The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance 2

by Trisha Telep

  Not . . .

  Aaron wants to pull his gaze away. But he can’t. He watches as the demon sucks one of her nipples until she is writhing in his arms, her delighted groans like music. Now the incubus attends her other nipple, working on it with his lips and tongue, blowing on it.

  Aaron is groaning, too, as the demons play. He feels their arousal, their need, and it sinks into his skin, setting him on fire. Panting, he watches the demons and slowly loses himself to lust, thinking of Caitlin as he wraps one hand over his shaft and begins to pump.

  Hurry, he thinks, but whether it’s for Caitlin to hurry over to Jezebel or for himself to come, he couldn’t say.

  The succubus’ hands tangle in the demon’s hair, and her hips roll as he sucks her, back and forth, first one nipple and then the other. His hand reaches down, snaking over the curve of her belly. Down more, trailing his fingers over her mound. Stroking her sex. She lets out a throaty growl – insistent, demanding, hungry.

  Aaron growls, thinking of Caitlin, wanting her like never before. He wants to pin her to the ground and fuck her senseless. He wants to hear her squeal as he pounds her again and again.

  Caitlin . . .

  And now Caitlin is rushing past him, dashing over to where the incubus is prodding the succubus to orgasm. She throws her arm back and cracks her palm against the female’s cheek. “Wake up, you stupid succubus!”

  The incubus keeps fingering the female demon, who is looking at Caitlin with heavily lidded eyes and a lazy grin. “Heya, Sis,” she says thickly. “Come here often?”

  “Jesse Harris,” Caitlin says in the way that siblings have mastered over the millennia, “you stop this right now!” She slaps the succubus again. “Come on, Jesse – it’s time to wake up!”

  No longer grinning, the succubus blinks. “What?”

  “You heard me,” Caitlin says, preparing to strike her again. “This isn’t real.”

  This time, the succubus catches Caitlin’s arm. For a moment, it looks like she might rip the limb from Caitlin’s body. But then she cocks her head and looks at Caitlin, and then at Aaron, and then she considers the incubus, who’s still playing her body like a fiddle.

  “You’re right,” she finally says to Caitlin. “If this were real, Daun would be at least four inches bigger.”

  And like that, the succubus disappears in a puff of brimstone.

  Aaron feels the lust recede just as everything around him fades out. Caitlin launches herself at him, tackling him to the ground . . .

  . . . and Aaron opened his eyes. He was in Paul’s living room, seated on the floor, Caitlin’s hand in his. He stared at Caitlin, and he shivered from the vestiges of lust that danced along his body. He wanted to pin her to the ground and fuck her senseless.

  No. That hadn’t been real.

  Yes. Yes it had.

  Embarrassed and flustered and horny, he opened his mouth to say something, anything. But that’s when Jesse propped herself up and said, “Sweetie, you look much better with your clothes off.”

  The coffee shop was fairly empty, which, for Manhattan, was a small miracle. Caitlin murmured her thanks as Aaron handed her an environmentally-friendly cup filled with steaming liquid caffeine. He sank into the chair opposite her, and for a few minutes neither of them said anything as they drank their coffee. No longer joined, Caitlin couldn’t feel Aaron’s emotions. There was no need; the damage, if that’s what it was, had already been done.

  She still wanted him. And she knew that he wanted her just as much.

  But lust wasn’t love. And love with Aaron hadn’t worked.

  Maybe it could work again . . .

  No. And no.

  With a sigh, Caitlin drank her coffee.

  “So,” Aaron said, “when are you heading back to Salem?”

  She shrugged. “After this, I guess.”

  He gazed at her, drinking in her features. “You’re drained, Caitlin. Stepping now isn’t just a frivolous waste of a year of your life. It’s potential suicide.”

  “I could do it,” she insisted.

  His mouth quirked a smile. “Of course. The great and powerful witch Caitlin Harris would never risk casting a spell strong enough to bend the Universe’s rules when she was falling-on-her-face exhausted.”

  “So dramatic,” she said with a sniff. And never mind that he was right.

  He reached over and touched her hand – hesitantly, even shyly. “Stay the night,” he said, his voice soft. “I’ll give you the bed, and I’ll take the couch. But stay. Rest. And tomorrow, travel the old-fashioned way. I’ll even drive you to the airport.”

  Her head swam. Aaron had no business being chivalrous, not when she was already on the precipice. He needed to be a jackass, a pompous jerk who thought the world revolved around himself. “You don’t have a car,” she said.

  “Well, I’ll put you in a cab.” He squeezed her hand, once, then snatched his hand away. “If you don’t want to stay with me, can you go back to Paul and Jesse’s and stay there overnight?”

  She shuddered. “Ugh, no. Jesse didn’t even wait for us to leave before she started attacking Paul.”

  Aaron’s eyes sparkled with mirth. “They were still dressed when we snuck out of there.”

  “A temporary condition, I promise you.”

  They shared a laugh.

  “Stay,” Aaron said. And Caitlin agreed – but only for the night. And as long as Aaron took the bed; she’d take the couch.

  As Caitlin finished her coffee, Aaron put the memory box on the table. He’d grabbed it before they had made their unobtrusive exit – carefully ignoring how Jesse was eating Paul’s face – and he’d carried it tucked under his arm as he and Caitlin walked to the coffee shop. Caitlin had noticed Aaron’s fingers brushing it as she worked on her latte, saw his lips move silently. Now she stared at the ornately carved wooden box, and she marvelled how something so small and so beautiful could be so dangerous.

  Aaron slid the box over to her.

  “I fixed it,” he said quietly. “It got all messed up when Jesse opened it, but it was easy enough to nudge everything back into its proper place.”

  Caitlin arched a brow and said nothing.

  “It’s just a memory box,” he said. “Nothing nasty inside. No wicked surprises. It’s for you.”

  She looked at Aaron, scanned his face for any hint of deception. What she saw made her feel horribly sad and tired and, damn it all, hopeful. She saw not the arrogant man but the young warlock she’d married, the man she’d once thought she’d love forever.

  “Caitlin,” he said. “Trust me.”

  And she did. With trembling fingers, she opened the box.

  It’s a summer night in the park, and grass is tickling Caitlin’s bare feet as the tree leaves make music with the wind. She is eighteen and immortal, and she’s intoxicated with the power of participating in the coven’s circle. Thirteen witches, sky-clad in the moonlight and linked hand in hand, sing their praises to the Hecate, thanking Her for the gift of magic. Aaron’s hand is so large, it swallows Caitlin’s completely.

  After, as the coven members dress or pair off to make their own sort of magic, Aaron and Caitlin linger in the clearing. His hand is still in hers, and he presses her knuckles against his lips, his tongue darting between her fingers. She blushes, both from the attention and from the way heat blooms in her breasts and belly. It’s been two months since she and Aaron have started dating – two months of sweet kisses and curious hands, of a slow awakening of her body. She’s not a virgin, but the boy who had taken that piece of her had been rough and uncaring. That boy had dumped her a week later to move on to the next girl, leaving Caitlin to wonder what she had done wrong.

  Aaron is far from uncaring. In the eight weeks they’d been together, he’d made her laugh and made her furious. He is as passionate as she about magic, and he is funny and smart and sexy. But he is also cocky and arrogant, completely sure of himself even when he has no idea what he’s talking about. Caitlin had been st
unned to discover that she liked that about him . . . and even more stunned when she realized that he liked her as well.

  Their first kiss still makes her lips tingle even after two months.

  They had gone slow, with him letting her set the pace. Trust built, and attraction deepened, bringing them to tonight, to this moment – to Aaron, naked in the moonlight, kissing her hand and flicking his tongue against her knuckles.

  Nervous, eager, she smiles at him and leads him across the clearing to a more secluded section of the park. She finds a spot near a cluster of trees, private and yet inviting, and she wraps her arms around his shoulders and stands on her tiptoes as she pulls his head down to hers.

  The kiss begins softly, tenderly, as Aaron embraces her. His mouth is warm against hers, and she slowly melts in his arms. Now his tongue is nudging between her lips. She opens her mouth to him and his tongue rolls against hers.

  His hands leave her waist to travel up her back, caressing, stroking. Warmth turns to heat as she feels those touches in other places, small sparks along her arms and chest and lower.

  Caitlin moans, but the sound is eaten by Aaron’s kiss.

  Now his mouth is moving down her jaw, her neck, along the curve of her shoulder, his kisses damp on her skin. Back up along her throat, and now the shell of her ear, licking and teasing, kissing and nibbling, making her pant.

  She wants this – just her and him, together, tonight. She wants him to touch her all over. She wants to explore his body and discover what he likes – what he loves.

  She wants him.

  Caitlin lowers her arms until they’re circling his waist. As he’s kissing along her jaw and her other ear, her hands move lower until they’re skimming along his bottom. Lower still, until her fingernails graze the backs of his thighs.

  His erection pokes her belly.

  “Caitlin,” he whispers in her ear, his voice husky. “Tell me. Tell me when to stop.”

  One hand still playing along his backside, she reaches up with her other hand to cup his chin. Her gaze locked on his, she says, “Don’t stop.”

  He licks his lips before he asks, “You sure?”

  “I trust you.”

  Something dances behind Aaron’s eyes – excitement or arousal or maybe something else completely, and he says, “I trust you too, Caitlin.” And then his mouth is on hers again, pressing hard now, bruising her lips with his own. Lower now, down her neck again until he’s licking between the swells of her breasts.

  Caitlin is breathing heavily, her chest thrust out, feeling her body flush. Aaron’s mouth latches on to her nipple, and her knees buckle. He catches her, supports her back as his tongue licks that sensitive nub. Now the other nipple, coaxing it until it’s as hard as its twin.

  Deep inside her, something begins to coil, a delicious ache that quickens her breathing and makes her say his name.

  His hand leaves her back, glides its way along her hip until it’s resting on her belly. And he’s sucking her nipples, first one and then the other, now kissing the swells of her breasts, mouth and tongue working against her skin. His fingers stretch down, whisper over her pubic hair.

  She’s rocking against him, panting, telling him with her body to do more. The ache within her increases to an insistent pressure, building as his hand moves farther down – slowly, so very slowly. Too slowly.

  “Aaron,” she breathes. “Don’t stop.”

  His fingers slide between her legs, and she gasps. He’s inside her now, probing, stroking, and she’s bucking against him, her head thrown back and her eyes closed. And then he hits a spot that makes her blood catch fire. The coil winds tight tight tight . . . and she cries his name as the orgasm takes her.

  Aaron slides his hand out, and now he’s lowering her to the ground, and she barely feels the grass along her shoulders and back and bottom because she’s still floating in bliss so sweet she never wants it to end. She hears something tear, like foil, and she looks up to see Aaron fumbling a condom over his erection. She tries to imagine which spell he’d used to make it appear out of nowhere but her mind is foggy and her body is pulsing with aftershocks, and Caitlin can’t really think at all.

  He pauses for a moment, standing over her as he drinks in her form, and the way he’s looking at her makes her feel like the most beautiful woman in the world. “You sure?” he asks, his voice raspy.

  She smiles up at him. “Yes.”

  Triumph shines in his eyes as Aaron climbs on top of her, and now he’s kissing her and kissing her and kissing her as he moves on top of her, slides inside her, nudging that spot that makes sparks shoot behind Caitlin’s eyes. Aaron is pumping inside her and she’s moving with him, hips together, bodies fluid, up and down and up and faster and faster now as he’s thrusting and she feels that amazing pressure build again, yawning up like a tidal wave inside her, up and up and up and just as she thinks she can’t take it anymore, Aaron shouts her name and thrusts one final time and as he shudders against her, the wave crashes over Caitlin and she spirals down in rapture.

  He sags against her, spent, grinning like a fool and laughing. “Caitlin,” he says like a song. “Caitlin. Oh my Caitlin.”

  “My Aaron,” she says, her voice thick and sleepy.

  They lie there for a time, limbs entwined like pretzels, as their sweat cools beneath the glow of the moon. Caitlin has never been more at peace. She wants to thank him, but what she actually says is, “I love you.”

  And by the Goddess, Aaron replies, “I love you too.”

  It’s the first day of what assuredly will be the rest of their lives together . . .

  Caitlin blinked away tears as the memory ended. Closing the lid, she looked at Aaron, and the man she had once loved so very much, and she asked, “Why? Why this memory?”

  A long pause as Aaron gazed at her, his eyes sad, the lines on his face suddenly prominent. And he said, “Because it hurt me too much to keep it any longer.”

  This time, Caitlin can’t stop the tears.

  “I still love you,” Aaron says softly. “I wish I could just turn it off, or that it would have faded away. I wish I could say I’m not the same man I was when you left me, that I’ve changed. But I am who I am, Caitlin. And all the magic in the world won’t change that.”

  She closed her eyes and remembered the boy she had loved.

  She opened her eyes and saw the man who loved her still.

  The man she still cared for, still wanted.

  Still loved?

  She bit her lip and reached over to take his hand. “We travelled to Hell to save my sister. Why is this the hard part?”

  Aaron’s lips twitched in acknowledgment, but he said nothing as he waited for her to pass judgment.

  With her free hand, she brushed away her tears. “I don’t want you to change, Aaron. I don’t know what I want. But . . .”

  When her voice faded, he prompted, “But?”

  Caitlin took a deep breath. “But maybe we can both sleep in the bed tonight, and then take it from there.”

  Aaron’s eyes shone, and he lifted her hand to kiss her knuckles. “ ‘Maybe’ has never sounded so good.”

  Caitlin, smiling through new tears, had to agree.

  They left the coffee shop, hand in hand. And soon they were making new memories together.

  Princes of Dominion

  Ava Gray

  One

  Just one glimpse. Camael knew it was unwise. He had been warned more than once and yet he found himself helpless to resist. Her beauty struck him on a level deeper than pleasure, deeper than pain. And so he stood on the other side of the Veil, hidden from her sight, and watched her brush out her long hair beside the river.

  Most women bathed in company. Soft laughter and splashing would accompany their ablutions, but not hers. She was quiet, almost sombre; it did nothing to lessen her loveliness. Her hair shone like polished onyx, streaming down her shapely back in a swathe of dark silk. Sometimes she sang, and he closed his eyes, buoyed up by the melody. But
not today.

  For the first time, she spoke. “I feel you.”

  She could not possibly mean him. Camael held his silence.

  “I know whenever you are here,” she went on. “At first I took you for one of the river spirits, and I left gifts. But they went untouched.”

  Should he have accepted her tokens, then? She had left him seashells and beads, prettily strung. But he had no use for such things. He stilled, uncertain.

  “Show yourself,” she commanded.

  His brethren would do worse than talk of folly if they witnessed what he did next. But he could not resist the urge to speak with her. It went against every edict. Passing the Veil, he shimmered into her world and donned a human body. She rose in a silver ripple of water and turned to face him, clad only in her hair.

  “What are you, river spirit or demon?”

  “Neither,” he said.

  “Why do you watch me?”

  “Because you are beautiful.”

  Such a simple answer – and yet it appeared to please her. He could not have expected that, given how exotic she seemed and how little he knew of mortals. Camael only knew that he enjoyed watching them; they always seemed so much freer than he, unconstrained by the rules of heaven.

  “My father would cut off the head of any man caught dishonouring me so.” She tilted her head, speculative. “But you . . . you are not a man.”

  “No.”

  “What then? You wear a man’s form. Are you a devil come to seduce me?”

  Again, he said, “No.”

  But a flicker of interest stirred in him for the first time. It was impossible to look on her silken skin without curiosity – to wonder how it would feel to smooth his hands over her body. And she sensed it; a smile curved her lush mouth.

  “Pity,” she said softly. “I do not think I’d mind. I am Rei.”

  “Camael.” He found speech strange.