The Others 03: The Demon You Know

by Christine Warren

  Abby cried out, high and aching, and arched reflexively into his touch.

  She felt, more than heard, his purr of satisfaction.

  Her head fell back, her neck no longer able to support its spinning, dizzy weight. She felt him shift, felt his fingers slide deeper, parting her soft folds, seeking her center. His lips touched her throat, slid down, his tongue dragging across the hollow above her collarbone just as one long finger pierced her snug opening and thrust inside her with torturous slowness.

  She clamped around him like a vise, every muscle tensing at the unfamiliar intrusion. She heard his murmur of pleasure and squirmed, looking for an ease she couldn't find. Her whole body felt tight and restless, empty and needing. Not a single memory of her last sexual experience intruded. Rule's hands felt too right, too perfect on her overheated flesh.

  "Tight," he whispered against her throat. "Sweet.”

  Abby moaned and squirmed again. His finger stroked deep inside her, but she wanted him deeper, wanted it with a fierceness that shocked her.

  "Please," she gasped.

  He nuzzled aside the collar of her blouse; teeth nibbled the sensitive skin, the light teasing contact a stark contrast to the invasive intimacy of his thrusting finger.

  "More?”

  She could barely nod, but her muscles clenched around him in avid encouragement. A low chuckle drifted through her fog, and she felt his finger slip out of her. Her hands clenched on his shoulder in panic. He couldn't leave her now.

  "Hush," he soothed, stroking his tongue in a hot path to her shoulder. "Have more.”

  His touch returned, two fingers this time, the thickness of them stretching her opening with a heavenly, aching burn. He probed deeply, fingers curling to drag along the inner walls of her passage, and Abby found herself thrusting back against him, struggling to take him deeper, to urge him into the possessive rhythm her body longed for.

  Her body had been empty so long that even his two fingers filled her, feeling as thick as a cock inside her. She rocked against them, high, desperate whimpers begging for more.

  The rough denim of his jeans rasped against her inner thighs, and her tightly beaded nipples stabbed at the fabric of her bra and blouse, reminding her he was still completely dressed while she writhed, half-naked and aching, like a wanton on his lap.

  Rule didn't seem to mind. He murmured encouraging noises against her throat, his hand on her ass dragging her firmly into the thrust of his fingers. She gripped his shoulders, her nails biting into him, trying to steady herself against the raging tide of lust that threatened to overtake her.

  God, it had already overtaken her.

  "Please," she gasped, her voice raw, reduced to begging for pleasure. "More. Please.”

  She didn't know exactly what she was asking, whether it was for him to stop teasing and come inside her, whether to keep teasing until she fractured into a million tiny shards on his lap. It hardly mattered. She wanted more. She was begging for more.

  "More.”

  His hand shifted between her legs, two fingers sliding through the hot slickness of her desire, teasing her opening with tickling touches before returning to press against her again. This time, it was three fingers, and the pressure at her entrance stretched Abby wide, threatening pain that didn't quite materialize.

  "Rule? ..." Her voice shivered from her, a question, a warning.

  He soothed her with the light brush of his lips against hers and pressed more firmly at her entrance. "Come, little one," he urged, his voice dark and magic. "Take me inside. You can do it.”

  She swallowed a cry and dragged in a shaking breath. Blowing it out in a long, steady stream, she concentrated on forcing her muscles to relax and let her body ease down around his thick, probing fingers.

  "That's it," he praised, his voice all rasping heat and growling urgency. "Beautiful.”

  Abby wasn't sure she felt beautiful. She felt tense and stretched and shivering on the edge of pleasure. Her nerves were on high alert, registering every shift, every slide, every nudge of his fingers inside her slick sheath. If his fingers filled her this full, she shuddered to think what it would feel like when his cock tunneled through the oversensitized flesh.

  A quick hiss of breath told her Rule had felt every ripple of that shudder. She forced her heavy eyelids up again and found him watching her with almost frightening intensity. She shivered again and watched as he softened, felt as his fingers stroked slowly and steadily inside her clinging body.

  "All right?”

  She managed a nod, barely.

  "Good girl. Hold on.”

  Before she could wonder what he meant, she felt his fingers thrust deep, high, and hard inside her. He kept them there, his gaze searching her face. He must have seen what he wanted, because his gaze flared with hungry satisfaction as his free hand slid from her bottom up over her hip, under her button-down blouse to curl around the vee of the opening, his fingers peeking out from between her breasts. Abby had one second to blink down at his fingers before they tightened and yanked down, sending buttons flying to the four corners of the room and pulling her body down hard onto his invading touch.

  Abby's scream startled her. Rule just looked pleased.

  He brushed the sides of her blouse out of the way and tugged it off each arm before settling her hands back into their places on his shoulders. Certain she would drown if she loosened her grip for an instant, she clung to him as if he were a life raft. He tossed her blouse aside and looked down at the little plastic tab between her breasts that held her bra closed. The last tangible barrier between her and his devouring gaze.

  "Perfect.”

  With exaggerated care, so incongruous after the ruins he'd made of the rest of her clothing, Rule used his thumb and forefinger to flip open the tab and watched with apparent fascination as the two sides parted, peeling away from the insides of her breasts to expose soft, white skin.

  "Perfect," he repeated.

  His fingers resumed a slow, steady thrusting between her legs, making her body feel as if it were melting into a little Abby-flavored puddle in his lap. She whimpered uncontrollably as he leaned down and nuzzled her bra away from each breast, baring her nipples one at a time like tiny treasure hoards. He greeted each with a slow, lazy glide of his tongue that made her clench around his fingers, before he finished removing her last garment with excruciating delicacy.

  Abby figured she was about three and a half seconds away from losing her mind.

  She leaned forward, sobbing as the movement drove his fingers higher inside her, and rested her sweat-dampened forehead against his chest. "Rule, please.”

  For one horrible moment, she thought he was going to ignore her. She thought he was going to continue to torture her until her heart gave out and she died of unfulfilled need in the office of the head of the Council of Others. Sure, she wouldn't have had to witness the snickers of the crowd when they came to remove her body, but it was a fact she'd still rather avoid.

  Turning her head, she pressed one feverish cheek to his chest and closed her teeth over a smooth expanse of heavy muscle.

  That seemed to do the trick.

  With a smothered roar, Rule pulled his fingers from her body and yanked at the fastening of his jeans. In the space between heartbeats, he had the fabric open and out of the way and shifted his hands to close one around Abby's hip, holding her steady against him. The other curled around his erection, his knuckles brushing against Abby's clit and making her jump.

  "Don't move," he ordered, tense and breathless, as he set the head of his cock against her opening and began to push.

  Abby's eyes widened and her spine tensed as she felt the width of his erection demanding entrance to her body. He felt even thicker than his fingers, hotter, smoother, and she wondered in a brief moment of panic if she had bitten off more than she could chew.

  Then Rule shifted his grip, both hands clamped down hard on her hips and drawing her slowly, steadily, inexorably, down upon him.

 
; All Abby could do was take a deep breath and relax.

  Their eyes locked, black on brown and blue, both intent as he forged his way deeper.

  Abby shuddered and froze, every muscle locked against the intrusion. She wanted him inside her so badly, but she couldn't seem to relax enough to admit him. Frustrated, she whimpered and pressed hard against him.

  Rule's fingers tightened on her hips. "Slowly.”

  She didn't want slow. She wanted now. Biting into her lip to distract herself from the sharp sting between her legs, Abby firmed her thighs against his hips and pressed herself steadily down over him.

  He cursed, his fingers biting into her hips for a breathless heartbeat. She could almost see his struggle against the sensations of wet heat and tight welcome closing around him. If it was anything like what Abby was feeling, he probably couldn't even remember his name just then.

  But she could. It was engraved in flaming script on her mind and someplace else that felt suspiciously near her heart.

  "Rule.”

  She whispered it, sobbed it, as he slid deeper, deeper, mind-bendingly deep until he came to rest pressing up against the very heart of her. Then she tightened her body around him and screamed it.

  "Rule!”

  If he made an answer, she didn't hear. She leaned against him, trembling and aching, feeling the heat of him through the soft cotton of his shirt as he shifted his grip to pull her tighter against him. One hand pressed against the small of her back, guiding her hips in a sliding, rocking motion that sent him nudging over and over against a spot high inside her that made brilliant points of orange light burst and shimmer behind her eyelids.

  His other hand slid up the bare, supple length of her spine, tunneling through the weight of her silky-fine hair to settle possessively over the back of her neck. He cradled her with a touch that felt distinctly like a brand, but Abby didn't care. She wanted him to be possessive, wanted to be possessed by him. If she could have sunk beneath his skin, she would have. She needed to be closer to him, to be part of him, the way she had begun to fear he was becoming a part of her.

  She opened her mouth to cry out, but the sound caught in her throat. She lacked the breath to force it out. He drove it from her with each deep, gliding stroke.

  Her muscles began to shake, pulled tight to the point of breaking. She could feel something looming over her like a tidal wave about to break. She knew when it struck, the undertow would drag her to the rocks and the sand, leaving her battered and bruised in the aftermath. She didn't care.

  The last vestige of her strength went to forcing her eyes open one last time. Her gaze locked with Rule's, saw the same dazed acceptance in his that she knew shone in hers. Aching, writhing, keening soft and high with the need, Abby leaned forward and spoke the only word she could remember. The only one that mattered.

  "Rule.”

  It was the crack in the dike. With a roar, he crushed her against him, his fingers digging into her flesh with bruising force. His thrusts battered at her, sending him almost painfully deep inside her, forcing out the memory of what her body had felt like when it had been separate from his. She felt his possessiveness, felt it and gloried in it. Her own fingers tightened on his shoulders and she knew she would fight just as hard to hold on to him. They had become interdependent, one burning, twisting, desperate entity, unable to sustain themselves apart.

  Tilting her head back, Abby looked up into the mouth of the wave and felt her lips curve into a smile. Let it come. She was ready.

  Body arching, heart pounding, she gathered herself and threw her heart into the tidal wave, knowing that when she washed ashore, she would never be the same.

  It didn't matter, because neither would Rule.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  If demons were allowed into heaven, Abby was the gate through which they would enter. Rule acknowledged the truth of that an instant before he frowned. That shouldn't have been plural. Only one demon would ever touch her, and he'd make damned sure only one ever entered her.

  The office had fallen silent. Even the fire seemed to burn on without a sound. All Rule could hear was the slowly steadying sound of Abby's breathing and the too-rapid beating of his own heart.

  She had destroyed him.

  He had no other words to describe it. She had torn down every barrier he'd ever erected around himself in all the thousand years of his life and had used every last one of them as so much kindling for the flames that had consumed them. For a small, relatively quiet human she packed the destructive wallop of a class-five hurricane.

  No one would ever guess by looking at her. He tilted his head and gazed down at her where she lay limp and boneless against his chest. She still had the average features and the baby-soft skin he'd noticed the first time he saw her. She still had the fine ash-brown hair and the soft, plump curves, the utter, forgettable humanness he'd made note of. She still looked as ordinary and unimpressive as he'd judged her from the first moment, and if anything, she had even more power to stop his heart and start his libido than any female of any species he'd ever met.

  It defied all reason, that she should leave him so helpless. Someone so small and so plain should not be able to fell him with a single touch of those slender fingers, but Abby could. The evidence was overwhelming.

  She stirred in his lap, shifting against him like a sleepy kitten, and his arms tightened reflexively around her. He watched, utterly fascinated, as her forehead wrinkled in a frown, then cleared when she gave in to a jaw-cracking yawn.

  He was doomed.

  "I can't feel my legs," she muttered against his shirt. Her voice was thick and husky with sleepiness and remembered pleasure. "They're still there, right?”

  Unable to resist, Rule slid his hands over the limbs in question and felt her shiver.

  "Um. That's a yes. I guess they fell asleep." She yawned again.

  Rule shifted forward in the chair and helped her straighten her legs. He thought she would slide them to the floor and let both him and her up out of the chair, but instead, she unbent her legs from their cramped position only to wrap them around his waist, ankles locking behind his back.

  She pillowed her head against his chest. "Mm. Better.”

  Rule felt himself hardening. "Abby ...”

  He didn't intend to upset her. Powers knew he liked the feel of her against him, the warmth of her body still cradling him inside her, but something unexpected had happened, at least unexpected from his point of view, and he needed to process it.

  She stiffened and pulled away to look up at him. "That was a 'we need to talk' voice.”

  Damn it, they did need to talk. He needed to talk. He just wasn't sure yet what he needed to say.

  Abby sighed, and he felt the liquid softness seep out of her, felt her stiffen and distance herself even while she remained locked in his arms. "I guess I got better at some of the sex thing, but not all of it, huh?”

  Rule scowled, an expression that deepened when she braced her hands against his chest and separated their bodies, wincing a little when he slipped free of her tender opening. "What are you talking about?”

  She shrugged and tried to push away from him. "I wasn't very good at this when I was eighteen, either. I guess some people just don't have the knack, huh?”

  "You're positively dripping with knack," he assured her, feeling completely at sea. "Did you somehow mistake the signs that I enjoyed myself thoroughly? Did my explosive orgasm not clue you in?”

  A blush stained her cheeks but didn't provide him with any clues as to where on earth her brain had gone to. Whatever train of thought she had boarded, she had clearly left him at the station.

  "Fine. You enjoyed it at the time, but you don't seem to be having a lot of fun now." She tried once more to push away from him and once more he refused to let her go. "Guys only use that 'let's talk about this' voice when they're about to tell you that it's been fun, but this isn't going anywhere because they don't think about you that way.”

  That at least
made her look at him, even if she was frowning. "I am. You know I am.”

  "Then would you mind telling me what makes you think you can read my mind?”

  "I never claimed I could—”

  "Exactly!" he roared, unable to resist the urge to shake her, very gently. "Stop jumping to conclusions before you fall and hurt yourself.”

  He watched a blush rise from where her breasts pressed against his chest and climb into her cheeks, staining them a fiery crimson. He made a mental note to find out exactly where that color started next time and follow it from top to bottom.

  "I'm sorry," she muttered, looking at his shirt instead of at him. "I meant it when I said I wasn't good at this.”

  "You were wrong. You happen to be very good at 'the sex thing,'" he said, stroking his hands down her back. "You simply need to work on the bits where you start talking.”

  She gave a half smile and played with one of his shirt buttons.

  "You were correct when you thought I wanted to talk to you," he said, stroking a hand over her hair, marveling at the fact that it felt almost as silky as her skin. "I do, but not to criticize you or to drive you away from me. I want to make sure you are well, that I did nothing to hurt you.”

  Her blush deepened. "Not in a bad way.”

  He resisted a primitive urge to beat his chest. "Good. And I want to try to understand why you decided to goad me into taking you.”

  That brought her eyes to his, wide and startled. "What... I mean…what makes you think I goaded you—”

  "Abby...”

  She bit her lip and looked back down at his shirt. "It wasn't like I planned it. I was really mad. I'm going stir-crazy, and having Noah tell me there was no end in sight drove me a little crazier, but I didn't come storming down here with this in mind." She shook her head. "Trust me, I couldn't have dreamed this up if I'd tried. I'm not that creative.”