Demon's Kiss (15 page)

Asag. Here. Slinking through the mortal dimension without a keeper. Hunting Clea.

“We need to go.”

She nodded, glanced around, then uncurled one hand from across her chest and held it out toward him. Like she wanted him to help her up. Like she wasn’t repulsed by him, terrified of him, of what she’d just seen him do. Of what she’d seen released from his soul.

With her arm extended toward him, Clea was still looking up at him.

Waiting. For him.

Willing to let him touch her.

He looked at his gloved hand, at the blood-soaked blades that had somehow become part of him, at the ragged torn flesh that had offered them release. They should not be there. By all rights, every sorcerer developed one perfect weapon. For him, it was the pulse and filaments of light magic. He had never been able to summon a blade. Not in a millennium. Yet here they were, breaking the rules, blades of dark sorcery.

His breath hissed from between his teeth, and he held out his ruined hand to her.

So this was what he had become. He closed his eyes for a moment. No. Not what he had
become
. He had
been
a monster for two decades.

He had just been very adept at pretending he wasn’t.

She glanced at him. He looked as though he might crack. Or combust. It should have frightened her, but oddly, she thought she understood.

Wetting her lips, she thought about the way he’d stood over her, his desire blatant, his gaze hot. Was that part of his battle now?

Skidding off the highway so the back of the car fishtailed wildly for an instant, Ciarran followed a narrow road and finally drew to a stop at the edge of a low cliff that overlooked a ravine. There was no light, no sign of houses or human habitation, just endless night sky. Without looking at her, he rolled up the windows, jammed the heat on full, and practically leaped from the car, pausing only to slam the door behind him.

Clea adjusted the vents, letting the hot air waft across her chilled skin as she stared out the window. Ciarran stood about ten feet away, in the pool of light cast by the headlamps, his back rigid, legs apart, hands fisted at his sides. He was hurting, and she wanted to make it better. Doubly so because, somehow, she was certain that he was hurting at least in part because of her.

With focused intent, she reached out and turned off the ignition. He spun to face her, his chest heaving with each deep breath. With a twist, she shut down the headlights, leaving them both in darkness. Wariness skittered through her, and she hesitated, her fingers pressed tight to the door handle. She could—
should
—stay here. Where it was safe. She should leave him to battle whatever secret pain gnawed at him.

With a ragged breath, she flung the door open and climbed out of the car.

Again, that lightning movement, and he was before her, so close, the night too dark to offer a clear view of his features, but she could sense his tension, feel the thrum of his emotion. A rush of adrenaline shot through her, making her heart beat wildly and the star-flecked sky spin. With a murmur, she rested her weight on the car, cold metal and glass at her back.

He made a low sound, half groan, half curse; then he reached for her, closing his right hand around her arm, resting the left one on the roof of the car, and all the while she could see the glitter of his eyes, sense his blatant, uncompromising hunger.

“Say no,” he rasped, his breath fanning her cheek, his body held wire-tight. “Say no, Clea mine.”

As if she wanted to deny him. The scent of him, rich and male, reached a place deep inside her. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, wanting him so badly, the feel of his mouth on hers, the taste of his kiss. She raised up on her toes, offering him her mouth, and more, so much more.

“You don’t understand.” His voice was harsh, his lips moving against the skin of her cheek. “You don’t know what lies beneath the light.”

The darkness. The terrifying darkness that spun through him, barely held in check. She knew. She’d felt it, seen it. And she wanted him despite it. Because of it. She wanted to soothe him, protect him, stand by him and help him fight his secret battles. Keep him safe, even from himself, as he had done for her.

Heart pounding, she reached out, undid one button of his shirt, then another, until the cloth fell open, revealing the golden skin of his chest, his belly, smooth, taut, overlying solid muscle and tendon, a purely dazzling arrangement of anatomy that made her mouth go dry.

“Be certain, Clea. There is no going back.”

No going back. There had been no going back since she’d first seen him, cloaked in light and danger, standing in the lobby of the Blue Bay Motel. No going back since he’d kissed her that morning, his mouth hot and wet and luscious, the feel of him, the taste of him more than she could ever have imagined in her most fevered fantasies.

She was scared. Not of him, though she sensed that perhaps she ought to be. He was her one constant, her one solid fortification.

He was her one safe place.

She believed that, and she wanted him so badly it hurt. She wanted to help him, to soothe him, to take away his pain. She wanted what he could give her, and she was willing to take risks to have it. Risks. God. That made no sense. She had to take risks to be safe? And yet, it made perfect sense.

Running the pad of his thumb across her lower lip, back and forth, a soft caress, he moved his mouth closer to hers, but still he didn’t kiss her. Her breath was lost, gone, trapped somewhere in her chest.

Oh, please. Please
. To her utter mortification, she actually whimpered.

Her nipples were hard, pressing against the lace of her bra, and she wanted his hands on her breasts, her buttocks, his mouth on hers. She opened her mouth, licked his thumb, sucked on it, watched the heat flare in his eyes.

Whatever the risk, she wanted him.

“No going back. I know.” She did know, felt it on some primal level she couldn’t explain, and she sensed he was referring to more than an act of passion.

His mouth curved in a hard masculine smile, and there was nothing kind or gentle about it. The smile was pure male satisfaction as his long body came against her, heavy, blissfully heavy, trapping her between the cold, hard metal at her back, and the muscled heat of him pressed against her front, blocking the wind and the cold. She felt hot, despite the low temperature, wrapped in a sensual haze. The awareness of him was delicious, pouring through her, and the feel of him filtered through her sweater, to her skin, and deeper, to her blood, heating it to boiling.

He tilted his head, kissed her, openmouthed, delicious, and a tight twist of longing coiled deep inside her.

The kiss was not sweet.

Powerful. Extreme. The feeling was anything but sweet.

God
. She’d never felt anything like it, this harsh, jarring wave of passion that left her wet, swollen, dragging her right to the edge in a nanosecond.

Opening her mouth to him, she moaned as his tongue pushed into her, the pleasure sharp and fierce as the kiss sank through her, lower, lower, igniting a luscious fire as it went, leaving her feeling like her clothes were too tight, her skin was too tight, like the slow burn of desire that cycled through her was all she had ever craved. She wanted to feel his body, bare skin to bare skin, slick with sweat.

The kiss was deep, rough, tongue and teeth, and his hands, his strong, blunt-fingered hands were on her waist, her back, her shoulders, and she’d never hungered for anything as much as the sensation of him touching her, kissing her. She pulled him closer, arching her back and offering him anything, everything.

She licked him, wet his lips with her tongue, tasted him with her teeth, her body sizzling with a fiendish heat that made her crazy.

Warm and lush and masculine, the scent of him filled her, making her wild, stroking her need to a finely honed edge as he closed his hand around her thigh, dragged her knee up to hook her leg around him, bringing her closer, tighter.

You move, I move. You breathe, I breathe
.

Beautiful, brave, brilliant Clea Masters.

His body went still as he let his gaze roam over her features, her dark, silky curls, her succulent mouth.

He wanted to take her slow and sweet, take her hard and dirty right here against the car door. On the hood. On the ground. Any way. Every way.

She drew a shaky breath, and he saw a hint of her pink tongue as she caught the tip between her teeth. Desire kicked him in the gut.

He wanted in. Inside her.

The darkness reared within him, coiling, writhing, the skin of his ruined hand burning inside the glove, as though he’d plunged it into a vat of sizzling oil.

He’d hold it back. Keep her safe. He’d do it. He had to. Because it wanted out, wanted her.

But not as much as
he
wanted her.

Leaning close, he inhaled the scent of her skin, running his nose along the side of her neck.

She hitched in a faint breath, drew back, licked her tongue over her kiss-damp lips. His body roared to life, the punch of desire so strong it twisted him up inside.

Christe
.

’Twas madness to take her, with the darkness gnawing at him, demanding release. She’d been subtly draining him all day, of power, of magic, a steady tug on his reserves, and now, in the wake of his fight with the
hybrids,
he was wire-tight, strung to the limit.

He felt too much. Burning lust, and something more, something secret and powerful and fierce. He was nearly undone by it, by the tide of emotion that threatened to tug him under. He didn’t want to name it, didn’t want to recognize it. Didn’t want to have her mean so much to him.

Worse, he didn’t have a clue how it had happened.

Lowering his head, he took her mouth. Gently. A subtle caress. Holding himself in check. He could do this, make slow, sweet love to her without lowering his defenses. Hold her at arm’s length. He could do it. He had to. Anything else could see his destruction. And hers.

But
not
having her just wasn’t an option.

Her gaze was fixed on his lips, her pupils dilated.

Again, he kissed her, smooth, lush, pushing his tongue inside, sucking, biting, rocking his hips toward her.

There were a million reasons he should stop. Now.

And only one reason to continue. Clea. The heat of her. The sweet, sweet, taste. The low, achy moan that told him she was as close to madness as he was. That she wanted him. That she needed him. Needed him to be the one solid thing in her suddenly bizarre, mixed-up world.

The irony of it was that he was neither solid nor safe. He was part demon. Her worst nightmare.

His own worst nightmare.

Her moan was his undoing. He was primed, diamond-hard, blood pounding through him, pooling in his groin with a steady throb.

The pleasure he felt was halfway to pain, flames licking at him and the darkness eroding his control. Just from the taste of her, from the glide of her tongue over his, the press of her lips, the way she was rubbing up against him, like close wasn’t enough.

One of her hands was fisted in his shirt, dragging the material half off his shoulder, and the other hand was skimming along the curve of his hip bone, dipping in to the waistband of his jeans.

Dark and threatening, the thing inside him almost slid loose, vibrating with an intensity far greater than any it had shown before, flaying him with sharp talons as he struggled to drag it back.
Christe
. It wanted her, wanted Clea. It wanted to cross the connection, flow into her, take her, and his determination ramped up even higher.

How could she not feel it, not sense the malevolence in his soul? How could she not be afraid?

He caught her wrist, pulling back to study her face, and she laughed, the sound low and throaty. Then she leaned forward and ran her tongue along the ridge of his pectoral, getting a tiny taste of him before she sank her teeth into skin and muscle, hard enough for him to feel it, almost hard enough to hurt.

His cock jumped, and she laughed again, that sexy, husky laugh that beckoned to him.

And the evil inside him uncoiled, eager to slither beyond its cage.