by Olivia Waite
Unfortunately, she had failed to foresee this would mean that come day’s end, she was also the one who had to rub the healing ointment onto all the wounds he couldn’t reach himself. She was as rough as she could be, but she was thoroughly aware that her actions technically amounted to a caress. Lambourne submitted himself with suspicious docility, crossing his long legs in front of him as Idared knelt behind.
“I find it incredible that no demon has tried to kiss you,” he said suddenly. “One is forced to assume that all male demons suffer from an especially flagrant variety of stupidity. Or do you prefer demonesses like yourself?”
Idared frowned at his back. Maybe not so docile after all. “Of course I have been kissed,” she replied. “I never said otherwise.” He went tense and then hissed as her hand brushed over some still-sensitive wound on his broken skin. So he was not immune to jealousy. Idared’s smile turned feral as she continued, “In certain instances I have gone quite a bit further than kissing.”
“How much further?” he asked at once.
To twist the knife, she gave her most sultry laugh and replied, “How much more can you imagine?”
She felt the rumble of his growl beneath her hands and it robbed her of breath. “Quite a bit.” He sounded—possessive. Demonkind were never possessive. It was considered gauche. Idared tried to hide the trembling of her hands but didn’t quite succeed. He continued in that same lush tone, “Have a human and a demon ever...?”
Idared felt her pulse ratchet upward and cursed herself silently. “Sometimes,” she admitted. “But usually it happens when a human magician summons a succubus or incubus to the world above. And no such affairs could last long here in Hell.”
He considered that for a breath or two. “Can demons sin?” he asked.
Her hands on his back stopped moving. Beneath her hands, Lambourne stopped breathing. The thick air of the infernal plane felt suddenly charged, heavy and hot. Idared pulled away and scooted backward, but Lambourne swiveled around where he sat and fixed his eyes on her. His blue eyes were as clear and vivid as two stars against the dark and the fire of Hell. He smiled, slowly, and she felt her breath come fast and her heartbeat quicken within her. She’d teased him without a thought, forgetting that he was a man not used to feeling out of his depth in physical matters and that she herself was hardly immune to his appeal. She leaned back still more, yearning for escape, but her shoulders bumped up against the rough stone of the wall.
He reached out one hand and placed his long fingers on the slender part of her left ankle, holding her bent leg in place with her sole flat on the floor. Nothing more, and yet bolts of lightning ran through Idared at the contact. “It is a sin for me, doing this and thinking of where else I might touch, but is it the same for you? Do you have as much to lose as I do if you give in?” His fingers stroked once, almost idly, but Idared could see that his question was anything but idle.
“How much more can you lose?” she asked. “You’re already in Hell.” The last word came out on a gasp as his fingers curved up and his palm cupped her calf. Between her legs she felt herself grow slick—it felt like that one hand of his on her calf was stroking every pulse point in her body.
He chuckled and moved forward again. His right hand skimmed the smooth length of her left thigh and, with the gentlest of pressures, he parted her legs and settled on his knees between her thighs. He was so close it raised the hair on her olive-green skin and their breath mingled in the few inches between them. Idared could have pushed him away again—but she didn’t want to, not with his hands so warm on her and her own heart racing. It took all her control not to simply bend her head forward and taste the sweat she knew was on his flesh. The sweat her torments had wrung from him. The thought made her dizzy. For a moment, the demoness still held the slowly burning candle of her self-control. And then he spoke again. “A hell within Hell,” he said, “to be so close and yet so far. To see, but not to touch. To desire, but not to possess.” He bent his head and kissed the slope of one green shoulder. Idared felt it like a brand on her skin. “To yearn to please, but to leave you unpleasured.”
It was too much. Idared pulled him against her and kissed him, hard. His mouth opened against hers and his hands wound themselves into her hair, while her fingers traced every inch of his skin that she could reach. Since he never cried out under punishment, she’d thought he might be equally self-contained as a lover. Instead, Idared was delighted to find he responded openly to her every touch, gasping when she pressed on the unhealed wounds of his back and growling when she licked at his lower lip.
There was still too much space between them and she wriggled to try to press herself closer. He tugged her beneath him on the stone floor, still between her legs, but now the full length of her body could feel the full length of his. Lambourne cursed at the shock of all that contact, but Idared laughed in demonic joy, arching up to press her breasts against his chest. Her nipples hardened as she rubbed against him and desire burned hotter, licking hungrily beneath the surface of her skin. Lambourne retaliated by grinding his cock teasingly against her cunny, making her writhe and gasp.
Then, in a lightning-fast move she wasn’t expecting, he pinned both her hands above her head in just his large left hand. His right wandered freely over her body, teasing at her breasts, grasping one hip to bring her more firmly against him. “Tell me,” he said, “is this a sin?”
“Not for me,” Idared gasped. His hands felt like flames on her skin.
“But for me?” he insisted. “Do they continue the tally, here in Hell?”
Idared stretched sinuously, using her whole body to caress his. She felt as well as heard him growl and replied, “Do you care?”
His smile turned sad. “I find I do, actually. If I add too much weight to my already hefty list, they might take me away from you. I couldn’t bear that.” He arched his hips against her again and Idared moaned in delight. “I shall have to be stalwart and self-denying, I’m afraid. But—if you can’t sin...” He grinned so carnally that even the demoness was stunned by it, while her whole body thrilled and came alert at the sensual promise in his voice. The hand on her hip curved toward the juncture of her thighs and her cunt was already so wet that it was easy as taking a breath for him to slip one long finger into her slick flesh and begin to thrust, while his thumb pressed slow circles onto the arching spot just above.
Idared’s entire focus was instantly locked on the motions of that hand between her legs, and her hips rocked eagerly upward against his palm. She knew her own body and its capacity for pleasure—but never had she felt so desperate for it, so fixated on even the slightest ghost of a touch from this man’s hands. Did all humans feel this good? Was it simply the lure of the forbidden?
He bent down and took her nipple in his mouth. Idared’s breath was pulled from her on a long, needy groan.
Her preternatural strength was more than enough to break the grip of his hand on her wrists if she had wanted—but demonkind are not accustomed to self-denial and Idared’s limits had been tested enough. He felt too damn good. Happily and without further scruple, she gave herself over to the hands and the body and the mouth of a man who apparently had earned every last tick mark in his long catalogue of lustful transgressions. His fingers stroked within her cunt at the same moment that his thumb pressed that tender spot and his teeth gently grazed one dusky nipple—and Idared screamed and came so hard that all the fires of Hell seemed dim when compared with the flares of pleasure behind the lids of her closed eyes.
She had only just taken a breath and opened her eyes when she felt him release her wrists. Languid with orgasm, she barely had time to raise herself to her elbows before she felt his shoulders nudge her thighs wider and his hot, hungry mouth was on her.
The demoness was an inferno, a blaze, the center of a second sun, and Idared wound her fingers into his hair and sobbed as he stroked his tongue over her slick, throbbing flesh. He growled at the taste of her and the vibration set off another small cris
is, but it was not long before that climax tumbled into another and another until Idared could no longer distinguish between them. She had no idea how long it was that he worshipped her with lips and teeth and tongue before he finally gave one last, possessive nip to her inner thigh and moved up to kiss her. Idared hummed with satisfaction and kissed him back.
Lambourne smiled, but she could see that it was a strain. His cock was impossibly hard against her belly. “You are even more delicious than I’d hoped,” he said against her throat.
Idared allowed herself one last moment to luxuriate beneath him in submission— and then she flipped them both over so she was above him, straddling his hips and pinning his shoulders to the ground with her hands. The look of surprise on his face was delicious. “The interesting thing about sins,” murmured the demoness, “is that if one is forced to commit one, it doesn’t count.” Her tail reappeared and dragged her whip from its hook and down to her hand. Before Lambourne could react, his wrists were bound together around the leg of the bed by the length of her favorite weapon. His legs, still manacled, tensed at the end of the chain fixed into the wall. He was now entirely at Idared’s mercy. “Or at least, it doesn’t count as much.”
She saw the awareness rise in him like the dawn. Without further delay, she slid down the length of his body and took his cock in her slim hand.
He hissed and flexed most pleasingly against her palm. She teased him with fingers and nails for only a minute or so before she leaned down and took the whole of him in her ready mouth. Her tongue, longer and more agile now because she wished it to be, curled around the base of his cock and began to tighten and relax in a slow, inexorable rhythm.
Lambourne’s back bowed off the floor and he let out a hoarse shout. Gratified by the reaction, Idared swirled her tongue around his cock once more and then began moving in earnest, her hands gripping the lower part of his shaft and her mouth sliding up and down and her tongue twisting, pulsing and generally attempting to drive him insane with pleasure.
From the cries and guttural moans that poured from his throat, it was working. His taste was lush, salty and addictive—so she kept going at a steady pace until she could feel he was just below the boiling point.
When she knew he couldn’t take even one second more—and her sense of how far he could be pushed had been rather acutely honed during the past few weeks—she raised herself to her knees above him, positioned his cock at her entrance and slid down until he filled her cunt.
Lambourne let out a curse that could scorch even a demoness’s ears. Idared held still for one blissful moment, adjusting around the size of him—but then she began to ride him, rough and insistent, taking him over and over while his cock stroked every slippery, sensitive point inside her channel. She’d never felt anything so sinful or so good in her whole immortal life. His arms, imprisoned still, flexed and tensed as he worked to keep up, driving himself harder and higher within her, while the sweat of effort sheened his broad chest. She was drowning in sensation, in the urgency that chased her like flame, in the steady beat of his body against hers and the throb of his cock as he grew closer and closer to his own climax. Her fingernails scored his chest as she increased their pace. When she leaned over and gently bit his nipple, it finally sent him over the edge. He gave a choked shout and poured himself into her, the gush of his release sending Idared into a powerful, shuddering climax of her own.
She collapsed on top of him as the whip slithered loose and his arms came down around her. His breathing was ragged and his heartbeat stuttered beneath her ear. Idared stretched muscles she knew would be sore in the morning and ran her tongue along his collarbone to taste the salt and the sweat of him. “I am going to hazard a guess,” said the damned—and damned tired—lord.
“Hazard away,” said Idared.
“I have deduced that you are not as indifferent to me as you may have tried to appear.”
“Indifferent?” scoffed the demoness. “I plan to be monstrously greedy where you are concerned.”
Lambourne’s arms tightened around her. “And I am quite looking forward to eternity. That was—unspeakably good,” the damned lord breathed.
Idared saw the tiny flinch at the corner of his eyes. “Your back must be killing you,” she guessed.
“It damn well is,” Lambourne confessed, but his tone was amused.
The demoness laughed. “Come,” she said. “We can do something about that.”
Chapter Two
The bubbling pool behind Idared’s house was always warm and smelled faintly of minerals only found deep in the living rock. Low red light from a volcanic fissure illuminated the water even in the full dark of Hell. Beneath the undulating surface there was a small ledge around one side at just the right height, upon which the demoness directed her charge to sit while she knelt on the pool’s brink. Lambourne hissed as the water lapped at his wounds, then sighed as Idared began working more of the healing ointment into the worst of his injuries, which had not fully healed before their recent lascivious activities. “The water will keep most of the itching away,” she explained.
The demoness worked at his muscled shoulders and Lambourne stretched as, one by one, the lash marks vanished, leaving only acres of skin behind. He raised one arm and looked at his newly smooth and unmarked flesh. “It heals so quickly,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll ever stop being surprised by that.”
“How long does it take you to heal in the world above?” Idared asked. Her hands were still kneading his flesh, but slowly now, for her own pleasure rather than for his cure. She was growing increasingly enamored with the feel of his shoulders beneath her fingers.
“Several weeks,” he said. “And some wounds leave scars.” He turned to face her and Idared’s fingers now trailed across his collarbone and chest. He pressed her hands flat with his own. “Some wounds never heal at all, Idared—and I have done damage thoughtlessly before now.” She knew he wasn’t speaking of purely physical hurts. “You alone have seen all the worst parts of me, all the errors and the anger and the careless petty cruelties. You know precisely what I’ve done, and there’s nowhere for me to hide from you.”
He looked up at her, resigned and defiant, brave enough to confess but expecting her to punish him. It was a very human thing to think. She smiled and leaned forward to kiss him, softly. “Many of my brethren believe Hell is designed for cruelty, because they are cruel themselves,” she said. “I believe Hell is built for justice.”
“Because you are just,” he said, with the faintest hint of a smile.
That smile filled her with hope. “If it’s justice you seek,” said the demoness, “then for every hurt you’ve caused in the past you must deal out pleasure to an equal degree.”
Lambourne’s smile was full now but fragile, like something newly grown from formerly barren earth. “You have given me so much of yourself,” he said, his voice rough as sand. “I want to give back, but I am out of practice. I was never any good at tenderness.” Some old hurt chased across his face and then was gone.
Idared looked down at him and quaked with a new kind of fear. She didn’t know what to say that wouldn’t sound foolish. She wasn’t accustomed to giving reassurance and it made her feel weak not to know what words to offer him in return for his confession. But the silence was unbearable. “I have never had anyone offer me tenderness,” she said. At least it was honest.
“Then we are both taking chances,” he replied. “But I know quite well that should I hurt you, your skills with that whip are more than sufficient for revenge.”
He spoke of vengeance and punishment but Idared was beyond such things. There was only him, and her, in a vast darkness. She kissed him again, there on her knees as the heated water swirled around them and steam garlanded their hair and shoulders.
This kiss was different—before, she had kissed him from her own desire and sudden need. Now she kissed him to soothe, to comfort. His mouth under hers was desperate and his hands trembled as they came up to rest on h
er thighs. She could not grant him absolution—this was Hell, after all—but she would give him all that was in her power to give.
She poured all her warmth and solace into the kiss, letting nothing divert her from the taste and feel of his mouth. Heat built in steady waves as the demoness cupped his face in her hands and wordlessly offered him all of the strength she had within her. There was something so deeply sweet in this kiss that Idared felt herself on the verge of weeping.
She couldn’t weep in front of a mortal—that would be paltry and shameful. She was a creature of darkness from the depths of Hell.
So she bit him.
Just a little, on his full lower lip.
He gasped and pulled his mouth from hers. She met his look of surprise with a defiant smile and a lick of her tongue across her dark-green lips.
Lambourne growled and dragged her deeper into the pool.
For a moment she was drowning in sensation—the swirl of the water, the slide of his skin against hers, the pressure of his hands, the spin of Hell’s great emptiness above her. And then the world settled and she found herself straddling Lambourne, her knees to either side of his hips and her flesh caught tight against him.
With so much of her body in contact with his, she could not fail to notice he was shaking. Alarmed, she stroked down his neck and chest as though she could brush away his past like so much dust from his shoulders. Through a jaw clenched with strain, he said, “I have been thoughtless, but never before have I been out of control.” As though she wanted an apology for the way he’d seized her. As though it hadn’t satisfied some dark part of her infernal self.
She wanted him to know for certain that she wouldn’t break, no matter what he did, or had done. She bit him again, this time on the side of his throat, where the skin was most tender.