignoring her petulant whimp
er, and skimmed his mouth over the sharp angle of her cheekbone, the round curve of her face, and down the slender length of her throat. He drew hard on the smooth skin, taking her flesh in his teeth and testing its resiliency. She shuddered wildly in his arms, and he felt an instinctive kinship with every vampire in existence. He would have given anything for the ability to draw her inside, to consume her and feel her very essence sink deep into his bones.
He had never, ever, wanted a woman this badly. Wanted anything this badly.
Her head fell back on a whispered moan and for the second time in twelve hours, her legs twined around his hips and drew him closer to her heated center. This time he had no desire to fight it. This time, he used his grip on her bottom to help her, to lift her higher until the fly of his jeans rode tight against the sweatpants’ seam between her legs. He even pressed himself home more securely and brought his mouth back to hers for another ravenous kiss.
He wanted to sink into her. He wanted to throw her to the paper-strewn floor and take her right here, right now, in a frenzy of need. He wanted to scoop her up and whisk her back to his home, to lay her out on his bed and feast on her for hours. He wanted anything and everything, and he feared he would lose his mind if he didn’t get it. He needed to decide.
She decided for him.
With one hand, she cupped the back of his head, holding him to her as she continued to strip away his sanity with her hot, eager mouth. With the other, she traced a burning path down his chest and abdomen, inserting clever fingers between them until she could flick open the metal button at his waistband.
Pop.
He could have sworn he heard the disc jump free of the hole. His breath froze in his chest and he wrenched his mouth from hers again, this time not to taste her honey-sweet skin but to look into her eyes and see in them a desire as fierce as his own.
Pop.
The second button on his fly opened and the strength of his erection began to force the opening. Her gaze burned into his, brown irises nearly swallowed whole by yawning, black pupils.
Pop.
Another. One more and he’d be free. One more and she would be able to take him in her hand and bend him entirely to her will.
He almost couldn’t bear the anticipation.
Pop.
His world distilled into that single sound.
Time froze, his breath stilled, his pounding heartbeat slowed to a sluggish, drawn-out thhhuuuh-thmmmp. A smile coasted across her lips, one lush millimeter at a time. Her hand moved just as slowly.
Her fingers closed around him like a revelation, slim and hot and unbearably eager. They pressed him into her palm and took him in an infinite instant from suspended yearning to instantaneous, breathless urgency. And she accompanied it with a low, wicked chuckle.
Asher growled in response.
To hell with his bed. To hell with any bed. He had to have her now. He had to get inside her before his heart gave under the strain. He had to get inside her before he went utterly, irredeemably mad.
His fingers flashed into action, tugging and tearing at her clothes, glorying in the sharp sound of rending fabric and the dewy warmth of smooth, flushed skin. She laughed again and stroked him, her palm sliding and squeezing from root to tip, drawing forth a bead of eager fluid. Her thumb swept across and rubbed the moisture into the head of his penis, sending every one of four thousand nerve endings screaming with the agony of pleasure.
She was trying to kill him. He had to have her before she succeeded.
He tipped her to the floor, remembering only at the last minute that she was human and fragile and managing to twist their bodies so that he landed beneath her, cushioning her fall. She barely blinked, just grabbed his waistband in both of her hands and yanked the stiff denim down over his hips. She stared down at him, her gaze hungry and intent, and he could swear it felt like a thousand volts of electricity coursing though his body.
He twisted again, this time bringing her beneath him. Rough hands stripped away the remaining scraps of cloth, leaving her bare and heated and reaching for him. How could he possibly deny her?
He roughly kneed her legs apart and settled into the cradle of her hips, hissing at the sensation of his shaft riding in the wet furrow between. Daphanie only lifted her knees higher until she could plant the soles of her feet against the top of his ass.
Damn, she bent like a gymnast, shifting and curving and twisting to fit every possible inch of skin against skin. He felt as if he were wearing her, and it still wasn’t enough.
Using the leverage afforded her by the positioning of her legs, she braced herself against the bottoms of her feet and pushed against him, her hips nearly lifting both of them off the carpet of rough wool and paper. Asher slipped his arms under her knees, letting them rest in the crooks of his elbows as he braced his hands against the floor and rose above her.
It was time to stop playing games.
He saw her eyelids drift lower and bent his head. He grasped her lower lips between his teeth and nipped sharply. A warning. Her eyes flew open and he could see her register the intent in his gaze. Heat flared between them and she managed a short, jerky nod before he flexed his arms, pressing her knees higher. He held her pinned with his body and his gaze as he fit himself against her entrance and began to press forward.
Her breath caught in her throat, tangling on a moan and threatening to choke her. She kept her eyes open wide and locked with his, but he could see the strain of it on her brow. He knew her lids wanted to close, wanted to block out the distraction of sight in order to concentrate wholly on the miraculous pleasure of their joining. But Asher would not allow it. He wanted to see every nuance of the act reflected in her face. Even as her gaze went blind and unfocused, he could see how her pupils dilated further, opening wider and wider even as her body did the same.
She felt like bliss.
Her body closed around him like a soft, wet furnace, burning along every last inch of his flesh until he had sealed them completely together. Her sightless eyes stared up into his and he wished she could understand the excruciating, mindless pleasure it gave him to be inside her. Finally inside her.
He had waited for this since the dawn of time. No haven like this had ever existed, no place so hot and perfect and wholly, deeply his. He wanted to stay this way forever, locked together, united and complete.
But need laid a whip against his back and drove him recklessly onward.
He wasted no time with subtlety. There would be other chances for that, other opportunities to love her slowly, gently, to savor each shift of skin, each sigh and moan. Another time, he would be able to tease her with a slow, drawn-out rhythm, a slow, powerful tide gliding endlessly in and out of her tight, gripping warmth. But not now.
This time he balanced on the edge of madness and all he could do was race closer to the precipice, driving her ruthlessly on before him.
He withdrew from her in a sharp, ruthless move that left her crying out his name. A quick twist of his hips, a press of his shoulders, and she opened wider, lifted her hips higher to bring him back in line with her aching need. He paused for the space of a ragged breath.
Two.
Three.
And just as her lips began to tremble on the verge of begging, he threw himself forward. Into her. Into passion. Into a pounding, driving rhythm that had nothing to do with tenderness and everything to do with desire.
Daphanie sobbed and gripped his shoulders. He could feel her muscles straining beneath him, feel her short, neat fingernails digging hard into his flesh, looking for some kind of grip to steady herself against his ruthless hunger. He had her bent nearly doubled back on herself, offering her no leverage, no power, no choice but to submit, to allow him to take her in whatever way he chose.
His demons chose to be ruthless.
Her breath tore from her throat on short, raw cries, too muffled for screams, too sharp for moans. Her hands slipped against him as sweat beaded on her skin and his, and her whole body rocked and q
uivered, trapped between his unyielding body and the unyielding floor.
Something inside him screamed at him to stop. He was too rough, too bestial. He was hurting her. She was fragile, sweet, human. She deserved better than this. She deserved to be made love to, not ravaged on the floor in a red-hazed fury of lust. The internal voice nagged at him persistently, protesting every time he thrust himself forcefully into her tender, swollen body.
But conscience didn’t stand a chance against the heat and glory of frantic, animalistic sex.
At least he knew she wouldn’t have to suffer his attentions for long. Already he could feel pleasure rising, heat and tension gathering low in his spine, at the nape of his neck, at the base of his balls. He could feel himself approaching flashpoint and could feel his woman shaking and sobbing beneath him. He needed her with him.
With a low snarl, he adjusted his hands for better leverage and hunched his back, shifting the angle of his penetration until he could feel the head of his penis riding hard against her internal walls on each brutal stroke.
She choked on a scream, neck arching, head snapping back until she broke their shared gaze and struggled frantically simply to draw breath. Asher swore graphically and shifted. He grabbed the back of her head, his fingers tangling in her hair as he forced her face back to his. Her leg slipped up over his shoulder, sending him a fraction of an inch deeper, and the added sensation threw her over.
She screamed and sobbed, her eyes wide and fixed on his, her consciousness clearly elsewhere, focused entirely on the fierce internal contractions milking his cock. She squirmed, trying to get away from him, to escape the continued assault of his brutal thrusting against agonizingly sensitive flesh. He pinned her in place and only moved faster, increasing the pace until he thought his heart would explode from the strain of holding back his climax.
He didn’t want to come. He didn’t want to stop moving, stop claiming her, stop forcing her to physically acknowledge the intensity of what lay between them. His body, however, reminded him that in the end he was only a man.
Black Magic Woman Page 14