Craved: A Chosen Ones Novel

by Davenport, Nia

  “No, I’m not,” I breathed out. “It was…it has already been broken. It’s just been a long time. Like two years.” I pushed the bashfulness trying to creep in away. I tightened my hold on his hand and tugged it back toward where I wanted it to be. It didn’t move an inch. Frustration and need and that damn pressure that he’d started building inside of me that now screamed for release took over me and made me brazen. I let his wrist go then climbed on his lap, straddling him. I cupped the length of him. Hard. Desire flashed in his eyes but I could also see the self-control retaking hold of him. The lightning strikes were becoming fewer and farther between and the midnight blue in his eyes was clearing to sapphire.

  Absolutely fucking not, something primordially female on the most visceral of levels growled within me. I let the length of him go to wrap my arms around his neck and mold my body to his. I rocked slowly, teasingly back and forth against his hardness. I closed my mouth over the pulse in his neck and bit down hard enough on it to leave a mark while sucking and licking on the skin at the same time. His hands moved to my waist, tightening at my sides, and urging the rocking motion back and forth against him to continue. Perfect. I licked a trail from the spot I’d bitten on his neck to his ear.

  “That fucking spot between my fucking legs you started fucking touching then stopped, is fucking throbbing with the need to be stroked. I am on the fucking verge of coming a part and I am beyond all rational fucking thought right now. I need to be touched there. I need you to fucking touch me there. But if you won’t then…” I threw a sideways glance at one of the males in a nearby booth. He wasn’t particularly paying attention to us, but that didn’t matter. The message I sent with the glance was still loud and clear and complemented my whispered words perfectly.

  I moved to get up from Chase’s lap, but hands still gripping my waist jerked me back down. A breath later I found myself laying down on my back against the booth’s velveteen cushion. I tried to sit up but Chase growled against my ear warning me not too. I looked into his eyes and the breath in my lungs rushed out of them. The storm was back in them along with the heat but something new was there as well. Something dark, and dangerous, and predatory, and possessive, and primitively alpha male. He held me in his stare as his hand cupped the spot between my thighs then I heard lace ripping as he angled his body against mine. Not one but two strong, long, delicious fingers pushed inside me flexing and coaxing and thrusting and doing all sort of mind-shattering things as they did so. My back arched violently and my hips jerked into his touch. I moaned his name not once, not twice, not even three times but over and over again. My mind was so completely jumbled, my senses so completely overwhelmed that it was the only thing I could think and the only noise I could get out. My legs spread a part to accommodate him then wrapped themselves around his waist. My hands slid beneath the leather jacket to feel the corded muscles in his back that bunched and flexed underneath.

  Even if I wanted to look away from him I couldn’t. He continued staring straight into my eyes as if he was staring past the irises and into the very depths of my soul. He slid a third finger inside me and smiled wickedly as my insides clenched and convulsed around it. He quickened the pace and thrust in and out of me deeper, harder, and more relentlessly than before.

  “That word on your lips Alex, this is only one of the things it makes me want to do. It also makes me want to fuck you exactly how I’m doing with my fingers right now. Hard and deep and mercilessly. From the moment I first saw you I’ve wanted to do that and this and more. I’ve wanted to know what it feels like to have you writhing and moaning my name in ecstasy beneath me. I want to make you come Alex, so hard that you see stars and shout my name to the heavens. But we’re in a public place, surrounded by people and even though it’s hard as shit to keep, I do still have a shred of decency in me. So I’m going to make you come, exactly like you so fervently demanded, but I won’t leave you shaking uncontrollably and screaming my name. I’ll settle for a tightening of your muscles, of your gorgeous legs around my waist and a quiet whimper shared just between us.”

  Then he released me from his stare so his lips could slant over mine. He thrust his tongue passed my teeth and tangled it up with mine. As he kissed me his fingers continued to push me towards the edge and then his thumb found the sensitive bud between the folds above them and lightly pressed down on it completely taking me over the edge. My legs tightened around him as my nails dug into the muscles at his back. The pressure built to a crescendo then burst into a thousand splendid stars before my eyes. I whimpered, “Oh my God,” and then his name immediately afterward so it ended up sounding like Oh my God, Chase, as if I were paying homage to him as a living, breathing, in the flesh deity. And after what he’d just done, shit, he could be. I wouldn’t be surprised. I didn’t think the average man was supposed to be able to make women come like he’d just done. Then again, Chase was a far cry from the average man. He was a human soul that possessed the essence of an Archangel. Hell, maybe my whimpering hadn’t been too far off. He was as close to a God on Earth as you could get.

  Once my breathing had evened out and Chase had pulled us both to a sitting position tucking me into his side, I noticed two untouched drinks sat in front of us. My entire face, no by entire body down to the tips of my toes burned. The waitress had returned to our booth at some point, only God knew which point, and silently sat our drinks down and left. I didn’t have time to wallow in the mortification because no sooner than Chase had tucked me into his side and began nuzzling the side of my neck to keep up the pretense that we were still very much affected by the aphrodisiac that was supposedly in the air, one of the Brethren in the booth near us shot to his feet and grabbed another one that approached them around his neck. He slammed him to the floor and the life-ending stare he gave him dared him to get up. The Brethren smartly stayed on the ground.

  “Zacharias,” the Brethren on the floor stammered. “Please…please… I beg of you mercy.”

  “You fucked up,” the one standing above him, apparently named Zacharias snarled back.

  Whatever he’d done, he had to be an idiot to piss him off. Terror-inducing power wafted off of him by the gallon. The cold stare he leveled the one on the ground with, made it clear that the word mercy had never existed in his vocabulary.

  “Upon what is supposed to be a celebration of our escape, of our freedom, of the beginning of our reign on Earth, I hear there is a Chosen One in the city who is going around hunting and slaughtering us,” Zacharias started off speaking cooly and levelheaded. That should have been the first indication to the one cowering on the floor still begging for mercy that his pleas were in vain. He reached down and grabbed him by the throat, pulling him off the floor and holding him dangling in the air. “How in the fuck is it that you’ve allowed his continued existence?!” He growled low and threatening at him.

  “You…you…you know who created the Chosen Ones. He would come to Atlanta himself and slaughter all of us for the offense of killing one of them. He’s powerful enough not to need his corporeal form to do it.”

  The surrounding temperature in the room dropped a notch. Zacharias went deathly still. “Michael,” he roared out. “His fucking name is Michael. He can hear me and eavesdrop on my words as much as he damned well pleases. In fact I hope that he is choosing to now. The fourth seal has been broken and the ancient brokered peace that bound most of us to hell no longer has to be upheld. The time for the final war has finally come. We will take our rightful place and hold dominion over Earth first and then heaven itself. And there isn’t a damned thing that cocksucker Michael or his fucking Chosen Ones can do about it. All of our Prince’s carefully laid plans are yielding the exactly results he wants them to. All that is left for us to do to secure our victory is to find the one prophesied about and persuade her to our side. You were the one who was supposed to be in charge of the search. Have you located her yet?”

  The other Brethren’s face turned chalk white. “N-…No,” he stammered. “We
have had forces scouring the city for the particular Nephilim but the Chosen One that arrived has been making it more difficult for us to locate her. He created them from the Twelve and the Chosen Ones inherited their power to don a glamour that holds up even against us. It is difficult to deal with a problem that you can’t recognize.”

  Zacharias shook with rage. He slammed the Brethren hard against the floor, picked him back up and slammed him down again then held him in the air once more. “He, him, The Archangel. HIS FUCKING NAME IS MICHAEL! Are you more afraid of his wrath than you are of mine? Big mistake considering it was inevitable that I’d return. Michael might be the Most High’s General but I am our Dark Lord’s. Who do you think is more capable of ripping you apart?”

  The Brethren hesitated. It was only for a fraction of a millisecond but he hesitated nonetheless. He couldn’t have been so idiotic and so ready to die that it was done consciously while Zacharias snarled in his face. More probably, it was a knee-jerk reaction, born out of an innate terror of the Archangel history reverently and fearfully referred to as The Archangel. Either way, it signed his death warrant.

  “You were going to die for your failure anyway, but I’ve just decided to make it far more excruciating than I originally intended,” Zacharias snarled in his face.

  “It’s time to go,” Chase whispered to me. “They will not leave the humans who see what is about to happen alive to speak of it.”

  I didn’t immediately move. I wanted to stay. To hear more, to find out more, to learn what they knew of the prophecy that Bennett and my Dad hadn’t been told and to figure out what he’d meant about a fourth seal being broken. But doing so would have been as stupid an action as the Brethren’s who had well and truly sealed his fate. Chase grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the booth. As we swiftly made our way down the stairs I heard the faint sounds of bone crunching, of flesh ripping, and of a dying man’s agony over the beat of the House music.

  I didn’t turn around. Not as we continued down the stairs, not as we crossed the still crowded dance floor, and not as we walked out of the door and into the safety of the surrounding night.

  I let him drive. My nerves were too shaky for me to handle the power of the american muscle car.

  He pulled to the curb outside the entrance to my building but didn’t cut the engine. “We can go up and get you a bag of clothes for the night and we can come back tomorrow to get the rest of the things you’ll need.”

  He opened his door but I tugged on his harm, stopping him from getting out of the car. “What are you talking about? Things I’ll need for what?”

  “To stay at my apartment.”

  “Wait. What? Why would I stay at your apartment?”

  He looked at me as if I had suddenly turned into an imbecile. “Because according to the Brethren in Fusion he’s Lucifer’s fucking General and something just happened that allowed him and the rest of the Brethren trapped there to break out of hell; the final battle the prophecy alludes to you being caught smack dab in the goddamn middle of is about to be kicked off shortly; and yes the Brethren know about the prophecy too and yes they are actively looking for you. I’m the only one in the city that has a fighting chance of stopping them when they come for you.”

  I opened my mouth to protest. To tell him me leaving my apartment and him insisting I relocate to his so he could babysit me was ridiculous and excessive. I opened my mouth to tell him that Brethren or not I could take care of myself. I knew that I couldn’t. That my chances against one of them would be slim to none, but I also knew that I would not put him in danger. I would not let someone else die because of me. Chase beat me to the punch before I could.

  “Let me put it in another light for you. If they come for you and you happen to be at your apartment when they do and your roommate happens to be there as well what do you think will happen to her? You, they need alive until you make whatever decision you need to make. Her, they don’t. You saw what the Brethren did to one of his own in the club. You also know how much they despise humans. What do you think they will do to Whitney?”

  Bile rose in my throat. My hands shook with the intensity of which I wanted to slap the shit out of him for manipulating me. To leverage her life against his and force me to choose which one deserved to die less. But I couldn’t deny the logic of his words. Just like I also couldn’t deny that he’d have more of a fighting chance than she would. Chase had signed up for this burden, for this life. For the possibility of dying way too young, way too soon, in way too vicious of a manner. Whitney had not. She was innocent. Her only crime was taking on the burden of befriending and remaining friends with me.

  My hands clenched around the door handle and I flung it open. “Fine. Point Taken,” I growled over my shoulder. I fought back the sting of the tears that pricked at my eyes. I would not cry in front of him. I would keep it together for now and fall to pieces later in private.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Explosion

  Chase offered to take the couch and let me have the bedroom. Since I was still peeved at being in his apartment at all as well as at the words he’d used to manipulate me into going I didn’t decline his offer or tell him there was room enough in the king size bed for the both of us. However, I wasn’t so petty as not to offer to wait in the living room while he showered and changed clothes. He quirked his left brow at me. As if to say that it was a little too late for propriety. My thoughts flashed back to the very improper position I’d ended up in in the club. To the way my skirt ended up hitched too high around my thighs when his fingers sank between them. My body slightly shuddered in response but I fought the warmth trying to flood my face. He was right. I was way past the point of demureness.

  He shrugged out of his leather jacket, kicked off his boots, and unbuckled the belt at his waist. He slid it out of the loops and dropped it on the floor in the growing pile of clothing. He popped the button on his leather pants and pulled the zipper down.

  A lump formed in my throat and the air in the room suddenly became stifling. I knew, just knew that he would be pushing the pants down and stepping out of them next. Just like I knew that when he did it I’d go into anaphylactic shock. Just looking at him shirtless, baring only the corded muscle of his chest and arms beneath smooth, tanned skin had me breathless. My lungs would completely forget how to take in air if those pants came down, exposing the lower half of him too.

  His hands paused at his zipper and he offered me a teasing and arrogant smile that said he knew exactly what kind of havoc him disrobing in front of me was wreaking on my senses.

  “You’re welcome to join me. We can shower together.” Dimples attempted to tempt me to close the space between us walk into the bathroom along with him.

  I thought not for the first time of the number of panties his smile had probably melted smooth off. Only this time, a fierce emotion pricked at my consciousness on the tail end of it. An emotion I might call jealousy if it were not completely ridiculous for me to be feeling it in regards to him. We were not an item, we had no ties to each other, and what he did and with whom he did it had no bearings on me. And yet the emotion wouldn’t fade. It made me think about my own panties and why I was no longer wearing any under my miniskirt. He hadn’t melted them off with a smile, he’d ripped them off with his bare hands. The emotion made me wonder if it was something he frequently did and when it made the image of another faceless, nameless girl laying beneath him play before my eyes, I couldn’t help but to clench my jaw against the mental blow that followed.

  I almost joined him. Almost. But then I remembered why we both needed to use the only bathroom in his apartment to shower in the first place. I folded my arms across my chest out of sheer cantankerousness. “I’m good. I’ll shower when you’re done.”

  He smirked at me but didn’t say anything further.

  I busied myself with not thinking about him naked in the shower with droplets of water running down his broad chest and firm abs by scrolling through random bike photos posted to
Instagram on my phone.

  “It’s all yours,” Chase said exiting the bedroom. A damp sheen still covered his exposed upper body, not at all helping my efforts to not think about it under running water. He had changed into a pair of gray jogger paints and nothing else. They sat so low on his hips that they exposed more of his happy trail and nearly confirmed the extent to which it continued to travel south. Damn it! Did he not know how to towel off properly or how to pull on a shirt?! His current state was making it very, very difficult to brood.

  I leapt off the couch and muttered a thanks as I shouldered past him. I kept my eyes trained on the molding around the bedroom door and nothing else. I shut the door behind me then quickly showered and got out before my hands got ideas and took on a mind of their own. I pulled on a cotton tee, boy shorts, and a pair of sweatpants for good measure. I got into the bed forcing my mind into a blank slate. I would not think about who normally lied in it or imagine what it would be like to have him lying there beside me now. In fact, I wouldn’t think about him period. Not his mesmerizing eyes that were an unnatural shade of blue, not his charming smile or deep dimples, not his smooth chest or flat stomach, and certainly not the way it felt when he touched me. I did not think about any of those things as I lay on my back and slowly drifted off to sleep.

  I woke up to knocking at the closed door. I raised my voice enough for Chase to hear that it was unlocked from the other side of it. As the doorknob turned I flung the covers off me and jumped up thinking it would be awkward to have him walk in with me in his bed. I stood facing the door when he opened it. Things were still awkward which meant I’d nearly twisted my ankle when clambering to get out of the bed for nothing.