More Than Fiends

by Maureen Child

  When the doors swished shut, I was suddenly speechless. I know. Hard to believe. But there it was. The walls of the elevator were painted a dark red, and the lighting resembled candlelight.

  Couldn’t have been more romantic.

  Thank God, there were no mirrors in the elevator. I just don’t think I could have looked myself in the eye and gone through with this. Yeah, yeah. I talk a good game, but let’s remember, I don’t get out much. My last date was two years ago, and my last sexual experience was a special moment between me and my shower massage!

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  “Yes. Fine. Sure.” One would have been enough, idiot. No, I wasn’t all right. Nervous. Worried. Did I remember how to do this? What if I sucked at it? God. Performance anxiety.

  “I’ve been thinking about you since the first moment we met.”

  Thinking about me? Thinking what exactly? And did it matter?

  Devlin turned toward me and wrapped his arms around my waist. Oh, those arms felt good, and when he pulled me in close, I knew he was feeling pretty good, too.

  Oh God. What was I doing? Was I really going to go through with this? Was I really stepping into sex-toy central with a guy I’d known about a week? Was he aware that I was silently shrieking?

  Maybe, because in the next second he did his best to distract me. And damned if it didn’t work. He bent his head and kissed me, his mouth moving over mine with practiced seduction. Not that I needed a hell of a lot of seduction at the moment. I was primed and ready to roll.

  It had been so long, I could hardly remember rolling. So now, open the gates and step back, people.

  His tongue tangled with mine, and I heard someone groan. I was pretty sure it was me. I grabbed hold of him, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and holding on for life.

  As kisses went, this was an 8.5 on a scale of 10. I knew Rach would demand comparisons later, wanting to know who was the better kisser…Devlin or Logan.

  So, in the interest of fairness, I decided to let Devlin do his all to impress me.

  He was so big. So muscle-bound. Even through the fabric of his once-great suit, I could feel the shift and play of a really toned body. And I so wanted to see it. Feel it. Taste it.

  But even while he was kissing me senseless, tugging the tail of my shirt free of my skirt and sliding his hands up over my skin, my brain started screaming at me again.

  Slut! Worse, easy slut!

  One date. A bottle of wine, a terrific steak and a little chocolate mousse and, bingo, there goes Cassidy!

  But it had been so long, I reasoned with my logical self.

  So what? You couldn’t wait two more dates? Are you really that pitiful? Have you no pride? Have you no decency? No self-respect?

  “I want you bad,” Devlin muttered, dropping his mouth to my neck.

  Shut up! I silently shouted at my logical self and made the decision to be a slut for the night. So what? Would worlds collide? Apocalypse time? The seas rise and overtake the land?

  I didn’t think so.

  Besides, I’d killed a demon today. I owed myself an orgasm in reward.

  The elevator doors opened, and I leaped back from him. I have no problem being a slut (apparently) for one man, but I’m not doing a striptease for any customers who might be wandering the halls.

  He chuckled and hauled me up close again. “Relax,” he said. “We’re on the third floor. My private apartment.”

  Whoa. Impressive. And yet, I was a little disappointed that we wouldn’t be swinging on a vine in the Tarzan room. God. I could almost feel Hell’s flames licking at my feet.

  “Private apartment? But you have that house on the coast highway and—”

  He was steering me down the hallway now, toward a set of double doors that probably led straight to Hell.

  “Some nights,” he said, “I just stay here rather than drive home.”

  “Handy,” I murmured and braced myself when he opened the doors.

  Forget it. I wasn’t braced. I was struck dumb. Again. The place looked like a palatial hunting cabin, for God’s sake. It was sitting on top of a notorious sex club in a tiny beach town in Southern California, and it could have been in Montana!

  Wood walls caught the soft gleam of a fire burning in a hearth tall enough that I could have stood up in it—if I were fireproof or had a death wish. The matching sofas were covered in some plush-looking dark green fabric, and there were braided rugs on the polished floors.

  Directly across the room, there was a bank of windows with a view of the moonlit ocean that made me go even gooier than I already was.

  “This is amazing,” I said, walking into the room and turning my head from side to side, wanting to see everything. “Why didn’t you show me this place before I put the bid in?” As soon as I asked that question, I turned to look at him. “If cleaning this apartment is part of the deal, the bid’s going up.”

  He grinned, tossed his suit jacket onto a nearby chair and shook his head. “No, I have a housekeeper here.”

  “Here?” I said, spinning around, half expecting to see some tidy little woman spring up from behind a chair.

  “Not here now,” he said and came toward me, with a look in his eyes that told me the talking part of our evening was done.

  And just like that, I got nervous. Slut puppy becomes virginal librarian. Give me a break; it’s been—God. Way too long.

  “Wait a sec,” I said, holding up one hand, like that was going to accomplish anything. The man was enormous. If he didn’t want to stop, he wouldn’t have to. But he did and waited for me to speak. Don’t know why I hadn’t thought of this before. Hell, maybe I was just lucky I’d thought of it at all. “Um, I don’t exactly travel with condoms or anything, so maybe we shouldn’t be hasty about this—”

  “I have some.”

  “Of course you do,” I muttered, and didn’t know if I was pleased or disappointed by that. Okay, pleased, but let me have my illusions.

  “And you’re healthy?” I asked, although the condom thing would take care of that worry. “I mean, it’s an ugly question, but—”

  “I’m healthy,” he said, “and I’m guessing that you are, too, since it doesn’t seem like you do this much.”

  “Hah! That’s what you think,” I said, walking backward, just to get out of arm’s reach. “I mean, I do this all the time. I’m a woman of the twenty-first century, you know? Confident, capable, able to have, um…”

  “Sex?”

  “Right. Whenever I want to.” God, I was babbling. And worse, there didn’t seem to be an end in sight. I trailed my fingers across the glossy surface of an antique table and kept backing up. Idiot. “This is no big deal for me, you know. I’m totally sophisticated, spilled red wine notwithstanding, and of course you realize that I was being clumsy just to make you think I was sweet and vulnerable and innocent and—” Somebody shoot me!

  “Of course,” he said, and he was smiling again.

  He really shouldn’t smile at me like that, I thought, and took a breath. It just wasn’t fair. The man had an arsenal of seductive weapons that, frankly, I just wasn’t equipped to fight against. Even if I’d wanted to fight.

  “I’m helpless in your seductive plans,” he said, still smiling, still walking slowly toward me.

  “Okay,” I admitted, “so I don’t really do this much, or ever.”

  “I know.”

  “You know? How do you know?” I asked, thinking that all that pretense at sophistication had been a real waste of energy. “Is there, like, a sign on my forehead that says four years since her last man? Oh God.” I slapped my forehead with the heel of my hand. “Did I just say that out loud?”

  He laughed and moved so fast I hardly saw him, and then he had me flush up against him and—Hell, I didn’t care about anything else. I’ll admit it. Now that I’d decided to be the big slut puppy of the known universe, I was willing to throw myself into the role.

  I dropped my bag—my Judith Leiber bag, the
one I didn’t allow people to breathe on—onto the floor and never gave it another thought.

  How the hell could I think with Devlin Cole’s mouth on mine?

  The man was talented. Sometime during the tonsil exam, Devlin had gotten my shirt off and my bra undone, and now he had his mouth on my breast and his hands up my skirt.

  Every single square inch of me was flashing on and off like a broken neon light. I felt hot, then cold, then hot again, and the expectation roiling around inside had me teetering on the edge.

  I wasn’t wearing nylons (hello, sandals?), so he had really easy access to all the good parts. His fingers tugged at the thin elastic of my best black panties and snapped it neatly in half. I couldn’t even care. Then he touched me, sliding his hand between my thighs, and I groaned, tipped my head back and stared at the ceiling while he stroked me with really clever fingers.

  I was hot and slick and so damn ready it was a miracle I didn’t scream at his first touch. Then he was pushing his fingers high and deep inside me, and I was riding his hand like I was on a prize-winning stallion in a rodeo.

  His teeth and tongue tormented my nipples, and every time I swayed like I was about to fall over, he tightened his grip on me with one hand and pushed me nearer the edge with the other. I didn’t care that I’d only known the man a week. All I cared about was what he was making me feel. I would have done just about anything to experience a “man driven” orgasm.

  I clutched at him, I moaned, I groaned, and I’m pretty sure I promised to give him my firstborn child (sorry, Thea) if he’d just make me come. Now.

  And then he did.

  With his mouth on my nipple, his fingers pushed me over that slippery edge, and I pumped my hips into his touch, pleading for more even as a staggering climax thundered over me.

  “More,” he said, his voice heavy with need.

  “More,” I agreed before the last lovely ripple faded away and practically leaped into his arms. He carried me to the closest sofa, quickly stripped me naked—how the hell did he do that so fast?—and then got rid of his own clothes.

  The man was awesome.

  Broad, tanned chest with dark curls of hair spiraling down to his abdomen and—Wow. For a second or two, I wondered if I could sprint to the door and get away before he noticed me running naked for my life. The man wasn’t just big; he was big. And no way could there be room in me for that.

  “You should come with a warning label.”

  Naturally, being male, he took that as a compliment. “Second thoughts?” he asked.

  “And third,” I muttered as his pet monster moved in closer, “and fourth.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said, reading my thoughts so easily I had to wonder if my jaw had dropped open in a silent scream. “It’ll be fine.”

  “I don’t know…”

  He grinned. Pride warred with amusement and, as it would with most men, pride won. “Trust me, we’ll fit.”

  “If we don’t,” I muttered, “and this kills me, tell Thea I love her.”

  He laughed aloud, and the sound of it echoed through the room and seemed to take the edge off my nerves. Now that I was relaxing, I had to admit, I’d had one orgasm and I really wanted another. Badly enough that I’d risk that telephone pole he called his pride and joy.

  After all, I’d accepted playing at the whole slut-for-a-night thing. Might as well give it my all.

  “Okay,” I said, “let’s go for it.”

  “I’ll be right back,” he said and stalked across the room to disappear through a doorway.

  “What?” I shouted. “Now I’m ready and you leave?”

  When he came back, he tossed a handful of condoms onto the coffee table, and I know my eyes bugged out.

  “Confident, aren’t we?” I asked.

  “Very,” he said, and while I watched, he sheathed himself, then loomed over me.

  He parted my thighs and skimmed one hand over my slick heat. I almost jumped off the couch at his touch, but quickly enough, that simple caress turned into something demanding, and I was all for it. His fingers were dipping and caressing and probing, and I was right there with him, feeling it all, wanting it all. Hell, wanting more.

  My hips rocked into him, and I arched so high off the couch my butt wasn’t even touching the cushions anymore. My eyes were glazed—I know because everything looked damn blurry—but nothing beyond his talented touch mattered. Not now.

  “I want you,” he said tightly, “now.”

  “You’re getting me,” I managed to say though I don’t know how I found the breath.

  “Not enough,” he growled. I’m not exaggerating here: he actually growled.

  Then he grabbed me, sat down on the couch and set me on his lap. I went up on my knees and looked down into dark eyes that were a shifting mass of shadows and light, drawing me in, urging me to take him. I really didn’t need urging.

  The fire snapped and hissed in the background. Outside, the wind howled in off the ocean and rattled the glass French doors. Softly flickering light filled the room, tossing dancing shadows across Devlin’s face as he looked up at me.

  I stared into his amazing eyes as I slowly lowered myself onto his thick, hard body. My own body stretched and slicked around him, easing his entry inch by delectable inch. He was right. We did fit. He filled me so completely, I could hardly draw a breath. So tight. So hard.

  So…good.

  I shifted on him, grinding my hips against him, flexing inner muscles to hold him, hissing in air at the tremendous sensations rattling through me. But apparently, I was going too slow for him. He gritted his teeth, clamped his hands on my hips and took over. Okay by me. I gave myself up to the glorious ride, tipping my head back, feeling his body shove into mine with a strength and power I’d never felt before. It was incredible. Overpowering.

  “I love your body,” he whispered, hands digging into my hips, mouth a breath away from my nipple.

  “I’m pretty fond of yours, too,” I managed to say around a moan as he thrust high and hard. He pushed himself so high inside, I was pretty sure I could feel the tip of him at the base of my throat.

  And it still wasn’t enough. I leaned into him and he buried his face between my breasts. I locked my fingers in his hair and tried to hold on to my mind. But it wasn’t easy. The man’s body was doing things to me I’d never felt before. His tongue traced damp patterns over my skin, and his breath felt like fire.

  I couldn’t believe another orgasm was coming. So quick. So incredibly huge. This one was making that first one feel like—well, a smaller one. I was almost there. My breath caught, my body tightened—

  Suddenly, he flipped me over, landing me on my back on the sofa, without ever disentangling us. Then he held my knees apart, whispered, “Now,” and thrust even harder and deeper than before, once, twice, and then the world exploded.

  I know because I went blind.

  Not to brag or anything, but it was almost two hours later before we were finished, and that was only because I’d lost all feeling in my limbs.

  Okay, so I don’t mind bragging.

  I hadn’t felt so limber, so relaxed, so amazingly…orgasmed (and, yes, I know that’s not a word) in forever. Getting dressed seemed a shame, but I had to get home. A kid was waiting there to punish me. Oh God. I had a hideous thought. Would Logan still be at my house? Would he take one look at me and know what I had been doing? And why was I suddenly feeling like a cheating wife, for God’s sake?

  Logan had kissed me exactly twice. It wasn’t like we had anything going on between us. I didn’t owe him anything. He shows up back in town after sixteen years and what? I’m supposed to drop everything and become that stupid, silly teenager again? I don’t think so. If I want to go out and have sex with Devlin, I can. There was nobody stopping me. And if Logan thought he was going to be getting an explanation out of me, then he was really going to be disappointed, because I so wasn’t telling him—

  Aaack!!!

  How did Logan get back int
o my head? Who invited him in? I closed my eyes, pushed him back out of my brain and admitted it was really time for me to go. Didn’t want to have some bizarre mental breakdown in front of Devlin. And let’s face it, time as a slut puppy had come to an end.

  For now.

  I was checking myself out in the mirror near the front door of the apartment—had to know if Thea would be able to tell by looking at me that I’d been a bad role model—when Devlin came up behind me.

  His arms went around my waist and he bent his head to the crook of my neck. His teeth nibbled, his lips and tongue teased, and I felt a rush straight down to the hoo-hah that had been practically comatose a few minutes ago.

  “That is so not fair,” I whispered, tilting my head to one side, to make sure he didn’t miss a spot. “You know I’ve got to go.”

  “I know,” he whispered, his breath sliding over my skin like a hot rush. “But you’ll be back.”

  I sighed as he straightened up and met my gaze in the mirror. Fumbling in my purse, I blindly pulled out my perfume, tugged off the lid and aimed the spray at my throat. “Yes, I’ll be back. Soon, I hope.”

  He smiled.

  I sprayed the perfume.

  It hit Devlin.

  It wasn’t my perfume.

  He snarled and smoke lifted off the top of his head.

  YIKES.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “You have got to be kidding me!” I screeched, giving him a shove that sent him staggering backward. Good. Demon Duster strength. That could come in handy in the next few minutes.

  I couldn’t believe it. I was worried about Jett’s little demon fingers on Thea, and I’d just ridden a demon ding-dong? I did a wild eye roll. No wonder Devlin’s penis was so damn big. He was a different damn species. Oh God. I was in serious danger of a hurl-a-thon.

  “I can explain,” Devlin said, swiping his shirtsleeve across his face, trying to wipe away the demon mixture I’d inadvertently shot him with.