by Kresley Cole
"Planning on marrying this bloke?"
"We're getting engaged as soon as we get our degrees."
In a brusque tone, he asked, "Aren't you a little young to get hitched?"
"Maybe, but when you find the right one…"
"And he's it?"
She sighed. "Yes. He's brilliant. One of a kind." When Cadeon snorted, she said, "How many men can discuss extremal combinatorics or how to use Mahalanobis distance in cluster analysis? How many know what a permutohedron or bipartite graph is?"
"Extreme combining?" He cast her a leer. "I'll discuss that any day."
"It's extremal…oh, never mind. You wouldn't understand. Tim and I comprehend each other on a different level."
"How smart can he be if he hasn't figured out a way to sleep with you in two years? I'd have had that locked up tight already."
Holly couldn't even manage a response. This male couldn't be more rude or overbearing.
He continued, "How're you going to know if you and Tim are compatible in bed if you don't do the deed before you get married? Come on, pet, you've got to kick the tires before you buy the car."
"I think that's a ridiculous"—valid—"argument. Sex can be taught just like any other skill. If there's something one of us needs, I'm sure the other will figure it out."
"You can't teach intensity. And who knows—you might discover a few kinks in your closet that old Tom might not be onboard with."
I know this. "Tim would do whatever it takes to make me happy," she insisted. But a full, abiding relationship between them would work only if she were normal sexually. Otherwise, how could he survive her strength? And how could they deal with her weird conflicting needs?
At once, she had the instinctive drive to overpower, and the instinctive need to be overpowered.
"What happens when things get a bit out of hand with you and Tim? How do you kids pull back on the throttle?"
Tim took so many herbs and extracts that she suspected his libido was chemically stunted. "We're strictly platonic right now." Yet even without his GNC stash, her boyfriend wasn't a very sexual person—which was perfect for her. "We're more cerebral than physical."
"Your cerebrum can't have an orgasm."
"We don't believe life has to be filled with orgasms to be meaningful."
He coughed on a swallow of Red Bull, then looked at her as if she'd spoken the vilest blasphemy. "You're killing me, halfling."
"I really don't want to talk to you about anything of this nature anymore. It's not an appropriate subject between us."
"A shame. 'Cause it happens to be my favorite one." Seeing she was unbending about this, he said, "Then ask about me more about the Lore."
"Very well. Do beings get married? Or form family units?"
"Some marry. Especially the species that are more humanized."
"Does your kind?"
"A lot do. More now than in the past. But not as a rule."
"Oh," she said, sounding as if his answer displeased her.
He hastily added, "Though we might not marry, we have something more lasting between us. A demon male has one fated female that he desires and needs above all others. He spends his whole life looking for her. A demon would be crazy to stray when he wants nothing more than to pleasure and protect his woman. Marriage is a little redundant."
"Have you found yours?" she asked, seeming fascinated with the idea.
"I…don't have mine yet."
"How do you recognize her?"
"You just know. A feeling. A connection. But, for my kind, we can't say for certain if she's ours or not without having sex with her. As they say, In the throes, you know."
"How convenient."
"It's true. Things occur when you're having sex with her. Things you need in order to claim her." For the first time, the way would be opened, the dam breached.
"Like what?" she asked, then immediately added, "Wait—will your response be graphically sexual?"
To explain how a male rage demon could orgasm but never ejaculate until after the initial claiming of his female…? "Odds are."
"Then please don't answer."
She gazed out the window, peering hard at the night, as if she desperately wanted to block him out. "Maybe I'll just rest for a while."
Minutes after she'd closed her eyes, she had nodded off. He kept glancing over at her, wondering what she was dreaming about with her brows drawn.
As he drove, he decided two things. If they were going to be on the road together for potentially weeks, then he would begin teaching her how to defend herself.
If I turn her over to Groot, she's going to have a sporting chance.
And second, he would be with her sexually. He could never take her completely—she may not be far enough into the transition to immortality to survive it. And if she did, once he'd experienced what it was like to be inside her, he might not ever let her go.
No, he couldn't claim her, but before he relinquished her, he would pleasure her. Cade thought she could be seduced—he'd seen a spark of interest in her eyes. She wasn't immune to him. Which meant he now had to coax her to trust him. Which meant he should be on his best behavior.
Except he had to admit that he kind of enjoyed baiting her like this. When her cheeks went pink and she grew flustered…
And Nïx did say she wanted her niece educated.
Cade wondered what his stalwart brother would think about his plans for Holly. Good money said he'd disapprove. Rydstrom was a fairly stand-up guy, with only a few skeletons in his closet.
Ah, but they were big ones.
Cade stilled. What if the Queen of Illusions discovered Rydstrom's secret weakness? What would she do to him then?
He also wondered if Rydstrom even now believed that their cause was lost because it rested on Cade's shoulders.
Cade wouldn't dwell on that thought. He was taking action, closing in on their goal.
Whereas Holly was plagued with unwelcome thoughts, Cade was mentally nimble, skirting disagreeable realizations with ease.
It was what would allow him to grow more attached to her with each hour—even as each second took him closer to the time he'd be forced to betray her.
13
Holly was at a ball, standing out on a terrace with Cadeon watching her from the shadows. He wanted her to join him there, but she was afraid to go into the darkness.
She kept looking over her shoulder back inside, unable to leave behind everything she'd ever known.
Yet his green eyes glowed from the shadows, and he held out his hand, beckoning her, promising pleasure more wicked than she'd ever imagined….
"Good morning, beautiful."
Holly woke with a start, finding herself in Cadeon's arms in a dimly-lit room. He was staring down at her—with eyes that glowed.
"Didn't realize you had freckles," he said, his voice rumbling.
"Put me down." She squirmed to get free. She didn't need to be reminded of his deep voice, not when she'd just been dreaming about him—her subconscious telling her things with all the subtlety of a hammer's whack. "Where are we? What are you doing holding me like this?"
He set her on the edge of a bed with a soft comforter. "We're in a hotel for the day in northern Mississippi, and I was going to see if I could get you ready for bed without waking you."
"Ready for bed?" She rubbed her eyes and surveyed the suite. It looked like they were in an upscale hotel, not that she'd been in many—or any—hotels in the last decade. The place might be nice, but right away she could see some things that needed to be rearranged to make sense. First, the chairs at the dining table—
"Yes, ready for bed," he said, plucking off her glasses, and setting them on the bedside table. Then he bent down to unfasten her heels.
"I'm sure I can manage the rest." She frowned at his sudden attentiveness. "I can do that," she insisted, but he wasn't listening.
He studied her shoe, with his lips curling as if he found it adorable. "You've the smallest feet, poppet." Once
he'd removed her shoes, he said, "And now your top."
Before she could stop him, he pinched the bottom of her sweater and began tugging.
"Are you crazy?" She slapped his hands away, ducking under his arm to flee to the other side of the room.
"It's nothing I haven't seen before."
With her arms crossed over her chest, she said, "Just call me about thirty minutes before you're ready to leave tonight."
"I will be bunking here with you."
Holly tensed. Sharing a room with the husky-voiced demon she'd been dreaming about in the car? This wouldn't work at all. "How exactly would I explain this to my boyfriend?"
"How exactly are you going to explain any of this?"
Indeed. "I'm not going to tell him. If I can get this reversed, he never has to know."
"Good answer. It's against the rules of the Lore to tell humans about our world."
"But why do we have to share a room?"
"Because we're still too close to your last known whereabouts. There could be more vampires."
"I can take care of myself."
"That you can," he said easily. She was alternately discomfited and pleased by his ready confidence in her abilities. "But you'll have a hard time defending yourself when you're asleep. So that's where I come in."
Her stomach chose that moment of silence to growl loudly.
He grinned. "If you're going to be up for about twenty minutes more, I could go for some food. It's too early for room service, but there's a breakfast place across the street."
She nodded. "Can you just get me a bottle of orange juice? I don't like food prepared by others." Or by myself.
"We'll see. If you want to grab a shower, now's the time." At the door, he said, "And, Holly, do not take those pearls off. Or we'll be in deep shite."
She was still in the shower when he returned, which meant she was fair game. He grasped the bathroom door handle, gave a heft to easily break the lock, then swung the door open wide.
"The male's back from the hunt," he called, grinning at her outraged screech.
"Get out! Shut the door!"
Since he could only distinguish a vague shape behind the clouded-glass shower stall, he decided to comply with her requests.
Crossing to the dining table, he set down the plastic bag of food. Finding her something to eat actually had turned into a hunt—because she had such strict criteria. He'd watched her enough to learn about her eccentric eating habits.
Cade had wondered why she hadn't hurried into the shower and been dressed by the time he returned, but now as his gaze swept the room, he realized she hadn't been able to drag herself away from rearranging everything not nailed down.
Three of the four chairs were neatly pushed in. With the fourth, she'd propped the chair's back against the table, leaning it forward on two legs. She'd clearly remade the bed and adjusted the pillows on the room's small sofa, which she'd also moved a few feet over.
The alarm clock on the bedside table was flush against the wall with no wire to be seen, and the remote control sat at a right angle to the center of the clock. The trash can was pressed directly against one end of the dresser, her suitcase against the other end. Her wireless laptop and cell phone sat perfectly parallel on the desk, charging.
Cade needed to check his e-mail and sports scores and map out their route for the day, so he opened her computer, and signed in as a guest. After routine Web stuff, he Googled a couple of things, unsurprised to find that she had the safe content filter on.
He leaned back in his chair, trying to imagine a life filtered of anything sexual.
Not worth living.
Hell, he was one to talk. He hadn't been with another woman since the day he'd met Holly, the longest stretch of celibacy since he'd first had sex. A few months ago, when he'd finally become convinced he could never have Holly, Cade had given a halfhearted try for a witch, but she'd wanted another.
Now he was glad of it.
He set the laptop back on the table, his attention drifting to her suitcase. Cade was itching to get a look at Nïx's letter. Thinking this a fine time to snoop, he crouched beside the bag, dragging it away from the wall so he could open the top wide.
After rooting through her folded skirts and sweater sets, he opened the side compartment, raising his brows at the contents. "Hellooo, lingerie," he murmured.
Cade considered himself a male of simple tastes. He didn't need outrageous lingerie to turn him on. But the thought of prim Holly in those wicked scraps of silk sent blood rushing to his groin….
She emerged then, wearing a bathrobe drawn up to her neck. "What are you doing?" she cried.
"Looking for Nïx's letter."
"You can't just go through my belongings!"
"I never would've suspected such naughty underthings from prim Miss Ashwin." He hooked his forefinger under the waistband of a thong, then spun it around.
"Give those back!" She snatched it away. "Nïx did this! She swapped out all my underwear and hose."
He didn't doubt it, but still said, "Yeah, right. Why would she do that?"
"I don't know—how could I possibly explain her actions?"
He snagged another pair of tiny panties, holding them up with both hands. "Then I bet a thong like this would still be feeling…unusual."
"Ooh, give it!"
Before she could lunge for it, he rose, tossing it back in the bag as if he'd grown bored with it. "Now I have to wonder what's under all that terry cloth." He pulled out another one of the chairs, then sank down.
She jutted her chin. "Regular pj's."
"Bullshite. Then let me see."
"I don't have to prove anything to you."
He leaned back with his hands behind his head. "I've seen all the goods, Holly. Not even half a day ago, so the memory's still fresh. No need to choke yourself with terry cloth," he said, but she wasn't listening, her sad-eyed gaze back on the pile of her now unfolded clothes.
"I'll have to redo everything." She looked so despondent that he decided to cut her a break on his teasing.
"What would happen if you didn't?"
"I would be a basket-case, unable to think about anything else." When she bent down to repack, her robe tightened over her ass, drawing his eyes like a magnet.
She shivered, then frowned at him over her shoulder.
"You can feel my eyes on you," he explained. "Immortals sense things more acutely. Sound, sight, even tactile perception. We call it hypersensitivity. You'll get used to it in time."
Once she was finished with her bag, she stood, no doubt scanning for more disarray. If her eyes had gone wild at the sight of him scrounging through her bag, then seeing her laptop open and out of place made her sway on her feet. "No…you…my computer?"
Holly cast him the same look he'd give a hellhound that had eaten his Super Bowl tickets. She secured the laptop, assessing it, turning it this way and that. "Your hands were sticky! Oh, God!"
He might've had a donut or two while he'd been waiting for his order.
She dove for her antibacterial wipes. Sitting on the bed, she turned from him, hunching over the computer, wiping it down.
He could only watch her actions in grim fascination, noting her shoulders rising and falling as she took deep, calming breaths.
Apparently reassured that nothing was screwed, she put the computer back on the desk, arranging it by the cell phone, then smoothed the comforter where she'd sat.
"Look, Cadeon," she began, but her gaze drifted back to the computer. She hurried back, adjusting it less than a millimeter to one side, then started again. "Last night I was too stunned to react to half the things you did. Now I'm not. You won't be able to treat me as you have been."
"Oh? Like with the saving your life and then driving you all night while you slept?"
"Like with the t-touching my computer. That was…bad. I'm not saying you can't use it—I don't mind sharing. But I need to sign you in and make sure you know how to treat it properly."
&
nbsp; "I wasn't downloading porn or anything." Didn't occur to me at the time. "Just Googled some things and checked our route for tonight."
"Well, that's not the only area with you that has to change. There can't be any more planning to undress me as I sleep or bursting in on my shower and ogling me. Or even calling me those sexist pet names."
"You mean my endearments? What's wrong with them?"
"They're belittling to women."
He shook his head firmly. "None doing. It's just habit. This is the way males used to talk to females. And the endearments are female specific."
"Like how?"
"Like pet or poppet? I only call females I like by those." Only females he really liked. Pet was proprietary and poppet indicated affection. In other words, he'd never used those terms before. "If I'm not interested in a female, I'll call her sweet, sweetheart, or dove."
"Should I feel moved by this revelation? Honored to be deemed poppet?"
"I was going for charmed. But you're a hard one, pet."
"I'd be more inclined to be charmed if you had any respect for my privacy."
"We're going to be stuck together for at least a couple of weeks. Maintaining privacy would take too much effort, and would be futile anyway."
She pursed her lips, as if she couldn't argue with that. "Well, what about your cursing? Must you be so foulmouthed around me?"
"I've been using those words since before humans decided they were foul." He began to set out food from the bag.
"Those kinds of terms are very jarring to people who were raised to avoid them…." She trailed off. "Are those oatmeal pancakes?"
"They are."
"With honey?"
"Of course."
He knew her mouth was watering. "There wasn't any orange juice?"
"Oh, there was."
He dug into another bag and produced individually packaged cereals, a plastic spoon still in its wrapper, a sealed carton of milk and one of orange juice.
She narrowed her eyes. "All prepackaged. Exactly how long have you been watching me, Cadeon?"
"Long enough to know what you like to eat, and what you will eat…"