In the next heartbeat she impaled herself on him. He hissed out a breath, the hot walls of her sex swallowing him. With his jaw locked, Drew thrust up to get deeper inside her.
Blair moaned. Her head fell back, her hands pushing his shirt up to caress his chest. He gripped her thighs, jerking her back down when she released her slick hold on his cock. She rocked her hips and each roll forward let him sink harder and faster into her sweet opening.
Her breasts bounced with the quickening rhythm, and he dragged her down so he could catch one dark nipple between his lips. The deep suction made her whimper.
Drew’s hand brushed her side, and he felt the slight tremor run over her skin. “Blair?”
“I’m okay,” she whispered, before he could say a word about them stopping.
Not that he would have been able to. Not with her riding him so goddamn perfectly, pumping slow and easy then fast and hard. He dug his heels into the floor, lifting to meet her every thrust. Nothing slowed her down. She’d been hurt days ago and here she was, her head thrown back, her bared breasts flushed, her sex swallowing him mercilessly.
And he couldn’t get enough of it. Of her. No woman should be able to drive a man so completely out of his mind. He was a lot of things, but a thoughtless bastard taking advantage of her shouldn’t have been one of them. She had wanted this but he knew she was close to falling to pieces. Could see it now in the vulnerable depths of her wild blue eyes. The more his heart raced and the harder she fucked him, the more frustrated he became that he didn’t know how to stop this. Didn’t know how to save her.
As though she sensed the tension coiling in him, she offered a taunting smile. She bit her lip when he found her clit with his thumb. He strummed the plump flesh as tirelessly as she rode him.
“Drew!” She ground down, and he grunted like a feral animal at the sweet friction, gripping her hips hard.
Release exploded down the length of his cock.
She collapsed across his chest, and he couldn’t bring himself to move a muscle until he felt her trembling on top of him.
“Blair?”
Wetness trailed down his throat where she’d buried her face against him. He heard her suck in a shaky breath, and she lifted her face.
The sheen of tears in her eyes rammed him hard in the gut. He wiped at the tear that tracked down her cheek. “Don’t cry, baby.”
“I don’t know what’s happening to me. Everything is so messed up and just now, I don’t even know…” She searched his face. “I’m scared, Drew.”
He scooped her up, careful of her injury, and sat them both on the edge of her bed. He held her until the soft tremors had faded and no more tears dripped down his chest.
“Sorry,” she mumbled against his jaw.
He closed his eyes. “Me too.”
She tipped her face back, no longer looking so lost. “I don’t fall apart like this very often.”
“Extenuating circumstances.”
“And never after sex like that.”
He smiled and kissed her softly. They stayed that way for another few minutes, then he finally led the way to the bathroom to get cleaned up. He washed her face first, trailing the cloth soothingly around her nape and down her spine. When he felt his body start to respond like a sex-starved machine, he quickly dried her off and sent her back to her room to dress.
She was no closer to wrapping her mind around the possibility of demons existing at all—let alone that one had come after her—than when Drew made the unbelievable claim. At the same time she couldn’t erase the soulless black eyes from her memory, couldn’t forget the way there had been no blood, or the cold blue flames…
Flames? She closed her eyes, bringing it back into focus.
She yanked her shirt over her head and fastened her pants. “You said you vanquish them. How?”
Drew leaned in the doorway, his handsome face no longer shadowed with concern, not like during her meltdown. “Are you asking because you’re trying to find reasons not to believe me?”
“There is nothing wrong with a healthy amount of skepticism. I think I’m entitled.” She needed to focus. Be objective. Ask questions. Examine the angles. She knew it was the only way she could hope to work her way through the sudden shift in her world.
“Once their heads are severed an ancient chant vanquishes them.”
“The blue flames?”
He nodded.
“How does it work?”
“It destroys their aura permanently.”
Aura? She’d ask more about that later. “And if you just chop off their head without the chant?”
“Their aura returns to their realm.”
She stared at him, wondering how much more insane this could get. “As in another dimension?”
“No. As in another realm.”
Another topic that could be investigated later. “How did you and Braxton…how do you know about demons and vanquishing and realms? Or did I just miss the demon-slayer career day presentation in high school?”
His lips curved in a faint smile. “It’s complicated.”
She shook her head. “Don’t start being vague on me again. At least give me the CliffNotes version.”
“One of them cornered me a few years ago.”
Her hand froze in the process of reaching for her shoe. “Were you hurt?”
“I came out of it okay.”
“And then what? You saw a classified ad in the newspaper with the caption ‘if you’ve seen a creepy guy with black and red eyes, give us a call’?”
“I was recruited.”
Could the man be any more cryptic? “By?”
“Others like me.”
A soft itch in her palm intensified with her rising frustration. She forced herself to slow down. Rushing caused a journalist to miss important facts, to overlook relevant information. She couldn’t afford to do either.
She followed him out to the kitchen. “Is my brother like you?” The thought of Braxton knowing all of this stuff and never saying a word left her both shocked and angry.
“Sort of.”
“By that you mean…”
“It means there is a small percentage of the population that carries a unique gene. And when those people are exposed to a demon’s essence, their genes mutate and they absorb some of that demon’s skills and abilities.”
Her disbelief must have shown on her face and he quickly added, “You asked,” when she couldn’t make her lips or her mind work to formulate any kind of response.
She swallowed nervously, afraid of where this was headed. “People like you and Braxton.”
“And like you,” he said softly.
She sank down on the edge of the closest chair. “This is crazy.”
He took the seat opposite her. “I know it’s a lot to take in.” At her doubtful look, he added, “I was in your place once. I know hearing this can be overwhelming.”
“Just a little.” Sarcasm weighed down her tone. “And you believed it? Just like that?”
“I saw one that night, looked the damn thing in the eyes. I might not have known what it was, but I knew it wasn’t human.”
“You thought it was a vampire too, huh?”
He scowled, but she didn’t imagine the slight twitch of his lips.
“So Brax has known all this time about Shadow Demons and never said anything?” Her overprotective brother, who used to threaten to hunt her down if she wasn’t home by curfew, had known these things were out there and never let on about them. Not once. It also made more sense now that she could see the bigger picture—why he wasn’t around as much and never talked about his job.
“You’ve seen one face-to-face and are struggling to believe it. Would you really have listened to him if he just broached the subject out of the blue one day?” Drew shook his head. “You probably would have been the first to lead a family intervention.”
“He never tried, not once.” An angry nausea greased her stomach. She met Drew’s eyes. “How many of thes
e things are out there?”
“The world’s not overrun with them.”
“The world?” She laughed bitterly, “Wait, when Brax was working out of the country, he was tracking these things?” She closed her eyes. “This is way too much.” She pushed aside the feelings of betrayal at her brother’s silence. She knew Braxton. Knew he loved his family—would die for them. If he hadn’t told any of them about this, he must have a damn good reason, right?
He held out a hand. “We need to go.”
“Where?”
He grinned softly. “You’re going to have a lot more questions. So I’m taking you to the people who have the answers.”
Chapter Eight
“Where are we?” Blair glanced around the underground parking lot. She slipped out of the Jeep and fell into step with Drew as he headed toward an elevator. “My brother is here.” She recognized his green Mustang parked further down the row.“Everyone probably is.”
She squared her shoulders and stepped into the elevator next to him. The doors shut, but the elevator didn’t begin its climb until Drew completed some kind of retinal scan.
Tension grappled around her spine when the elevator started to ascend. Instead of finding herself increasingly reassured that she was getting closer to the answers she needed, a voice in the back of her mind silently warned that there was only so much truth she could handle. Like a rising river during flood season, trepidation surged inside her, and she clenched her hands at her sides. A soft ding announced their floor, but instead of moving forward to disembark, she backed up.
An unexpected crackle along her nerve endings made her yelp and the elevator console burst open in a shower of sparks.
Drew turned, shielding her until the fireworks display ceased, then quickly pulled her into the hallway. She didn’t know whether or not to be worried that he didn’t give the elevator a second glance.
“Bathroom,” she managed, through the panic wedged in her throat, her face growing hot. Her vision became spotty, the long hall dotted in black globs that made her dizzy.
Drew quickly led her to a room off the main corridor. She didn’t pay any attention to anything in it but moved straight for the secondary door Drew pointed out. Inside the small bathroom, nausea clamped down hard on her stomach, and she dropped to her knees the second her stomach started to heave.
“Easy.” Drew draped a cold cloth across the back of her neck, and she shivered, her insides morphing from a sauna to a polar ice cap.
She took the cloth and pressed it to her face before handing it back.
“I’ll be right out here if you need me.”
Blair nodded, unsure if her voice would cooperate at the moment or not. She remained on the floor until she trusted her legs to hold her and her stomach no longer clutched and twisted.
She lingered in the bathroom until her vision stopped wavering at the edges, then emerged to find Drew directly on the other side of the door.
“I did that, didn’t I? In the elevator,” she prompted.
“It takes getting used to.”
“You can do those things too?” People like him and Braxton, he’d said. Like her.
“No, but if you turned off the light, I’d still be able to see you perfectly. I can hear the thump of your heart and could be on the other side of the room before you even asked me—”
“How?”
He grinned. “Exactly.” He nodded at the doorway. “Let’s go.”
Back in the hall they passed a set of double doors, and movement through the glass caught her eye. Drew pulled it open and she took a tentative step inside. Her eyes went immediately to the two people circling each other. She recognized Gage right away, but didn’t know the woman opposite him.
“Are you gonna pussyfoot around all day?” the woman taunted, a cunning smile curving her lips.
“You know that this is as good as foreplay for me.” Gage shot forward, going low.
Blair stared in awe as the woman dodged and deflected him away with a punch that Gage blocked at the last second. She glanced sharply at Drew, then hearing a hard thump, returned her attention to the mat where Gage had the woman pinned.
“You know, this really never gets old,” he crowed.
“Hey, Drew, who’s you friend?”
The split second Gage spared them a glance, the woman jammed her leg between their bodies and kicked him off.
Blair cringed as Gage landed and found the end of a long staff wedged against his throat.
Drew laughed. “Jordan, this is Blair.”
“Brax’s sister, right?” Jordan wasn’t stupid enough to take her eyes off Gage as she spoke.
Gage grappled Jordan’s feet with his, taking her to the floor. He didn’t manage to avoid the awkward swing of her staff as Jordan lost her balance
Blood ran from a deep gash on Gage’s forehead.
Blair cringed. “Is he okay?”
“He will be in a minute or so.”
Blair didn’t even realize she’d ventured closer until she saw the cut on Gage’s head was already healing. Her jaw dropped open.
“Only hurts for a few seconds,” Gage said.
Jordan snorted. “Though you’d never know it from the way he’ll go on and on about it for the rest of the day.”
The look of planned retaliation on Gage’s face had Blair backing up to give the couple more than enough room to get back to what they were doing.
“Rae’s waiting in the briefing room I think,” Gage said.
She followed Drew back into the hall. “What about Braxton?”
“On the phone with Quinn.”
“How do you…” she trailed off as Braxton came around the corner, a phone held to his ear.
She darted a look at Drew, and he just grinned at her.
Braxton tucked the phone in his pocket, the worried expression on his face reminding her so much of their father her throat grew tight. She ignored the urge to run the other way. Going toe-to-toe with him was always the best way to keep her brother from treating her like she was still a little girl.
He acknowledged Drew with a stiff nod and turned his full attention to her. “Wish you would have left me a note.”
Blair was saved from commenting as a door to the right opened and a stunning redhead Drew had already mentioned was their boss, Rae, joined them in the hall.
She gestured to the room behind her. “Why don’t you come in?”
“She’s been in there a long time,” Drew mused, from where he sat back-to-back with Jordan on the training room floor.
“She’ll adjust. We all did.” Jordan let her head drop back on his shoulder. “We can go another round if you want to kill more time.”
He laughed. “And have your man over there need to drag home a useless lump, no thanks.”
“Oh, please.” From the way she was careful to not put her full weight on her right ankle Drew knew she was a little relieved he’d passed on the offer.
He stayed where he was as Jordan and Gage disappeared into the locker room, calling it a day. A round with Jordan had helped to take the edge off. A little. He knew it had been the right call to let Blair talk alone with Brax and Rae. He needed to give her space, needed to give himself some space.
His cell phone rang, and he crossed to the bench where he’d left it. He recognized his mother’s number.
“Tell me you’re close by,” she said the moment he put the phone to his ear.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s Molly.”
“She still hasn’t calmed down.” His mother stood waiting for him on the porch.
Drew followed her inside. “What happened?”
Worry lines tugged at his mother’s forehead. “She just woke up crying and hasn’t stopped. She started calling out for you almost right away.”
He took the stairs three at a time. His father’s soothing voice drifted down the hall, but didn’t seem to soften the anxious sobs coming from Molly’s room.
“Daddy?” she said even b
efore Drew reached her doorway.
The sight of her looking so small in the big bed, with her tear-stained face and flushed cheeks, locked his feet to the floor. She threw back the covers and ran to him. On instinct he dropped to his knees, and she threw her arms around his neck.
“It’s okay.”
Her hair tickled his face, the scent of her bubblegum shampoo reminding him how innocent she was, so ignorant of the darkness in the world. He hugged her tighter and she didn’t object.
Molly sniffled against his chest. “He’s watching her, Daddy. The monster. He won’t leave her alone.”
He rubbed her back and picked her up. “Shhhh.” He looked to his mother for some idea on how to handle the situation. She patted his hand and motioned for his dad to follow her out of the room. They shut the door behind them, and he stared at it, wondering what he was supposed to do next.
Tiny tremors still wracked her small body. This was a first. Two women crying on him in the same day. Drew tucked her closer, tried reassuring her everything would be okay.
She shook her head. “The monster, Daddy. He sees her.” Her face scrunched up with a wave of panic. “You have to save her.” The last few words came out in a hiccupped shudder.
He wiped at her cheek. “It was just a bad dream.”
“No.”
He went to the closet and opened it up. “No monsters in here.”
She rubbed her nose on her sleeve. “I know.”
He set her on the bed and bent down to check underneath it. “No monsters under here either.”
Molly sighed, and he almost grinned. She drew in a steadying breath, her eyes filling up again with the next.
“Don’t cry, sweetheart.”
Her small fingers had a death grip on him. “She can’t hear me. The music is too loud. She doesn’t know the monster’s there. It’s watching her. No matter how loud I yell, she can’t hear me, but you can save her, Daddy.”
He was pretty sure playing into her confusion wouldn’t help her get back to sleep, but he asked anyway, hoping that by listening she’d settle down. “Save who?” He sat next to her.
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