Apparently last night hadn’t been a one-time occurrence for him. He backed her into the bed, his hands working feverishly at her clothes as their bodies fell down together on the mattress. His mouth devoured hers, breaking away only long enough to pull her top over her head.
Next came her bra, her boots, her leggings. He left her for a moment and she blinked, dazed and panting, her body aching, arching, yearning for him.
“Darius,” she cried hoarsely.
He was back before she finished his name.
“I’m here,” he growled. Every hot, smooth inch of him covered her. His flesh glided against hers, rough in certain spots and smooth in others. The air between them was charged, electric. His hand burned a path over her skin.
She sighed, breathed his name. It was as if he read her mind, knew what she wanted, what she liked. She moaned when he touched her neck, pressed his hot lips just behind her ear where he flesh was the most sensitive.
“Oh God, I love that…”
“What about this?” His dark head dipped to her breast.
She cried out when his wet mouth closed over her aching nipple.
A deep growl rumbled from his chest and she felt the vibration against her. It reminded her of what he was… what he wasn’t. Still, it couldn’t make her stop wrapping her legs around his hips and angling her pelvis to meet him. She squeezed an arm between them and closed her fingers around his erection.
“Tre.” He dragged his mouth up her throat again.
She slid her hand up and down the length of him, her thumb rolling over his velvety head.
The flesh rippled over his clenched jaw. “Stop. Unless you want to finish this before I’m even inside you.”
“You feel so good,” she purred, positioning his cock against her, rubbing his head against her opening, letting her moisture tease him.
With a snarl that thrilled her to the bone, he seized her wrists and pressed them back onto the bed. Thrusting his face close, he nipped at her lips. “Witch.”
She smiled up at him and nipped him back. “Don’t like it? What are you going to do about it?”
His expression was savage in his need, those silver eyes of his afire. His hips settled firmly between her thighs, nudging them wider urgently.
She cried out with pleasure, arching her throat as he entered her, hard and swift, in one smooth stroke. Her body accepted his fullness, greedily adjusting to the invasion, her muscles tightening and clenching around his hard length.
He held himself perfectly still for one moment, a predator before the final pounce.
Together they basked in the union of their bodies. And then it was no longer enough. She worked her hips, taking him deeper, doing everything in her power to get him to move.
He bore down, pressing her hands deeper into the bed. He dropped his head, growling into the crook of her neck as he pulled himself almost fully free of her before lodging himself deep inside her again.
She bit into his shoulder, licked at the clean saltiness of his skin, and that enflamed him, pushing him over the edge. He pumped in and out of her, fast and deep, hitting that spot that made her come apart, writhe and buck beneath him. His hands released her wrists and his palms flattened over hers, his fingers lacing with hers as he drove into her again and again.
There was nothing soft or gentle about it, but she didn’t want that. She wanted this. Wanted to be taken, wanted to be desired so desperately that there was no thought of softness or tenderness.
His hands finally slid free, gripping her hips and bringing her off the bed, better angling her hips for him.
Her hands moved of their own volition, gripped the taut cheeks of his ass in both hands. She clenched her inner muscles, pulled him to her and urged him on, faster.
There was only need.
He slid one hand beneath her hip, bringing her closer. His other hand slid beneath her neck, weaving up through her hair. With a slight tug on the strands, he pulled her head back, arching her throat for his lips, his open mouth hot on her skin. His teeth lightly grazed the cords of her neck, stopping directly over her sensitive pulse to suck and lave with his tongue. Her flesh turned to gooseflesh and she shivered, a moan swelling up from her throat.
His mouth devoured hers as he plunged in and out, loving her in a way completely unlike last night. This was uninhibited, with all the desperation of two wild animals. He took what he needed, pounding into her ruthlessly, and she didn’t care because she wanted it, too. Needed it. Needed him.
Her hips rose to meet him and she cried out as he drove into her harder, clutching her hips as if she were a lifeline, the only thing keeping him grounded to earth.
Her heart swelled even as she reminded herself that this was only lust. It could never be anything more. Anything lasting. The memory of this would be all she had to keep for the countless years ahead.
It would have to be enough. She’d make it so.
* * *
DARIUS ROLLED TO HIS back and pulled her close against his side, not giving her time to consider leaving him. He’d be fine staying in this bed with her indefinitely, unrealistic as that plan might be. For now, he’d let himself fantasize.
She held herself stiffly at first. Then she relaxed, her breath escaping in a soft gust as everything inside her eased and she melted against him. He stroked a hand up and down the elegant line of her spine.
He couldn’t help touching her, holding her close. Almost like he thought she would disappear. He trailed his fingers up and down her bare arm in an easy stroke, languid and gentle.
“What happened to you?” she whispered. “You know, besides me… my curse?”
His hand stilled, her words an uncomfortable reminder of what she was and why he had set out to find her. It’s not that he ever forgot. But without talking about it, he’d been able to ignore the ugly facts.
Everything came to a screeching stop inside him as the memories of the past washed through like acid.
“I don’t talk about it.” He never had. Who would he share it with? It’s not like he had a life teeming with people. Friends and family were what others had—not him. Helen was the only one who truly cared about him, but he had never wished to burden her with the details of his past. She was already unaccountably bound to him. He didn’t want to give her any more reason to pity him. He wanted her to feel free to leave him at any time.
“You know about me,” she reasoned. “All of my foul deeds. You can’t be nearly as awful.”
“You’re not awful,” he replied, his voice gruff, his hand stroking her sweet flesh again. He propped himself up on an elbow and looked down at her, admiring her breasts. Not large, but a perfect fit for his palms. The dusky nipples. His mouth dried, hungering for their taste.
She gasped hoarsely as he played with them. “Fooled you, then, haven’t I?”
He stroked a fingertip over one dusky nipple, enjoying the way it immediately pebbled. “You made a mistake.”
“That’s beyond generous of you.” Her hand came to his chest. Her fingers played lightly against the flex of his muscles. “I made a mistake that’s led to thousands dying and suffering. Seems like there should be another word for that.” Before he could object, she continued, “It’s your turn. What happened to you?”
He leaned down to suckle at one breast, his teeth nipping the turgid peak, stopping only when she was arching beneath him and threading her fingers through his hair.
His gaze narrowed in on her face. “I was a monk.”
She jerked slightly, lifting up on her elbows to look at him. “You were a religious man?”
“Does that surprise you?”
She stared at him with those brilliant eyes for a long moment, glancing down at her body, flushed from his lovemaking. “Umm…” Her voice faded.
He chuckled. Reaching down, he pushed her hair back behind her ear. “I was destined for Lindisfarne before I could even walk. My uncle was a monk there, and he visited me often when I was a boy. I was the youngest of my fa
mily. There were four brothers ahead of me. When I was eight years, my uncle took me. It was never asked of me what fate I preferred. My parents were glad to see me gone and settled into a good and noble vocation.” His mouth twisted. “One less mouth to feed.”
“Did you like it there?”
“It was all I knew. The monastery and the farm.” He shrugged one shoulder. It felt odd. This… sharing, confiding. “I was never a scholar. Not like the other brothers. I mostly worked the fields, brought in the crops that supported the monastery. We took in travelers… pilgrims. It was part of our service to God. Guests excited me. They’d been places. Seen things. Done things outside our little island.” His chest tightened at the memory. “Almost laughable, isn’t it? Considering I’ll have seen… all I’ve done since?”
She stared at him thoughtfully for a long moment, her hair a fan of dark ink around her face. “We were all innocent once,” she murmured. “Naïve in our own worlds.”
He nodded. “Yeah.” Looking into her eyes, he believed there was still a part of her that was innocent. He tasted it in her kiss. Something in her that was still good and pure. He couldn’t feel this way about her otherwise.
Shaking his head, he pulled her to him and kissed her until he couldn’t think anymore. Not about the past. Not about the future.
He slid his hands down the smooth slope of her back, his fingers gliding over each bump of her vertebrae, delighting in the sensation of her silky skin against his palms.
Tresa, like this, hot and wanting in his arms, was the only thing he cared about right now.
TWENTY
It was midday before they forced themselves from the hotel room. They’d ordered room service and eaten in bed, wearing nothing but the hotel’s plush robes. Sharing an enormous plate of Belgian waffles dripping with maple syrup, Tresa had fooled herself into believing that the outside world had ceased to exist. That they could stay lovers forever.
A fantasy that was dashed the moment she stepped over the threshold. It felt like she was leaving behind the last bit of pleasure and happiness she’d ever have again.
With one last glance over her shoulder at the rumpled bed, she turned back around. She didn’t want to leave the sanctuary of this room—didn’t want to make it just a memory and put it in the past with every other good thing that had ever happened to her.
She wanted to freeze herself in this moment with Darius forever. She hadn’t thought she’d have this. She didn’t deserve it, but now that she had experienced this happiness… she didn’t know how she was going to survive the next thousand years without it.
Darius took her hand as they moved down the hall and stepped inside the elevator. It was easy and automatic, like they were any other couple. Already she knew his touch so well, the texture of his skin, the shape of his hand against her own.
She glanced at him a few times, trying to reconcile him with the furious lycan who’d crashed into her world. He walked beside her, holding her hand as if this was the most normal thing in the world. His expression was relaxed, peaceful, the hard lines less severe—nothing like the man who’d been so eager to destroy her.
“You ready for this?” he asked when they were in the car, heading into a part of the city she hadn’t yet seen. The GPS announced the directions.
She nodded. They had agreed on what needed to be done. Her stomach clenched at the thought, because it meant moving forward, reaching a resolution and putting this intimacy between them to a halt. Tresa was wise enough to know that when the witch was captured, she herself would return to avoiding Balthazar in subarctic climates. And Darius… Well, he had his own demons to avoid—namely himself, each and every full moon.
It started to drizzle. She watched the windshield wipers move from side to side rhythmically. “Do you think it’s Megan Johnson?”
“I only saw her for those few moments, but she definitely didn’t look like the rest of the people at that party.”
“Yeah, she wasn’t there to mourn Jason Morris,” Tresa agreed. “And she wasn’t broken up over Carson, either.”
“Whoever the witch is, she’s going to kill again soon. Either because she wants to or because Balthazar wants her to.”
“If Megan Johnson isn’t the witch, then it’s somehow connected to her. Whether she even realizes it. All the victims are connected to her. Maybe an angry friend? Sister? Her mother, even?”
Darius nodded thoughtfully. The headlights of an oncoming car flashed across his face. The sky had darkened with the rain and most vehicles had turned on their lights. “Whatever the case, she’s the only suspect we have and we can’t leave her to her own devices.”
The GPS indicated that they needed to take the next exit. He scanned the low-income housing and warehouses they passed. “Not the nicest neighborhood.”
Tresa looked out the window as they passed a homeless woman pushing a shopping cart. Her drenched hat hung low over her face, beyond the point of protecting her from the deluge. “No dorms out here.”
“Maybe she prefers this to living on campus. From what you told me she said during the interrogation, she feels betrayed. Not just by Jason, Carson and Erin, but the entire university.”
“Yeah. She had no problem expressing how pissed she was at Erin and the victims.”
Tresa understood how rage and betrayal could drive people to do something they normally wouldn’t. Tresa believed Megan Johnson had been raped. The pain she’d read in Megan’s eyes through the one-way glass… that couldn’t be faked. Tresa felt sorry for her… until the images from her nightmares flooded her, and then she recalled the horrible way those people had suffered, too.
They pulled up in front of a run-down apartment complex. Several people loitered on the street. A man staggered down the broken sidewalk, drinking from a brown paper bag. A cluster of older boys hung out on the corner, shooting them calculating looks as they parked.
Darius killed the engine and sat eerily still behind the wheel.
Tresa glanced at his profile, noting the tension locking his jaw. She tested his name uncertainly.
He turned abruptly to face her in the seat. “We can leave.”
She blinked. “What do you mean?”
He motioned toward the building. “I don’t want you anywhere close to Balthazar. I don’t even want you in the same city anymore.”
She knew he was recalling coming face-to-face with her under Balthazar’s possession. She hated that he had seen her like that.
She released a small sigh and sank back in the seat with a squeak of leather. “Darius… he owns me. It is what it is.”
“No,” he ground out, grabbing her hand, holding tight. “Don’t say that. He doesn’t own you.”
She held his gaze, her voice sharp. “Yes. He does. I don’t like it, but it’s true. It’s been that way for over two thousand years. Just because he’s not in possession of me right this minute doesn’t mean I’m free.”
“He’s got her.” He waved at the building.
She shook her head. “So what are you saying? We should just forget about her… and everyone she’s killing? I can’t do that. And I don’t believe you want to do that, either.”
“Don’t mistake me for noble,” he spat. Disengaging his hand, he dragged it through his dark hair. “You more than anyone else should know what I am. You made me into this.”
She jerked as though slapped, a small hiss of air shuddering from her. After last night she had thought that they were past that, but they never would be. It would never leave. She was not to be forgiven… her actions never forgotten.
Inhaling a deep, shuddery breath, she regained her composure and moistened her lips. “What are we doing here, Darius? It’s clear that when it comes to me, you can never forgive and forget…”
His eyes fastened hotly on her, searing her in her seat. He reached across the space separating them, slipped his hand around her nape and hauled her closer for a blistering kiss. His lips, his tongue, his teeth took hers, claimed her, left her shak
ing, moaning, clutching his shoulders.
When they finally broke for air, he muttered against her mouth, “I couldn’t do that to you if I didn’t forgive you for the past.”
Their heavy breaths mingled. His forehead rested against hers. Her hands had yet to ease their grip on his shoulders. After a long moment, he slid his hand from around her neck and stared out the window again at Megan Johnson’s apartment.
It took everything inside her not to pull him back for more. He made her crazy. Made her forget her purpose. Made her want to crawl on top of him and never come up for air again.
He drew in a deep breath. “As long as he has her to bend to his will, he’ll leave you alone.”
She closed her eyes in a long blink, wishing she could do what he was suggesting. Turn and walk away. If only it were that simple. “And could I just live my life? Endure the nightmares and pretend I don’t know the things she’s doing? I can’t do that.”
“Damnit, Tre.” He slapped the steering wheel. “You can’t have lived this long without watching people die all the time. In the blink of an eye. It strikes where it will. Mortal life is fleeting. You can’t stop that.”
And yet they both craved mortal life so badly. Wished to be who they once were before they’d turned into monsters. Despite his words, she knew he treasured life just as much as she did.
“But I can,” she insisted, not accepting his justification. “This time, I can stop it. Or at least delay its happening prematurely.”
“At the cost of yourself!” He shook his head fiercely and turned in his seat, his hands cradling her face. “Do you know how long I’ve been alone?”
She stared at him, stunned, her heart aching at the emotion in his voice… his face.
She replied in a voice that trembled terribly, “Not as long as I have.”
He searched her face for a long moment, but some of the heat left him as he whispered, “And you’ll settle for that?”
“I haven’t any choice. I can’t pretend that I deserve some fairy-tale existence. That’s not for me.” She held her breath, almost adding, and it’s not for you. But he knew that. Deep down in his core. She didn’t need to pour salt in the wound and remind him that he was every bit as cursed as she was.
A Soul So Wicked (Moon Chasers) Page 15