by Olivia Waite
Then he stopped and Virginia realized he was kneeling before her. There was mischief in his eyes and a terrible curve to his lips and the newly woken wicked part of her sang with anticipation.
Slowly, as she watched spellbound, he leaned forward and put his mouth between her legs.
The world shook.
Virginia didn’t know the name for this act, or even what to call the part of herself he was doing it to. All she knew was that she would surely die if he stopped. His lips and tongue stroked over the secret, shameful regions of her body, bringing them darkly to life. His left hand pinned her hip while his right slid up the inside of her thigh, holding her open to him and this new delight. She couldn’t stop the whimpers that escaped her or hide her desperation as her hands buried themselves in his hair, holding him tightly to her shivering body, encouraging him wordlessly to continue.
Still playing her with his mouth, James Grieve slid one long finger inside her body. There was the briefest shadow of pain, one small edge in the dark sea of pleasure—then his tongue found some precise, lightning-filled part of her flesh and he sucked it into his hot mouth.
Virginia shattered.
She sobbed her relief as she came, shaking and helpless beneath the sweet ache of desire satisfied. It seemed to go on and on, darkness and light rolling through her body and remaking it, illuminating paths of muscle and nerve that she’d never realized were connected before.
And as she came back to herself, all she could think was that James had been wrong. Marvelous was far too mild a word for this particular sin.
* * * * *
James basked in the reflected glory of her climax and felt hunger vanish—and with it went the tenuous connection to Hell that was hunger’s symptom. On his knees he looked up at Virginia’s flushed and startled face and felt as though they were finally, truly alone. As though his need had been a third party in the room, a demanding aunt who played the tyrant and subverted everything to her own insistence.
And now he and Virginia had escaped their chaperone. The whole night stretched ahead of them, glimmering with possibility.
He smiled up at her. “Was that everything you’d hoped?” he asked.
She breathed in deeply, which did lovely things to her breasts. He wanted to feel her nipples tighten beneath his tongue again. He wanted to feel her mouth on him too. He wanted...
He wanted everything.
“Yes,” she said.
For a dizzying instant James thought she’d answered his unvoiced thought instead of the question he’d spoken aloud. Then he cast the whim aside, since either way it was the answer he’d been hoping to hear.
He rose to his feet as his wings vanished. They were difficult things to maneuver in tight spaces and James wanted no distractions.
It was the work of a moment to pick her up and move to the bed with its mahogany posts and dark hangings. Virginia hissed when her back struck the cool sheets and hummed when he covered her body with his.
He rested between her parted thighs and met her curious gaze. “There’s more,” he explained. “So much more.”
She blinked at him. “You’re still hungry?”
One corner of his mouth lifted as he looked down at her. “Aren’t you?”
She licked her lips.
That was all it took. James claimed her mouth again as longing blazed through him—not the sharp, hasty hunger from before, but something deeper and richer and a little bit dangerous. She was so soft beneath him, so languorous and tender in the aftermath of her orgasm. He wanted to seduce her, to take her, to demand her submission and offer his own, to fuck and be fucked until he went out of his mind with pleasure. To lose himself in the luxury of loving her.
Deliberately, he moved his hips so his hard cock grazed the slippery cleft between her legs. Virginia let out a moan—a sound that went straight down his spine and throbbed in his cock.
It felt so good that he did it again, just to pull another of those moans from her sleek throat.
Then she arched up from the bed and rubbed herself against him and his eyes nearly crossed. His thoughts of a slow, controlled seduction scattered.
He had to fuck her.
He grinned in anticipation and looked down into her eyes. “Would you like to see what it feels like when I use my full powers?” he said.
She nodded—and James let himself go.
His mouth descended on hers as awareness lit up inside him. Every breath she took was in his lungs, every beat of her heart pulsed in his veins. Her thoughts were ghosts and echoes that guided him as he caressed her—gripped her—stoked the flames to bring her tumbling back to pleasure. He followed the whispers of new yearning as they led his mouth back down to her breasts and his fingers to her slick cunt. He teased and tormented and tasted her until they were both shaking with it.
Then he set the head of his cock at her entrance and began to push forward.
Their groans were a matched pair. With all his senses open like this, he knew exactly when it was right to move a little farther into the sweetness of her body and when it was right for him to hold still while their breath mingled in the space around them. He slid deeper and deeper until the whole of him was sheathed in her pulsing channel.
Then, just as leisurely, he began to slide out again.
Virginia moaned and her legs tightened around his hips. James’ head spun with the combined pleasure from her body and his. It had never felt this intense, this overwhelming before.
There was no holding back. He thrust back into her, hard.
She made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a moan. It was the single most arousing sound he’d ever heard a woman make in his long, long life. Before it had faded away in the darkness he was pistoning within her, his rhythm strong and steady and demanding. She curled around his body as he curled himself through her mind, both of them straining to get closer. He bit the tender curve of her shoulder and felt that tiny edge of pain like a flint striking fire into new life.
With another of those spine-melting sounds, she came trembling beneath him.
The pure force of her orgasm brought him to his own shattering climax. He poured into her with a harsh gasp, his strokes rough, his rhythm broken. He lost track of where he ended and she began—everything was blinding pleasure and satisfaction.
It went on...and on...and on, swirling around them like an endless tide. For the first time James was struck by the worry that he wouldn’t be able to find his way back into his own skin again. With his last bit of energy, he groped for an anchor.
And opened his eyes.
When had he closed them? He didn’t recall. But he was himself again—and Virginia was there beneath him, breathing heavily and staring up at him with a dazed expression. He gasped for air and shifted to lie beside her in the bed, gratified beyond reason when she rolled toward him and rested her head on his shoulder. For a moment there was only the crackling of the fire and the stormy sound of their breath in the darkness.
After a little while he felt Virginia’s breathing settle into the regular pattern of sleep—and a little while after that, she began to dream. He saw himself reflected in her mind—green skin, wings and all. He saw the smile on his face when he’d first spotted her in the ballroom and the intensity in his expression when he’d made her come standing up against the chair.
Then her dreams began to get...creative.
James pulled the bedclothes more snugly around them and lost himself in her dreams while the fire died out.
* * * * *
Nights passed, a full week of pleasure unlike any James had ever known. It was neither the surrender of virtue nor the celebration of vice that he’d experienced so often before. With Virginia he felt both bolder and more careful—a paradox he had yet to resolve in his own mind.
Fortunately he had plenty of time to spend pondering this novelty, while Virginia caught a few scanty hours sleep beside him. It had been a very long time since James had spent so much time just curled up with a woma
n. He was surprised to find that he’d missed it.
It wasn’t simply the warmth of her body in the bed—Virginia’s bedroom was a very pleasant place on its own merits. Her window faced east, so James was able to watch the first pallid rays of London sunlight make their drowsy way in and creep along the walls in a slow morning ballet. After an hour or so it was bright enough to see the sage green and gray paper on the walls, a note somewhat out of harmony with the furnishings—dark, old-fashioned pieces in heavy wood that had clearly been inherited from prior generations.
The bed they lay in was ancient, carved all over with dancing classical figures. James twisted around to look as much as he could—there was Apollo pursuing Daphne as she was transformed into a tree, Orpheus losing Eurydice to the underworld a second time, and—to his delight—a Bacchanalian revel populated by nymphs and satyrs. Some of the satyrs looked noticeably demonic, crowned with curling horns and lecherous expressions.
His movements had woken Virginia, who stretched languorously. James smiled and reached for her as she opened her eyes—and yelped in alarm, flinching away from his green hands.
James froze.
“Oh,” Virginia gasped, her breathing still rushed. She clutched part of the sheet to her chest, knuckles as white as the bedclothes. “I’m sorry about that. I was dreaming, and I thought...” She reddened. “I was dreaming of Hell.”
This was not the first time she’d done so, but it was the first time it had fully occurred to him that perhaps sleeping with a demon was not helping her to avoid the nightmares. James carefully lowered his hands, keeping his movements slow and steady. Virginia managed a tentative smile but couldn’t quite meet his eyes. Another satyr on the headboard leered at James over her shoulder, reminding him of the way the other demons had stared at them during the waltz that first night.
Predator.
And he remembered some of what she’d said then, in the ballroom. He felt heartless for letting it slip from his memory for even a moment, when it was clearly still tormenting her. “You know the demons are all afraid of you, don’t you?” he said.
“Are they?” She shrugged. Her gaze was distant, her expression shuttered. “I can’t imagine why.”
“Well, for one thing, the Lord of Hell singled you out,” James answered. “That’s not something we demons can lightly overlook.” Not if they valued their lives, he refrained from adding. Curiosity, however, pushed him onward. “What was Lucifer like?” he asked quietly.
She blinked. “You’ve never met him?”
“I have successfully avoided ever being summoned into his presence,” James said. He slouched down in the bed and rested his head on one hand. I’m relaxed, I’m not looming over you, you don’t have to be afraid of me. “What did he want with you?”
She smiled again—a true smile this time, just a little wicked. “Nothing. He didn’t summon me. I arrived wholly unannounced.”
James gaped. Hell was dreadful enough from the perspective of an immortal, forever beyond its reach. But to visit there in a human body, so very fragile and vulnerable—to see firsthand what terrors awaited those whose sins were heaped too high...It was an appalling thought. He must have misunderstood, so he asked again, “You went to Hell for a visit?”
His shock made her smile. “It was more of a quest,” she corrected, then grew serious again. “I was trying to rescue my—someone. A friend.”
Her hesitation was telling. “A lover?” James asked.
“No.” Virginia shook her head but her expression remained wistful. James clenched his hands then unclenched them again, reminding himself that he’d had no claim on her then. Or now, perhaps—but he didn’t want to get too close to that uncomfortable thought. She went on. “He was just a friend. Oh, it’s true our parents expected us to get married and beget a score of fat, happy little grandchildren. I think I expected it too. It was...comfortable, to have a future laid out like that. All I had to do was wait and enjoy myself until it got here.”
“But he never proposed.” James had heard stories like this before. How could humans be so predictable and so unfathomable at the same time?
Virginia shook her head. “He purchased a commission in the army and was killed in battle.”
Her grip on the sheet was relaxing. James wistfully eyed the line of her breast beneath the cloth but kept talking. He still wanted to put her at ease, even more than he wanted to slide his hands under the sheet and distract her from her nightmares. “You must have been devastated,” he said.
“Devastated?” She gave him a strange look, proud and defiant. “I was furious! Deeply and endlessly angry. So when I found the grimoire in the library that told me all about Hell and how to get there...” She shrugged. “It’s possible I didn’t consider every possible outcome. I just—barged ahead.”
“I see.” James felt a pang. It was clear even to him that no mortal woman walked through the gates of Hell to retrieve someone on the strength of friendship alone. He wanted to ask if she’d loved this man very much—but that was a foolish question. She’d walked into Hell for him, hadn’t she? “Did you succeed?”
Virginia leaned back against the headboard, right against the leering satyr’s face. Serves him right, thought James, and his blood warmed as the sheet slipped a little more. “I brought him back, yes.”
In all the busy centuries of human time, James had never heard of anyone else accomplishing the same feat. He had a sudden vision of Virginia, wrapped in her white sheet on a charging steed, lance leveled in righteous fury at a crowd of demons. How glorious she must have appeared to the soul she rescued! “So where is this paragon now?”
She tilted her head, considering, her gaze roaming over the faded stripes on the wall. “In the country, I expect, with his new bride.”
Her tone was bland, drained of color like an old scar she didn’t want him to put his fingers on. James gritted his teeth against a sudden wash of rage. “The bastard left you after you walked into Hell to save him?”
And now it was James she frowned at as she folded her arms across her chest. “I jilted him,” she said, daring him to contradict her. “Though he asked me to, quite openly. He’d fallen in love with someone else. Very obviously, very deeply in love.”
James gaped. “In Hell?”
Virginia nodded, a sharp movement quickly finished. “She’s a demoness. And when he came back from the dead, she came with him.” James stared at her for so long that Virginia bristled beneath the scrutiny. “How could I possibly ask him to keep promises he’d never made? As though he owed me because I’d decided he should? Besides,” she said, softening, “they have troubles enough without my adding to them. It’s hard to tell whether people notice that she has green skin, but they certainly treat her as though she were an outsider.” She laughed weakly. “I once heard someone describe her as Spanish.”
James took a deep breath as he digested all of this. Many things were newly clear to him. She’d made a perilous quest, with great effort, and now she had nothing to show for it.
No wonder she’d withdrawn from her fellow mortals. How many of them could understand such courage? War was nothing next to it. And he could see now that it wasn’t the demons that frightened her—it was the great and monstrous indifference, a tawdry reward for her monumental risk. She’d gone to heroic lengths, had turned around her entire life, and in turn the man she’d done it for had politely thanked her and walked away with someone else. Meanwhile, the world remained ignorant of the whole story and pitied her as a broken, discarded thing. Why should she bother to put herself forward at all, after so deep and cutting a rejection?
She’d never have approached him if he hadn’t pursued her. The thought was unsettling. He wanted to touch her, to put his arm around her and give what reassurance he could, but he feared she’d pull away if he tried. “Do you know what I think?” he said.
“What?” she said.
“I think that you’ve been banned from Hell because you were too powerful an adversary a
nd made the Devil nervous.” She was surprised into a laugh, but James was serious. “His own history proves that he values daring and boldness, both of which you certainly demonstrated by marching straight to his infernal throne.”
“I think he just hated to listen to me abusing the violin,” Virginia retorted, but she was smiling at him again and let her arms fall to her sides.
“You used music to defend yourself.” James smiled back, not least because the sheet had finally slipped away with barely a sigh. Her breasts were rose and ivory in the morning light.
“It’s traditional, isn’t it?” She lifted her chin and struck a haughty pose, half naked and daring and brilliant.
James was entranced. “The man you rescued,” he said, “did not deserve you.” He reached out—still slowly, just in case—and traced his fingertips down the line of her forearm, from elbow to wrist.
She caught his hand and twined her fingers with his. James was so pleased and relieved at her touch that it made him a little dizzy. “And I suppose you do?” she asked. “Deserve me, I mean.”
“Of course not,” James replied, though in his deepest heart there was a tiny, disharmonious pang. “But you certainly deserve me, Miss Greening—a decadent creature entirely devoted to your very intimate satisfaction.” Then, because he couldn’t resist, “Just think of me as a reward well earned.”
She laughed, bent down and kissed him.
Chapter Three
James crouched on an attic corner opposite the Greenings’ roof and waited for the last sliver of sun to disappear.
He’d seen many a sunset in his thousands of years, but this one had to be the slowest.
In the three weeks since their meeting, he’d lost count of the times he’d taken Virginia to bed and fucked her until neither of them could move. He’d taught her how to fuck him too—not that she’d needed much tutoring, as quick as she was. This was far and away the longest liaison of James’ exceptionally long life. And to his surprise, James found that the more he had of Virginia, the more he wanted.