Demon Marked (41 page)

And he didn't even know what he was getting ready
for
.

Another week passed, and Nicholas felt he was finally getting there—wherever
there
was. He'd read through all of the books on birds and flight, and started on his grandfather's collection—the collection that Ash had read through in her week here, though he preferred to read reclining on the bed rather than the stiff rocking chair. He wished she'd left notes in the margins. What had she felt and thought, reading these? Probably nothing like she'd feel and think now. She'd changed so quickly that week, but so had he, and—

The forest had quieted.

Nicholas sat up in the bed. The twittering and chirping of the returning springtime birds had become easily ignored background noise in the past few weeks, but the sudden hush seemed as loud as an alarm. He grabbed his shotgun—he still hadn't figured out his cache yet—and waited at the door, listening.

Nothing unusual.

Except . . . he tilted his head, focused on the odd, rhythmic sound coming from above him. Almost a gallop, but muffled. Almost like his own heartbeat.

Someone was on the roof.

His heart pounding now, too, he edged backward out of the door, backed away from the porch. The height and pitch of the A-frame made it difficult to get an immediate look at the top. When he did, his heart stopped.

Leathery wings spread wide, she perched on the ridge, crouching like a gargoyle. Horns curled away from her forehead; crimson scales covered her body. She gripped the forward projecting edge of the roof with a taloned claw.

Her eyes began to glow. “Hello, Nicholas. You look well.”

He hadn't been well. Not until this moment. “You look beautiful.”

Fangs glinted in her smile, and his heart tightened, a painfully sweet ache. God, how he'd missed her.

“I thought I'd try to scare you,” she said. “The birds gave me away. It makes me wish that I liked to eat chicken.”

“You probably scared
them
.”

“But not you.” She rose and stepped off the roof. Her wings caught the air, and she glided to Nicholas, landing easily just in front of him. The glowing crimson faded to human blue. Scales slid back into tattoos and a tan; her horns vanished. Jeans and her hoodie formed over naked skin. “I've missed you. But is it too early yet?”

He knew exactly what she meant, but still didn't know how to answer it. So he gave her what he had to give. “I missed you, too. So damn much.”

The joy in her smile slipped into him, through him. “It took me two years just to remember part of my name, Nicholas. If you need me to go, I can—”

“No.” He'd missed her, he'd wanted her in his arms and to see her smile, but he hadn't known how much he
needed
to see her. And now that she was here—“I need you to stay.”

Holding his gaze, she lifted her hands to cup his face, to slide her fingers through his hair. “You feel the same. And so familiar. I've touched you more in my imaginings than I ever have for real. I'd begun to fear that I'd forgotten, or that I remembered wrong.”

“And you are just as . . . just as . . .
everything
.” It hit him like a punch to the chest. “Everything.”

“So.” She grinned. “Even you can't manage eloquence when you've just spent six weeks living like a hermit.”

“No.” He shook his head, and her smile faded. “Don't you see? It's—”

Too much to say. Too big.

So he kissed her.

 

This wasn't familiar. The urge to cry and to laugh, and the painful effort to hold it in, to keep her emotions from overwhelming him. She rarely took such care. Only once had she fought so hard to contain them, but that was when she'd been full of desperation and fear, but trying to prevent Madelyn from using those emotions in any way, trying to keep from giving herself away with every lie, every evasion.

And now, his mouth on hers, she felt the same thing from Nicholas—an explosion of emotion, somehow contained, but that couldn't be any longer.
Oh, God.
She lifted to him, welcomed the possessive surge of his tongue, touching his shoulders, his arms, the broad sweep of his back and the delicious tautness of his ass, claiming all of him for her own.

He lifted his head, breathing raggedly. “Everything, Ash. This is what I want to be. I thought you needed to be separate from what mattered, but it's not. You're the reason for it all. You're the reason I can
feel
that anything else matters at all.”

“Nicholas.” Smiling, she trailed her fingers from his temple to his jaw. “I have no idea what you're talking about, but I feel the same way. How is that, do you think?”

He grinned. “I have no idea. Hold on. And vanish your wings.”

She did, then laughed aloud as he bent and swept her up against his chest. Her arms circled his neck. “They
are
a pain in the ass through doorways. Are you taking me to have sex? Because if your answer is no, I want you to put me down—so that I can pick
you
up, and take you to have sex.”

“You'll have to come up with a better plot than that.”

She could, easily. “Oh, Nicholas! My clothes just fell off.”

The fabric between them vanished. With a single glance, his eyes flared with pale blue light. Ash caught her breath.

“Oh,” she whispered. “Oh. You are . . .”

His arms tensed. “Different?”

“Beautiful, I think.” Her chest filled with it. “It is sometimes hard to decide whether something is known or felt. I have always known how handsome you are. But you have never been so beautiful to me as you are now, naked like this.”

“I'm not naked yet.”

“You wear clothes, Nicholas. But I see you. Better than I have ever seen you before, with some of you that is new to see. Not just the glowing eyes; it was not just a transformation. You
are
a Guardian now.”

His throat worked, and his answer was rough. “Yes.”

“Just as I'm a demon—though I am, of course, the best kind. The only kind of demon worth being. So we're perfect together, I think.”

She paused as he angled his body to carry her through the door. His face had hardened, as if containing some emotion again. Not hiding, as he often had before—just holding it in. A shudder ran though him when she leaned in to lick his neck.

At least he did not hold that in anymore.

“Take me to the bed. We'll talk more when your penis is inside me.” She tightened her arms around his shoulders. “And you'll tell me why, when you have such purpose burning inside, you are still here . . . waiting.”

“I didn't know why until today. I was waiting for you.”

The bed creaked when he laid her on it, and again when he climbed in after her, bracing his knees on either side of her thighs. He leaned over, his hands flat beside her shoulders. His lips grazed her cheek in a soft caress.

That was not enough. Not enough after months.

“Feel me, Nicholas. Use your fingers to feel me. I'm wet. Already so wet. I only had two thoughts as I flew here: Wondering whether you were all right, and how much of your almost-monstrous penis I can take.”

Eyes on hers, he slipped his hand down. Ash lifted to his touch, panting in anticipation. He didn't stop at the first sign of heat and moisture, but delved between her drenched folds, then pushed deep. She cried out, thighs clenching, squeezing his wrist. His groan filled the small room.

“Ah! Yes.” Her fingers curled into the bedsheet. “Do you remember the bathtub? Do you remember how I tortured you there?”

A thrust of his fingers answered her. His head bent, his tongue flicking her nipple into turgid arousal.

“Like that, yes. Except I teased you with water instead of my tongue. And in my mind, I've tortured you a hundred times in the same way. But never to finish. Each time, I climb in and fill myself with you, and ride until we are both dying of it. I want to die now.”

He breathed her name against her skin, rose to take her mouth. Hot and wet, each slow kiss killed her a little more. His hand worked at his belt, his button, his zipper. Ash used her toes to push his jeans down before running her feet up the backs of his heavily muscled thighs.

She pulled at his hair until he lifted his head. Cool blue light spilled across his cheekbones, glinted in his dark lashes.

“Why did you know today? What changed?”

“You came.” His gaze held hers. “And I knew that you are not useful to me, Ash. Not anymore. Except as a reason to get up in the morning—”

“You don't sleep anymore,” she reminded him, smiling.

“Except as a reason to keep breathing—”

“You don't need air.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “I'm still new at this Guardian thing. So just shut up, and let me tell you that I love you.”

All happiness. Her laugh erupted, and she pulled him down for another kiss, but he lowered his body and shoved forward instead, his thick length filling her all at once. Agonizing pleasure lashed her nerves, whipped her muscles tight. Ash cried out, arching her back as her inner muscles clamped around his invading shaft, as deep as she'd wanted him, needed him.

His hand fisted in her hair, and he ground his hips against hers, until she was squirming against him, crying out for another heavy thrust. He froze, instead.

“I was waiting for
this
.” His voice was a tortured groan against her ear. “To know that your feelings hadn't faded. To know that I was still a man that you'd want—even though I'm a Guardian now, too. I was too afraid to find you, Ash. Too afraid of what I'd see in your eyes, when you saw the change in me . . . even though you're the reason for it.”

Her throat tightened. “I would not give you up so easily, Nicholas St. Croix. You should have more faith in yourself than that.”

“I've given you little reason.”

“You blew yourself up to save me. Which, so you know, tore my heart out. I've spent six weeks building a new one, and you are still stamped all over it.” She wriggled her hips, gasped. God. So full. So
frustrating.
“And we were supposed to talk when you were inside me, but that did not mean you were supposed to stop everything to talk.”

He levered up on his elbows, the strain of keeping himself motionless visible in the tendons of his neck, the clench of his jaw. “I can't do both at once.”

“So you
do
have another limit.”

His eyes narrowed. “We'll see.”

Ash burst into a laugh. He was so easy. Then her laugh strangled itself on a moan as he slowly withdrew, began an endless thrust inside her again.

“Oh!” she cried out, and though she couldn't remember thinking that her toes needed to curl, now they were, and her heels were sliding up to dig into the muscles flexing in his ass. He drove deep again.

“
This
, Ash.” His fingers interlocked with hers, he drew her hands over her head, stretching her body upward even as her flesh stretched to receive him. “Deciding what matters. You do, more than anything. Being a Guardian does. But there's more than that.”

“I can't . . .” A long thrust drew the thought to nothing.

Again, and her only consolation was that his voice was as tortured as hers, his breathing as ragged. “What was that, Ash?”

“I can't imagine . . . what more.”

He dipped his head, and she opened her mouth for a kiss. His tongue swept up the length of a fang. Body bucking upward, she cried his name as the movement drove him deep, hard. He caught her hip up off the bed, thrust again. She couldn't stand any more.

Hooking her leg around his, she shoved at his shoulder, pushed him over, and straddled his hips. Sank deep.

Head thrown back, Nicholas arched his long body, lifting her, driving deeper. His muscles locked in stark relief, he hung there. Ash battled between the need to remain still and absorb the sheer beauty of him and the urgent need to move; urgent need won.

Hands braced on his chest, she rolled her hips. Nicholas's breath hissed from between clenched teeth. His fingers gripped her thighs, swept inward. His thumb found her clitoris, began a slow circle.

“Oh, God.” Fire coiled through her, a heated twist of every nerve. “That's . . . so evil.”

“So
good
,” he countered.

Yes. She couldn't stand it. The fire burned hotter, sizzling inside her, white-hot.

“Nicholas . . . Harder now.
Now
.”

The world spun wildly as he turned, pushed her onto her back again. Hooking her leg up over his hip, he drove forward, deep. Ash cried out, her nails digging into his shoulders.

“Again.”

“For how long?”

He had to ask?
“Forever,” she said.

“Please, God,” he groaned, and when he raised his head, his eyes shone full blue. “Because there's more.”

Chest heaving, he angled her hips up, thrust hard again. Her body bowed, a scream locked in her throat. How could she survive this?

Only over and over again.

“More.”
It emerged on a sobbing breath, and he obeyed, until she burned, burned, clinging to him as it raced through her, screaming as it left. Nicholas's mouth crashed down over hers, and his tongue thrust with the stroke of his body, until he suddenly stilled—shook. Wings erupted from his shoulders in a long, elegant arch. Heavier, suddenly blanketed by feathers, he settled over her. Still inside her, and despite his orgasm, still hard.

Oh, she could become used to this. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, wouldn't let him move.