Demon's Kiss (4 page)

“Clea.” Soothing, so soothing, Ciarran’s voice was like the rich red wine. Two-hundred-dollar-a-bottle wine.

She pressed her palms to her face, hiding her eyes as she pressed the backs of her thighs against the desk for support.

“Clea Masters.” Okay. He was talking to her, though how he knew her name was a mystery.

Slowly, she let her fingers move apart, peeking from between them. Ciarran loomed over her, staring down at her, and she blinked, searching for the razor-sharp strands that had haloed him earlier.

But they were gone. All gone. And he was just a man. Who had shredded a demon like Parmesan cheese.

He took a single step closer, and she made a low sound of protest, snared by his gaze, unable to look away. His eyes widened slightly as he studied her. Silver. Blue. Green. Gold. Beautiful eyes.

“Are you hurt?” he asked.

A memory tugged at her: the stink of fire and the crashing waves of pain, a smooth voice, and bright, warm light. The hazy recollection darted away.

She shook her head as her hand strayed to her burned cheek. His gaze followed her movement to her cheek, then dropped to her mouth. The breath left her in a rush.

Unable to resist, she touched him, a light caress of her outstretched fingers along his hard, leather-clad forearm, just to be certain he was real. Heat sizzled through her, and she dropped her hand with a sharp hiss.

His features were an impossible blend of masculine perfection, strong jaw accented by a whisper of stubble, high cheekbones hollowed by dark shadows, straight nose with just the hint of a bump at the bridge. And his hair, sun-kissed and thick, hanging in loose waves to his shoulders. She was staring. She knew she was staring, but she couldn’t make herself stop. The heat of him, the power, the luscious scent . . . everything hit her with the force of a physical blow.

For the first time in her entire life, Clea understood—really understood—the meaning of the words
animal attraction
.

“Oh. My. God.” She couldn’t breathe. Could barely think. Her body felt like it was on fire, and she had the desperate urge to press her palms to the firm jaw of the man who was before her, to touch her mouth to the decadent curve of his lips, to taste him and draw on him.

It was beyond insanity. Everything was beyond insanity. She’d lost it. She’d lost her ever-loving mind.

Ciarran.
Even his name was sexy.

All she could think about was chemistry . . . and not the kind she’d studied as an undergrad. No. This was another breed entirely. This was hot. Wet. A dull ache between her thighs. Sexual chemistry. Everyone talked about it. She’d never really believed it existed. Until now.

She frowned, glanced down. There was a large chunk of . . . of . . .
demon
that was stuck to the floor, spitting and smoking as it slowly disintegrated, taking her control right along with it.

Tearing her gaze from the terrible sight, she focused instead on the stranger before her.

“How tall are you?” she blurted. Nice segue into conversation. But from where she sat in a nervous huddle perched on the edge of the desk, he looked like he was seven feet tall and packed with enough muscle and power to take down a house.

Certainly enough power to take down a demon.

He blinked, shot her a puzzled look. “Six foot four.”

Okay. Good. He seemed inclined to answer questions. And she had a ton of those. “What are you? What was it? What the hell is going on here?”

“You are the conduit.” He watched her closely, as though his words ought to have some meaning.
“Christe.”

Leaning forward, he braced his hand against the desktop beside her right thigh. He was wearing a glove. Black leather, like his jacket, supple, the fit tight to his hand. She hadn’t noticed it before, but she noticed it now because . . . he wore only one. On his left hand, but not his right.

His warm breath fanned her cheek, and she forgot about the glove. Her head jerked up, and her pulse ratcheted up a notch. With his gaze locked on hers, he reached out, almost touching her burned cheek. Almost. Strong, masculine fingers just a whisper away from her skin. She could feel the heat of him, smell the clean scent of his skin.

God.
The way he looked at her.
God.

He was looking at her as though he were starving and she was an all-you-can-eat buffet.

“I believed I was hunting a minor demon,” he said softly in that poured-honey voice.

His mouth tightened. A little cruel. A lot sexy. She wanted to taste his mouth. She wanted to taste more than his mouth.

Raw sexual chemistry, she thought numbly. Just another part of this crazy mixed-up dream.

“But I was wrong,” he continued. “The demon was incidental. It was
you,
Clea Masters. All along, I was hunting
you.
”

Christe.

They needed to talk. He had much to say, but not here, not now. Since the demon was dead, his keeper would survive only a short while, and Ciarran knew he must be found before his life force expired. There were questions the demon-keeper could answer, and Ciarran needed those answers.

“Say
something,
” Clea muttered. “Maybe tell me to click my heels three times and wish myself back to Kansas.”

He frowned, uncertain of her reference, and she shook her head.

“Never mind.” Watching him warily, she tightened her grip on the small gold weapon she was holding.

Ciarran reached down and took the blade from her hands, careful not to touch her skin, unnerved by the sizzle of magic that passed between them even at this, a casual contact. With a murmured sound of denial, she first held, then surrendered the weapon. She looked up, studying him.

She had beautiful eyes, the color of dark, polished mahogany, thickly lashed, tilting up just a touch at the corners, scrutinizing him with intensity and intelligence.

And heat and need that matched his own.

Such a link, instant and strong, was an impossibility. Yet he could feel the impossible surging inside him, urging him to taste her and take her, and pleasure them both. Distance seemed the wiser course. He took a step back.

He felt a glimmer of admiration for her as she watched him, her body tense, her gaze dropping to the blade he had taken from her hands. She had been prepared to battle a demon with her puny weapon.

“Brave.” He thumbed the edge of the blade and frowned. Dull. “What is this?”

“A letter opener.” Her voice did not waver. This human female was daring, indeed.

“What did you plan to do with it?” ’Twould not have even scratched the demon’s hide.

She raked her fingers through the tousled waves of her brown hair as she exhaled, the sound a flowing sigh that touched him as surely as a caress. He wanted to run his hands over her naked body, to draw that sound, and others, from her lush mouth.

Madness. He’d descended into madness. These thoughts,
this
woman, were dangerous to him. When Clea Masters had been a child, she had demonstrated the inexplicable ability to drain his magic. His subsequent inattention had cost him both his hand and a chunk of his soul. Getting close to her now ought to be the last thing he considered doing.

He let his gaze travel over her. Clea was no longer a child.

“The—uhh—the letter opener?” Her voice wavered just a little now. “I was going to use it to defend myself against that . . . thing.” She hesitated, then continued. “I cheated death once, a long time ago, and I had no intention of giving in to it tonight.”

Cheated
death. An apt description. Yet death had claimed a forfeit, and he well knew the price that had been paid.

She held his gaze. He found her unutterably attractive, this human woman who would battle a demon unto death.

This human woman who was cloaked in impossible magic.

“You cheated death a
long
time ago,” he echoed, unable to keep the trace of amusement from his tone. “How old are you?”

Again, she wet her lips. He followed the subtle movement of her tongue. “Twenty-eight. Last Tuesday.”

“Ah.” He turned the letter opener in his palm, then snapped it neatly in two.

“How—”

Glancing back at her, he found her staring at his hands.

At his leather glove. Supple leather, lined in flexible metal alloy, woven with protective magic. A relatively effective cage, bolstered by tattooed wards.

She would do more than stare if she saw what lay beneath it.

“Good thing you didn’t need to use your weapon.” He shrugged, held up the broken pieces. “Plastic.”

Perhaps he expected her to cry. Bury her face in her hands and sob. Or perhaps he expected her to look at him blankly, shock and fear numbing her to reality. She did neither.

Her dark eyes widened, and her brows rose. A snicker burst forth, and another, until her laughter swelled and filled the small space.

“Plastic!” She gasped, pressing one hand against her belly. “Oh, that’s priceless. And perfect.” She held up one hand, palm out. “No. Really. Perfect.”

Not the laughter of hysteria, but true mirth. She found amusement here. He was startled to feel his own lips twitch in response.

Her gaze collided with his, and her laughter died, sharp and quick.

She looked away, arched her back, rolled her shoulders, as though stretching out a kink, her movements pulling the light blue knit of her thin sweater tight across her breasts. He could see the outline of her lacy bra etching its pattern in the cloth.

A smart, no-nonsense girl, wearing a simple sweater and conservative jeans, her dark waving hair cut in an uncomplicated, low-maintenance style. No makeup, save for the last remnants of her smudged mascara. And underneath, against her smooth skin, lace. His gaze dropped to her hips as he tried to imagine her underwear. Lacy underwear. Sexy underwear.

The girl was a study in contradictions.

And what the hell was he doing thinking about her underwear?

Looking away, he focused his thoughts on the task at hand. He needed to pursue the demon-keeper, to seek answers before the man’s final fate sealed off that avenue of information.

“I feel like I’ve been shoved through a meat grinder,” Clea muttered, drawing his gaze back to her.

Mistake. Big mistake. Her back was arched even farther, hands braced just behind her on the desktop, her breasts straining now against their cotton covering, leaving little to his imagination. She rolled her head slowly to one side and the other, sending waving strands of dark hair tumbling along her shoulders.

Ciarran didn’t think; he just moved. Two steps and he was close enough to catch a shimmering curl between his thumb and forefinger. With a gasp, she turned her head, her brown eyes bright as she studied him. She didn’t pull away, and he sensed her confusion. She could not understand her body’s call, the desperate drive to touch him, the half-crazed need that gnawed at her.

Hell, he barely understood it himself. Such was the stuff of legends, of faded dusty tomes from a time before the
Pact,
before even his time. This link between souls could only happen between two of magic synergy. But Clea Masters was human. . . .

She could not possibly be other than human.

For thousands of years, the Compact of Sorcerers had guarded the realms, standing against the demons, holding fast to the
Pact
—the agreement of protection forged between ancient beings so powerful that they defied even Ciarran’s understanding. Long-dead tribes had called them
gods.

Sorcerers were not human; they
protected
humans. In all his life and all the lore, Ciarran knew of none who had walked over the line from human to immortal. A child of two sorcerers was born a sorcerer. Such a birth was a rare and unusual occurrence.

When a sorcerer procreated with a mortal—an equally extraordinary occurrence—the child was invariably human. A kernel of magic might bloom, the faintest spark that might allow for a small amount of precognition, but the child was
mortal.

Which made Clea Masters something of an impossible anomaly. She was human. And
not
human.

He still held the glossy strands of her hair, and she still held his gaze.

Surprise,
he thought wryly. He’d come north in pursuit of the minor demon, Darqun’s mention of the dead grandmother and the girl a vague, gnawing issue that Ciarran intended to deal with once the immediacy of the demon-keeper was addressed. Now it turned out that the two concerns had melded into one.

Christe.
Clea
was the damned conduit.

The minor demon had not meant to
feed
upon her; it had meant to take her to the gate. She was the instrument, the key. This was no surprise. He had surmised as much from the demon’s babble.

No. The surprise was inside her. And inside him.

He
knew
her, was part of her. Certainty bubbled through him. On a dark, deserted road with death hanging heavy in the air, he had made a mistake, a miscalculation. Not enough to damn the world. Just enough to damn himself.

Just enough to cost him his hand. And a chunk of his sanity. He flexed his fingers in their leather-and-alloy prison.

Slowly, he let go the strand of Clea’s hair, and she exhaled on a sigh. Shifting his touch to her cheek, he healed the burn with a thought and a subtle touch of magic, felt the smallest quiver in her body. Not fear. Desire. His touch made her tremble, and he felt the answering tension low in his gut.

How could he explain this to her? How could he explain it to himself?

Clea Masters was
his.
His by right. His by ancient claim. His by the bond that pulsed between them, hot and wild. And his because she wanted it so. She allowed this attraction to him, which made his own need swell.

He had marked her, branded her with one rash act when, in a reckless moment of lost concentration on an empty road some two decades past, he’d broken every rule of the
Pact
and saved a human child from death.

No, that was not the truth.

The truth was that the human child had reached out, seeing what she should not possibly be able to see, catching his magic in her tiny hands, dragging it from him, using it to heal wounds that should never have healed.

Stealing his power while he watched, dumbfounded.

The human child had saved herself, while he had battled an ancient demon. And lost.

And now the grandmother had died, and Darqun had sent him to find the child.

Only she was no longer a child. Here she was, all grown-up, sitting on the edge of a rickety desk, watching him with a sultry hunger that made him feel a dark and aching lust.

Clea Masters. The conduit that could open the gate between dimensions, the key that could unlock the end of the world.

He had saved her. His magic. His power.

He had doomed her.

And he wanted her with a fierce and primitive need that raced through every cell in his body, making him burn.

Stepping back, he did them both the small kindness of allowing a little distance between them. The action was in direct opposition to his inclination, the primitive, clamoring part of him that wanted to drag her up against him, touch her, taste her, bury himself inside her right now, right here.

The way she looked at him, like she wanted to run from him. Like she wanted to thrust her body against him, take him deep inside her, score his skin as she moaned her release. He was scorched by her heat, and it confounded him, lured him, made him feel the gnawing sharp edge of desire.

Gathering himself, he glanced at the remnants of the dead minor demon, which still sizzled and smoked, clinging to the walls and floor around them.

“I was hunting
you,
Clea Masters,” he repeated softly, returning his gaze to her.

“And now you’ve found me.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth, rolled it slowly back and forth, an instinctive gesture of nervousness, an unintentionally sensual action. He wanted to lick her full lower lip, to catch it between his own teeth.

“How do you know my name?”

He chose to dissemble. “There was a name plate by the registration desk.” The truth, but ’twas not how he knew her name.

The air left her in an indelicate rush, her disbelief apparent. “And you just happened to stop and read it before you followed me back here to shred that . . . that . . . thing?”

Smart. Insightful. He liked that. Liked her. Yet another danger to add to their smoldering attraction.

With a glance at the last place the demon had stood, she shivered, brought her gaze back to his. “Are you going to do
that
to me . . . cut me to pieces?”

“No.” The thought made his gut wrench in angry denial. Nothing would harm her.
Nothing
.

“And I believe you because . . . ?” She paused, blew out a breath and answered her own question. “Because if that was your intent, you would have done it by now.”

Her gaze slid over him in a slow, sexy perusal. Like she was studying him, measuring him, and definitely liking what she found. She was afraid of him, but her fear was weaker than her need.

Ciarran’s heart rate escalated, his blood pounding. Such had not happened to him. Ever. For centuries he had walked the earth, High Sorcerer of the Compact, coolheaded, rational, never bowed or swayed from his cause. The many times that he had chosen to materialize, to allow a human female to see him, to be pleasured by him and to pleasure him in return, he had always remained somewhat detached. He had enjoyed physical release, but in an aloof and distant manner, never allowing strong passion to overcome his control.

This intense, vibrant arousal, so sharp and sweet that he was hard as a rock, this unbridled
lust
was unfamiliar to him.

Clea’s gaze slowly shifted the rest of the way up his body, until she was looking directly into his eyes.