Her blond hair spilled around them in a sensuous waterfall that caressed his arms and chest with each movement. The tips of her ripe breasts bobbed teasingly just in front of him. He rested his hands on her hips, enjoying the play of her muscles under his fingertips as she rode him. She looked like a Greek goddess come to life, her long hair moving around her as ecstasy lit her face.
When she shuddered against him and her skin took on a shimmering glow, he frowned up at her.
She slowed, drawing out her movements as if savoring the delicious friction between them. “Your pre-come. When it comes into contact with my body, I absorb it and it feels like a mini-orgasm.”
He smiled as understanding dawned and he tightened his grip on her hips, widening his thighs and thrusting up inside her until his swollen tip came into tight contact with her cervix.
Amalya gasped and tipped her hips to take him even deeper.
The sensation of being buried fully inside her tightened his balls against his body and he had to suck in several breaths to stave off the familiar tingling deep inside his pelvis.
When Amalya gasped again and the golden glow rippled across her skin, he smiled as he realized what had happened.
Her breathing had become raspy and her movements more urgent as she continued to let him guide her. The walls of her pussy tightened around him as arousal swirled higher inside him.
Amalya stiffened on top of him and cried out, her eyes dark with passion, her skin flushed with exertion. Levi had never seen her look so lovely.
While she continued to recover from her orgasm, he pulled her down on top of him and rolled her over so he covered her.
Amalya sighed as she slid her fingers into the hair at the back of his neck and pulled him down for a kiss.
Levi went willingly, meeting her in a searing kiss as he slowed the rhythm between them, sliding inside her with long, slow movements before pulling back and sliding inside her once more.
Time spun out slowly between them as he banked the fires of his own arousal and concentrated on which movements pulled small sighs or gasps from Amalya. The hard tips of her breasts teased against the hairs on his chest as he moved and she dug her nails into his back as she arched beneath him.
Only when she began to tighten around him again did Levi loosen the hold on his own control and allow the delicious friction that built between them to beckon him toward his own release.
“Yes,” she murmured against his lips. “Come inside me, Levi. Let me feel you and see you.”
He pulled back to watch her face as he continued to move inside her. The wonder that shone in her eyes awed him. Had a woman ever looked so lovely spread beneath him, her blond hair spilling over the pillow, passion darkening her eyes, and the scent of her body filling his senses?
She moved with him staring into her eyes as her muscles convulsed around him as she came.
A few more thrusts in the tight heat of her body slammed his own orgasm through him, stealing his breath and making him cry out as he continued to thrust, unwilling to stop until they’d both experienced every last ounce of pleasure to be had between them.
Amalya cried out again as he spilled inside her, and this time the golden glow that feathered across her skin tingled against him in a teasing rush.
Movement from the doorway had Levi glancing up to meet Jethro’s angry glare.
“We need to get moving. Something’s coming.”
Guilt stabbed Amalya deep as she met Jethro’s angry gaze.
She knew him well enough to see the pain beneath the anger, but she quickly reminded herself that she’d done nothing wrong. She’d never promised herself to Jethro and she hadn’t invited him up here this morning.
When Jethro turned and walked away, his heavy footsteps echoing down the stairs, Amalya sighed.
“Are you all right?” Levi brushed her hair back away from her face as protective concern glittered inside her gaze.
She nodded but didn’t meet his gaze as he pulled out of her and sat up. “He’s been a friend for a long time. I never wanted to hurt him.”
Levi nodded, his jaw tight. “Can I assume you didn’t come up here to fall asleep with me only to make him jealous?”
His voice sounded flat, but Amalya didn’t need to be supernatural to sense the bristling male pride in that statement. She smiled and leaned over to brush a kiss across his lips before she tipped up his chin to make him meet her gaze. “You can.” She held his dark gaze for a long moment to make sure he’d understood her before she grabbed her clothes and headed down the hall to the bathroom.
His warm gaze sent shivers of awareness over her naked skin as she left the room with a smile.
No matter what the “something” turned out to be that Jethro knew was coming, Amalya was glad she’d taken Raphael’s advice last night. Her body had the well-used ache that came in the aftermath of good sex, not to mention the warm thrum of energy from not only the ingested power but a few really wonderful orgasms too.
It had been centuries since a man had curled her toes just with a really good kiss. Levi could do that and much more, so there was no surprise that the total body orgasms he gave her were more than noteworthy.
She cleaned up and dressed quickly, jogging downstairs, thankful for her total return of energy. What would it be like to wake up every morning feeling like this? She forced the smile from her face as she suspended that train of thought.
Just because she and Levi had made up and had some amazing sex didn’t mean he wanted any type of relationship beyond this trip back to Lilith’s lair. Besides, even if he did, she still belonged to Lilith and there would be a price to pay for anything beyond that.
Her slightly darker mood took her through the doorway into the kitchen where she found Levi and Jethro looking out the window, a tense silence thick in the air between them.
“What’s going on?”
Jethro stiffened but didn’t move to face her. “There are dark clouds coming from the east. I think it might be the bounty demons. It’s the same thing that happened before they made it to Sinner’s Redemption.”
Memories from that day flooded back, including her last view of Celine being pulled back and forth between the two bounty demons. Worry clenched her gut. She hoped all the others had gotten away safely.
She shook her head reminding herself she needed to concentrate on the here and now. If the bounty demons were coming, they couldn’t afford to waste any time. “Let’s go.”
Jethro turned and Amalya braced herself to meet his gaze. But where she’d expected to see anger or hurt, she only saw distance. Not that she blamed him, the situation was uncomfortable and she couldn’t do anything to change it or fix it. But knowing he felt the necessity of putting up barriers between them squeezed her heart painfully.
He took her hand and placed something in her palm before closing her fingers over it. She recognized the familiar weight of her switchblade and smiled up at him as she pressed the button and watched the clean blade spring forward with a snick.
“I didn’t want you to leave it behind.”
Emotions threatened to close her throat and she swallowed hard and managed to nod before Jethro turned away.
“We still don’t know how we’re going to get across one of the portals.” Levi’s voice stopped Jethro and he turned back.
“We may just have to choose the closest one and fight our way through.”
Levi made a derisive sound. “And what would you rate our chances? All the portals are heavily guarded. We need to find another way.”
Amalya walked to the window letting their continuing argument wash over her. Something niggled at the edge of her mind. Some type of solution to this problem. She agreed with Levi—the portals would only see all three of them dead or, even worse, in Semiazas’s hands. But there was something else . . .
She raked her gaze over the cotton farm, tracing the destruction they’d left with the truck and then glancing up toward the gathering dark clouds. Movement near the truck caught her attention and she glanced back to see a lone shade hovering over the cab of the truck. “Too bad the shades can’t take us. They don’t need a portal to get to the other side.”
Shades were neither of this world nor of any other, therefore boundaries did not apply to them. If they could find a way to use that—to lure the shades to them and then hang on as they moved through the realms . . . It sounded crazy, even in her own head, and yet Raphael’s story about Graveyard Point Rim came back to her and she smiled. No interference, huh? She supposed telling her a story didn’t count as direct interference, especially since she had to choose to use the information or not.
She turned back to the two bickering men and held up her hands. “Enough!”
When they both fell silent, glaring at her with all the anger they’d built between them, she resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
“I know how to get us across. Let’s go. We can talk on the way.”
She braced for more argument, but both men surprised her by falling silent and heading toward the door.
16
Levi cursed as
they tried again to make the truck’s engine turn over. The shades had sucked the battery dry—something they should’ve foreseen and hadn’t. The farmer had a pickup truck and even a tractor next to the house, but they’d already tried those as well with no results.
He stepped out of the truck and faced Amalya and Jethro. “Take her and get her to safety,” he said directly to Jethro. “Get her as far away as you can and I’ll find you when I’m done.”
Amalya stepped forward to stand toe to toe with him. “No way you’re dictating what I should do or where I should go. The three of us need to stick together if we’re going to make it.”
“Amalya, I don’t want you to get hurt.” He looked into her lovely face all flushed with anger and fire and wanted to hold her and keep her safe forever.
Instead, she poked him in the chest with her finger. “Don’t you dare treat me like some fragile porcelain doll. I’m not one of your servants you can order around.”
A snort from Jethro made Levi glare at the man over Amalya’s head, which had absolutely no effect on either of them.
He tried to keep the frustration from his voice when he asked her, “Then what do you suggest?” Didn’t she see there were very limited options here?
“I suggest you use your brains instead of your testosterone.” She turned to Jethro to glare him into silent submission as well.
Levi kept a tight rein on his temper, resisting the urge to shake Amalya into understanding that his was the only option available to them.
She fisted her hands on her hips and glared up at him. “There’s a generator in the mudroom that we can use to charge the battery.”
“What about jumper cables? We need some way to get the energy into the battery,” Jethro offered.
“Celine always kept jumper cables in all the vehicles for Sinner’s Redemption,” Amalya said over her shoulder.
Shock slapped at Levi. Why hadn’t he thought of that? He’d known about the generator and so had Jethro.
Damned if the woman wasn’t right. He’d been thinking with his testosterone, thinking a fight would solve everything. He gathered all his bruised male pride and forced himself to nod. “Good idea.”
After a long moment where she was most likely receiving the overwhelming truth of his statement she smiled. “Good. I’ll steer, you guys push.”
After several teeth-jarring minutes of Levi and Jethro pushing the truck forward over the up-and-down bumps that marked the cotton field, the truck was parked hood-first against the back door of the farmhouse and Jethro and Levi were working together, male bonding over the best way to get the power from the generator into the truck battery.
Amalya wandered back inside the kitchen and searched through the cabinets. The dark clouds were getting closer and lower to the ground with every passing minute and she knew they needed to be ready to escape as soon as they could.
She continued to look for anything that could help them on their upcoming adventures and as an afterthought ran out to the barn to rifle through the farmer’s supplies.
Guilt edged through her as she helped herself to several items that she packed carefully into the bed of the truck. The two men were too involved with the generator to notice, and she was back sitting in the cab of the truck by the time Levi motioned for her to try the ignition.
When she did, it turned over on the second try and she slapped the steering wheel and laughed. “Yes.” Neither man would meet her gaze but seemed wholly engrossed in studying either the engine or the generator. She shrugged. It was a small price to pay to let them retain their male pride.
They let it run for several minutes to charge up the battery and then Levi unhooked the jumper cables and wound them on his forearm as he neared the open driver’s door.
“Shift over. I’ll drive,” he said as he slipped the jumper cables behind the seat.
Amalya raised one brow and glared at him. “I’m perfectly capable of driving, and since you two have pointed out that you’re better in a fight, that will leave your hands free in case the need arises.”
Levi clenched his jaw and she could tell he was battling against his normal instinct to order her to do as he wished. Instead, he walked around to the passenger’s side and motioned for Jethro to get in first.
“I fight with guns, remember? I can do that better riding shotgun than straddling the hump in the middle.”
Levi’s expression darkened, but he nodded in one jerky movement and slid into the middle until his thigh pressed against Amalya’s, his feet both resting on the passenger’s side so he didn’t block Amalya’s ability to shift.
Just as the neck-ruffling sensation of demon reached them, Jethro jumped in and rolled down the window, checking his ammunition as Amalya backed the truck away from the farmhouse and peeled out toward the main road.