Pleasure Unbound (12 page)

Wrapping her arms around herself as though cold, Tayla braced her shoulder against the window. “Turn here and park anywhere.”

He looked around the area in disgust. He hadn’t been sure what to expect from the slayer’s neighborhood, but the ghetto wasn’t it. Not even the cheery April sunlight could put a shine on the graffiti-tagged, run-down character of the neighborhood.

“You won’t want to leave your car for more than thirty seconds, or it’ll be stripped or ripped.”

“It’ll be fine.” He parked between a furniture truck and a lowered pickup riddled with bullet holes, and they got out of the car.

When Tayla glanced hesitantly at the vehicle and then back at him, he shook his head. “Trust me. People will walk by like they don’t even see it.” The BMW wouldn’t literally be invisible, but the Deflection spell that came standard on demon-dealer autos meant his BMW didn’t attract human attention. They’d see it, but it would register only in their subconscious.

“Whatever. Your loss. My keys are at HQ, so I hope the super is around.”

She led him to a building roaches wouldn’t call home, and after picking up a key at the office, they climbed two flights of rickety stairs. When she opened her door, she swore.

“Mickey!”

Eidolon stepped inside the apartment, not bothering to hide his shock. The place was a dump. Not filthy—Tayla obviously cleaned—but she didn’t have a lot to work with. The ceiling, stained by generations of water leaks and mold, bowed as though on the verge of collapse. Gray paint peeled like shredded skin from the walls, and holes the size of his foot pockmarked the vinyl flooring.

And scattered throughout were bits of foam that had once belonged inside one of the cushions on the orange seventies-style sofa.

“What happened?”

“Mickey. My ferret.”

“You have a pet weasel?” Said weasel poked its brown head out of the ragged hole in the cushion.

“He’s a ferret.” She moved into the kitchen, which could barely be called such. The fridge, more rust than metal, rattled like it was on its dying breath, and if the ancient stove worked, he’d sell one of his brothers into Neethul slavery. He might do that with Wraith, anyway.

Maybe The Aegis wasn’t involved in the demon organ ring, after all. If they were, they could afford to pay their people more.

“He must be starving,” she said, pouring what he assumed was weasel food into a plastic margarine container. “How long was I in the hospital?”

“Three days.”

“My poor baby.” Her voice was a soothing croon but it did the opposite to him, and when she bent to place the bowl on the floor, he watched the way the scrub pants molded to her rounded ass. His mind fuzzed out, and he realized he’d taken three steps toward her. The way she stroked the weasel’s narrow head, yeah, if she’d touch him the way she was touching the little animal . . .

Shit. He halted in his tracks, feeling flushed and hot and way too short-fused to be anywhere near any female, let alone a female like Tayla.

The weasel tackled the bowl, flinging pellets everywhere. Tayla straightened and turned, a smile curving her full lips that he was suddenly picturing on his.

He had to get out of there.

She dug an orange out of a bag on top of the stove, which was pretty much her only counter space, and then grabbed a bag of marshmallows from one of the two cupboards.

“Three days that felt like three years.” She bit into a marshmallow and watched him, her gaze secretive, and he wondered what was going on in that pretty head.

He knew what was going on in his, and she’d probably kill him for it.

“Look, I have to go. If you need anything—”

“Like what?”

Like, for instance, help when you grow horns and scales as your demon DNA kicks in.

“Your wound. The stitches will need to be removed.”

“I’ll do it myself.”

“I’d like to follow up with you.” He drew a card from his pocket and placed it on the TV tray that must serve as her kitchen table. “Here’s the hospital phone number. Say the words on the back before you dial.”

“An underworld communications system?”

“Something like that.”

“Are you this dedicated to all your patients? Or am I special?”

“Both.”

Under normal circumstances, he couldn’t have cared less if a human lived or died. But the half-demon mating-gone-wrong thing fascinated him, and the Aegi issue guaranteed that he wasn’t going to let her go that easily.

Then there was the fact that just looking at her made his blood run hotter than his normal body temperature of one-oh-nine.

Gods, she was thin, but as hard and sleek as a Trillah demon, but he knew firsthand how soft and pliant she could go beneath his touch. Knew how her slim hips could take his thrusts, how her long legs wrapped around him to hold him deep.

And her scent . . . damn. Her scent, deceptively appealing, the way cyanide smelled like sweet almonds, drove him mad.

He burned. He ached. He had to get back on track and fast, because he needed to find a mate before it was too late, and every second spent with Tayla was a second wasted.

“I have to go,” he repeated, but his feet didn’t move, because she was striding toward him.

He gazed at her, at the blood smears still darkening her cheek, at the smooth, tight skin everywhere else, and his own skin tightened and shrank as if it no longer fit.

“Thank you for saving my life.” She halted a foot away, close enough to smell the marshmallow on her breath. “But don’t think this changes anything.”

“Everything has changed, Tayla,” he said softly, reaching for her. He put two fingers to her throat, told himself he was probing for any signs of illness, fever, progression of her DNA transformation. Told himself whatever lies he had to in order to pretend he wasn’t touching her for the sheer pleasure of it.

“I hate it when you put your hands on me,” she whispered, but the way her pulse ticked violently beneath his fingers betrayed her.

He breathed deep, seeking her scent like a hellhound on the track of a hellbitch in heat. He slid his thumb down along her clavicle. Fragile. Delicate. He could break the bone with a flick of his wrist.

Or he could run his tongue over the silky skin there. It was insane the way he wanted her, the way his body sought the thrill of something as forbidden and dangerous as an Aegi killer. The instinct was so strong that images of the ways he’d take her swamped his brain, short-circuiting his control.

Against the wall . . . in a hot shower . . . bound and helpless, laid out like a sacrifice . . .

His gaze snapped up, caught hers. His temperature spiked and his thoughts hemorrhaged, bleeding out until there was only primal instinct to guide his actions.

He licked his lips. The knowledge of what he was about to do made her jaw drop as he dipped his head and slanted his mouth over hers. For a moment she stiffened, and then, oh, yeah, she caught his waist in one hand and melted against him.

Sticky, marshmallow sweetness coated his tongue as it sparred with hers. The soft recess of her mouth drew him deep, made him want to spend all day enjoying the wet, hot kiss. But his body wanted more, and he could find better uses for his tongue.

He tangled his hand in her thick hair, holding her firmly as he dropped his other hand to her ass to press her against his aching sex.

The subtle tightening of her body was his only warning.

A flash of silver arced near the extreme border of his vision, and the sting of metal bit into his throat. Hissing, he wrenched Tayla’s wrist and grabbed the knife.

“Son of a—” She bit off the curse and spun out of his grip.

There was nothing wrong with her reflexes, and she proved there was nothing wrong with her speed either, as she bolted toward a closed door. He dived, hit her as she reached for the handle, and they both tumbled through the bedroom doorway. She landed awkwardly, half on, half off the bed, and he came down on top of her.

“Remind me not to save your life again, if that’s how you repay small favors,” he growled.

“I don’t need you to save my life.” She clocked him in the jaw hard enough to make his teeth crack together. “And FYI? I wasn’t going to kill you.”

In one smooth move, he pinned both of her wrists with one hand, forcing her to buck beneath his weight. Which, of course, gave him a hard-on. He could blame the s’genesis, could blame the fact that he was an incubus. Could blame those things, and would, because the idea that Tayla herself could jumpstart him like a defibrillator was unacceptable.

“No? Was this your idea of foreplay?” He held the knife in front of her face, and though her eyes flared wide, she looked more curious than afraid as he brought it down to the collar of the scrub top. “Because I’m into this kind of sex toy. It’s a demon thing.”

“I know what you are,” she ground out, and he might have believed she was as pissed as she sounded, if it weren’t for the way she’d angled her pelvis to meet his erection.

“What were you going to do with the knife, little killer?” He drew the dull reverse edge along the skin just above her collar, leaving a trailing white line. Still, she didn’t look afraid, didn’t smell of fear. That turned him on as much as the fact that if she wanted to, if she really wanted to, she could kill him. Any doubt about that had been squashed during the battle with the Nightlashes.

“I was going to cut off your clothes.”

“You’re a terrible liar.” He slid the blade beneath the fabric.

A flick of his wrist sliced the scrub top down to her breasts, and her breath hitched, but she didn’t protest. He didn’t have Shade’s powers, couldn’t measure her internal systemic responses. But he could see the rapid rise and fall of her chest, the dilating pupils, the flushed skin. He could feel the pounding thud of her pulse in her wrist and could hear the thump of her heart as it raced. She could deny her arousal all she wanted, but her body spoke the truth.

Clenching the knife hilt between his teeth, he hauled her onto her bed, which was nothing more than a twin-sized mattress and twisted sheets on a metal frame. Using his weight, he imprisoned her beneath him, his long legs trapping hers between them.

“Bastard.”

Lightning fast, she escaped his grip and landed a blow to his cheek, but her strike lacked the strength and conviction he knew she was capable of. Adrenaline surged in his veins, hot, potent, the line between battle lust and sexual lust blurred. A cry escaped her as he flipped her onto her belly and straddled her thighs. He held her down with one hand pressed between her shoulder blades and took the knife from between his teeth with the other.

“What’s the matter, Tayla?” He slashed through the length of the top. “Are you going to tell me you don’t want this?”

“I hate you,” she snarled into her pillow.

He moved his hips in a slow, circular grind against her buttocks. “We’ve established that.”

She bucked angrily, and he pressed her even more firmly into the mattress. “Be still, slayer, or you’ll have a knife through your kidney.” He could fix it, of course, but a punctured organ would ruin the mood.

“Fuck. You.”

“Yeah, that’s the plan.”

He shifted his weight and pushed the flat of the blade between her spine and the waistband of the scrub pants. Cold steel rasped against hot flesh, and she arched up with a groan that shot straight to his cock. Greedily, he sliced through the trousers, and this time, she didn’t move a muscle as he ran the blade down the pant legs until she lay before him, gloriously naked.

Dropping the knife, he spread her legs and knelt between them, let his palms drift from the backs of her knees up along her muscular thighs.

“I can’t do this with you,” she whispered.

“We’ve done it before.”

“But I can’t—”

“I’ll make sure you do.” He bent over her, pressed a lingering kiss to the base of her neck. “You’ll come, Tayla. I’m dying to make you scream for me.”

Her response was muffled by the pillow, and she started to wriggle, but he slid his hand between her legs, cupped her, and she settled down.

“You’re wet. Gods, you’re wet.” He pushed a finger between her swollen lips and started an easy rhythm.

There was nothing easy about how his lungs worked hard to draw air in as he stroked her. Adding another finger, he squeezed her knot of nerves between them, gently rolling it with alternating light and firm pressure. Slow passes of his thumb over the sensitive flesh behind her sex made her squirm and push against him, and when he eased his thumb inside her slick heat while working her with his fingers, she cried out.

“This won’t work,” she whimpered, but her hips were pumping as if she couldn’t stop.

A powerful mix of lust and the need to possess Tayla made him shudder as he scraped his teeth down her spine and murmured against her skin, “But it feels good, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah.” She fisted the pillow with white-knuckled force. “Oh, yeah.”

“I can smell your need.” Her scent made his nostrils flare, and suddenly he had to taste her, to take all of her into his body. His body that was screaming for release, aching for this woman he should hate but desired in the most primal way.

Unable to wait any longer, he rolled her onto her back. Surprise flickered in the drowsy depths of her eyes, and for a moment he thought she’d resist as he lowered his mouth to her breast. Tremors shook her body, and she held her hands in fists at her sides, but as he drew one dusky nipple between his lips, a soft sigh loosened her to a boneless puddle.

He caressed her breasts, held them so he could divide his attention between them, licking, sucking until she was writhing and her hands had come up to tangle in his hair.

This was what he’d missed out on at the hospital when he’d been in a rush to take her. The slow windup of tension. The building heat. The sweet, citrusy taste of her skin as he licked a trail from her breasts down her abdomen.

He paused to rim her navel with his tongue, felt her sleek, honed muscles flex beneath his palms. Her fingers caressed his scalp, sending tingles to the base of his spine and sparking fiery bolts of pleasure into his balls.

Inching lower, he let her soft feminine curls tickle his cheek as he spread her legs wide, opening her to him. He shifted, admired the sight before him, her swollen flesh served up for him and him alone.