by Tes Hilaire
This is crazy. I shouldn’t be doing this, he thought even as he deepened the kiss, his tongue sliding between her parted lips, branding and claiming the heaven she offered. And damn was it good. Her mouth was like fire, burning away all that was fucked up with his world right now.
And yeah, he knew she wasn’t kissing him because she wanted him. Best case scenario, she was using the kiss to ease her pain; to help her forget. Worst case, she was trying to manipulate him. Not that it mattered. The guilt eating away at his gut had already done a bang up job of that.
At this point, if he honestly thought letting her go would be the answer to her problem, he might have been willing to take the chance. Screw the fact that she could land him in jail with a simple phone call. But he knew deep in his gut that freeing her wasn’t the answer to either of their problems. He needed her, not just for her silence, but as a possible alibi. And she needed him to help her get her daughter back.
Why had she been in that alley? Just passing through on her search for Mia? Or did the men he’d killed have some connection to her daughter’s disappearance? He needed to ask her. Only first he’d have to stop kissing her. And right now he wasn’t sure he could.
Damn she was sweet. Strawberries, vanilla, and need. Her soft tongue tangled with his, easing the after-burn of the scotch he’d tossed back and challenging him to delve further into the perfection of her hot little mouth. He wanted to devour her. Consume her sweetness inch by lovely inch.
Let her go, Mike. This isn’t right.
Something akin to a growl of objection rose in his throat. His hands, blatantly ignoring his cold-hard logic, tightened, and he found himself pulling her even closer. She didn’t resist. Her arms slid across his chest and over his shoulders, her nails digging into the borrowed t-shirt as she tried to shift into a better position on his lap.
He groaned, his hands latching onto her hips as he helped her, seating her over the erection that was straining painfully at his jeans.
She mewled, her back arching, her head flinging back as she rocked against him, exposing the length of her lovely neck and enticing his gaze downward to the creamy swells of her breasts. He had to taste those, too.
He went to work at the corset’s laces behind her back. He pulled and pulled, but the damn thing seemed to be tied up with a mile of laces. He tugged at the top edge, hoping he could just slide the entire contraption over her head, but her breasts were in the way.
“Here.” She batted his hands away, her fingers moving to deftly work a row of eyehooks down the front that had been hidden by the fabric. When the last one finally snapped open, freeing her breasts to spill out between them, he had to sit back and take his fill.
“Fuck. You’re beautiful,” he said, his eyes fastened on her breasts, the rosy peeks just begging for his ministrations. Her answer was to slide her hands under his shirt, pressing her body against his.
“What I am, is cold,” she whispered, catching his earlobe gently with her teeth and sending waves of sensation down his entire spine.
Cold? How could she be cold? He was burning up. The fire at his back, and her hot little body pressed tight against his own. This was wrong. On so many levels. He was going to burn in hell for taking advantage of her this way.
“Take off your shirt,” she suggested, nibbling her way down his neck.
Skin to skin contact. Damn if that didn’t sound like a fine idea. And smart, too, given sharing body heat was obviously a concern.
Pulling back, he yanked off the black Sabbath t-shirt, tossing it aside. It hadn’t even hit the floor before they lunged for each other, mouths claiming, tongues fighting, hands searching. It was as if they had both lost their minds, their need for this—this kiss, this touch, this moment was as vital to survival as the gulping breaths they took between desperate kisses. It was too much, his control slipping further and further with each tantalizing zing of sensation. But damn if he couldn’t bring himself to care.
“Mike, please,” she pleaded in a husky whisper, her fingers fumbling awkwardly at the tight button of his jeans. He tried to help her, but the angle was all wrong, the thick fabric pinching the zipper and making it difficult to undo.
“Hold on.” He let her go and stood abruptly, barely catching her arm before she did a face dive off the couch. “Just a second, Beauty. It will be quicker if I do it myself.”
She nodded, her gaze trailing over his hard-earned chest and abs as she fought for her balance on the plump cushions. Her heated gaze tore at his control, his cock throbbing insistently behind the metal zipper.
He fumbled with the jeans, practically popping the button in his eagerness to remove them. She went to work on her own pants, too. Shimmying out of them with a skill that was stripper worthy. She was done first, her mouth tugging into a grin as she knelt on the leather couch and watched his struggles. Yeah, his pain was real fucking amusing, wasn’t it?
He shucked his pants, his cock bobbing eagerly, full and thick and stretching out to its fullest as it strove to return to the heaven she was offering him.
Her gaze caught on the overeager organ, her grin slipping. Her eyes widened, her gaze skittering up to his face.
Not so indifferent, now, are you, beauty?
“Like what you see?” he asked, a smile pulling at his lips.
She nodded, her tongue dashing out to lick her lips as her gaze roved back down over his body to fixate on the organ he’d been told more than once before was… impressive.
He stood for a moment, letting her take her fill as he studied his own prize. High, pert breasts. Smaller than he’d originally thought when she’d had them tucked up in the corset, but still more than enough to fill his hands. Her waist, so impossibly tiny as it flared into hips that were just made for a man to grab as he guided her up and down his cock. Her legs were long for her height, and shapely, the muscular curves drawing his attention to the thin bit of leopard print fabric covering the secret bits of her.
Mine, the beast growled. All mine. Take. Feast. Claim.
Down, boy, down.
“And you? You like what you see?” she asked, her chin tilted up as she dipped the tips of her fingers into the top of her panties.
Choking back a groan, he reached for her, one hand catching the edge of elastic that rode the top of her hips as the other sank into her hair and pulled her in for a demanding kiss.
Want, the beast purred, snapping at his control so that the thin strap of her panties tore in his grip. Images flashed in his mind; all the ways the beast wanted to sate its hunger for her. Those suggestions alone were almost enough to make him come. Except he wasn’t a man to be ruled by his monster.
He closed his eyes, pushing the beast back down. He might be damned for doing this, but he was not going to add inconsiderate bastard to his list of sins.
He drew her into his arms, twisting as he settled back on the couch and brought her over him. Better that she was on top. That way she could have some control over how fast and how far this actually went.
The beast growled. Not liking the idea that Mike might allow her to stop what they had started and were well on their way toward finishing. Not that it needed to worry. Kat didn’t seem in the mood to end this either. Her delicate little hands stroking and kneading and tweaking all the right places. Hell, she was finding erogenous zones that he hadn’t even known were there, and he was far from a saint in the sex department. He liked sex. A lot. And the beast seemed to crave it even more. He’d found that his beast was easier to keep on its leash if he allowed them both this outlet. Though damn if it wasn’t being unruly right now.
Gritting his teeth, he carefully slid his hands down over her side, working teasing circles closer and closer to the inside of her thighs. She gasped, drawing her knees up, her hands braced against his chest as she fit her center against the thickness of his erection.
“Christ…” He dug his hands into her hips, trying to hold her still. “Don’t do that yet.”
“Please, Mike.” Sh
e arched, as much as she could in his grip, but still enough to make him want to weep at the sensations from her hot body rubbing against his. “I need you in me now.”
No, too soon. He wanted to savor her, to touch her and learn what she liked and what made her lose control. Plus he needed to make sure she was ready to take him. And he would, just as soon as he could trust himself to shift her off him and not drag her onto the hard length of his cock.
Need! Now, the beast demanded. He closed his eyes, trying to resist, but she wiggled in his hold, the slickness of her core beckoning. He growled, arching his hips and driving the tip of his erection into her. So slick. So hot. And tight as a glove. It took all his willpower not to thrust into the pulsing sweetness, but to let her body adjust to his invading cock.
“Oh, yes!” she gasped, throwing her head back, her peaked nipples thrusting forward toward his face.
Ah, Christ. So fucking beautiful. And right now, all his.
He leaned forward, claiming the closest nipple with his mouth, his other hand sliding up to tweak the other peeked tip as he held steady with his cock just barely inside of her. She shuddered, a trembling mewl erupting from her parted lips, like her breath had caught in her throat and she just barely managed to expel it.
The sound was enough to rip his control. The beast roared, and he found himself lifting and flipping her under him. One leg braced on the floor, the other knee on the couch, he pulled her hips up to his and drove himself deeper into her.
She screamed, her fingers digging into his back, even as she let her hips relax further, giving him greater access.
In the back of his mind he worried that he was taking her too fast, going too deep, and that he had or might yet hurt her, but in the end it didn’t matter. He couldn’t stop. The beast wouldn’t let him. All it knew was that she was his. That she’d offered herself to them. And the beast was going to be damned if he’d wait another moment without claiming her fully.
***
Kat sucked in great gulps of air, trying to catch her breath. Neither the achy throb of her overstretched core nor the sweet sting of the marks on her neck could damper the aftershocks of the earthshattering orgasm that still pulsed outward from her center to the very tips of her fingers and toes. Hell, she’d never come like that. Never. Not when she’d masturbated to ease the ache of her succubus nature, nor even when her father had ordered one of his incubus soldiers to “unlock the pleasures of her body” during that very first training session. It had been her one and only session that had been focused on her pleasure. The rest… well the rest didn’t bear thinking of right now.
“You okay?”
She forced her eyelids open, blinking to focus on Mike’s worried face. At first she wondered at his concern, afraid he might have actually caught some of her emotions, but then she remembered the moment when he’d flipped her beneath him, his eyes practically luminescing as he pounded into her, working her towards the first, of several orgasms.
His beast had come out to play. It had wanted her, had taken, and damn if her body hadn’t responded to its uncontrolled passion. She supposed that more than a few women might have found the fierceness of its passion alarming, but not her. Her succubus nature had rejoiced in the act, soaking the passion up, feeding off the energy of his need, and reveling in it.
Was this why the others had found teaching her “her proper place” so satisfying? Is this the high they’d gotten off of their sexual encounters? Did extreme emotions, whether obtained from fear, shame, pain or passion all end in this sort of addictive bliss? Because damn if she didn’t want him again.
He shifted, his brow drawing down further as a spike of fear hit her. Crap, he’d asked her something. If she was okay?
“Yeah. I’m okay.” She almost asked him the same, but caught herself by biting her lip. If she was going to keep her advantage, she couldn’t care about little things like how her feeding may have negatively affected him. Besides, despite the amazing amount of emotional energy he’d given off, he didn’t look any worse for the wear. Maybe he was used to the beast wrangling control like that and didn’t even feel the energy drain. Or maybe what she considered to be an unheard of amount of emotional power was nothing more than a drop in the bucket for a Paladin. Either way, reminding him that there were disadvantages to having sex with her kind wasn’t in her best interest right now, especially since a little power drain should be the least of his concerns.
Maybe not. Maybe Paladin can’t become addicted to a succubus like a human would.
She bit her lip at the thought, unsure how best to test her success. He touched her cheek, uncertainly clouding his gaze until he nodded, seeming to take her at her word. The next second a smile split his face, his dimple appearing he grinned so hard. “You seemed to enjoy yourself.”
She let her head flop back onto the couch. Enjoyed herself? Um, understatement of the century. Not that it should matter. Not that it could matter. There was another purpose to this than her pleasure.
“Hmm…” She shrugged her shoulders. “It wasn’t bad.”
“Not bad?” He rolled them over, pulling her tight against him, his erection pulsing deep within her, swelling almost painfully against her already tender flesh.
Her eyebrows flew up, her hands planted on his straining pectoral muscles to steady herself. She shook her head in disbelief. “Wow...and I thought my kind had a fast recovery time. What was that, Paladin? Thirty seconds?”
Not that she was going to argue against a repeat performance. Her body was already readjusting to the thick width of male flesh wedged within her. The mild ache easing as her already slick vagina began to pulse around him, welcoming him back in. In fact, her body was so eager to comply she was almost able to ignore the little twist of unease behind her ribs at the passage of time.
She arched, letting the little wave of pleasure snuff out the budding guilt. If another round of sex would entwine him that much better, making him more malleable to her suggestions, then what did it matter if she had a bit of fun while doing it, especially when it helped her to forget the empty void left by Mia’s absence for a bit?
She smiled, wiggling her hips in a seductive movement, but he’d stilled, his organ throbbing thickly inside her despite the stiffness of his body.
“Mike?” she asked, tipping her head to look at him.
He was frowning, his eyes narrowed with bourgeoning suspicion. “Paladin? What the hell is a Paladin?”
Chapter Four
Logan inched across the litter-strewn pavement, his blade drawn and energy sizzling in his veins. He didn’t know what he was going to find at the end of the trail they followed, other than it wasn’t going to be at all pretty. That much blood never could be. And there was certainly a lot for him to have been able to smell it for the last three blocks.
More concerning than the heavy scent of death and copper, was the heavy pall of evil that soaked the night. It’s what had originally brought them this way. An itch that had turned into a deep burn that any sane person would take note of and run the other direction.
Too bad they didn’t have that luxury, but eradicating evil was part of the job description for being a Paladin. Hence why he and Jessica were out here tonight zeroing in on the source of all that evil.
As if thinking about her brought her attention to him, a slim hand gripped his elbow. He hesitated, turning to meet Jessica’s gaze. She tilted her head, tipping her ear toward the corner. He cocked his head too, shifting through the regular mash of city sounds until he picked up on what she had noticed: a distinctive crunch, slurp, crunch. Like a scavenger munching down on road-kill. Or a demon chowing down on its midnight snack.
He took a deep breath, fighting the urge to push Jessica back and insist she wait until he cleared the alley. It still made him uneasy to have her out here with him, despite the fact that he knew she was both tough enough and competent enough to handle whatever was tossed their way. It wasn’t all that long ago that his mate had been human and altoget
her too vulnerable, and even less since she’d come back from a death that had nearly destroyed his own soul to become a Paladin with powers that rivaled his own.
His mate. His partner. His wife. She had the soul of a warrior and a passion to protect the innocent. To deny her a place among their brethren out in the field would be a shitty thing to do. Besides, together they made a great team. Didn’t stop his heart from seizing up anytime their task put her in the face of danger.
He slid around the corner. The alley held all that he expected from a normal access road: lots of back entrances, the stale scent of urine and garbage, along with the prerequisite Dumpster. It also was, indeed, the source of the foul sense of evil that had drawn them here.
The grime-coated pavement had been bathed in black, tarry blood, a blood that pulsed with an evil so great he found himself wanting to cringe back to avoid the stain of the scent. There was no question as to where all that tainted blood had come from; the thick lake of the viscid fluid was broken by islands of dismembered body parts. On the far side of the lake was the source of all the noise, for there was their diner hunched over one of the larger body parts, its snout shoved deep into the torso of one of the mutilated bodies.
He squinted his eyes, trying to make out exactly what the creature was. Hellhound perhaps, but its lines seemed blurred and muted by the stain of oily evil that wrapped around it and the pool of fluid beyond. Before he could decide for sure, the creature’s head snapped up, its nostrils flaring. In the next instant it was charging, its ground-eating strides closing the gap between them at an alarming rate.
Logan reacted immediately, balling up a blast of heavenly light and thrusting it at the creature. It hit it head on, smacking the thing in the chest. The creature roared, its gait stumbling for a moment, but in the next the oily blackness of the evil shroud pulsed darker, swallowing the light and leaving no mark to indicate it had harmed the creature in any way.