Forged of Shadows: A Novel of the Marked Souls (48 page)

Jonah sat and crossed his arms. He needed her demon ascendant before he made his move. She wouldn’t believe his story otherwise. “Dance for me, Nymphette.” He knew physical stress triggered the demon’s rise. The newly possessed males traditionally drank and fought their way to balance with the other-realm emanations coursing through their bodies. He’d heard it worked differently with the females.

“Call me Nim.” Her voice turned husky, not with the demon, just a come-on. She swayed closer. “Nymphette is such a mouthful. And maybe you want me to save my mouth for . . . other things, right, Captain?”

“Don’t call me captain.”

Her eyes narrowed at his brusque tone, but she didn’t speak. She sidled toward his chair and slowly, muscles flexing, sank to her knees between his legs. Her gaze rested straight ahead, and his flesh, already strung tight, lifted like a marionette. Her mouth—that wide, generous mouth—was such a short distance from his zipper. He ached all over at her closeness, his erection straining toward her, his jaw clenched against giving in.

She unwrapped the snake from her shoulders and laid it at his feet. The weight of the beast was surprisingly heavy and hot through the leather of his boots as it wound around his ankles. He couldn’t hold back a grunt of dismay.

Nim smiled at him, crookedly but with the first hint of honest emotion he’d seen in her. Amusement, at his expense. “Don’t want you sneaking away early, like you’ve been doing all week.”

“Hadn’t planned on it.” Anyway, not until her demon was firmly rooted in her soul and she’d been brought into the league fold as its latest possessed fighter.

She rose smoothly, so close between his thighs he felt the passage of air against the denim of his jeans, but she never touched him. The way she used her body was sinful, but he had to admit, she kept it as brutally honed as any warrior maintained his weapons. A demon could choose worse than to take such a dwelling.

She turned within the confines of his spread knees and set her back to him. She ran her hands up her torso, over her shoulders, and through the dreads of her hair. With a single twist, she bound her hair into a thick knot at her crown.

She leaned to one side, and he couldn’t stop his gaze from following the sinuous curve of her spine, down between the points of her shoulder blades to the twin dimples framing her tailbone. His hand twitched to see if his spread fingers would span the distance.

Just as well it was the phantom hand.

She glanced over her shoulder. “No touching.”

“So you said.” He knew he hadn’t given himself away. Couldn’t, considering his maiming. But she obviously didn’t think that would stop him.

Her fog-on-the-water gaze traced him. “You aren’t here with lust on the mind. No lusting man could have lasted that whole week. Definitely couldn’t last now.” She straddled his knee, again without touching him, and dipped low in a slow-motion grind that never quite brushed his jeans. “You’re so strong. Crazy strong.” Her voice was a purr. “Is that because of the ring?”

His left hand, tucked against his ribs, tightened into a fist. He smoothed the pad of his thumb over the gold band. “No. Not because of the ring.”

She tilted her hips and slid one hand back to ride above the shadowed cleft between her buttocks. Where he’d wanted to put his hand. “Because of the hook?”

The metal tip drove into his bicep. How could she ask so casually? “Aren’t you supposed to be dancing?”

She bent backward, an impossible contortion without touching him. And yet she managed, even her hair suspended above his lap, teasing without touch. She stared at him from her inverted pose. “You’re supposed to be pulling out something.”

“You said no touching. Presumably that means myself as well.”

“Your wallet is exempt from the no-touching rule.”

He sighed, aggrieved, and uncrossed his arm to shift to one hip and reach for his back pocket. “At least this is on an expense account.”

“All business. I like that in a man. We’re practically soul mates.”

A cold anger swept him. “Don’t say that.”

“Bosom buddies, then.” She turned again to straddle his other leg, facing him. Her arms crossed in a low X across her belly pushed her breasts into tempting handfuls. Another supple writhe brought her down low, so low and close her nipples would’ve grazed his lips. If not for her oft-stated no-touching rule, of course.

“You have no idea how close we’ll be,” he said.