My Dangerous Pleasure (37 page)

“About those nasty things I want to do…” he said.

She made a face as the bitter copa dissolved in her mouth. “Mmm?”

“You on board with that?”

Her answer to that was a smile and a sultry backward lean against the hot tub.

“Then how about you let me in, Paisley.” He tapped a finger to her temple.

“Yes,” she said.

And he was in her head, easy and smooth. He put his fingertips on the upper part of her chest, just above the swell of her beautiful, gorgeous, human wet-dream tits. His slid his fingers down and made sure she was getting his reaction. Things got really quiet. His fingertips traced along her skin, slid over her nipples, and she drew in a shuddering breath. “Do you like that?”

She nodded.

“What if I used my mouth? Would you like that?”

“I’d like that a lot.”

He circled her nipples, feeling her get hard under his tongue. He grabbed her hips and pulled her closer to him. The skin down his back rippled. He kept one hand on her hip and slid the other up to her breast again. Her sharp intake of breath turned a few cranks for him. She touched her palm to his cheek.

“Iskander.”

He was so close. He moved his head to her shoulder and nipped her. With teeth that were still human. “I want a taste of you. A little blood. Can I do that? I can make it good for us both if you let me do that.”

“All right.”

He made a deeper psychic connection with her, and it was still smooth and easy. She was relaxed. Nothing invasive but enough for him to feel the magic in her and an echo of her fealty to Nikodemus. With one hand he grabbed her wrist, the one Rasmus had scarred.

Paisley drew in a long hiss, and it was all he could do not to take things too far. He brought her wrist to his mouth and let himself change. Enough. Maybe a little more than enough. He lifted his head and said, “Look at me and tell me what you see.”

She did, but she was a little wobbly, so he caught the back of her neck and held her steady. Her eyes were jade green now, and he could feel the magic in her. And his oaths to her. She frowned. “I’m having trouble focusing.”

“That’s the copa working on you. It’ll settle down in a bit.”

“Oh.”

“I won’t hurt you, Paisley. Ever. I promise you that.” He let the change take him the rest of the way. He was a thousand times more aroused that he’d been even with Fen, not because he hadn’t loved Fen—he had before everything went to hell between them—but because Paisley was human and humans had that effect on his kind. And because he was with Paisley.

He watched her eyes. Her pupils were pinpoints of black in the jade of her irises. She squinted and then blinked several times. “This is what I am.”

She put her hands on either side of his face, touching all the planes and angles that had changed, and while she did that, he touched her, too. “I know you,” she whispered. “I know what and who you are.”

He slid both hands around her waist and then around and up her back until his hands cupped her shoulders from behind. A growl rumbled in his chest. His breath hitched deep in his body. He made sure she understood that if he wanted to, he could take her over so she would understand all the risks. He wasn’t going to, though. Instead, he let her feel his desire for her, his urge to be inside her. At the same time that pool of still magic came through to him and drove his desire higher yet. Not quite a witch. Something else. Something in between.

She sucked in a breath, and he looked down at her body, so slight and delicate compared to what he was now. He wrapped his fingers around her wrist and raised her arm to his mouth while he watched her face. His teeth broke through her skin, and her blood washed across his tongue, hot and sweet, and his body responded to the point where he forgot anything but the psychic connection and physical sensation. Warm water around them. Their wet, slick bodies, her skin under his fingertips. The scent of her, the taste of her, the sizzle of magic. His intense pleasure. Drugging pleasure.

Her reactions trickled through to him. Disbelief, a little fear, a big dose of arousal, curiosity. He drew back and brought his body back to human form and fought for control of his instincts. With his human hands, he drew his fingers along her waist, over the outside of her breasts, to her shoulders, her throat, her face.

She put her arms around him, touching him, stroking. “More,” she said. “More.”

C
HAPTER 33

P
aisley threw her head back and closed her eyes. She breathed in slowly as Iskander’s tongue slid across her arm. The buzz that echoed back to her was beyond amazing. He pulled away, still holding her wrist, and made a shallow cut in the side of his throat. With his other hand, he cupped the back of her head and brought her forward.

Water sloshed around them as she moved closer to him. Her fingers slid along his torso, over solid muscle and sleek skin. The zing of the first touch of her tongue to his blood spread through her like fire. Iskander’s hands tightened on her. The center of her chest flexed.

Heat flashed through her, a sensation that they were without physical support, floating. A weight settled in her, a pressure against her mind, and she had to concentrate on letting that pressure past and into her. Iskander’s presence in her head became a brilliant heat.

They separated, though he continued to hold her. Her vision went crazy. Straight lines refused to meet at what ought to be corners, colors were more saturated, and there were shades she couldn’t put a name to. With a great deal of effort, she forced her eyes to focus. The world came back to normal with a stomach-churning wrench. He peered down at her, still in her head. His face was recognizably human now, his skin the familiar brown. The muscles of his torso were as perfectly defined as ever. She touched one of the blue stripes on his torso and felt a buzz under her fingertips.

His expression was serious. That was different for him. He put a hand to her chin and tilted her head so she looked into his face. His beautiful, lovely, normal everyday human sensual face. She wanted him to smile because his smile always made her happy.

“Anything you want,” he said. His mouth curved while his hand caressed the side of her face, and that sent shivers through her belly and to all the other sensitive parts of her body. She put her hands against his chest. His warm, naked chest. He brought her hand to his mouth and kissed her palm, then each of her fingers, and each touch of his mouth brought her closer to the edge. He straddled her, taking his weight on his thighs. “The copa’s working.”

“And?”

“Like I said, that’s very interesting. For us both.”

She moved her legs only to have him smile darkly and shift his thighs a little wider apart, an adjustment that brought his pelvis closer to the tops of her legs. He took her first finger and licked, and while he was doing that, she stared at his nearly closed eyes. One of the lines of his tattoo went down the center of his eyelid. His sooty lashes lifted, revealing irises that were an out-of-this-world blue. The middle blue line of his tattoo colored his sclera, too. How on earth had he managed to dye the white part of his eye?

He kissed her index finger and then pushed himself back so that the water sloshed against the opposite side of the hot tub, but then he headed back. At the last minute, he slid his hands into the water and underneath her thighs; then somehow, her thighs were over his and his hands were supporting her bottom.

“Oh, my.” She threw her arms around his shoulders.

Then he kissed her, and it wasn’t the kind of kiss where she wondered for even a second whether he meant it. His mouth was gentle and then not, and one of his hands moved up to cradle the back of her head and pull her toward him. Iskander made a sound in the back of his throat that made her feel desirable and adored.

Paisley allowed the experience to slide over her, to inhabit her. She wanted to memorize every moment of this. He held her tight against his groin so it was impossible to miss his erection. He tightened his arms around her. With no warning, he picked her up and rose as if she weighed nothing. She wrapped her legs around him and held on tight. In two steps they were out of the hot tub, and he was walking inside the house with her.

“We’re dripping water all over.”

“It’ll dry.”

She nodded, and before she knew it, they were on his bed, and he was stretched out on top of her. He looked into her face and smiled. “Ready?”

“Yes, sir, I am.” She smiled back. Her body was ready for him. Now. Right now. “For what?”

“While you’re still feeling the copa, try to touch your magic. Because it’ll be hot if you have some magic when we do it.”

His gazed locked with hers. She wondered if she was hallucinating the brilliant color. He dipped his head and took her nipple in his mouth until she was moaning. When he stopped, his eyes were practically glowing, even after she blinked. “This is different,” he whispered. “With the others it was just sex. But that’s not us.”

“We aren’t having sex.” She managed a grin. “In case you haven’t noticed.”

He smiled at her, that lovely, wonderful, sensual, incandescent smile. His hand trailed up the inside of her thigh. “You need to let me do something about that, then.”

“Like what?”

“Like make you forget your name. Which I will do in just a minute.” Her chest tingled where his palm lay on her skin. “Do you feel that?” She nodded. The sensation increased. “Hold on.” He lowered himself to her and kissed the side of her throat. His mouth was firm, insistent, and the whole time the tingle in her chest intensified. When he drew back, he said, “I do this with Maddy’s wilders all the time. Help them use their magic for the first time.”

“I don’t want us to talk about Maddy.”

“We’re talking about your magic, cupcake. Concentrate. Can you hold on to that? Like you’re reaching inside and pulling hard. If you catch hold, don’t let go.”

The bizarre thing was that she could. She could touch the sensation quivering inside her and pull it through her, from nowhere to inside her chest. In her head.

Iskander’s eyes opened wide. “You sure you’ve never done this before?”

“I’ve had sex before. More than once, too.”

He laughed and his hand went between her legs and stroked her. God, she was so close. So close. “You’re a natural. I’ve never seen anyone get it so fast.”

She moved out of his embrace and touched him, starting with that amazing torso of his. She got an echo back of his physical reaction to that, the arousal. Her fingers landed on two of those blue stripes that ran down his body. She felt the resonance through her fingertips, and the sensation seemed to move from there along her arm and into her chest. “You like this, don’t you? Me touching you like this?”

His eyes flickered to dark, dark blue, and the tension of his sexual arousal raced through her. “What do you think?”

She took a breath. “Are you going to change?”

“I want to.” He put his mouth at the crook of her neck, and his teeth nipped at her before he whispered, “Are you asking me to, Paisley?”

Was she?

“Maybe,” she whispered. “Yes.”

She felt the change in the size and shape of his body first; then he drew back, and she could see him, and all she could think was that he really was a kind of demon and that the centuries of human fear of creatures like him didn’t touch her at all. He was Iskander and she knew him. She touched him, explored his body, and kept losing herself in pleasure.

After a bit, he pulled himself over her, positioning his body and using a knee to nudge apart her legs. His hide was warm leather against her skin. Not human, and she was going to let this happen. She wanted it to happen. Her body and mind were ready and more than willing. She shifted, tipping her pelvis to give him the access he needed. Her need to have him inside her seemed unendurable.

“Now. Iskander, now.” She arched her back, and then he pushed inside her, slowly, his eyes locked with hers. All the sensation in her body focused here, between her legs, inside her.

“You feel good.” His pelvis rocked forward. “So good. Paisley, yes. ” He drew in a long, slow breath. She could hardly believe this was happening, that he wanted her and that he was hard, and she was already at the edge of arousal and about to fall over, and, oh, God, he pulled back his hips and then pushed inside her again and this felt better than anything she’d ever experienced in her life.