StrangeDays (4 page)

“Too much?” He stroked a hand down her abs. How could she
not love them? With just the right amount of curvature, she looked like a
woman, not a skeletal version of herself. A voluptuous, perfectly made female
whose body he intended to get to know very well.

“You bit my nipple.” She breathed heavily.

“I did.” He nodded.

“Would you do it again? To the other one?”

Christian grinned, the absolute rightness of their bond
emboldening him. “Tell you what, I’ll do anything you want except turn off that
light. Deal?”

She nodded and he grinned. “Good.”

As he’d promised her, and because he wanted to so
desperately his hands shook, he bent over and took her other nipple between his
teeth. But first he wanted to tease her. His tongue played with the tip,
letting it graze by his teeth but without actually biting down on the full
nipple. She groaned and he could hear the frustration in the sound. Finally, he
gave her what he wanted as much as she did. He bit down.

She cried out, grabbing on to the back of his neck, digging
her fingers right into his skin. Yes, he loved how she responded to him.

“Kiss me again, Dodie. Kiss me hard.”

Their lips met and fused together. He breathed her inside
him. Who needed air when he could survive on her alone?

She pulled at his shirt and he stopped kissing her to catch his
breath. “What do you need, baby?”

“This.” She tugged at the shirt again. “Off. You’re getting
lots of time with me half nude. I’d like to see you too.”

Christian smiled. “That’s easily done.”

He pulled his T-shirt over his head and dumped it on the floor.
A shower would have been nice. Grease from the show the previous day still
coated his skin, making him slick.

“Do you hate that I’m all slicked up? I can go wash off.” He
frowned.

“No.” She ran her hands over his abdomen. “Don’t go
anywhere.”

“This is for the show. I come home and shower. I don’t walk
around like this.” Christian had never felt so compelled to explain himself
before. Usually he maintained a take-it-or-leave-it attitude. This woman
mattered.

Smart, sexy and completely not the type to come on to
him—she’d skedaddled nearly every time they’d been together in the past—he
wanted her to think highly of him. Oil-wearing guys didn’t seem her type.

“I’ve seen you like this. When I went to Brass.”

His heart skipped a beat. “You’ve seen me dance?”

“Yes.” She swallowed, her jaw clenching. “Twice.”

“I don’t remember seeing you.” He did a pretty good scan of
the audience every night, liking to know who was there. If the regulars came
back, if some of the too-attentive women with unreasonable expectations
arrived, he could prepare himself and act accordingly.

“You’d never have noticed me.”

He shook his head. “You must have gone out of your way not to
be noticed, Dodie.”

“How do you know that?”

He pressed himself farther against her. “Because I’ve been
lusting after you since you moved in next door. If I’d seen you there…well, it
would have been a very different kind of a night.”

“You were wonderful. A very good dancer.” She’d turned a
beautiful shade of pink. Dodie blushed easily and he intended to keep her that
way.

“And when I got down to my briefs?” He nuzzled her breast. “How
did that make you feel?”

Her eyes held challenge, daring him to judge what she said.
“Embarrassed that I was so turned on, saddened that I’d stalked you there and
had to hide in the back of the room in a hat and coat so you wouldn’t know I’d
done so.”

“Were you hot from all the guys? Or just me?” He shouldn’t
ask. What if she didn’t say what he wanted her to? He bit his cheek. If dancers
turned her on in general, he would just have to work harder to show her it
should be only his body that got her bothered.

“You. I couldn’t have cared less about anyone else.”

He nodded. “That’s good, beautiful. Next time you come, I’m
going to show you it’s possible to dance for a room full of women and only have
eyes for you.”

Dodie couldn’t believe she’d ended up in his arms. His
smooth, muscular, built-like-some-kind-of-mythical-god arms. And he said the
sweetest things.

He kissed her again. She really couldn’t get enough of his
mouth. If they didn’t have limited time and a distraught, passed-out Mindy in
the other room, she’d want to kiss him for hours. As it was, she wanted him to
hurry up. The longer this went on, the more likely she’d screw it up somehow
and not actually get his penis inside her.

And she wanted it. Badly.

Christian should be sticky and gross—instead he felt smooth.
She wanted to touch him all day.

“Are you greased up everywhere?” Her mouth watered.

“Just about.” His grin could only be called playful. “I’ll
show you mine and you show me yours.”

He had this way of disarming her. By this point she’d
stopped worrying about him seeing the whole picture of her. If he hadn’t run
for the hills the second he saw her stomach, he probably wouldn’t mind her
thighs that much. Still, in the dark she could at least have pretended to be
five-foot-two, petite and sexy. This way, in the light, he was getting her in
her full glory, whether he wanted it or not.

Christian removed his pants, showing his legs. That was when
it occurred to her that he had no hair on his body. No light dusting of blond
anywhere on all that shiny golden flesh, but for his face and his scalp.

“Do you wax?” She ran her hands up his legs.

“For the job. It shows off muscle definition better.” He
shrugged. “One of the things I have to do in order to dance.”

“Oh.” Her legs were shaved, but she had hair in other
places. Would he expect her pussy to be bald? She could do it, but she needed
some warning to accomplish the task. Maybe they should finish another night,
after she’d had some time to do a little more grooming.

His hard cock pressed through his tight briefs. They weren’t
the ones he wore on stage, which, if she recalled correctly from watching his
show, had been bright red. These were cotton and, now that she knew him a
little better, suited him.

He eyed her pants. “Off.”

“I have hair.” She shook her head. “Not on my legs. I mean,
I shave my legs. But you know…” Dodie couldn’t say the word pussy to him, or
any other version of it. It just felt…wrong. “Down there.”

“Let me see it.” He raised an eyebrow but she couldn’t guess
his thoughts from his facial expression.

She pulled down her pajama pants and waited. His Adam’s
apple bobbed as he swallowed. “You’re not wearing any panties.”

“Um. Yes. Like the bra situation, I was in a hurry.”

“You walked around the hospital, sat in the car and moved
around your apartment completely commando?” On his knees, he moved toward her
on the bed.

Her mouth watered. “Yes.”

Why didn’t he say something about her bush? Was it okay? Did
he prefer women to be hairless there?

“Can you do that all the time? I’d love to think about it.
You walking down the hall, going to work, grocery shopping, completely without
underwear.”

“You’d like thinking about that?” His words made her swell
inside. He wanted to think about her doing that.

“Yes.” He nodded as he ran a finger up her leg toward her
pussy. Her vagina quivered in anticipation.

Christian pushed one finger inside her and she closed her
eyes. How could it feel so good to have him simply touch her there?

“Open those lids and look at me.”

She did as he asked. Anything he wanted, if only he would
give her what her body ached for, release.

“I like you looking at me.” His already deep voice dropped a
notch.

She sat up on her elbows. “I want to touch you too.”

“Let’s adjust our position.” He pulled her against him while
he rolled them both to their sides. “This way we can touch each other as much
as we want. Or until you get me way too hard and I have to stop you before I
embarrass myself.”

Dodie reached out and touched him. She wrapped her fingers
around his thick length. He jerked against her.

“Okay. It might not be long.”

He slipped his fingers inside her and she moaned. Yes, she
wanted him to touch her more, to stroke her, to make her come. Like an expert,
he found her clit without staggering around in there searching. He flicked it
between his fingers and she creamed. Yes, he wasn’t alone. This really might
not take much time for her either.

“I love your juices, baby. Give them all to me.”

She would never be able to hold anything back. Whatever he
wished, she would deliver. Two of his fingers slid deeper inside her. Her
muscles clenched around him.

“You’re so wet. Are you ready for me?” In her hand, his
penis jumped again. He wanted her as much as she did him and that, as much as
anything else, made her as hot as hell for him.

“Yes. Please,” she panted.

“Next time.” He kissed her lips gently. “When we’re not so
desperate for each other, we can go all night.”

She couldn’t focus on his words, just what his body did when
he moved over her. In a swift movement, he had the condom out of the package
and sheathed himself.

He played with her clit again and her insides exploded. Coming
around his fingers before he ever had the chance to move inside her, she
couldn’t stop panting or calling his name. Never had she come so suddenly or so
hard from so little stimulation.

It usually took her hours and lots of fantasizing about
Christian to get herself to completion. He’d done it in minutes.

“You ready for me?”

She nodded, dizzied excitement filling her bones. What would
it be like to have him inside her?

He entered her slowly. Her muscles stretched to accommodate
him, but it had been a long time since she’d done this and he was big. She sucked
in her breath, a delicious sensation of fullness making her sigh. How could
doing this with him seem so right?

“You fit me like a glove.” He leaned over and she kissed him
gently on the mouth.

“It’s just… Wow.” She didn’t have words.

“It is,” he agreed as he started to move inside her.

She groaned as he moved, her insides almost unbearably
sensitive. When had it ever felt like this? How could it be this intense?

For every plunge inside her, he pulled out slowly. The dance
of his hips seemed a slow torture. She might die if he didn’t speed up soon.

“I want to make this so good for you.” His face appeared
strained. “I have to control myself.”

“No.” She grabbed his cheeks. “Don’t hold back. I want you
lost. I want to be lost with you.”

He ceased his movements for a few seconds and she wondered
if he was considering her words or if for some reason she’d managed, at that
very inopportune moment, to piss him off and now he’d leave her like this.

Seconds later, he slammed into her hard. She gasped, holding
on to him for dear life. Apparently telling Christian not to hold back brought
out the wildness in him. She loved it, meeting his hunger with her own.

In and out, her hips met his thrusts. She panted and he
groaned. His neck muscles clenched and she knew he still held back from his own
pleasure. It was okay. She wanted to tell him that it was hard to make her
come, that she’d gone over once and probably would not again. But then the
friction overtook her and her muscles spasmed around his cock.

Moisture plunged from her core, drenching both of them, and
she dug her fingers into his back, pleasure making stars appear before her
eyes. Over and over, she came in a wave of bliss that showed her she’d never
truly had an orgasm before.

At some point in the midst of her elation, Christian
followed her into oblivion. He caught himself before falling on top of her and
she reached out to stroke his chest.

The man really did have abs of steel. She closed her eyes.

Sometime later, he pulled her into his arms, rolling them
both so she sprawled on top of him. The stress of the night coupled with the
sheer extremeness of their moments together exhausted her. She really wanted to
close her eyes and sleep for a year. Or until Mindy needed her, whichever came
first.

“Babe,” Christian whispered in her ear. “I have to go.”

So there it was. She’d had a brief foray into heaven and
actually done it with the guy next door. Now without even so much as a long
snuggle, he needed to leave.

She smiled at him. In this day and age, and considering that
he probably had ten women a week, she had no right to expect anything less.

Dodie forced a smile. “Have a good rest of your day.”

He kissed her on the mouth and she tried to treasure the
moment. No one would ever kiss like him; no one would ever make her body move
like his practiced one had. Truth was, he’d probably ruined her for other men.

“Can’t possibly be any better than this.”

Yeah. Somehow she figured he used that line on all the
girls.

* * * * *

Christian left Dodie’s apartment wishing he could just climb
right back into bed with her, sleep for an hour, and start all over again. He’d
give her a longer ride. Smiling at the thought, he let himself into his own
home.

There were demonic forces at play and it was his job to
handle them before he made his way to Brass and put on a good show for the
night.

Then he’d get Dodie back in bed, assuming her friend was
asleep when he returned. Otherwise the plan would have to be to grab Dodie, bring
her back to his apartment and show her some moves he hoped she hadn’t seen
before.

He scrubbed his body, getting the oil off his skin, and
scowled in the process. Removing the grime also took the scent of Dodie’s red
hair from his skin. He would have preferred to wear her scent like a badge of
pride, like a warm coat he could wrap himself up in, and linger in the memories
its sweetness evoked for a while.

When he’d gotten clean, he changed and grabbed some weapons.
In real life, unlike in training, he couldn’t go busting into Seton South West
armed to the teeth, wearing a Nihonto, his preferred Japanese sword, or
carrying an assault weapon. He regretted the necessity of subterfuge, since he
liked the sword best for fighting demons. Nothing beat the organic feeling of
skewering them. Both options were available in his apartment, as well as
assortment of other weapons he’d been trained to use, however carrying them
into a hospital would be like finding a get in jail free card.

Been there, done that. Before Master Foy.

His hidden whip would have to suffice and he’d try to find
something sharp once he got to the hospital to hide on his person as a backup.
Surely they had surgical tools, which could work in a pinch. The most important
thing was for him to look the part of a harmless hospital worker.

Christian climbed into the back of his closet and flipped on
the light. With a few turns of his wrist, he opened one of the hidden
compartments he built into his home. There were ten total such caches—some for
weapons, some for clothes and some educational materials he didn’t want to
leave lying around.

The Art of Demon Killing
would be too much of a
conversation piece to have someone just stumble across it on a Saturday at
three in the morning.

He found a suitable costume and put it on. The scrubs would
provide stealth, camouflage for the battleground the demons chose, and
hopefully no one would notice his fake ID badge didn’t say Seton South West
anywhere on it. Probably no one would take a very good look at him at all.

Christian pulled his shoulder-length blond hair into a low-hanging
ponytail to complete the image. Not a doctor, nor a nurse. They’d assume
orderly or cafeteria staff, a position just enough low on the totem pole to be
disregarded but allowed access.

For all intents and purposes, he had to seem to be exactly
the persona he created with no secret life to keep hidden. Only he wanted Dodie
to know, now that she was his. She should understand who he really was and what
he had seen and experienced. He wanted her to know why it was so important that
he continue with the work Master Foy set out for them.

Of course, exactly how to explain something like that
constituted an entirely different problem.

“By the way, babe, in addition to all the other things we’re
going to get to know about each other, I’m also a fighter of evil. Yes, evil.
In fact what I do is called chasing the darkness. Want to know more? Sure, I’ll
tell you. Pass the salt please.”

He shook his head. Even saying the words aloud sounded
crazy. But in his case, crazy was the name of the game on a daily basis.

His phone beeped and he looked down, his heart thundering.
Had Dodie texted him? No. He’d not given her his number, which was dumb. He’d
have to do something about that when he got back.

Jonah had texted him.
Hey man. I’m here.

At my apartment?
He’d not heard any noise in the
hall. Jonah could hide himself better than anyone, making it possible he’d
hidden himself in Christian’s apartment for all he knew.

No, dingbat. I’m in Austin.

Meet me at the location.

He added the address at the bottom of the text and left.
Jonah would find his own way there. One thing he could count on with his friend
was his ability to get where he needed to be.

Christian took off out the door. Fighting demons worked best
in the middle of the day. With the sun offering strength in his battle against
the darkness he felt prepared to handle whatever got shoved in his path. Today
would be a great day to see evil die.

* * * * *

Christian picked up a piece of dirt from outside the
hospital. He raised it to his nose and took a deep sniff. It didn’t reek of
rotten eggs, the lingering sulfur that marred the surface of the earth when
great darkness abounded. Whatever took up residence here to cause pain hadn’t
moved in. The lair would be elsewhere. The knowledge didn’t rule out his chance
of slaughtering it right there, on the premises.