Hardest Fall (Dominion series)

by Juliette Cross

  “Spread your legs, Carowyn,” I commanded with a bite on her luscious thigh.

  She said something under her breath I couldn’t understand, gasped when I slid lower, then she obeyed. With my free hand, the other holding her to the wall, I slicked my fingers up her slit and spread her open for me. The first taste made me groan. I moved slow and steady with thorough licks.

  “God, Xander.”

  She fisted her hands in my hair and rocked against my mouth, but I was in no hurry. No amount of urging with her sweet, pumping hips or her sharply mounting moans was going to make me speed this up.

  I slid my hand down over her pubic bone and held her folds open so I could fasten my lips onto her swollen clit at the same time I thrust two fingers inside her. She came so hard and fast she started to double over, but I wasn’t done. Catching her by her hips, I continued to love her with my mouth, licking her good as she came back down.

  When most of her quivering subsided, I stood and stared down. Her golden eyes flared with the magic she held inside, brightened by lust and pleasure. I dipped to her mouth and whispered, “Eye for an eye, darling.”

  She closed her eyes, unsmiling. A tender expression crossed the features of my fearless demoness, a combination of fear and loss and sorrow. I knew what she dreaded. I felt it, too. Sex was nothing between creatures like us. Intimacy…now, that was something else altogether. I’d told her I wanted her as a lover. That hadn’t changed. Obviously. But something bloody well had.

  Between her laying her hands and magic on me and healing my heart, and battling at my side, and teaching little Maddie, she’d shown me the angel beneath the veneer of the demon. For it was obvious to me now, she was in hiding. She had been for centuries. Hiding from her failure, from despair, from her broken heart after she’d watched Abram sing her song to his death. I wanted this fallen and risen angel. I wanted to be inside her in every possible way—deep in her body, under her skin, in her flesh, in her blood, right down to the marrow of her bones.

  She cupped my jaw. “Take me to your bed, Alexander.”

  No more delay. It was time. The reality was that sex had never meant anything to me. That was because the women in my past hadn’t meant anything to me. But she did. She meant so much I couldn’t put it into words. And I knew this night would seal us to each other in a way I couldn’t quite fathom. That was why she was so bloody quiet, so breathless, so vulnerable and sweet in my arms. She was waiting for me to take us to that place we both feared and longed for in equal measure.

  I scooped her off her feet and carried her through the living room. A thunderstorm rolled in the distance, lightning pulsing in the night sky. She curled closer to me, her head to my shoulder as if it were the most natural thing in the world. As if she belonged there.

  She did.

  Tenderness. Softness. Frailty. Beauty.

  My heart ached at the feel of her in my arms, I almost didn’t want to set her down. But the universe sped me on.

  She watched me remove my cuff links, shirt, shoes, socks, and the rest. I moved, unhurried, while she watched my every move. When I finally stood bare to her, the storm flashing behind me, she reached up a hand. I took it and pressed a biting kiss to the fleshy part of her palm before rolling her to her stomach.

  Kneeling over her, I traced the lines of her angel of death inked from the top of her shoulder blades to the small of her back—half beauty, half skeleton—trailing my fingers down to the Latin inscription. Bearing my weight on one hand by her waist, I let the other continue its southward path, mounding her perfect ass before sliding between her legs and petting her wet slit. That’s when I finally lowered my weight, aligning my body with hers, my chest to her shoulder blades, pressing her thighs wider with mine. I nuzzled her ear, her breath coming fast, eyes closed again.

  “You can keep closing your eyes, love,” I whispered. “But know this.” I pushed inside her a few inches, her tight sheath nearly blinding me with pleasure, cutting off my breath. I gripped her hip and pushed in farther, grazing the curve of her neck with my teeth. “Yes. You’re right. Death is beautiful.” I confirmed the motto in large black calligraphy across the small of her back. I sucked hard right below her ear. “But life is beautiful, too, darling.” I plunged deep, burying my cock to the hilt.

  A sharp gasp. God, she was perfect. Tight, sweet, slick, soft…more heavenly than any heaven I’d ever known.

  “Show me, Xander,” she said into the dark, her voice raspy with want.

  Skimming up her arms, I laced my fingers through hers, my palms to the backs of her hands. Those talented hands that had forged mighty weapons and had healed my heart. I clenched them tight, and she held me hard right back, arching her back and tilting her ass up. An unbearably sweet submission.

  “Show me,” she pleaded on a tight breath.

  Once again, I’d been struck still by her perfection. I hadn’t moved since I’d impaled her to the mattress.

  “My pleasure, love,” I whispered.

  Then I started to move. A languid roll of my pelvis, gliding my cock out to the tip then pounding back in.

  “God, yes.” She opened her legs wider, then I was drowning in deep, dark need.

  A feral beast roared inside and took hold. I pumped in long, slow thrusts, slamming hard at the end. Her moaning cries escalated, pulling me into her. Hard rain beat at the windows as thunder rumbled with flashes of light between. I needed to see her face.

  Pulling out and flipping her to her back, I thrust back inside her body and angled my mouth over hers. Desperation and uncontrollable yearning fused us together, kissing and fucking like the world was ending. Maybe it was. Maybe there would be no tomorrow, and that would be fine by me. As long as I could stay buried inside her body and taste her sweet mouth and skin and flesh, I didn’t give a fuck what happened beyond this bed. This was my world. This was my altar. My place of worship and sacrifice, for slicing off pieces of my heart and soul and laying it all out, all for her, letting it all bleed.

  Crazy—utterly fucking insane—with lust, I rolled with her till I was on my back. I needed to see her. Fisting a hand in her hair, which had fallen wildly in the mayhem of the fight and the fucking, I pulled her back and forced her to sit up.

  “Ride me, beautiful.”

  She planted her palms on my chest and rolled her spine, pumping her hips, clamping around my cock with each tight thrust. I hissed. Her straightened arms pressed her full breasts together. On a snarling growl, I leaned up and opened my mouth on a dark nipple, tugging with a suckling kiss.

  “Xander!” Her moans collided in one long cry.

  I slid my hand between us, pressing my thumb to her clit as she rode her rippling orgasm. She arched her neck, her mouth open, perfect breasts, slim waist, full hips curved to absolute perfection. I eased up the pressure of my thumb as she slid down from her climax, but continued to rub her slickness up and down her slit. I’d never get enough of this woman.

  When she finally gazed down, I caught that expression again. The one that told me she was afraid, so very afraid of what we’d done. Of what she felt. I rolled her yet again, still buried in her body. Sitting back on my heels, her ass in my lap, I gripped her thighs and started stroking in again. Nice and slow.

  She shook her head and huffed in disbelief. I wasn’t sure what it was she couldn’t believe. That she came that hard—twice. That she had emotions clamoring around inside her. Or that I wasn’t near done yet.

  “Don’t worry, love.” I thrust harder, deeper, her beautiful breasts bouncing with the momentum. She gripped my wrists, her nails digging in, my hands gripping her hips hard now, fingers curling into her flesh. “I feel it, too.”

  She locked her ankles at my back and rocked up, finding my rhythm and meeting me on each thrust. She scraped her nails over my chest. Fucking heaven.

  “It scares me,” she said on a breathless pant, her body slick with sweat. Like mine.

  “Me, too.” I pounded harder.

  She met me, stro
ke for stroke. My glorious, dark goddess. I could drown in pleasure in this bed, never eat or sleep again. Just feed on ecstasy. For this is what that word meant. This was my new religion, and I’d worship at the altar day and night if she’d let me.

  My eyes rolled back in my head when I came like a bloody rocket. My entire body clenched hard as I spilled inside her, sheathing myself deep, grinding against her sex with dark, guttural moans. I dropped forward and caged her in, my forearms by her head, then brushed my lips over her kiss-swollen lips, unable to meld my mouth to hers. I’d suffocate at the rate I was breathing.

  “That was…”

  Heaven and hell, what was that?

  “Yes,” she panted, licking out with her tongue and stroking my bottom lip. “It was.”

  I cradled her face between both my hands and nuzzled her lips, needing to still feel her, our bodies slick with sweat, my cock still buried inside her.

  “So,” I said, holding her hooded gaze. “Round one was good.”

  Laughter bubbled up her throat and washed over me, giving me a different kind of pleasure. Her joy and her ecstasy were my two favorite sounds in the whole bloody world.

  “Round one?”

  “You’re not sleeping tonight. Just to let you know.”

  “And good?” Her voice softened, eyes downcast. “I thought it was better than good.”

  I lowered and kissed her with a deep thrust of my tongue, stroking till she moaned. “It was the most glorious fucking thing I’ve ever experienced,” I said honestly, no hint of humor. She needed to know I was dead serious.

  Her eyes—soft and tender again—roved over my cheeks, brow, then back to my eyes. “For me, too.”

  I smiled. “Well, then.” A soft sweeping of lips. “A shower. Then round two.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Bone

  I woke pleasantly sore and tender in all the right places. I smiled to myself, feeling completely out of my depth. What had that man done to me? Turned me inside out with multiple orgasms and heady emotions and such an onslaught of sensation I thought I’d transform into a creature of pure ecstasy.

  He wasn’t in bed next to me. There was a pair of my black jeans, a hunter-green pullover top, panties, and a bra on the white marble of his double-sink vanity in the bathroom. He’d apparently made a trip to my place while I’d slept. Glancing at my reflection, I admired the love bites along my neck, shoulder, and the one on my ass. No, two. I blew out an unsteady breath at the memory of his affections. His hands, his mouth, his body ruling me with gentleness, with possession, with rough handling and tender, soul-stealing kisses. The kinds of affections that could ruin a woman for any other man.

  Who was I kidding? There was no one but Xander now. No one.

  How had this happened? How had I been rocked from my lone ship in a sea of calm waters to this? There was no returning to my life of isolation and nothingness. Not when I knew Xander existed in the world. That tick-tick-ticking of my heart had a different rhythm now, one synchronized with every move my hunter made.

  I had to get a handle on these overwhelming emotions. I had no idea what he truly felt for me. Was he like that with every woman in his bed? I couldn’t imagine. They’d still be beating down his door and begging for it. I wasn’t just sated sexually, I was satisfied right down to my weary, lonely, lovesick soul.

  I wanted him to be mine.

  After a quick shower, I pulled on my clothes and my favorite boots, which I’d found he brought as well. He’d even tucked the blades in the sheaths inside the boots for me. After dealing with my sex-mussed hair, braiding it in one simple plait to get it out of my way, I strolled into the living room, not finding him there, either. A thick fog rolled along the Thames outside the window, billowing into the streets after last night’s storm.

  Crossing my arms, I admired Xander’s collection of “Judith” once again, stalling on my favorite. The one by Klimt. At first glance, all you saw was this beautiful woman, one breast bared in a shimmering gossamer gown, framed in gold geometric patterns, her head tilted up in feminine triumph. Then, on closer look, you noticed her delicate hand curled gently in the hair of the head of Holofernes, the military leader who would’ve killed her people, and her serenely triumphant face transformed her into a femme fatale, having vanquished evil with nothing but a woman’s courage and protective spirit. This angel wielding death didn’t begrudge the fate of her people—constantly rejected, oppressed, and enslaved. No. She did what it was within her power to do—smite the evil one and save thousands.

  The outer door clicked. I turned as Xander walked into the room, knocking me over with his stunning and powerful beauty. He wore nothing but pants, shirt, and coat, all in black, his blond hair tousled messily by the wind, and yet it was enough to make me reach for the sofa back to steady myself. He looked no different than any other day, but today was the day after last night. The night that had turned my world over, taking all that was once me—my determination to remain solitary and isolated and indifferent—and throwing that asinine philosophy out the window. He’d ripped that all away with his passionate body, his powerful mind, his beautiful heart.

  He smiled, and I fell again. Hopelessly so. “Good morning, beautiful.”

  I returned his smile. His eyes were a clear sea-blue, no residue of demons lingering there. He strolled close and wrapped me in his arms, fastening his hand around my nape, and pulled me to his chest. We stood there and held each other. So strange. So wonderful. He pressed a kiss to my crown.

  “Did you sleep well?”

  I laughed. “Like the dead.”

  He chuckled in a very satisfied, male way and hugged me closer.

  “You saw Styx?”

  “Mhm.”

  “Why am I suddenly jealous of that wretched creature?”

  A deeper chuckle. “You don’t want any woman—foul demon or otherwise—with her lips on your man.”

  Silence.

  I looked up at him. “Are you my man?” I asked, sincerity ringing in every unsteady word.

  He cupped my face, perusing it with such care, such intensity, my pulse tripped faster. Finally, his clear gaze met mine. “Without a shadow of a doubt, love. I am your man.” A whisper of a kiss. “As you are my woman.”

  Then he took me with deeper intent, his lips urging mine wider, stroking in with that magical tongue of his. I curled my fingers into his shirt. His hands roved down my back, over my ass, back up my hips and waist, then repeating. Not in any sexual way, but as if he were just feeling me. Feeling my body pressed to his, my solid presence in his arms as his tongue stroked deep. That was the thing about Xander. When he focused on me, I felt grounded in the here and now. And I wanted to circle in his orbit always. To be the woman he saw and felt and kissed with desperation as he did now.

  A whimper escaped my lips. He groaned and paused, hovering just out of reach, staring at me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I don’t want to go.” His hands stopped their steady exploration—one on my ass, one at the small of my back. “But we need to report to George at Thornton Hall. He’s texted me seven times since last night.”

  I’d nearly forgotten there was a world outside this flat. I wished there wasn’t. “You have a cell phone?”

  I hadn’t seen him carry one. I never bothered with the damn things before the apocalypse started. I certainly didn’t now, when reception was spotty at best.

  “Yeah. Most of the towers around London are still up and working.”

  It was odd that, while the cities crumbled, the otherworlders kept up the human technology as much as they could for their own benefit.

  “What does George say?”

  “Come. Now.” He chuckled, still holding me tight.

  “And when did he text you?”

  “The first was about ten minutes after we arrived last night. Then they trickled through till this morning.”

  “In no hurry to get there?”

  He dropped his head, sweeping a kiss alo
ng my neck, inhaling deep. “No.”

  As much as it physically pained me to draw back, I slid a hand between us and nudged him back. “We should go.”

  “I know.” A strange flicker of loss blinked in his eyes before he eased away, hands still heavy on my waist. “I’m just not ready to leave.”

  That aching in my chest stirred again, winding tighter the longer he looked at me like that. A flash of pain shifted over his expression, reminding me of last night. That moment we walked out of the auction room and the darkness had nearly swept him under.

  “Xander, what happened last night? When we left the auction room, you were enraged to the point of shaking.”

  His hold on me loosened, his brow pinching together in an atypical frown. He wandered to the wall of windows overlooking the Thames, a darker shade of gray against the landscape of fog and the hazy slate of sky.

  “Come and sit down.”

  The thread of finality in his velvety timbre made me follow his soft command. I rounded the sleek sofa closest to him and took a seat, folding my legs under me and to the side, resting my clasped arms on the sofa end. He kept vigil at the window, his arms crossed. I waited, knowing he was about to tell me something important. Something haunting. It was all in the stiff stance of his shoulders and his unwillingness to look at me.

  “You never asked me how I became a hunter for Uriel.”

  Uriel collected men and women on the verge of being damned to hell, having committed a mortal sin at the hour of their deaths. He gave them a second chance—an immortal life as a hunter for him. A Dominus Daemonum.

  “No. That’s a personal matter.”

  “Well, you’ll hear it now.”

  I never would’ve demand he confess his secret sins to me. And yet, he planned to tell me on his own. Only Xander, offering up his darkness to me so willingly.

  “In 1803, I was little more than a rake and libertine amid London society. I rejected the suitable road for an aristocrat—matrimony, family, and a proper place in society. Gambling, whoring, that was what I loved best. Then, I met Viscount Douglas Radcliff.”