Her Wicked Angel (Her Angel Romance Series Book 6) (17 page)

She cursed the water. She wanted to see just what sort of weapon this man concealed down there.

Liora moved closer and he spread his thighs to accommodate her, inviting her in. Her knees hit his backside and she moved to his left thigh, cleaning it with the same care as she had his other one. The water began to turn muddy with blood around them. She didn’t care. She was entranced by how fiercely Asmodeus reacted to every innocent sweep and stroke of her palms.

He would look at her one moment with such fire in his eyes that she felt she was going to get burned, and then tip his head back and growl the next, exposing his short fangs and causing every muscle of his honed delicious torso to tense and delight her.

She finished with his legs and carefully washed his face, giving him a moment to get his breathing back under control and slowing things down. He was used to her touching him here, brushing his sculpted cheeks with her fingers, tracing the firm curve of his lower lip with the pad of her thumb. His lips parted and his breath was cool on her overheated flesh, teasing her and sending goose bumps rushing up her arms.

Mother Earth, she wanted to kiss him. The hunger for it twisted her stomach into knots and heated her belly.

Liora forced herself to finish her work first and swept her hands down his neck, careful to keep her motions lighter whenever she was cleaning where the heaviest bruising had been. She stroked his Adam’s apple and stared at it, lost in her thoughts and feeling her magic come to a rolling boil in her veins.

“You are… annoyed. Why?” Asmodeus’s deep voice pulled her up from the quagmire of her thoughts and she raised her eyes to meet his. Confusion shone in them.

“He crushed your windpipe, didn’t he?” She skimmed her fingertips over his throat, remembering how black the bruises had been, and how badly he had been hurt.

Annoyed was putting it mildly. She had rarely felt this angry. It was dangerous for her to let her emotions rule her like this. Her power could easily slip beyond her control, her feelings taking the reins and driving her to let go of all reason and fight without restraint. It had happened a few times, most notably when her parents had been taken from her. She had destroyed many lives that night in the maelstrom of her rage and pain.

“Yes.” Water splashed as he lifted his hand from beneath the surface and caught hers, gently holding it to his throat. The touch soothed her, calming her rising magic until it simmered back down to a steady undercurrent in her blood. “It is nothing I would not have healed.”

“How can you say that… as if it was nothing?” she snapped and snatched her hand back, her rough sudden movements sending small waves rippling outwards across the pool’s surface. Her magic spiked again, blistering her blood, her fury demanding she unleash it and make Asmodeus’s master pay for his sin of harming her angel. “He tried to kill you… he’s a bastard… a vicious, evil, conniving bastard, and I want his head for what he did to you.”

Asmodeus caught her hand and gently drew her back to him. He kissed her fingers one by one, the action calming her and settling her heart in her chest, soothing the rampant magic in her veins.

“I would endure far worse to keep you safe, my sweet little mortal. Besides, the punishment he meted out for my disrespect and disobedience has had its own rewards.” The wickedness of his smile told her that he meant what they were doing now.

He had been beaten, bruised, and stabbed multiple times by shards of black rock, and then had his throat crushed, and he took it in his stride because she was bathing with him as a result of the pain his master had inflicted upon him? She couldn’t be as forgiving. She wanted the Devil dead for what he had done to Asmodeus.

“I still want his head,” she grumbled and he sighed.

“It would not be wise. To collect his head, you would have to seek him out. It is what he wants. He wants you, Liora, and if you go to him to seek out retribution for what he did to me, he would have you. Do not doubt that. You are not powerful enough to defeat him.” Asmodeus released her hand and smoothed his palm across her cheek. “Do not give him what he desires. Do not make what I suffered worth nothing.”

Liora stilled and absorbed what he had said. He was right. If she tracked down the Devil, she would end up his prisoner, and everything Asmodeus had gone through would have been for nothing.

She lowered her gaze to his chest and then lifted it again, meeting his.

“He still wants you to take me to him, doesn’t he?”

Asmodeus hesitated and then nodded. “I will resist… but I believe it is the reason he allowed me to remain alive rather than killing me once I had fallen unconscious. He still has a use for me.”

The earnest look in his golden eyes spoke to her heart, telling it that he would do his best to go against his master’s orders, resisting his command to take her to him. She brushed her fingers across his throat, her gaze falling there.

The Devil had rendered him unconscious and must have left him then, leaving him exposed and vulnerable, at the mercy of any passing demon or Hell’s angel. She tried to calm her anger but it spiked back up again, burning fiercer than ever as she pictured Asmodeus laying bloodied and beaten, out cold.

Alone.

What if he hadn’t come around when he had or hadn’t been left with enough power to create a portal to take him to his castle? What would have happened to him then?

Asmodeus captured her hand, brought it to his lips and pressed a long kiss to it.

“Sweet Liora…” he murmured against her fingers and closed his eyes. “It touches me that you desire to punish my master for my sake, but bothers me too. Let go of this desire… it is what he wants you to feel and how he wants you to act. Do not give him the satisfaction.”

She nodded, drew their joined hands towards her and kissed a gash on the back of his.

“Sorry,” she whispered and sighed, pushing out all of her anger and irritation, and letting it go. Here she was with a gorgeous man, almost naked, in a hot spring, and she was thinking about spilling blood. Something was very wrong with her. “I won’t do anything stupid… but I can’t help how I feel.”

Asmodeus smiled at her, as if she had given him a beautiful gift with those words, and she blushed and dropped his hand and her gaze at the same time.

She set back to work on cleaning him, taking her time as she washed his chest, slowly revealing his bronzed skin beneath all the blood and black dirt. She luxuriated in running her fingers down his stomach and feeling his muscles quiver beneath her touch, a sign of his returning nerves, and found her willpower lacking once again when she reached the waist of his loincloth beneath the water.

She accidentally brushed the extremely impressive bulge in his loincloth.

Asmodeus moved faster than she could see, snagging her hands and pulling them free of the water, holding them away from him.

She was ready with a false apology when she lifted her gaze to his, expecting to see brooked desire in his eyes.

There was only endless darkness.

His grip on her wrists tightened, crushing her bones together, and she flinched.

“How many males have you touched like this?” he barked, his voice loud as it echoed around the steep hills surrounding the black plain.

The edge to his eyes said that he didn’t really want to know. She could see he was running numbers through his head, numbers that he didn’t like, males he felt he needed to compete with and best.

Liora extricated her hands from his grasp and rubbed her sore wrists before gently taking hold of his hands. She looked deep into his eyes, seeing his need to know what he was up against, how experienced she was, and how much that set him on edge.

“I have touched men like this, but I have only had one lover.”

He didn’t look relieved to hear that. Liora moved closer and released his hands. She ran her palms up his chest, leaned in, and softly captured his lips with hers. His large hands claimed her waist and he slanted his head and kissed her, delving his tongue between her lips. She met it, tangling them together, losing herself all over again.

Asmodeus pulled her against him and her breasts pressed into his chest, her knees hit his backside, and his rested against her hips. His hands slipped over her hips and clutched her bottom, his fingertips pressing in so hard that it bordered on painful. Were his claws out? The thought of him using them to shred her knickers had moisture pooling between her thighs.

“I love the way you kiss me,” she whispered against his lips, teasing him with flicks of her tongue over them. “It’s as if you can’t get enough of me. Can’t you?”

His voice dropped, low and serious, heart-meltingly sexy. “No.
Never
. The more I taste these lips… the more I hunger for them.”

Liora smiled against his mouth. “No man has ever talked to me like you do… and I love it too.”

He pushed her back and searched her eyes, his all swirling red and gold, as on fire as she felt inside. He looked as though he thought she was wonderful for saying such a thing.

If he thought that her honest words were wonderful, he would think her a goddess and be screaming her name at the top of his lungs when she showed him what other things she could do with her mouth.

L
iora was mistaken.

She might be the one screaming his name at the top of her lungs.

Asmodeus had a wicked way of kissing, palming her backside in time with each hard flick of his tongue across her lips and playful nip with his teeth. She moaned when he caught her lower lip between one short fang and his lip, and pulled it into his mouth before thrusting his tongue inside hers and dominating her once again. The man was a quick study, growing in boldness as his hunger slipped its leash and took control.

Liora leaned into him, her breasts mashed against his hard chest, feeling his heart pounding at the same crazy rhythm as hers. He clutched and squeezed her bottom, fingers inching slowly lower, coming to graze her groin. She moaned and undulated her hips, aching for him to touch her where she needed him most, wanting to feel his fingers on her at last.

He released her mouth, panting hard, his eyes blazing crimson fire that burned her. His chest heaved, delicious and hard, muscles straining and delighting her eyes. She couldn’t help herself. She raked her short nails down his pectorals and he hissed in pleasure, his eyes going hooded as he flashed fangs.

She squealed when his hands shot to her waist and he lifted her from the water as if she weighed nothing, and then groaned when he brought her back down astride his hips and she sank down to rub against his hard length. Asmodeus growled and gritted his teeth, the muscle in his jaw flexing as he stared into her eyes, cranking her temperature up with the intensity of his gaze.

Liora grasped his shoulders and rubbed herself along his length, her own hazel eyes going hooded. Mother Earth, she wanted him inside her.

Asmodeus slipped his hands over her thighs and she shivered when he skimmed the inside of them, close to her underwear. He continued downwards to her knees and pushed her back, breaking contact between their bodies. She mewled and tried to get close to him but he held her firm, keeping the distance between them, his gaze commanding her to obey. She didn’t want to behave. She wanted all of him.

He released her, swallowed hard, and moved his hands beneath the water. Doing what?

She found out when he took hold of her hand again, pulled it to him, and wrapped it around his naked hard shaft. Mercy. A shiver went through her, hot and achy, spilling bliss through her veins and making her moan. He gripped her hand with his right one, keeping it on his flesh, and began stroking.

Liora hadn’t expected him to be this forward but she loved it. She liked how tightly he held her hand around his rigid cock, moving it up and down the full length from crown to root, showing her how to pleasure him.

Asmodeus closed his eyes and tipped his head back, grunting as the rhythm built and she began to move with him, stroking him hard but at a measured pace, one that would give him the most pleasure. His arms tensed, muscles bunching beautifully, and his torso followed, every ridge pronouncing itself. Her heart fluttered and belly heated, and she wanted to find her own pleasure. If he wasn’t afraid to show her how he liked to be touched, then she shouldn’t be afraid either.

His eyes snapped open when she took hold of his free hand, slowing the tempo of her strokes, keeping him hard but not pushing him towards the edge.

His red gaze followed her as she led his hand under the water towards her. He swallowed hard, throat flexing with it, and stared at the point where their joined hands entered the water, his breath coming faster again.

Liora stroked him hard to take his mind off it and he screwed his face up and rocked his hips, growling as he thrust through the ring of their joined fingers.

She waited until he was deep in his pleasure and then pushed aside her black panties and slipped his fingers into her folds.

Asmodeus stilled right down to his breathing.

Liora didn’t stop. She gently held his hand from behind, keeping his palm facing her body, curled his ring and little finger over, and stroked her pert nub with his other two fingers.

His gaze narrowed, burning like an inferno now, and he growled, flashing fangs.

She started stroking him again, slower now, moving their hands in time with each other. Asmodeus was a very quick study. Quicker than she had anticipated. He moved his hand against her, gaze intent on the water, as if he could see through it to her and what he was doing. He wanted to see. He wanted to watch their joined hands touching her.

She could do that.

Liora reluctantly took her hand away from his shaft, earning a growl from him. She wiped the angry look from his face by rising to her feet, coming to stand before him, and shimmying out of her knickers.

Asmodeus stared.

Growled.

His hands shot up from the water, spraying it everywhere, and clutched her hips. He drew her closer, his eyes locked on the thatch of curls between her thighs. Liora took hold of one of his hands and guided it to her, curling his fingers over as before so only two remained. She lifted her left leg, her heart pounding, and settled it on his shoulder, pinning him back against the edge of the pool and revealing herself to him.