Demon's Kiss (16 page)

Well, thanks for the lesson. She was a fast learner, and she wanted him as she had never wanted anything in her whole life.

Tugging his head down to hers, she kissed him, tired of the little game of back-and-forth, tired of him holding back, pulling back, studying her reactions. She wanted him crazy. Wild like he made her wild. He opened his mouth, and she sucked on his tongue, a desperate craving cycling through her. Something fierce and dangerous reared inside him, a little frightening; she could feel it there, lacing the magic that poured from him into her like decadent, rich chocolate, melted and warm.

Only what she sensed was something more. Hungry, dark need, stripped to its most basic core.

“I’m not afraid,” she whispered, somehow knowing that he needed to hear it. Except she
was
afraid. Afraid of the bizarre turn her life had taken, the danger that hovered in the air. But not of him. Despite everything she had seen, she definitely wasn’t afraid of him.

With a low groan, he moved his body against hers, stoking the flame in the pit of her belly as he pushed his tongue into her mouth and pressed her back against the car. The kiss, the taste of him, moist, deep, tongue and teeth, turned her blood lava-hot, stole her breath.

Catching the hem of her sweater, he dragged it up over her head, tossed it aside, and shoved her jeans down her legs. She toed off her shoes, then her jeans the last bit, and kicked them aside. She didn’t feel the cold, and she thought it was somehow tempered by his magic.

Eyes glittering, he stood watching her, and then he smiled, a sexy curve of his lips that made her shiver.

“Take your bra off.” His voice was rough with passion, his gaze hot.

Her hands were shaking as she reached up and obeyed, liking the sound of his voice, liking the way he looked at her and the feeling of him watching her, hungry, primal. She couldn’t seem to catch her breath, her heart pounding a frantic rhythm. There was something undeniably erotic about standing almost naked under the stars, clad only in black thong underwear, before a man who was still mostly clothed.

Reaching out, he cupped her breast, stroked his thumb along her nipple, pinched it lightly, sending a riot of sensation screaming through her.

His gaze raked her. “
Christe
. Clea. You are so beautiful you defy even a sorcerer’s vast imagination.”

She was on fire, liquid heat sliding through her veins, and she wanted to feel his skin gliding along her own. A damp throb exploded at the juncture of her thighs, and she was suddenly desperate to have him inside her, hard and thick and deep. She wanted him sheathed inside her, stretching her, filling her; she wanted to unleash his darkest passion.

She took a step forward, her legs like rubber, and pressed herself against him, a shaky laugh tumbling from her lips. Feeling the bulge of his erection, thick and full, straining against the fabric of his jeans, she rubbed her hips slowly back and forth. His hands were on her breasts, kneading, pinching her nipples, twisting gently, then just a little harder. Soft sounds of pleasure drifted from her lips.

He kissed her, openmouthed, luscious, until she could barely think, until she was awash in sensation, pleasure, and the sweet ache of passion. And then he put his mouth on her breast, his tongue circling the sensitive peak.

“Oh, God,” she whispered, twining the thick strands of his hair around her fingers, dragging his head closer. “Please. I want . . .”

His lips closed around her, sucking on her, his teeth scraping lightly against the aching flesh, and she cried out, arching her back in ecstasy.

As though he could read her every want, her every desire, he touched her, kissed her, handling her in the exact ways she needed, stroking her until she couldn’t stand, couldn’t think.

Catching her wrist, he dragged her hand down, helping her ease open his zipper, closing her fingers around the full, heavy length of his erection as it sprang free of the cloth. Oh, smooth, smooth skin and burning heat, the heft of him in her hand, so thick, so hard. He kept his fingers around hers, working their hands together from the crown, down along the shaft and up again, slow firm strokes that made her ache to kneel before him, to suck his erection into her mouth, deep into her throat.

He laughed, a wicked sound that made her shiver, made her ache. “Later,” he whispered, as though he could read her mind, and she could feel a change in him, whatever reins he had held tight loosening, freeing just a little.

With a yank, he ripped her underwear off her body and slid his hand between her thighs, pushing two fingers up into the wet, slick heat of her, a smooth movement. She was so ready for him, and his fingers were so unbearably clever, in, then out, then in again, and she cried out, waves of sensation tearing at her, making her rock her pelvis, seeking the heel of his hand where it rubbed her clitoris. The pressure was enough to make her ache, make her moan, but not enough to give release.

God, he was so hot, so hard, so amazingly sexy.

She licked the golden skin of his chest, tasting salt and man, then tilted her head back and met his lips with hers. Savage pleasure spiraled through her, and she could feel the pulse of his magic twined with the dark throb of whatever he held leashed inside himself, desperate to be free, to get out, to get inside her, the intense edge only stoking her already inflamed senses.

“Condom,” she muttered.

“I don’t catch human diseases.” His voice was strained, tight. “And I can’t pass any to you.”

The connection between them hummed, and she didn’t doubt that he spoke the truth. “I need you inside me.”

She felt the pulse of his magic, so hot it almost burned, blending with the sensation of his touch. One more level of pleasure.
I need to be one with you. Joined with you.
The strength of her emotion frightened her, and she pushed it away. Sex. It was only sex.

Only it wasn’t. It was a melding, a true joining.

He slid his fingers along the curve of her hips to her waist, his hands closing around her, lifting her, pressing her up against the car door as she wrapped her legs around his waist.

Running her hands over the muscles of his arms, she groaned, loving his strength, the steely firmness of his shoulders, his forearms. God. She couldn’t have imagined it. Letting him take her under the stars, up against cold glass and steel, his teeth closing on the sensitive skin of her neck, one big warm hand holding the globe of her buttock while the other guided his erection between her legs. She couldn’t have imagined it, but now, she couldn’t imagine not having it, not having him.

“Ciarran.” His name was a whisper. The feel of him, the head of his cock so broad, so smooth, working into her, slow shallow thrusts, stretching her. He was so big. Hot. Slick. One firm thrust, and he was all the way inside her, the sensation overwhelming. She clung to him, held in the solid strength of his embrace, her body trembling as he hooked his arms under her knees, hiked her just a little higher, giving him better access, deeper access, tipping her pelvis at an angle so right, so perfect, that every stroke shot bolts of pleasure radiating from her core.

She dug her fingers into his hard shoulders, pushing herself flush against him, wanting him deeper, wanting him frenzied, wanting him pumping into her as consumed by frantic hunger as she was, as driven by need.

“
Christe
. Clea. I can’t—” A sharp hiss escaped him, and he pulled her tighter, thrust into her with fast, hard strokes, sending them both into a crazy spiral. He dipped his head, took her nipple in his mouth, sucked on her, a hard, tugging pull.

The power inside her swirled in concert with his, and for the first time, there was no pain to accompany the glowing rhythm, the energy, the magic that was her long-held secret. Her power, led by his, a concert, beautiful, sensual, joining them on every level. She sank her teeth into her lower lip, her head falling back against the roof of the car, her body trembling as she began to convulse in the throes of her climax, her pleasure sizzling along the magical current that connected them.

White light and stark satisfaction. She had never felt anything like it. And still he moved within her, slower now, sheathing himself inside her, withdrawing, prolonging her pleasure as she whispered his name again and again, the throbbing in her body drawn out in an endless road of delight.

He felt her orgasm, the sensation unutterably erotic, the swell of her rapture reaching across their bond, from her, into him. Gritting his teeth, Ciarran held himself in check, battling sensation and utter need, unwilling to drop the last of his barriers, unwilling to chance the demon’s release.

“Let go, Ciarran. You won’t hurt me.” Clea laid her palm against his cheek, her eyes dark and slumberous, as she moved against him, her hips rocking to meet his thrusts, increasing the rhythm once more.

Oddly, he believed her. In their joining was strength, not weakness. He was stronger than the demon within.

With a groan, Ciarran reached down, his fingers sliding over her swollen clitoris, stroking her until she squirmed and moaned, so slick, so beautifully responsive. He moved his hips, slowly at first, the sound of her sighs and whimpers pushing him ever closer to the edge, his body shouting for release.

Panting, she was panting, her body straining against his, and he sensed she was going to come again, unravel around him in a burst of light. His rhythm changed, and she met each thrust, fast, hard strokes until she tensed, her nails raking his skin as she climaxed. The strength of her orgasm and the feel of her muscles clenched tight around him again shoved him over the edge. His cock jerked inside of her as he came in an intense throbbing wave, bodies intertwined, magic intertwined, her pleasure inseparable from his.

He held her for a perfect eternity, or perhaps it was only a moment, the buzz of ebbing pleasure humming through him. As the aftershocks subsided, he let her slide the length of his body until her feet touched the ground, her hands straying lightly along his arms, as though she was yet unwilling to break their physical connection.

In a fury, the thing inside him, the part that was dark, stinking demon, jerked viciously at its chains.

Her gaze slid to Ciarran. He had killed for her, to protect her. Again.

And he’d made love to her. Mind-blowing, wicked, amazing love.

There had been an instant of pure connection, a wonderful moment of completion, and then as though a metal grate had clanged down between them, he’d pulled back, his demeanor, his expression so controlled. She felt as though the aftermath of their lovemaking had sealed him in a stark, empty room with his own private pain, pushed him away from her rather than drawing him closer. As though everything depended on him keeping up an imaginary wall.

Now he stared straight ahead, steering with his left hand. His jaw tensed each time he used his right hand to change gears, and she knew he had to be in pain. His arm was bleeding where the
hybrid
had slashed him, the edges of the deep gash gaping wide. She thought she could see bone.

“Shouldn’t you be healing by now?” she asked, appalled by the extent of his wound, doubly horrified because she had been so caught up in the heat of their passion, she hadn’t even thought of it until now.

“My magic is depleted.” His tone was harsh.

Depleted. By the battle with the
hybrids
? With a rush of heat, she thought of the way he’d lifted her against the car, pumped into her with strength and power. That definitely could not have been good for his injury. So, no, she didn’t think he was depleted only by the battle.

She caught hold of the shoulder seam of her sweater, using her teeth to gnaw enough of a hole that she could tear the sleeve free. Shimmying the cloth down her arm, she pulled it off and deftly wrapped Ciarran’s wound.

He glanced down, then returned his attention to the road, saying nothing.

“You need to get to a hospital,” she whispered, staring at the blood that was already seeping through the makeshift bandage.

Red, red blood. It had been everywhere. On her hands. The ground. Pouring from her parents’ bodies like twin fountains. Pouring from her own body, from her leg, from the gaping hole in her belly.
The crash. Images flashed at her with vivid clarity, images she had not known were branded in her mind. God. No wonder she’d buried the memories so deep.

She shuddered, remembering the sight of her abdomen gaping open and her intestines spilling out like thick, fat worms. Blood everywhere. And the smell of sulfur and death. Those memories made no sense. They must be flawed, because she bore no scars, and the injuries she recalled would definitely have left marks.

Actually, the wounds she recalled should have killed her.

“A hospital?” Ciarran shot her a sardonic glance. “St. John’s?”

Thrusting aside the horrible images that assailed her, she focused on Ciarran’s question. She frowned, thinking of Terry’s assertion that two women had died at St. John’s, but thinking, too, of something more, something that nagged at the edge of her thoughts. She tapped her fingertips against her thigh, concentrating, the connection evading her.

St. John’s.

Something about the hospital . . .

And then it hit her, a thought too absurd to have any possibility of being accurate.

Asa Paley. Suave, handsome Asa, who had pursued her and wooed her when she’d put in some observation time at St. John’s. He should have been her dream man. In fact, on occasion she’d had the thought that he was too perfect, his words too pat. For some inexplicable reason he hadn’t seemed all that attractive to her. There were times she’d even thought he repelled her, though she couldn’t have pinpointed exactly why that was so.

Thinking about it now, she could
swear
she’d seen Dr. Asa Paley tonight, lurking in the shadows outside her building just before the
hybrids
had attacked. And how crazy was that?

“No, don’t go to St. John’s.” She shook her head. “General is closer, maybe ten minutes—”

“I don’t need a hospital.” His tone didn’t encourage discussion.

She glanced at his arm. The cloth she’d tied around it was already soaked, stained red, glistening wetly in the glow of the streetlights that illuminated the car.

“You’re not healing,” she pointed out. Not the way he’d healed the previous night when the demon cut him, or when they’d jumped through the window this morning. He was different somehow. She could feel it. “What happened back there? What . . . ?”

The question caught, a glutinous mass trapped in her throat. Did she really need to hear the answer? Did she want to?

He wasn’t the sorcerer of light she had thought. Not all bright and good.

Oh, he had saved her, but the threat, the unfettered power and pulsating menace that had crashed from him in waves, the acid mist and the polished blades that had ripped his skin, tearing their way free, those things had seemed more apt for one of those demons than a light sorcerer. She had a definite feeling that something wasn’t right.

The look on his face as he battled the
hybrids,
lips peeled back in a feral snarl, had been danger and menace and deadly intent,
without restraint
. Not the way he had been at the Blue Bay Motel, when he’d shown such icy control, so politely inviting the demon to leave, only battling when the creature refused to go.

No. As he had fought the
hybrids
tonight, he had been something else entirely, something she did not recognize. Unfettered. Without checks and balances.

She should have been afraid, but when she looked at him, her bruised and battered champion, she saw only the man who was her lover. Her rescuer.

She wanted to rescue
him,
save him from all his darkest torments. And she was absolutely certain that he had those in spades.

Turning down a narrow alley, Ciarran drove to the very end before killing the headlights and the engine. Sound and light filtered from the main road, and Clea squinted, studying her surroundings. On the right was a wall of dirty red brick, marked by graffiti, with cracked and rotting boards nailed across the windows. On the left was a building of drab gray concrete, with barred windows on the second floor and an industrial door at the top of a short staircase. The balustrade was torn from its mooring, hanging loose like a ragged hangnail.

“Umm . . . I thought you said you were taking me home. Are you sure we’re in the right place?” Clea asked, looking around warily as Ciarran opened the door and stepped from the car. This dirty alley sure didn’t fit with the way she had imagined he lived.

“Yeah.” Resting one hand on the roof of the car, he ducked his head to look at her, his expression unreadable. “We’re in the right place.” He shut the door and walked around to her side.

After climbing from the car, she turned to watch as the wind sent a sheet of newspaper tumbling along the ground, end over end, until it came to rest atop a small hill of paper and cardboard that lay in a damp pile against the wall where crumbling concrete met filthy pavement. The refuse melded into a miniature mountain at the side of an overflowing Dumpster that spewed garbage, tainting the air with the stink of rot and decay.

“Nice.” Clea laughed, a nervous sound that ricocheted off the walls. He was so close, a damaged angel, with his perfect, perfect face and his warm skin, smooth over steely muscle. The dark stain of his blood oozed from beneath the makeshift bandage she’d made, dripping down his arm.
God
. She hated the sight of his blood because it felt wrong on so many levels. She hated that he’d been hurt and, worse, that he’d been hurt protecting her.

Turning away, she made a sweeping gesture with one hand. “I love what you’ve done with the place.”

“Open your mind, Clea.” His breath was warm against the skin of her nape as he stepped close behind her, and she inhaled the scent of him, clean and fresh and so luscious as it wrapped around her, blocking out anything, everything, else. How could he smell so good after what he’d just been through?

“Choose to see that which is unexpected,” he said. “See between the molecules and atoms. Color outside the lines, Clea mine.”

Clea mine.
She swayed, mesmerized by the sound of his voice, smoke and velvet, weaving around her and through her, so seductive. “I don’t understand.”

“See beyond mortal reality. Some realms overlap, occupying time and space in perfect synchrony. This”—he reached around her to make a smooth gesture with his gloved hand—“
this
is my reality.”

She felt it, the glow of his magic, jumping from him into her; then she did see. A door. Unexpected. Lovely.

With a gasp, she stumbled forward, laying her hand on the intricately carved wooden door. It looked ancient. Beautifully preserved. So out of place here in this alley . . .

Spinning, she saw that the alley had faded away.

Now the moon drenched a courtyard with a fountain, painting it in shades of variegated silver, a dazzling luminosity. She saw it. She
saw
it.

Moving as if in a dream, she walked toward the fountain, dipped her hand in the water, felt the cool wetness on her skin. She studied the shimmering rivulets as they streamed from her fingertips. Laughing, she turned to face Ciarran and found him watching her with naked longing.

Touch me. Take me. Make love to me again.
She barely held herself back from going to him, from smoothing her fingers along the harsh line of his jaw, tunneling her hands into the strands of his thick hair and dragging his mouth down to hers.

He was so savagely beautiful, it almost hurt to look at him. Tonight, the wizard had been the darkest kind, primitive, even frightening, clothed in the shroud of menace that breached his control. She knew the darkness was there still, just beneath the surface, lurking, surging, trying to get free. She had felt it as they made love, and she felt it now.

Pressing her hands against her thighs, she ran her palms up and down. She swallowed, looked away. Why did she feel that she had somehow been the catalyst, that she was somehow responsible for unleashing the beast and somehow responsible, too, for helping to cage it? It made no sense.

Crazy. She felt crazy. Not like herself at all. She had thought that following her usual routine, feeding her friends at Box Town, would make her feel better, stronger, more like Clea. And it had. Definitely. But at the same time, she felt so
unlike
herself. Strong, too strong, like she could do anything. Jittery and hot, her skin tingling and, deep inside, her power coiling.

Her gaze shot to Ciarran. She’d wanted him so badly. The recollection of it washed through her now, hot enough that it almost had her dropping to her knees. She wanted him again, despite what she’d seen, despite what she’d felt, the terrifying strength and the infinite threat that pulsed deep inside his core. He was not human. And he was not pure light and goodness. He was darkness and power and barely leashed danger. He was not anything safe or tame.

She didn’t care. They were linked somehow. She was bound to him, to the darkness as much as to the light, to what he had become there outside her apartment. Disturbing. Terrifying. Protecting
her
.

Yeah. This was crazy. It was far, far outside her experience, and all she knew was that she wanted to be close to Ciarran, plastered up against him, kneeling over him, running her tongue along the salty warmth of his skin, sucking on him, biting him, feeling him push up, into her, deep inside her. Again. She wanted him again.

“What’s happening to me?” she whispered.

“Nothing.” His voice was a low rasp.

Only she knew he was lying, or if not exactly lying, not exactly telling the truth. She felt . . . different. She was different.

He crossed the courtyard and opened the ornately carved wooden door, moving carefully, as though he didn’t want to get too close, didn’t want to touch her, not even the most casual contact. “Come on. Let’s go inside.”

Following him through the open door, she stumbled to a halt and stared. Stunned, she turned a full circle, tried to take it all in. “Wow.”

Marble columns shot to the ceiling, defining an enormous entry hall. She tilted her head back to look up, way up. “You know, from the outside, this building didn’t look quite so tall.”

He made a low sound of amusement. “Look between the molecules, Clea. See what’s really here rather than what you think is here.”

If she could see demons and
hybrids,
then it was no big stretch to see marble columns. Nodding, she turned back, peeked out the door they had just passed through. The alley was there, just beyond the courtyard. She leaned out, craning her neck until she saw the Dumpster pushed up against the wall, the pile of rotting cardboard at its base.

“Nothing has made sense since that demon showed up at the Blue Bay.” She pulled the door shut, closing out the night. “So I guess that my whole world has changed, right?”

“Much has changed.” The way he said it made her think that it wasn’t just much; it was
everything
.

She stepped farther into the hall and looked around. The walls were lined with gorgeous vases, artwork, even weapons. She moved closer to look at a glass case filled with tiny hand-painted bottles. For a moment, she studied them, then realized she had seen an exhibit like this at the museum. Chinese snuff bottles.