by Lexi George
He lifted her by the waist and set her down on his straining shaft, stretching her, filling her.
“And now?” he asked. He blew on her wet nipples, licking first one and then the other.
“Red hot,” she said with a gasp.
Taking her nipple in his mouth, he began to move, the hot suckling pull on the tight bud in rhythm with the stroke of his cock. The sensation was exquisite, almost more than she could bear. Beck held onto him and let the feelings take her higher and higher.
She heard Conall groan her name, and then she fractured into a million little pieces of bliss.
Chapter Twenty-five
Conall held Rebekah in his arms. She lay relaxed against him, her cheek upon his chest, eyes closed. She smelled of jasmine and soap and something else, an indefinable, subtle scent that was hers alone. The sweet exhale of her breath danced across his damp skin. He was afraid to move, to breathe, for fear of ending the moment. She reminded him of a wild animal with her sleek, supple beauty and restless, barely contained energy, a fierce falcon he had gentled for the moment, but could never fully tame.
He smiled against her hair. He liked the wildness in her. He would not have it any other way.
“Rebekah?” he murmured at last.
Her eyelashes stirred against her cheeks. “Hmm?”
“The water grows cold.”
“Don’t move. Not yet.” She snuggled against him. “I’m comfortable.”
“We cannot stay here forever.” Ignoring her protests, he extricated himself from her silken limbs, and climbed from the tub. He held out a towel. “Come. I am taking you to bed.”
“I don’t want to go to bed. I’m not sleepy.”
“Who said anything about sleep?”
She made a playful grab for the towel. “I can do it myself.”
“That is not the point.” He lifted her, dripping, out of the bath and set her feet on the mat. “I want to take care of you.”
He rubbed her damp hair with the towel and dried her arms and shoulders. He moved the towel over her slender back and lower, caressing the firm, round curve of her bottom. His heartbeat tripped into a gallop. It took all his strength of will not to bend her over and take her from behind, right then and there.
“Turn around.”
His voice sounded cracked and husky. She faced him with a sultry smile, the vixen. She knew very well her effect on him.
“Bossy,” she said.
“I prefer commanding.”
Her violet eyes darkened as he moved the cloth over her breasts, her nipples puckering from the friction of the cloth. Unable to resist, Conall took one of the pink buds in his mouth. She was as changeable as quicksilver, with the hidden depths and mystery of the river outside her door. He would never tire of her. His hand moved lower, to the silky curls at the juncture of her thighs. The velvety skin there was warm. His fingers slid farther, to her womanly core.
She was slick and ready for him. The knowledge made the blood pound in his veins and groin. He had thought to tease her, to make her beg. Instead, he was the one rapidly losing control.
He carried her into the bedroom and tossed her onto the mattress. She landed on her back in a graceful sprawl and gazed up at him with a smile in her eyes. He opened his mouth to tell her that he loved her, but the words caught in his throat. Mere words were too trifling, too inadequate to convey what burned inside him.
She was so beautiful, so infinitely precious to him. All the long years of his life, the darkness and blood and struggle, disappeared and there was only Rebekah.
He stretched out beside her on the bed and kissed her, his tongue dancing with hers, delighting in her shudder of longing. He explored the rounded slopes of her breasts, the taut plane of her stomach. She squirmed restlessly beneath his sensual ministrations, but he took his time, enjoying the rapid hitch of her breath, her soft moans. He wanted to punish her a little for shredding his control, for making him love her.
A shrill ring interrupted them.
He raised his head. Rebekah’s eyes held a soft, dazed expression and her mouth was swollen from his kisses.
“That’s the phone.” She sat up, blinking in adorable confusion. “I’d better get it. It could be Cassie with news about Toby.”
“I will answer it.” Conall rose from the bed and pointed his finger at her. “Do not move.”
He approached the jangling machine and picked up the listening device. Conall was not entirely comfortable with the contraption, but he’d been on Earth long enough to know the basics. There was a moment of confusion when he spoke into the wrong end, but the matter was soon rectified.
“Yes?” he said, holding the thing to his ear.
He listened to the person on the other end and nodded.
“I will tell her,” he said, remembering that the speaker could not see him.
He put down the telephone and strode back to the bed.
“That was Cassie,” he said. “The doctor removed the projectile from Toby’s leg and gave him medicine. He is at home and resting.”
Rebekah flopped back onto the coverlet. “Thank goodness.”
“Now, where was I?” Conall looked down at her. She was spread before him, a luscious cream and rose feast for his sampling. “Ah, yes, I remember. I was kissing you.”
He grabbed her by the ankles and yanked her across the bed. Kneeling on the floor, he stroked the delicate pink flesh between her legs with his tongue.
“Conall,” she gasped. “You weren’t kissing me there.”
“Do you not like it?”
She gave him a feminine growl of enjoyment and wrapped her hands in his hair. “What do you think?”
“Good.” He bent once more to the task, exploring her intimate creases with his fingers and tongue. “Let go, sweetheart. Let me give you pleasure.”
He felt her body tighten with a delicious tension, sensed the thrumming heat in her blood that matched his burning desire. She arched against him and came with a little shriek.
She was still pulsing when he pushed inside her. It felt so good, so right.
Mine, he thought, as he started to move. Mine. And no one, man or god, can keep me from her.
It was his last conscious thought before the pleasure took him.
A familiar thump on the mattress woke Beck the next morning. She opened her eyes to find Mr. Cat staring at her from the adjacent pillow.
“Hello, you old poothead,” Beck said, giving the cat an affectionate rub. “Glad you decided to come home.”
“I told you the creature would return, did I not?”
Conall stood in the doorway, one shoulder propped against the frame. To the casual eye, he looked at ease, but she knew he could go from relaxed to lethal in a millisecond. He was fully dressed in clean jeans and a deep blue cotton tee. She liked the blue shirt. The color looked good on him, with his gleaming dark hair. Of course, he looked good in everything.
And even better naked.
Mr. Cat meowed.
“That is a blatant falsehood, you deceitful feline,” Conall said. “Do not listen to him, Rebekah. He has been fed.”
“Now you speak cat?”
“Yes.” He shrugged. “It is no great thing. As a rule, animals are more straightforward and easier to understand than humans.”
Beck drew the sheet around her, although it was a little late for modesty after the things they’d done the night before. Fevered images crowded her brain. Way, way too late, she thought, recalling an old saying about a horse and a barn door. Conall had been insatiable and so had she.
She’d have to put her hootie back in moth balls when Conall left. No one else could compare to him.
“Where’d you get the extra clothes?” she asked, to take her mind off her sudden melancholy.
“I am Dalvahni. We have our ways.”
Translation: he’d used magic.
She turned her head to check the alarm clock and bolted upright in bed. “It’s after eight. How could I have slept so late?�
�
“Not so late, when you consider how little we slept.”
Conall’s deep, rough voice sounded gruffer than usual. Glancing up, Beck found his gaze fastened on her naked breasts. A wave of heat washed over her, and she forgot about the time. Tossing back the covers, she knelt on top of the bed.
“Come here.” She crooked her finger at him. “I forgot to do something.”
He blipped across the room to stand in front of her. Pushing up his shirt, she unfastened his jeans and took him in her mouth, working the hot, hard length of him with her tongue.
“Rebekah,” he said with a strangled groan of pleasure. “Wha-what is it that you forgot?”
“I forgot to say good morning. Now that wasn’t very friendly of me, was it?” She looked up at him through her lashes and gave him another leisurely lick. “Good morning, Conall.”
He pushed her onto her back and got on top of her. “Good morning,” he said, entering her in one, swift stroke.
She clenched around him, loving the feel of him inside her. What would she do when he was gone?
She wouldn’t think about it, not now. Not when he was doing such delicious things to her body, not when he was taking her for another glorious ride.
She wrapped her legs around his waist and held on.
An hour later, Beck was showered and dressed. When she came into the kitchen, Conall had breakfast ready.
“You cook?” she said, taking a seat at the table.
He slid an omelet onto her plate and sat down across from her. “I told you as much.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t believe you.”
“Why not?”
She shrugged. “You don’t look like the domestic type.”
“Perhaps not, but I am the type who likes to eat.” He took a huge bite of his food, as if to prove his point. “A warrior learns many things in ten thousand years.”
“Holy shit,” Beck said, dropping her fork.
Ten thousand years? The gulf between them was wa-a-a-a-y wider than she’d thought.
Conall’s brow creased in concern. “Is something amiss? Are the eggs not to your liking?”
“The eggs are fine. I guess I’m a little startled to find out that you’re an immortal demi-god. It puts a simple country gal at a disadvantage.”
“You are kith, Rebekah. You are neither simple nor a peasant.”
She picked up her fork and poked at her food. “So, what’s life like on your planet?”
“The Dalvahni do not come from a planet. We reside between worlds in the Hall of Warriors.”
He was talking about another dimension. For some reason, that made it worse. Weirder. She lived in Weird Central. But this . . .
This was more than weird.
“What about your family?” she asked. “Do they live there, too?”
“A Dalvahni warrior has no family, save his brothers.”
“I get it. There’s no need to play the Dalvahni fight song. I’m asking about your parents.”
He chewed another bite of omelet and remained silent.
“You know . . . Mom and Dad?”
“The Dalvahni do not have parents. After Pratt tore the veil and released the djegrali to roam the worlds once again, Kehvahn made us.”
“Kevin made you do what?”
“Keh-vahn,” Conall repeated, putting emphasis on the second syllable. “He is the god who created us.”
Beck’s head pounded. “And this Pratt fellow made the djegrali? Was it some kind of competition?”
“Pratt did not make the djegrali. He is a trickster who released the djegrali out of mischief.” Conall slathered a piece of bread with butter and proceeded to eat it. “It is what he does.”
“He sounds like Loki.”
Conall nodded. “That is one of his incarnations. He has many names.”
Jeez, this was a strange conversation.
Beck took a deep breath and asked the thing she’d wondered about all her life, a question no one had been able to answer, not even Toby.
“So where do the djegrali come from?”
She held her breath, eager and terrified to hear the answer.
“I do not know,” Conall said. “The djegrali simply are. They are older than the gods, older than the first star.” He eyed her untouched plate. “You do not eat.”
“I’m not hungry,” she said. “What else can you tell me about them? The demons, I mean.”
He pushed aside his plate and sat back. “They are powerful and capable of great magic. Being formless, they crave physical sensation and have an insatiable appetite for sex and stimulants of all kinds. They consume food and drink and drugs in prodigious quantities, thus wearing out the bodies they inhabit at an alarming rate. If the body they inhabit dies, they die also. Thus, they move from body to body, consuming them like locusts.”
Beck thought of Latrisse, and her stomach did a slow roll. “Unless a demon hunter comes along and kills them, right?”
“Yes, but we give them a choice. If they quit their victim willingly, we return them to the Pit.”
She glanced up at that. He was watching her in that intent way of his. “You mean, like a jail?”
He nodded.
“Why not put this veil thingy back in place? Wouldn’t that be simpler than chasing them all over the place?”
“Which is the simpler task, to create a tree or hack it down? Kehvahn has tried, but he cannot repair what the Maker has wrought. For this great mischief, Pratt was banished.”
“The Maker?” she asked.
“The One Who Made All Things.”
He was talking about God; the God. The squishy feeling in her stomach spread to her brain. It was too much to think about.
She jumped to her feet. “Thanks for breakfast. I gotta get to work.”
She snatched her jacket off the couch and ran out the back door.
Chapter Twenty-six
Beck dashed across the lawn and opened the door of the Tundra. Conall was waiting inside. The Flash had nothing on this guy. She climbed in without a word and cranked the truck.
Conall did not speak until they were on the road. “What has distressed you?” he asked.
She tightened her grip on the steering wheel. “Oh, I don’t know, maybe the fact that I just found out you’re ten thousand years old? I don’t expect this thing between us to go anywhere but, I gotta admit, that intimidates the hell out of me.”
“Why?” he asked.
“Why? I’m thirty-one years old and I run a bar outside a hick town. You’re prehistoric and can talk to cats, for God’s sake.”
“And you are a shape-shifter and can suck demons out of humans with a metal spout. Such things are incidental. Why do you think what we have is temporary?”
“Because. How can it be anything else? We’re enemies and—”
“You are not my enemy. I do not have sexual congress with my enemies.”
“Sexual congress?” Beck snorted. “That sounds ever so much nicer than I screwed the demon girl.”
The truck screeched to a halt without warning. “Hey.” Beck pressed the gas pedal, but nothing happened. “What’s the big idea?”
“I do not like this word ‘screwed.’ ” Conall’s face was tight with anger. “It is a cheap and common term for what we shared. You will not use it again in reference to us.”
The demon hunter was a prude. It should have annoyed her. But, for some reason, it cheered her up.
She shrugged. “Call it whatever you want. Bottom line, I’m sure there are rules against the two of us having sex.”
That shut him up. He released whatever spell he’d put on the truck, and the Tundra rolled down the road. So, there were rules against them being together. The cheerful feeling evaporated.
Beck seethed in silence for maybe a mile and a half. “So,” she said, unable to hold her tongue, “who are you allowed to canoodle?”
“I do not understand.”
“Run it through your processor and get back to me when you
figure it out.”
“Now you are being a shrew.”
“That’s a fancy word for bitch,” Beck said. “And don’t think I’m too stupid to know it.”
“I do not think you are stupid,” Conall said. “I think you are confused and upset by your feelings for me. It is perfectly understandable. I have had some months to grow accustomed to my . . . attraction for you. You have not had that luxury.”
Oh, yay. He was attracted to her. What did she expect, undying love? This was about scratching an itch, for both of them. Why, then, did it feel like her belly was in her shoes?
She lifted her chin. “This thing between us has taken me by surprise. I may work in a bar, but I don’t sleep around.”
“That is a good thing. I do not share what is mine.”
“I never said I was yours.”
“Perhaps not in so many words, Rebekah. But you said it last night and this morning with your body in a thousand delightful ways.”
Her cheeks burned and so did the rest of her. Wow, he was some kind of smooth talker. He melted her insides like butter. Not that she’d let him know it. A demon girl had her pride.
“Nice line, Romeo,” she said. “I bet you say that to all the women.”
“There are no other women.”
She snorted again. She was starting to sound like a horse with a head cold. “Yeah, right. Next, you’ll be telling me you’re a virgin.”
“I am not a virgin,” he said. “I have slaked my lust in the House of Perpetual Bliss, as required by the Great Directive.”
“The what?”
“It is the creed the Dalvahni live by. According to the Directive, a Dalvahni warrior should avail himself of a thrall at regular intervals to rid himself of unnecessary emotion.”
He spoke in a monotone and used a bunch of highfalutin terms, but he was talking about sex, sex with someone else; some kind of paid companion. Little red dots danced in front of her eyes.
“Duty sex,” she drawled, holding onto her temper. “Man, sucks to be you. Most guys would kill for a gig like that.”
“Killing figures largely into our . . . uh . . . gig, as you call it.”
“So, what’s a thrall?”