The Unlikeable Demon Hunter_Crave

by Deborah Wilde

  Like he didn’t want me to answer.

  I sucked on them greedily until he withdrew them, lavishing hot, messy kisses along my body.

  The sting of his teeth nipping my skin, his rock-hard cock pressed against me through his pants, his lips worshipping me, Rohan was branding me and it still wasn’t enough.

  My fingers flexed, wanting Ro but closing on thin air.

  The warmth of his body disappeared. A thud and rummaging. “Trying to discover my secrets by going through my purse?” I said.

  “No. Looking for… ah.” The squirting sound of lube and skin moving on skin.

  “Are you jerking off?” I bucked against the cuffs. “Without me?”

  “Definitely not without you. I’m staring at every inch of you spread open for me.”

  I rocked my hips and moaned.

  “Are you picturing me?” he growled. “Shirt open, one hand running over my abs.” His slaps grew louder, faster, his breath quickening, his harsh exhales matched by my own. “I’m so hard for you. I can see how wet you are and all I can think about is plunging into you.”

  “Scared you won’t measure up if you actually try it?” My voice wasn’t so much sultry as frantic with sexual anguish, but he sounded too far gone himself too notice.

  He laughed. “I’m not scared of anything you can dish out, Harley.”

  I tugged the restraints. I didn’t want to be anybody else. Not with Rohan. Not now. “Chair.” I was practically thrashing against the bonds, my heart trying to punch its way out of my ribcage. “Chair.”

  “Hey.” He tore the blindfold off.

  I blinked, my eyes adjusting expecting a harsh brightness, but he’d turned the lamps off in the room. Any light spilling in from outside was dim enough not to hurt, but having my sight again, being rooted in a physical space instead of the sensual one I’d floated in was disorienting.

  He stroked my hair back from my face. “Sweetheart, it’s okay.”

  “Is it?” I arched toward him. “I don’t want to be Harley. I want to be me.”

  His face was inches from mine, his gold eyes wild and fiery. “And who am I in this?” His hands curled around my biceps.

  A wild laugh tore out of me. “You think I don’t know it’s you? Always you? Rohan. Liam. Mitra. My Ro. My Snowflake.”

  He ripped my cuffs off me, plundering my mouth. Under the coolness from the ice, was the taste of licorice thanks to the candy-coated fennel seeds he always popped.

  Rohan plunged his cock into me in a single ferocious stroke. “My beautiful girl.”

  He pulled out an inch, pushing forward again slow and filthy until the exquisite fullness of him so deep inside me made me tremble. “Fuck. Being inside you like this?” His expression was full of dizzy wonder. He cupped the back of my head, nipping my bottom lip.

  “Oh God, Ro. Please.” I wrapped my legs around his waist, scrabbling at his shoulders. I sounded unhinged and didn’t care so long as he kept going. I pled incoherently for more, sweat trickling between my breasts and down the backs of my knees.

  He fucked me into the mattress, riding me in short, hard pounds, my shredded costume floating through the air with each bounce, like streamers at some kind of sex parade. With each thrust, he danced in and out of the slanted shadows: his muscles contracting, his eyes slits of gold, and his hands a dark caress of my slick, hot skin from my shoulders to my waist and back again.

  I raked my nails down his back, thrilling at his hiss. Blood roared in my veins and static buzzed my brain. We were tangled up, taking up residence under each other’s skin.

  His hands fisted in my curls, and growling low, he bit the hollow of my neck. “You taste like music, you know that?”

  I whimpered, my body caving into his touch.

  He grazed his teeth along my neck. “This tastes slow and dreamy like one of Chopin’s piano concertos. But here?” He palmed my breasts, sucking my nipples into his mouth. “Mmm. A fat R&B groove.”

  My breath came in greedy gulps. “Yeah?” I ran a hand down my side. “What about here?”

  Ro held my hands over my head, and ran his lips along my skin, his thrusts slow rolls. “Bouncy Top 40. The infectious kind that you find yourself humming all day.”

  I wrapped my legs around him, drawing him in even tighter. I’d spent so long convincing myself I didn’t want this connection, this attachment, and I’d been right. Wanting meant craving something that could be taken away without catastrophe, like candy or alcohol, something you liked, something that maybe even had its hooks in you, but that ultimately, you could survive without.

  I could not survive without this.

  “I think we’re both music,” I said. “We’re like two different parts of the same piece: separately we’re cool and interesting, but together we’re transformative.”

  “God, Nava.” His eyes blazed molten gold. “I meant it. You’ve slain me. I–” Rohan shuddered and came, his face twisting in ecstasy and his fingers clutching mine.

  My orgasm slammed me sharp and hard and bright, sparks erupting off my skin to singe the blanket.

  Rohan watched me with those expressive fucking eyes of his and chasing hard on the heels of my dreamy flying state, came the sensation that I was unbound. Unmoored. My entire being undone for him.

  I buried my face in his neck, light-headed and shaking, like a butterfly had been trapped in my chest, its wings madly fluttering, except it had just revealed that it was really a pterodactyl, its teeth bared.

  Rohan gathered me into his arms, wrapping himself around me, and pulling the blankets half over us while he stroked my hair, whispering how incredible I was. My breathing slowed. Every heartbeat drove me closer to him.

  Rohan kissed my eyelids. “How are you?”

  Threadbare, I could only nod, unable to speak in the wake of these emotions breaking wide-open inside me.

  He didn’t let go of me and I was grateful, letting myself succumb to his embrace. “It’s intense,” he said.

  Understatement. My eyes hadn’t fully slid back into focus yet and my soul ached. Role-playing was supposed to be an escape from all these feelings, not something that made me feel them even more. Not something that forced me to tell the truth to myself when I wanted to pretend.

  I tried to get up, but my arms wouldn’t support me.

  Rohan kissed me, slow and sweet. “Stay there. Let me take care of you.” He wiped me down with a warm washcloth. “Are you dehydrated? Do you want water?”

  “Juice box. In my purse.” I motioned with a shaky hand.

  “Someone came prepared.” He pulled the straw free with a crinkle of plastic and punctured the top.

  “Ms. Clara was very thorough about what I could expect.” I sucked about half the juice back in one go.

  Rohan winced, blushing. He sat naked and cross-legged on the bed and massaged my leg. “You told Ms. Clara?”

  “Are you embarrassed? That’s adorable. Of course I told Ms. Clara. I needed to talk to someone about this.”

  “It was good? For your first time?”

  “It was perfect.” I smiled. “If I’d known I was going to get a spa treatment after, I might have signed on for this faster.”

  “Think we can do that again sometime?” He said it with a studied casualness, pressing his thumb into the arch of my foot.

  I flexed my toes against his hand. “Next time you’re paying for the outfit.”

  Ro grinned down at me. “Do I get to pick the toys, too?”

  “We’ll see. I’ll have to run your suggestions past my sex mentor. See if she thinks it’s a good fit.”

  The full-body massage he gave me left me boneless. When he finished, he kissed the precise spot at the corner of my mouth to send shivers through my body. “Do you want a shower?” he said.

  “If you’ll help me. Buddy system and conserving water and all.”

  “We gotta do our part for the environment.”

  “That we do.” And we did, though there was no more sexytimes. Both
of us were too exhausted and shower sex sucked. Rohan lathered me up, letting me close my eyes as he massaged my scalp. Kissing me pressed against the tiles, his fingers laced with mine until the hot spray finished, and believe me, it took a long time in a hotel to make the water turn cold. The walls ran with rivulets of water, the bathroom now a steam room, but all that, including my pruney fingers, was worth it.

  I dried off, wrapping a towel around my head and slipping into underwear and one of Ro’s T-shirts. I felt light as air and so very, very happy. Giddy even. I bounced on the bed. “Can I have room service?”

  Rohan towel dried his hair. “Baby, you can have whatever you want.”

  I kept bouncing. This mattress was pretty great. “Oh yeah? Will you get me a pony?”

  “And rent a stable to keep it in. You gotta be practical when it comes to equine care, Sparky.”

  I laughed. I didn’t care about Ro’s money, but after the past few days, silly teasing was a welcome relief. “Will you get me gadozens of fancy purses?”

  “Gadozens?”

  “A gazillion dozens.” Bounce. Bounce.

  “A gadozen gadozens.” He pitched the damp towel into the bathroom and grabbed the boxers I’d brought for him.

  “Will you take me to Paris for dessert?” Rohan stilled. I hadn’t meant to say that, especially since I only knew about this part of his romantic history because I’d been eavesdropping. Except, I guess I had meant to say it, to let Rohan know that I knew about the lengths he went to for Lily. I didn’t like that about myself. I didn’t want to be the girlfriend threatened by his past.

  “Cheeseburgers,” I said gaily, to cover the impending awkward silence. I hopped off the bed, picked up the receiver, and hit the room service button. I ordered for both of us, then stared at the phone, wondering who else I could call so I wouldn’t have to deal with the loaded tension.

  He wrapped his arms around me. “Do you want dessert in Paris, Sparky? You can have it.”

  “I don’t. Not really.” I turned in his embrace and raked his damp strands of hair out of his eyes.

  “I gave Lily that, but I never fully gave her myself. Not like I do with you.”

  “It’s fine, honestly. I mean, Cole never had me like this, either.” I snapped my lips together against that final truth that had just slipped out.

  “Phrasing,” Ro snickered.

  I rolled my eyes, but I was secretly thankful to put things on a more lighthearted track.

  Half an hour later, we were eating cheeseburgers in our underwear and T-shirts, watching an old Fugue State Five documentary that Ro had bitched about putting on. The mattress dipped under his weight as he returned to the bed and tossed me one of the two tiny bottles of Scotch he’d liberated from the mini bar.

  “You’re one classy motherfucker, Mitra.”

  “Right? L’chaim.”

  We lifted our bottles in unison and clinked them. I shot back a hefty swallow, clenching my jaw against the burn.

  “Cheeseburgers after bondage are the best.” I couldn’t shovel in the food in fast enough.

  He licked ketchup off the corner of my lip. “Agreed.” He grimaced, watching his younger self talk at length about the poetry of his lyrics. “Please shut this off. It’s painful.”

  “Your lyrics are beautiful.”

  “My lyrics are fine, but I was hardly Leonard Cohen. Fuck, I was pretentious.” He polished off his cheeseburger and lay on his side, propped on his elbow, inching his hand up my thigh.

  I snorted my laughter, pointing at the screen. “Oh my God! They did make you guys take dance lessons!”

  He sighed and flopped back against the bed in resignation, pulling a pillow over his face to hide his embarrassment and deter further questions until the interview finished or I changed the channel. And it would have been the perfect night, cheeseburgers and lyrics and me and Rohan, all wrapped up in a warm bed with good jokes and music, except that’s when the Man in Black broke in.

  19

  A balaclava obscured his features and black leather gloves covered his hands, but this guy had to be Rasha. He had the build and that familiar coiled tension. His presence wasn’t random either, because he went straight for Rohan as the greater threat. Ro held his own, the two of them grappling for a hold on the other with a flurry of punches and kicks.

  Magic would only escalate the situation and I wasn’t about to have him unleash some unknown power. I grabbed the wooden toy bat.

  Rohan slammed a fist into the attacker’s body. He grunted, his entire frame curling around Ro’s punch but recovered pretty damn quickly, slamming both hands to either side of Ro’s head. Rohan’s blades flickered out for a second, snapping back inside him under the thin coat of ice that formed over his skin.

  I swung the bat at the back of the attacker’s head but the weapon froze and splintered before contact. The Man in Black turned on me with a menacing smile. Still deep-freezing a struggling Rohan, he grabbed my arm, wrenching it up my back.

  Ice filled my veins. Literally. My heart stopped and my blood crystalized into miniscule sharp-edged snowflakes. The world crackled black.

  He dropped me on the floor and cracked Rohan’s skull into the wall. Once. Twice. Frost slithered down the wall. “One warning. Back. Off.”

  He stepped over me and left.

  I curled in a ball, dragging in a deep breath. Big mistake. I shook with a wracking cough, air hitting my half-frozen, tortured lungs.

  Blood dripped out of Rohan’s ears as he knelt over me to scoop me into his arms, the drops falling in slow motion. Each plump droplet hit the carpet with a rumbled thud before fracturing, staining the fibers.

  He ran the water in the jacuzzi in the bathroom, only letting go of me long enough to strip us of our clothes, before lowering me into the tub braced against his back.

  “Cold.” My words came out a garbled mumble. My teeth wouldn’t stop chattering.

  “Here.” He shifted for maximum skin contact, wrapping his legs around me.

  There was enough hot water in the tub that feeling seeped back into my toes. I cried out, breathing through the blazing agony of having what amounted to my entire body coming off the world’s worst brain freeze.

  Ro’s tears hit the water in pretty pink streaks. “Don’t cry,” I said, my chest tightening at how upset he was over my injuries. No, he wasn’t crying. It was blood. His hair was matted with it. My too-tight ribcage convulsed with fear. The water was only a few degrees below boiling and if he was concussed, hot water was a bad idea.

  I peeled myself off him. “Out.”

  “Yeah.” He climbed out of the tub and collapsed on the floor.

  “Ro? You okay?” Still trembling and seeking heat, I slid further into the tub until only my mouth and nose peeked out above the water. I didn’t have the energy to move. Defrosting took a lot out of a girl. Now I finally understood why my Chickeny Delight always tasted so exhausted.

  “Dizzy. Need a sec.”

  Eventually we recovered enough to throw on our evening clothes, grab our stuff, and get the hell out. Rohan had cleaned up any traces of his blood and had reached the end of his patience with me checking his pupils for a concussion.

  “Hey.” Ro took my purse from me. “You’re shaking.” He pressed a hand to my skin. “Are you still cold?”

  “No.” My reflection in the burnished gold elevator doors showed a rosy cheeked Nava. I stabbed the elevator button, storming inside the empty car when it opened with a ding. I curled my hands around the metal railing, trying and failing to get my fury under control. “They tracked us here tonight. Came after us, trying to scare us.”

  “The further we go down this road, the more the Brotherhood will be gunning for us. We won’t even be able to properly watch our backs, because it might be a friend who sticks the knife in.” Rohan tilted my chin up to face him. “You heard the guy. One warning. Do you want to stop? Walk away?”

  “We can’t. And I wouldn’t. Would you?”

  He shook his h
ead.

  I slid my hand in his. “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “You were fighting the guy but it wasn’t because you were trying to protect me.”

  The elevator opened into the parking garage, revealing the Shelby. Ro had snagged a spot right by the elevators.

  “Slugger, you didn’t need protecting.” He unlocked my door and placed my bag on the floor mat.

  “Still,” I said. “Thank you. We need to be smart and way more stealthier from this point on.”

  “Plans C through Z. Be more careful. Told you.” Rohan blocked me from getting into the car. He brushed my damp hair out of my eyes. “You’re hooking into me, Sparky and I want to be caught for a long, long time.”

  The words didn’t scare me this time. He wasn’t saying them because he was under the influence of a demon drug or even because of the Man in Black. Our night together had shifted something between us–stripped us down and gently deposited us here–a place of cautious optimism.

  I curled my toes, rolling onto the sides of my feet. “You’re hooking into me, too.”

  Rohan glanced down at the ground, a pleased smile tugging at his lips. “Well, all right, then.”

  The first person we called back at the chapter house was Kane. Rohan and I had holed up in my room, leaving our Brotherhood phones downstairs. We used my burner phone and called the landline in Kane’s hotel room in Osoyoos, a small town in British Columbia’s interior.

  “Sorry to disturb you.” I put the call on speaker, the cell sitting on the mattress between Rohan and me. “But we’ve got a situation.”

  Kane yawned. “This better be an emergency. We’ve got a gong show on our hands between the demons and this flooding.”

  “Put your cell in the bathroom and turn on the shower,” Rohan said.

  Kane muttered about paranoia but did as he was told. “Speak freely.”

  I told him what had happened.

  “What do you need?” He sounded wide-awake.

  “What Rasha has ice magic?” Rohan said.

  “Hang on. Gotta get my laptop.” We heard Kane moving around and keys clacking.

  “Is it secure from Brotherhood prying?” I asked.