Crazed Hearts: Grimm’s Circle, Book 3

by Shiloh Walker

  Plus, shit, if she touched him now he was going to pick on something else she’d rather him not know. Considering the crazy-weird thoughts circling through her head, she was really better off not having him pick up on that. She’d been on an emotional roller coaster from the time she’d looked at him and if he could read her that easily…?

  Her breath caught in her throat “That’s not necessary,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

  She braced herself to meet that hot, stinging fury as she looked up.

  But when she met his gaze, that hot, stinging fury…it wasn’t there.

  No, his eyes no longer burned like a black, angry hell.

  They were warm and soft, a black velvet night, and the heat she felt rushing through her own blood was echoed there.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  This was bad. Things would be better if one of them could keep their distance. Him being pissed off was actually probably the wiser call. She was tempted to do something to set him off, but she suspected he’d see through it too fast.

  She was barely aware of the shift of his moods, while he could read her like a wide-open book.

  “Why do you suddenly want me angry again?” he murmured, reaching up to brush her hair back from her face. He caught one thick curl between his thumb and forefinger and toyed with it.

  Aileas scowled. “Just how can you pick up on so much?”

  He shrugged. “I’d say habit, except I don’t know if that’s it. I prefer not to be around people much and I keep them blocked out when I can. I don’t know. You’re…easier to read than some.” He wrapped the captured curl he had around his finger, focusing on that task as though it fascinated him.

  “Easy?” she echoed. Shit. Nobody had ever called her easy to read—even her grandmother had been hard-pressed to penetrate her shields, and her grandmother had taught her everything she knew. “Nobody has ever accused me of being easy to read.”

  “Hmm.” He looked away from the curl to gaze into her eyes. “I’ve never drugged a woman.”

  The force of his gaze was practically a drug in itself, she thought, licking her lips. She didn’t point that out to him though. Wasn’t really his fault God had given him eyes like that, right?

  “Okay. I’m sorry.” She tried to look away, but she couldn’t. The grip he had on her hair sort of limited just what she could do, unless she wanted to leave some of her hair in his hand.

  Besides, she really, really didn’t want to pull away just yet.

  “Why would you think I’d do that?” he asked, his voice gruff now, and there was a flicker in his eyes. A flicker of nerves, of sadness, of pain.

  “It was…ah…” She blushed, unsure how to explain that she didn’t know why else she’d be feeling like this around him. Why else she’d be so willing to stand this close to a man she barely knew…and so eager to think about him touching her, so eager to think about touching him.

  She didn’t know him. At all. And…

  Her heart started to race.

  Oh, shit.

  She tried to pull away and this time, when he wouldn’t loosen his grip on her hair, she started to panic. She reached up to tug his hand away, but that light contact, her bare skin to his, was all it took to deepen that surface connection. What fragile shields she had left in place buckled and broke.

  His wavered. She could feel them shifting and swaying, and behind them, she glimpsed something else.

  Heat.

  It rivaled her own.

  That one coherent thought slammed into her mind just as Ren’s brows dropped low over his eyes. “Aileas,” he muttered, his voice whiskey rough and low.

  She might have been embarrassed to have some total stranger be so completely aware of the naked need she felt. Except she felt the same from him. His hands came up and cradled her face and she knew exactly how he felt. Naked, raw need burned inside him.

  Under it, there was a raw, screaming pain.

  It felt like a mirror of her own.

  She wanted to soothe it.

  But more…she just wanted him.

  As his mouth came down on hers, she pushed up on her toes and met his lips. Him. She wanted him.

  He tasted like wine and life and heat and man. She shuddered as he pushed his tongue into her mouth. She bit down on him gently as she slid her hands down the front of his shirt and then under the hem. The skin of his torso was hot, sleek and smooth. She wanted to see it, feel it under her hands and her mouth.

  Pulling back, she fisted her hands in his shirt and worked it up. Her mouth went dry as he obliged her, stripping the shirt away and revealing a lean, rangy body, subtly corded with muscle.

  Oh. Oh, man. He was a soft, golden tan from the waistband of his low slung jeans and up. His belly was flat and firm, the muscles of his chest defined, leading up to the kind of shoulders that looked liked they’d been designed just for a woman to rest her head on.

  Or stare at. Or maybe stroke her hands down.

  She couldn’t decide which one to start with.

  She decided to compromise. Leaning forward, she put her hands on his shoulders and stroked them down his arms. She learned the feel of his muscles, loving the play of them under his skin as she pressed her mouth to his. She caught his lower lip between her teeth and tugged on it. He groaned and caught her head between his hands, holding her still.

  “Minx,” he muttered. “Bewitching minx.”

  Bewitching…bewitched, maybe she was one of the two. Bewitched, most likely. Or insane, maybe.

  That might explain it.

  Might explain why she was all but ready to devour this man she barely knew.

  Her heart was racing. Completely, utterly racing, and she couldn’t get enough of touching him. Or tasting him. He muttered something against her lips, something she didn’t understand, and she didn’t care. It drove her insane, because when he was muttering he wasn’t kissing her and that meant she couldn’t taste him as well. But then she realized she could kiss other parts…like across the finely carved bones of his face, down along his jaw to his neck, along those shoulders she’d just been admiring. She bit down at the spot where his neck and shoulder joined and his body stiffened against hers, those elegant hands gripping her hips.

  “Aileas.”

  She barely heard him. Flicking her tongue against his skin, she scraped her nails against the flat circles of his nipples. When he shuddered, it sparked the growing heat curling through her.

  Ren’s brain was about to explode. He was certain of it. Explode…or maybe just melt.

  How had this happened? So fast?

  One moment he’d been about ready to snap—he had even felt the rage building inside him and he’d been about ready to send out an emergency call for Greta, Rip, Elle…hell, even that smug bastard Michael.

  Anybody else, just somebody to watch over Aileas so he could get the hell out of here. He couldn’t leave her here alone, but he couldn’t stay here either, not when his temper was this on edge…and then she’d looked at him. He’d caught a glimpse of those warm brown eyes, caught the echo of ravenous hunger inside her. And it clicked.

  She didn’t feel hunger like this.

  No more than he did.

  Not this easily, at least.

  But he looked at her and felt it…and suddenly he could understand why she wondered if maybe something had been dumped in her wine.

  Her hunger sparked his, and every time he touched her he felt the echo of her pleasure in his own body. When he kissed her, he felt her pleasure as acutely as he felt his own, and he knew she was feeling it as well. This was the pleasurable side of their shared gift, although she might not entirely understand what she was feeling.

  It was overwhelming, to put it mildly.

  Overwhelming…and almost exactly like a drug.

  Cursing, he tore his mouth away. When she would have closed the distance between them, he closed his hands around her upper arms, holding her at a distance.

  “You don’t want this,” he raspe
d, swallowing, fighting the need to pounce on her, tear her clothes off, fuck her blind. “You don’t know me enough to want me.”

  Her eyes, burning hot and so hungry, stared into his. “Do I need to know everything about you to know I want this?”

  “You should,” he said. Darkness stormed inside. The things he’d done…they twisted him, haunted him. “You should know something more than the fact that I’ve never drugged or raped a woman. It’s not much of a character reference.”

  “It’s a damn good start,” she said. Then she lay a hand over his heart. That simple gesture all but sent him to his knees. Not just because her hands felt so right on him either. Although he had to admit…he did like the way her hands felt.

  When she touched him, that aching, gaping empty place inside him…it contracted, shifted…and he’d almost swear the emptiness started to close up and heal.

  Insane, but it seemed just her presence did something to soothe the ragged wounds that had festered inside him for decades.

  Her gaze lifted and met his. “For some reason, I touch you…and I feel whole. It makes no sense to me, but there you go,” she said quietly. “It’s insane, I know it. But it feels right to touch you.” She leaned and pressed her lips to his chest and whispered, “It just feels right…and that matters to me a little more than a character reference.”

  Well, then. Perhaps she did know, to some extent. Still…

  Trying to clear his mind, trying to think past the fog, he stared at her. He was stroking the satin soft skin of her arms, he realized, up and down, and drawing her closer without even realizing it.

  Close, so close, she was leaning against him, her slender weight braced against his own. Her breasts were a warm, wonderful weight. The pearls she wore were trapped between them, warming between their bodies and he found himself remembering the very first moment he’d laid eyes on her—only hours ago, really.

  He’d seen those pearls, and wanted nothing more than to see her wearing those and nothing else.

  Focus, Ren. Think. Stop touching her and think…

  But that wasn’t easy, especially when she wouldn’t stop touching him.

  His eyes crossed as she scraped her nails down over his skin and ran them along the waistband of his jeans. Oh, bloody fuck.

  “Aileas,” he muttered.

  “Ren.” She nipped his lip again and then leaned back. “I spent most of my life doing the smart and safe thing. I don’t feel like doing the smart thing right now, and I already know this is perfectly safe. I feel it.”

  Then she reached for the hem of her shirt and stripped it off.

  It fell to her feet and as she reached for the strap of her bra, Ren tried to get his brain functioning once more.

  Brain. Function. Mouth. Speak. Body. Move.

  From the waist up, she wore nothing. Nothing but those pearls.

  They hung between her small breasts, and what little functioning brainpower he still possessed abruptly died.

  With a hand that shook he reached out, traced one finger down the strand of pearls. He could feel the heat of her skin, and as he drew close to one breast, she sighed and arched closer, but he didn’t touch…no, not yet.

  Think.

  Function.

  Think.

  Move.

  Finally, he managed to move…to reach out to her, draw her back against him. He moved back as he did so, and kept moving back until he bumped into one of the padded leather bar stools. Sinking down on one, he kept one foot braced on the floor to steady himself. Then he boosted Aileas up. He needed to taste her, needed to get those sweet, plump nipples in his mouth.

  They were tight and hard, rosy pink. When he took one in his mouth, she cried and wrapped her arms around his neck, one hand cradling the back of his head, her fingers dancing over the naked skin of his scalp. Using his tongue, the edge of his teeth, he toyed with one nipple, then the other, driving her closer, closer. It was the sweetest torment, and through their shared gift, he felt the echo of the pleasure.

  A strange, hot coiling sensation settled low in his gut and he realized it was an echo from her.

  Close to coming.

  Swearing against her flesh, he pulled his mouth away and then stood her up between his feet, stripping her jeans away. Once she was naked, he pulled her close again. But when she went to fumble with the button of his jeans, he turned her around, pressed her back against his front. Not yet, not yet…

  He pulled her into his lap and smoothed his hands up her thighs, nuzzled her neck. Gathering her hair, he pushed it over one shoulder, baring her nape. He raked it with his teeth as he cupped the heated flesh of her sex in his hand.

  She was molten silk, liquid fire. When he touched one gentle finger to her entrance, she moaned and jerked, bucking against him so hard, he ended up wrapping one arm around her waist just to keep her steady.

  Her hands came down, gripping his thighs. When he pushed a finger inside her, her head fell back on his shoulder, a gasp hitching out of her.

  “Fuck, you’re sweet,” he muttered thickly, staring down the expanse of that pale, perfect body, watching as he stroked her.

  Sweet…sweet didn’t even touch it. The strand of pearls glowed against her skin, and unable to resist, he took them and teased the erect tip of one nipple with the cool, hard beads. She shuddered.

  “The first time I saw you, I had this wicked thought…seeing you wearing these,” he muttered against her ear. “Just these.”

  As he flicked his thumb against the knotted bud of her clit, he continued to torment her with the pearls as well, working her until she was twisting and gasping in his lap, panting and straining.

  The need to come became a painful ache, one he shared with her.

  Her nails bit into his thighs through the heavy denim of his jeans as she moved against his hand.

  “Damn it, Ren…please!”

  A split second later, his harsh groan mingled with her cry as she started to climax, and he damn near followed.

  Damn near came in his jeans just feeling the echo of her pleasure.

  She was shuddering in his arms, shaking, so wild and hot. Groaning, he scooped her into his arms and carried her across the floor to the bed he had under the window. He told himself this wasn’t wise. He told himself she wasn’t thinking clearly, and he already knew he wasn’t.

  But he didn’t fucking care. He stripped out of his jeans and joined her on his bed.

  He really did like the sight of her there. He hadn’t ever shared this bed with anybody before. Hadn’t ever wanted to bring a woman here. But he did like the sight of Aileas on his bed. He loved how her body looked against his sheets, how the pearls around her neck glowed against her soft, lovely skin.

  Stretching out on top of her, he cupped her face in his hands. Her lashes fluttered open and she gave him a wide, wicked smile as he pressed the head of his cock against the entrance of her sex.

  “Weren’t you just now thinking we shouldn’t do this…” she teased, skimming a hand up his side.

  “I’m very often wrong,” he muttered. Then he linked their hands as he linked their bodies, slowly pushing past the initial resistance of her body.

  She was tight, but so welcoming, so wet. Each time she started to tense up, he eased back, working his way deeper with slow, easy thrusts until her slick, sweet heat gloved all of him.

  Perfect. So fucking perfect he couldn’t stand it.

  Sucking in a desperate breath, he pressed his brow to hers. “Aileas…I think maybe you put something in the wine.”

  A slow smile curled her lips. “Hmmm. If I did, I need to make sure I get more. I think I could get used to this.”

  As Ren started to move, he knew he could get used to this.

  He could even come to need it…need her.

  Tangling a hand in her hair, he stared into her eyes as he started to move. She moved with him, her body gliding in perfect rhythm. The sweet, slick tissues of her pussy gripped him, hugged him, milked him…an erotic, maddeni
ng torture. He licked her lower lip, bit it gently, smiled when she whimpered.

  When he shifted his angle just so, he felt the reaction ripple through her body, because it rippled through him as well—from his scalp straight down to soles, tightening every inch in between. Snarling, he shifted higher on her body and pressed more firmly against her so that each and every thrust hit that spot.

  Her nails tore at his back and he felt the pain of it, loved it. She cried out, arching up. Canting her hips higher, he pushed his hand under her ass and lifted her up, drove into her harder. Harder.

  He would have feared he’d hurt her—soft and fragile—but she wrapped her legs around his hips and cried out his name. He felt that mind-numbing pleasure burn through her. Burn through her, tear through her…consume her…just as it was consuming him.

  The climax hit him with breath-stealing, heart-stopping intensity, and if he had been mortal, he didn’t know if he would have survived it.

  As it was, he was weaker than a baby when he rolled to his side and curled up against her. As shudders racked her body, he wrapped an arm around her middle, pulled her close. Burying his face between her breasts, he tried to think of something to say.

  Anything.

  But there were no words.

  There was nothing but the warmth and the wonder of her in his arms. This woman he had known just hours…and all he knew was her first name, and the fact that he’d found her driving around with a demon tome in her car, and demons on her tail.

  That and the fact that he’d just had the most blissful experience of his life—either life—with her.

  Lifting his head, he opened his eyes, tried to force himself to say something.

  But her lids were closed.

  And her chest moved in the slow, steady rhythm of sleep.

  Reluctantly, a smile tugged at his lips. Reaching out, he caught the corner of a blanket and snagged it, pulling it up over them. As he lay down, he heard the click of claws gathering around the bed, felt the presence of his friends.

  He touched their minds.

  Sleep out of sight tonight. In case she wakes.

  Then he gave into the call of sleep himself.