[M__M 03] Misery Loves Company (21 page)

What if Devon was right about why?

Tentatively, I released my grip on the desk and slid my hands over Devon’s shirt. Beneath the smooth fabric, I could feel the firm outlines of his stomach muscles. And pressed against me, I could feel his arousal. Growing harder, growing stronger, the more I explored his body.

Need strengthened inside me, aching to be released. I had to have more of him. So much more.

Oh, shit.

Devon pulled his face away before I could decide what to do, and I wasn’t sure whether to be grateful and relieved or sad and frustrated.

He breathed as heavily as I did, and the scent of cloves hung in the air between our faces, leaving me dizzy and disoriented. “Prove me wrong, Jess. No more lies. Admit that you want me, that you like me. Admit that no one has a problem with that except you because you hate the thought that you’re capable of wanting Lucen
and
me.”

His breath was so hot on my skin. His body so deliciously hard through his clothes. I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to look at him too. The longing on his face was enough to seduce my better judgment.

No one else had a problem with it. It was true. Neither Lucen nor Devon seemed to care, so why did I?

Because I didn’t want this to be me. I wanted normal, and by normal, I meant normal human. Even when I’d told Lucen I was ready to embrace my satyr side, I’d never let go of wanting that normal human relationship.

But this? This was doubling the non-normality of my life.

I couldn’t have normal human. How many times did I have to be faced with that before I let the idea go? Before I let the fear of not having it go? Devon was right about that too. I was afraid of letting go of the life I’d pictured for myself. I didn’t know if I’d call it my idealized self, but it was my idealized life.

“Jess?” Devon ran his thumb over my mouth, and I couldn’t stop myself from reaching out for it, taking it between my lips slowly and sucking. I wanted to taste him, to take every part of him inside me. His eyes widened, and I could sense him growing more aroused. One hand rested on my hip, and he squeezed. “Admit that you want me because I have wanted you for weeks now.”

I was trembling, and I forced my hands to unclench his shirt. “Of course I want you. You’re a satyr. You do that to people.”

“True. So why can you sense my power and not other satyrs’? It’s because you like me. Just admit it, and admit that it’s okay.”

When it came to relationships, one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do was admit to myself that I trusted and cared about Lucen. He was so different from me. Entrusting your heart to someone was scary enough normally, but with him, all my fear was amplified.

In some ways this was worse. I wasn’t just making myself vulnerable to Devon. I was allowing my entire life to be flipped around.

My heart pounded so hard I should have passed out, but I managed to fling the words off my tongue. “Fine. I like you. Are you happy?”

Devon rested his forehead on mine. “You don’t have to sound so miserable about it.”

“If I’m miserable right now, it’s because you’re an awful tease.”

“Oh, I can be. But I always deliver in the end, and you’ve been at the top of my list for too long.”

I slipped my hands under his shirt, and still my brain screamed that I shouldn’t be doing this. But I couldn’t stop. He felt so good, smooth skin over tight muscle, and I needed to be touched. “Then deliver. I said it, so finish this. I want to be rewarded for my honesty.”

Devon stiffened as I glided my palms around his ribs, higher up his shirt, feeling his body rising and falling with his breaths. He waited for me, unmoving except for the rhythm of his breathing. Waited to see what I did. What I would do, maybe.

I waited for the same, willing the last of my fear to release me.

His hands rested like weights against my hips, so heavy they pinned me in place with no force at all. And still he didn’t move them. A few inches in either direction, that was all I needed.

So I slid mine down him instead, letting my nails lightly brush his skin, entranced by the way he held his breath as they caressed his abs. Lower still, as though they were drawn to the bulge in his pants, and my gaze drawn with them.

Then my hands faltered, hindered by the waistband. It was like the air had turned to honey, thick and sweet, making it hard to move. I knew what I wanted to do, glide my hands lower, unfasten his belt, wrap my fingers around the erection pressed against me. I wanted to breathe him in, taste every delicious inch of his body. Wanted him to burrow himself inside me. Wanted him to make me forget my fear, my hang-ups, myself. Just like Lucen had done our first time together.

I wanted to be changed by his hands.

But I also wanted to pause. Or was that the last traces of my fear slowing me down?

“Jess.” Devon’s fingers finally trailed up my hips. My clothes shielded me, but it didn’t matter. I tensed, my skin coming alive beneath those faintest of touches. My ache growing stronger with each inch of me he covered—hips to stomach to breasts. My nipples hardening as his thumbs grazed them. My eyes closing in my best effort to remain in control.

His lips found mine again, still insistent but gentler this time, teasing as I tried to kiss him more deeply. When I reached for them, he left me groping at air. My tongue longing for a taste denied.

Instead, he nibbled down my throat until he reached my collar. My shirt landed on the floor. I wasn’t sure how, and I moaned as he slipped from my grasp, his mouth working down my chest, lingering over the skin between my breasts, licking and biting, making it hard to breathe. Then I was back to squeezing the life from his desk, succumbing to the throbbing between my legs, while he took his time unbuttoning my jeans.

He toyed with me, as promised, slowly and deliberately sliding my jeans down my hips. His face was a study in focus, his eyes lit with a beautiful hunger. And I had to look away. Had to close my eyes again in order to hold still.

I released the desk to grab his shoulders, urging him on.

“Oh, Jess, I’ve been waiting for this.” Desire had thickened his accent. “You’re not going to make me go faster.”

“I don’t want you to go faster.” I did, but I didn’t. The ache between my legs was growing more intense by the moment, harder and harder to fight.

Devon slipped his hands up my thighs, and I held my breath as his fingers wrapped around the lace band of my underwear. “No, you don’t.”

I whimpered as he drew his face over the satin fabric and draped the waistband in more delicate kisses. My hips gave in to him, wanting and needing to move.

“I think you’ve wet these things through. Best to remove them.” He tugged my underwear off, and it fell to the floor with my jeans. I swallowed, feeling his breaths on my most sensitive skin, the way he barely touched it with his lips. Closer and closer, until we met.

With just one delicate kiss, my knees threatened to give out.

He looked up at me, smiling. “I think I’m going to have to tread very carefully here, aren’t I? Why have you been fighting so long against something you want too much?”

I couldn’t answer him in words.

He didn’t seem to expect any. He grasped my backside with one hand and slipped a finger through my folds with another, and I lost track of everything but his touch. His tongue.

My breaths came in ragged bursts, and I whispered his name over and over to keep from letting him tear me in two. Each syllable felt heavy in my mouth, each letter like a note to myself, a reminder of who I was with, the life I was embracing.

And that it was okay. More than okay. It was fucking amazing.

“Get up here, please.” I tangled my fingers in his hair, trying to pull him onto me.

He took his time obliging, but when I moaned again, he clasped my ass tightly and straightened. I gasped for air, fighting to bring him closer, deeper. My hands fumbled with his pants button, and his sharp breath when I wrapped my hand around his cock made me shiver.

“Now.” I burrowed my face against his neck, hungry for the salt of his skin, but he cupped my cheeks and lifted my head away.

“What are you, Jess?”

There were too many choice answers to that, but for once, my smart-ass mouth couldn’t be bothered. I had to give him the one he wanted, or he was going to leave me desperate like this. The sweet agony of him pressed against me, but not in me, was too much.

“I’m a satyr,” I whispered.

He leaned into me, nipped at my lip, then pulled harder at it with his teeth until I cried out. “Yes, you are.”

Then he lifted me onto the edge of the desk. My legs curled around his hips and my arms around his back, and he plunged inside me. I grabbed him harder, tighter, working toward his mouth again, then wrestling with his tongue and tangling my hands through his hair. Trying to take everything he was able to give until I finally did with a scream torn from my throat and my hands locked around fistfuls of his shirt.

Devon shuddered with me, his moan increasing the residual spasms still flowing through me. Then his breathing settling into pace with mine. His arms held me upright, and I clung to his back, feeling sweat drip down my neck. When I rested my head against the hollow of his throat, it was the scent of cloves I breathed in.

It wasn’t the same as cinnamon, but it was damned good too.

Chapter Twenty-Four

I rolled over, and my eyelids cracked open. A sliver of light peeked around the edge of a heavy, gray curtain.

I frowned. This was not right. The window was way too close to the bed.

Wakefulness intruded on my sense of peace, and more wrongness occurred to me. The sheets felt strange, and they smelled stranger. This was not my bed. Nor was it Lucen’s.

I sat up with a start, and memories of last night rushed to the front of my thoughts. Letting out a breath, I checked the clock and sank back onto the mattress. I needed to go home.

Next to me, Devon stirred. For once, he didn’t look so perfectly put together. His hair was a mess and he needed to shave, but under the sheet, his naked body called to me. Those memories threatened to stick around for a while.

“What are you doing?” The way he forced his eyes open looked painful.

I bid the memories and the feelings they aroused to go away. “I need to leave.”

“Already? It’s only…” he rolled onto his side to see the clock, “…early. Too early.”

“I have work to do. Stuff I should have been working on yesterday when I got sidetracked by the sylphs, and then you. I’m behind.” I tossed off the covers so I could climb over him more easily.

Devon reached out and yanked me back. He looked alert now, and his hands slid around me, grabbing my backside and waking up more memories. I shuddered with them. “You weren’t really planning on sneaking out on me, were you?”

“It’s not like I’d never see you again.” And if he didn’t release me soon, I wouldn’t leave. The promise of what he was hiding beneath the sheet tormented me.

“True.” He let go and proceeded to watch me as I got dressed. “Remember when we first met. I told you never say never.”

I ran my fingers through my unruly hair, wondering how ridiculous I looked. Spending the night at Devon’s had not been in the plan.

Okay, so none of what happened had been in the plan, but sex was one thing. Spending the night in his bed felt way more intimate. What if I snored? Or drooled? It had taken some coaxing before I’d been willing to sleep in Lucen’s bed. So what did this suggest? That since I’d finally agreed to sleep with Lucen I was willing to sleep with anyone?

To be fair to myself, I’d had a strong motivation not to go home. But once Lucen had returned from whatever business Dezzi had sent him on, I hadn’t left. He’d known where I was, and as expected, had encouraged me to stay with Devon. By then, I’d had a couple glasses of wine and was much more open to the suggestion. Not to mention I’d gone a couple rounds with Devon and my body had ached for more.

And speaking of aches, I wondered how long this soreness would last. And whether normal female satyrs had to deal with it.

Willing my thoughts back to the task at hand, I rummaged in my pocket and found a hair tie. Victory. “Yeah, yeah. I remember, and let’s forget it. Don’t make me regret this more than I’m already going to.”

“Please, Jess. The only thing you should regret is not doing this sooner.”

“I’m warning you.”

He grinned up at me, smug but charming. “You won’t regret it, and you shouldn’t. It’s not the end of the world, though it may be the end of your worldview. Embrace it. You might find you can be happy for a change.”

I put my hands over my ears. “I can’t hear you. You’re not my therapist.”

“Thank all that’s unholy, no. This would have been a serious breach of ethics.”

I left him there, hoping for his sake that he went back to sleep. It was early, by pred standards, but I was working on a human schedule. By that standard, I was running late.

I found my shoes in the living room and took a second glance around Devon’s apartment while I put them on. I didn’t remember much of it from last night, having been preoccupied with its owner.

The place fit him. Everything was modern with white walls and black furniture. Very much the opposite of Lucen’s apartment, which was filled with heavy wood furniture and earth tones.

Both of them stood in stark contrast to mine, what with my no furniture and few decorations. I felt very much like a little girl fresh out of college, although I was twenty-eight and had never gone. Adulthood? What was that?

One of these days, I promised myself. One of these days I’d pull myself together and get a real life. Who knew—maybe sleeping with Devon was one more step down that path. It was certainly a change.

I kept my eyes open for sylphs as I walked home, but like Devon, most of Shadowtown was in bed. No nasty surprises awaited me at my apartment either. I showered, ate breakfast and headed downtown.

Before returning to the Gryphon library, I stopped at The Feathers’ branch of the public library to see if Olef was around, but he didn’t work on Sundays. I left a message with my phone number for him to get back to me.

Alas, although I resumed my research at the Gryphon library, it proved just as hopeless. A couple of the books I found in their online system seemed promising, but they weren’t in Boston. I figured out how to put in a request for a loan, and that was that. For all my worrying about how I should have been researching more yesterday, I’d hit a dead end awfully fast. The only thing I might have missed out on was catching Olef at work.

I tapped my fingers on the table in annoyance. It was three o’clock. It was too early to go bug Lucen about what he’d been up to last night, and I had a few hours before my meeting with Gunthra. I should do something productive, but what? I supposed if Bridget were in, I could ask if she needed my help with Eric’s case.

Before I could leave the library, however, my phone buzzed with a text. Hoping it was Lucen, wide awake and ready to talk, I pulled it out.

Instead it was Tom.
I’m flying back to Boston tomorrow. Have you had a chance to read those books I left you?

Ugh. I stared at the message, reluctantly realizing that here was the task I should probably work on the rest of the afternoon.

Reading them now,
I wrote back.

At home, I spread out on my floor with the books. A light rain had started falling when I left Gryphon headquarters, and the sky had darkened early. I dragged my one lamp into the middle of the room to augment the fading sunlight.

Tom must have left in a hurry because he hadn’t provided any directions or specific instructions along with the books, just the note that had pissed off Olivia and a list of page numbers unconnected to any individual book.

That was unfortunate. Even though I was determined to read everything, there was an awful lot, and much of it was snoozily dry. In school, history had never been my favorite subject, nor one I’d excelled at as a result. I’d liked languages and math, but alas, it was history I was supposed to be studying.

I soldiered on for about an hour when I got a new text. It was from Lucen and only one word.
So?

Does this mean you want to talk about the sylphs?
I wrote back, ignoring his more obvious meaning.

A phone went off right outside my door. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

I threw the door open and found Lucen on my landing. Smiling like a fiend, he offered me a bakery bag.

“What is this?”

“Open it and let me in.”

I stepped back and opened the waxy paper. Inside were two chocolate croissants. Couldn’t say the man didn’t know my weaknesses. “Ooh.”

Lucen pulled me into a hug, and tension that I hadn’t realized lingered in my shoulders and back drained away. I rested my head on his chest, reveling in the sense of security his arms provided.

And waiting for guilt to kick in.

He seemed to know what I was thinking, and he held me tighter. I dug my nails into the cotton of his T-shirt, remembering everything I’d gotten up to in Devon’s office last night. But those memories didn’t stir up guilt. They only made me more aware of Lucen’s sweet cinnamon scent and the way his hard muscles rubbed against my breasts. They made me want to pull him into my bedroom and see what more fun I could get up to today.

“I’m so glad you’re okay, little siren.” He cupped my cheek and kissed me slow and deep before I could respond, awakening stronger desire. I chased after his lips as he pulled away and settled for his chin. “I hate that I wasn’t there, but I’m glad someone was.”

“Me too,” I said, sad when he removed his hands. “I mean, ugh. Never mind. That didn’t come out right.”

Lucen grinned wickedly, and I reddened as he grabbed my hand. “You sure? No guilt. No shame. I like this side of you.”

“I guess it’s hard to feel guilty when your boyfriend is encouraging you. Sex and emotions though—I still can’t separate them. Devon isn’t some random stranger. I guess I don’t hate him as much as I want to.”

I mumbled the last part, and Lucen laughed. “About time. He’s someone I trust.”

“But it’s not like I’m emotionally empty around him. If that’s what you want, I don’t think it’s possible.”

“Jess, all I want is for us to work. If my idea about needing lots of emotionless sex wasn’t the right one, so be it. I need you to be okay with the way things are, and I’d say this is a big step forward. If you don’t feel guilt over Devon…”

Then how could I feel upset over him and his addicts? I got it. But thinking of addicts made me think of what Devon had told me about them. It was so different than everything I’d believed, and it opened up a whole new way for me to dream about fixing Lucen’s need for them.

I’d just keep that dream to myself.

“So what’s the reason for this?” I asked, holding up the bakery bag. I opened it and inhaled the sweet butter and chocolate. Oh, yum. Possibly the only thing I’d like more on my tongue than the satyr before me.

Lucen peeled off his rain-soaked jacket. “A celebration?”

“You are so crazy. I was thinking it was more like an apology for not being available last night when I needed comfort, but no. You’re happy that I slept with your best friend.”

“I am happy that we’re taking steps to make this work, and yes, I’m happy that you weren’t with a stranger.” He made an apologetic face. “And I’m sorry that Dezzi called me away last night, but hey—you did have pleasant company from the sound of it.”

I set the croissants on my counter. “Tell me you weren’t comparing notes.”

“Only humans are that crass. If we’re going to talk about you, it will be to share tips for your benefit.”

I winced. “How thoughtful.”

While I took another whiff of the goodies, trying to drive away the image of Lucen and Devon discussing how best to stimulate me, he perused the books. “What are you doing?”

“Oh, just a little light reading for work.”

“Light reading, clearly.” He thumbed through one of them while I started coffee. “I came over to make sure you were okay with what happened and to talk about the sylph situation, and you’re deep in history books?”

I collapsed to the floor and offered him Tom’s note. “I promised him I’d take a look.”

Lucen’s face darkened as he read it. “After everything, you’re taking this seriously. Jess—”

“Look, it’s not because I want to work with Tom. Okay? There’s more to it than that. There’s Olef’s visions too, and I can’t help but wonder if the two things are related. Olef’s visions sound an awful lot like the prophecies described in some of these books.”

If anything, that made Lucen unhappier. “This is what you told me about the cities burning?”

“Yes, and here.” I thrust the book that had the similar passages at him. “Tell me that doesn’t sound like this prophecy. I know it’s crazy. I don’t even know the difference between a prophecy and a vision, but they have too much in common for me to discount it all.”

Lucen sucked on his lip and opened to the marked page. “The magi consider a vision that’s shared by three or more of their people to be a prophecy. The logic being that the more people who have the vision, the more likely it is to come true.”

“Oh.” In the kitchen, the coffee water finished boiling, and I paused a moment, parsing Lucen’s words before getting up. “You’re a right fountain of knowledge at times. Why don’t you tell me these things?”

“Why don’t you ask?”

“No way. We’re not going down that road again.” I wanted to explain to him that Devon had told me all about the memory loss, but this didn’t seem like the time. Besides, knowing Devon, he’d probably already told Lucen everything about our conversation. It wouldn’t be the first time. “While we’re at it, I don’t suppose you know anything about the Vessels of Making?”

Lucen looked up sharply. “The Vessels of Making? Is this something to do with the case you’re working on?”

I spilled coffee on the counter in surprise. “The Gryphon case? No. Why?”

He stretched out on the floor with one of the books, looking very pleased with himself. “There are a bunch of legends about the Vessels. Not so much today, but back in the Middle Ages they were a big deal. Point is, the only thing all the stories have in common is that the Vessels are considered repositories for massive amounts of stored power.”

I brought two mugs of coffee into the living room, pondering this. “Repositories for power. Like the containers the goblins and sylphs must be using to hoard the power they stole from their addicts.”

“Exactly, only we’re talking on a massively larger scale. Power that could feed a domus, or power that a few individual people could channel into one hell of a spell. See?” He handed me the book.

The page it was open to showed a fairly plain cup, somewhere in shape between a bowl and a goblet. It was different than the drawing I’d glimpsed at Gunthra’s, but it suggested the same idea. “You found all that in here? I was hoping there’d be information, but I didn’t know where to look.”

“No, I knew all that already.” He tucked his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. “But there’s a bit about them in the book. They’re in the index under their Latin name.”

I swore, and Lucen continued to bask in his superiority.

Sipping my coffee, I paged through the brief text related to the Vessels. Alas, it contained nothing that I hadn’t found already, and only reiterated that the Vessels had been lost for centuries. “Why would a legend like this be in Tom’s so-called history books?”