InsistentHunger (39 page)

Brady slowly lowered his weight down onto her, his warmth
welcome as her body started to recover from the lust that had left her fever
hot.

“Fuck,” Brady breathed the word like a prayer.

“Good fucking,” Paige agreed, just as out of breath as he
was. For a time, they lay, legs tangled, arms wrapped around each other. Sweat
gathered between them, and as their bodies cooled, Paige pressed a kiss to
Brady’s shoulder. When she’d had other men in her bed, sex had been the high
point, with them leaving shortly after. Now though, she just wanted to lie here
and feel Brady’s body against hers and listen to him struggle to get his body
under control after she drove him past all reason.

She was almost asleep when Brady’s fingers slipped between
her nether lips, finding the little bud of the clit and softly stroking it. Her
body twitched happily as she let herself drift gently. They lay like that for
minutes or hours, Paige losing track of time as she lay tangled with him.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

They lay there until Brady started moving restlessly. Paige
had shifted and now Brady pressed himself against her back, his arm draped over
her waist. “Brady?” she asked softly. She felt as though loud words would break
the spell that had settled over them.

“Gavril is down there.”

“Yeah, he was when I came up,” Paige agreed. However, one
glance over her shoulder suggested that Brady was upset. When she turned, she
also leaned back against his solid body enough to feel something hot and hard
pressing against the soft of her ass. “And I think you have other things on
your mind,” Paige pointed out. “Enjoy the recovery time when you’re young,” she
teased.

“As a demon, I—” Brady cut himself off. “You’re giving me
shit, aren’t you?”

“Yep,” Paige agreed. “And I’m hoping you know what to do
with that.” Brady needed a little distracting—a little calming. Oh Paige could
imagine what Gavril’s reaction was, especially since he had told Brady she
wouldn’t come back. That felt like a preemptive strike to keep Brady from
making contact with her. However, she’d been dealing with pushy little bastards
like Gavril for a long time, and the fact that he was a demon wasn’t going to
slow her down. However, Brady’s obvious stress wouldn’t improve anything. And
there wasn’t a man out there who didn’t enjoy a little stress relief when he
was hot and hard.

She pressed back and his cock slipped between her legs. The
head pressed along the length of her cleft and Paige groaned as that reawakened
her need.

“Oh shit. I can’t think when you make noises like that,”
Brady complained, but then he pressed little kisses along the back of her neck
and shoulder. Paige lifted a leg and scooted back. Brady’s breath came hot
against the back of her neck and it took some scooting and pulling, but the
head of Brady’s cock finally slipped inside her pussy. Paige groaned as the sex
awoke the delicious soreness she could still feel from earlier.

One of Brady’s arms slipped under her and curled around her
waist. His fingers spread against her stomach and Paige grabbed his hand,
holding it tightly as he rocked in and out of her body. This time the climax
built slower. With each thrust, he breathed out against the back of her neck,
individual hairs moving in the breeze that created. Paige lay her head down on
the pillow and wallowed in the sensual pleasure. With him behind her, she
couldn’t even reach for him or reciprocate. She could only enjoy the slow,
building pleasure as his thrusts moved slightly faster.

He was moaning now, sucking on her shoulder so that Paige
would have one hell of a hickey later. Paige could feel her own body slowly
tighten with the coming orgasm, but there was nothing urgent, only a slow drift
into blind desire as his cock thrust deeper and deeper. His other hand wrapped
around her, but this time fingers crept down to flick at the swollen clit, and
Paige’s slow slide into orgasm turned into an express ride.

Bucking forward, she cried out and Brady started rubbing the
clit. Hard. Paige grabbed at the arms that encircled her and Brady’s thrusts
grew fierce, driving forward so hard and fast that his thighs slapped against
her ass and Paige cried out as her legs stiffened and her orgasm crashed into
her. She fisted the sheets and he was pumping into her, his cock feeling
thicker as her pussy tightened.

“Paige,” he groaned, his weight shifting so that she was
suddenly on her stomach, pinned against the mattress. Paige threw her legs wide
and arched her back, bracing herself on her elbows to give him a better angle
as he finished. Brady cried out and collapsed on her. Paige held his weight up
in a sort of yoga cobra pose for a half second before she collapsed onto the
bed. Her heart pounded so hard she could feel her pulse behind her eyes, and
her pussy throbbed in time with it. Her whole body felt delightfully well-used.

“I’m definitely going to start taking yoga,” she muttered,
still pinned by his weight, but this time he didn’t drift off into
pseudo-sleep. He rolled to the side, his hand reaching out for the side of the
bed.

“He’s coming up,” Brady muttered, his cock still half-hard
and slowly shrinking back to normal size.

“That’s a nice way to kill the post-sex haze,” Paige
complained as she sat up and searched for her shirt. She suspected that Gavril
had seen more naked women than he could keep track of, but Paige didn’t plan to
give him a peep show.

Brady was in the middle of pulling on his pants when he
looked at her. “He doesn’t understand,” he said, and then he bit his lip. It
was an adorable gesture.

“Everyone is confused by something, Brady. For me, it’s
soccer. I really don’t understand the appeal. At least with football I can see
cute guys slap each other on the ass,” she joked. Brady just looked more
horrified.

“He could hurt you,” he whispered in a horrified voice. Then
he straightened up. “I won’t let him,” he said fiercely.

Paige appreciated the loyalty, but she didn’t figure she was
a big enough threat to bother hurting. “Brady, he doesn’t need to hurt me. I’m
not going to tell his secrets and he’s already made it clear that he’d rather
have a truce with other demons, so he’s not going to intentionally piss you
off, not unless you’ve done something so stupid or dangerous that he thinks
you’re worth killing.” Paige was certain of that.

Brady’s face suddenly twisted with fear. “What if he kills
you?”

“With this many demons around?” Paige asked with a laugh.
“Like you pointed out, I’d be demonic Paige in two seconds, and then he’d have
twice as big of a mess to clean up. I’m not even worried about that.” Paige
pulled on her pants.

“How can you be so calm?”

Paige looked at Brady while she fastened her pants. “I’ve
faced drunks armed with shotguns and drag-racing teenagers with
five-thousand-pound cars and no common sense. They weren’t demons, but they
could have killed me as easily as Gavril could.”

“That shows more common sense than most humans seem to
employ.” Gavril stood in the open doorway even though Paige didn’t remember the
door being open.

“That’s me,” Paige said cheerfully. “Have you seen my other
shoe?” She held up a brown loafer. Even if she was trying to play this off as
not a major problem, she could feel fear curl around her spine. Some of that
was the wide-eyed panic on Brady’s face. Paige made a mental note to experiment
with sex until she could leave him limp and boneless and unable to get himself
worked into a panic. She also made a mental note to find out what Gavril had
done to him in these past few months. He was afraid.

Gavril looked at Brady as though expecting some comment, but
Brady was standing with his hands clenched into fists, his body a statue with
his arms bent at odd angles.

“I had thought that when he explained the danger of turning,
you would leave.”

“Nope,” Paige said.

For a moment, Gavril seemed confused by how he should
respond to that. Confusing Gavril probably wasn’t good since he’d just become
the equivalent of her father-in-law. Given her relationship with her own
father, she wasn’t sure how to deal with father figures, so she went with her
strength, brutal honesty.

“Maybe we can lay our cards on the table,” she suggested.
Gavril tilted his head, but he didn’t object. “I like Brady. I don’t have a lot
of experience with the emotion, but I’m pretty certain I love Brady. I don’t
care if he’s living here and loyal to you or living on his own in a cabin in
Montana, I’d probably follow. It’d be handy if he stayed in the city, though,
since there aren’t a lot of jobs for ex-cops in Montana. I assume,” Paige added
with a shrug. “And if Brady thinks that loyalty to you is the best, then I’m
going to follow him in that too.”

Gavril slid into the room, his body language alien in a way that
made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. “And if he is stupid and I
must discipline him like a child? To me, he is a child, a newborn dropped into
a dangerous world.”

“Just leave me out of that,” Paige said, her hands up.
Gavril was talking about punishment, but Brady didn’t look afraid. From the
blush coloring the tops of his ears, he was embarrassed, but not afraid or
upset. “You two are demons and I’m not going to get in the middle of whatever
demonic business you have going.”

Gavril jerked back.

When Paige just studied him, trying to find some key to his
thoughts by watching his alien body language, Brady stepped forward. “Why are
you so against having humans here? Michael lives here.”

“Michael will not be turned,” Gavril said, his eyes turning
brilliant red.

“I don’t want Paige turned either.”

Gavril turned his back on Brady and focused on Paige. “When
you grow old or sick or injured, he won’t be able to let go. He’ll allow
another to take your body, to hold your memories.”

Paige had understood that before Gavril said anything. “I
know,” she agreed. Again, his head tilted oddly on that long neck.

“I won’t,” Brady objected.

“You will,” Paige said just as firmly. “If I’d been there
when Dorothy turned you, I would have wanted to save whatever part of you I
could. If the only part I could save was the body and the memories, I would
have saved that and counted myself lucky to not lose everything.” At her words,
Brady’s eyes reddened with emotion. “However, I’ll be gone by then. While I’m
here, I’m going to take as much time with Brady as I can. That’s all people
ever have when they fall in love.”

Gavril straightened up. “Imagine all your darkest needs and
hatred loosed on the world,” Gavril said quietly, and suddenly the pieces
clicked into place. Dorothy had asked Gavril to save her, to turn her, and then
she had turned on him and massacred dozens of people. Gavril had sent Hunter
after her, and after seeing both Gavril and Dorothy fight, it hadn’t been out
of fear. She wondered if Dorothy was Michael’s grandmother and how many humans
Gavril had seen lost to darkness. The demon learned from the human memories,
after all, and as a cop, Paige knew humans hid darkness deep inside themselves.
Dorothy stood by while women were raped to death, and that evil came from the
human she’d once been… the human Gavril had once cared so much for that he’d
saved her from death.

“I have my issues,” Paige said slowly, realizing this was
the moment when she had to convince her father-in-law that she was worthy or
this family would be twisted enough to make her birth family look like the
Waltons. “When the day comes, I hope you’ll be there to make sure the child who
comes into the world with my memories isn’t dropped into a dangerous world
without guidance,” she said, tacitly giving Gavril permission to take her demon
in hand if or when the day came. Paige wondered what the demon would think if
it moved into a body with this memory—a pledge of loyalty that Paige intended
to bind the demon. Then again, Paige really hoped that by the time she died
she’d be a hundred and two and so old and shriveled that the demon would have a
lot of other problems to worry about first.

Gavril held her gaze for several seconds before he turned
and left the room without a word.

Paige let out a breath and collapsed back onto the bed.
“Okay, he has issues, and as someone with color-coordinated and alphabetized
issues, I can say that with some authority,” she said.

Brady was grinning. “He likes you.”

She pushed herself up on her elbows. “He walked out without
a word,” she pointed out.

“But he…” Brady frowned for a second and then put his hand
over his heart. “I can hear his song and he sings of liking you.”

“Really?” Paige felt shock all the way down to her toes. At
best she’d wanted to avoid hatred and resentment, but in her wildest dreams,
she never expected Gavril to like her.

Brady’s grin grew wider. “Welcome to the family,” he said.
With a whoop, he dove for her, scooping her up by her waist and swinging her
around. Paige laughed. It was an odd beginning to a new life, but then normal
was boring. Grabbing Brady’s shoulders, she held on as he danced through the
room, holding her high and spinning them both.