The Sweetest Burn

  I’d kicked off my heels and finished drawing the drapes when Adrian walked in. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. One look into his eyes, and I knew I’d been wrong about his wanting to sleep in the other room. Or sleep at all.

  In two long strides, he had me in his arms. My heartbeat sped up as his mouth closed over mine. His kiss was hard, yet when his tongue twined with mine and his hands began moving over me, I pressed myself closer. My weariness vanished, replaced by a long-denied desire. I wrapped my arms around his neck, moaning when he brought our bodies together so I could feel how much he wanted me. Then I gripped him tighter as his hands began to stroke and squeeze my ass. Those knowing, firm touches sent pleasure right through to the other side of me, making it feel as if he were touching something else. Without conscious thought, I rubbed against him, feeling his throbbing flesh through the thin layers of our clothes.

  The sound he made was more growl than moan. He picked me up, and when my legs wrapped around his waist, he rubbed that jutting hardness right against my clitoris. I cried out at the instant, exquisite tightening that made my whole body clench with pleasure.

  Then he carried me over to the bed, and when his body covered mine, he kissed me again. After a long, mind-numbing moment, he drew away, lifting me up with him. My heart pounded as I felt the zipper on my dress being dragged down. He stared at me as he pulled my dress off, catching the side of my panties when he reached my hips. He bunched them and the rest of my dress in his hand until all of it cleared my feet, then he tossed everything onto the floor. The fierce, unbridled hunger in his gaze made my heart pound with need that felt very close to desperation.

  “You’re beautiful,” he breathed. “So fucking beautiful.”

  His voice was harsh with lust. I pulled at his shirt, wanting to feel his bare skin next to mine.

  “Take off your clothes,” I said in a voice so husky, I barely recognized it.

  He pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it aside. Golden-colored skin covered broad shoulders, a thickly muscled chest and arms that could’ve been carved from steel. My breath caught as I ran my hands over him, feeling the erotic juxtaposition of silky skin over rock-hard muscles. His eyes closed, as if savoring the feel of me touching him, then his hand went to his pants. When he pulled his zipper down, revealing his cock straining out of the top of his briefs, I almost gasped.

  We’re going to need Magnums, was my first thought, followed instantly by, Do we even have any condoms?

  “Adrian,” I said hoarsely, “do you have protection?” I hoped he’d gotten that when he was out getting our other stuff!

  Instead of answering, he pulled his pants and briefs off. If I’d thought he looked magnificent the other time I’d seen him naked, that was nothing compared to the sight of him naked and fully erect. Anticipation mingled with my lust. I didn’t know if I’d be able to take all of him, but oh, I intended to find out.

  He held my gaze as he got into bed and settled himself on top of me. When I felt his body—skin to skin and hardness to softness—an inner throb deep inside increased until it almost matched the same thundering pace of my heartbeat.

  “We don’t need protection,” he murmured, kissing the corner of my mouth while his hands started to roam over me again.

  I disagreed, but I was having a hard time formulating words at the moment. His dark gold hair brushed my face in teasing wisps, his hard chest rubbed my nipples, making them even stiffer, and his knee rested against my inner thigh, only inches from where I was wet with need. He felt so large, so warm, so good, and that wasn’t even counting his hands, which slid over me with sensual dominance, claiming every part he touched.

  “I had a vasectomy,” he breathed, and I was so overwhelmed by the sensations coursing through me, it took me a second to process that.

  “Oh.” That was all I was capable of saying as his palm climbed up my thigh.

  “I’ve also been tested, and I’m clean,” he whispered before his mouth covered mine.

  The last of my concerns vanished. I opened my lips, meeting his tongue with my own. I loved the way he kissed me, as if he’d never get another chance to show me how much he wanted me. I moaned as his mouth continued to move over mine. Each stroke of his tongue aroused me more, and when his hand reached my center and his thumb circled my clitoris, my cry was muffled by his kiss. Then his fingers probed my depths, and I arched, my nails digging into his shoulders.

  “You feel so good.”

  He growled the words as his mouth left mine to slide down my body. He stopped at my breasts, laving my nipple for a few spine-tingling moments, then sucked strongly at the same moment that his finger penetrated deeply inside me.

  My back left the bed as pleasure bowed my spine. Cries spilled out of my mouth when he started to rub in a rhythmic way. My nerve endings tightened and twisted with each stroke, and my heart beat so fast that I felt dizzy. I knew my nails were digging into his shoulders hard enough to leave marks, but I couldn’t make myself stop. I didn’t feel in control of my body. Adrian was in control, and he sucked on my nipples while his fingers made me mindless with need.

  That’s why I wasn’t embarrassed when he spread my legs and his mouth descended between them. I didn’t care about the cry that tore out of me at the first branding stroke of his tongue, or the way I arched against him to feel more. When he delved deeper, his tongue swirling faster and faster, it was too much. Rapture broke within me, flashing out from my center faster than I could sob out his name. I gripped his head as the climax shattered me, then fell back against the pillows, panting, as that sharp ecstasy faded into lingering, blissful tingles.

  He rubbed his face against the blankets before rising up on his knees. I gasped for a different reason when he slid my thighs around his hips and his hard flesh touched my wet, soft folds. Then he bent down, closing his mouth over mine in a kiss that stole the rest of my breath from me.

  “I love you.”

  He said the words against my lips as he thrust forward. His mouth muffled the cry I made at the sudden, sharp burn within. He stopped even as his muscles tensed as though they were about to snap. Then he smoothed the hair away from my face, kissing my bottom lip where I was biting it in unwitting reaction to that wounding fullness.

  “Are you all right?” he whispered.

  His gaze almost burned from lust, but concern etched his features and he didn’t move. That didn’t stop those deep, unfamiliar throbs from pulsating inside me. Seemingly of its own will, my flesh tightened around him, and he closed his eyes as a harsh, choked sound came out of him.

  “Can you go slow?” I asked, my voice low and breathy. His eyes seemed to darken even though I knew that was impossible.

  “Yes,” he said, drawing the word out to match the measured, sinuous arch of his hips.

  I gasped as he slid deeper, increasing that incredible feeling of fullness. Then another languorous twist of his hips had him pulling out, and though the stinging sensation lessened, it left a feeling of aching emptiness that was somehow worse. Tentatively, I raised my hips, closing my eyes as he slid slowly, deeply, back into me. Those unbelievable inner throbs intensified as hidden walls stretched to fit him, and the sensations made the lingering pain pale by comparison.

  My hands slid down his back, feeling the bunch and flex of his muscles with every new movement. His tongue echoed the slow rhythm of his body as the pain faded and pleasure began to build. I moved against him, reveling in how tightly he gripped me. Our breaths were short, sharp moans that mingled between kisses, and his hands were sensual weapons that sought out my most sensitive spots and then conquered them with pleasure.

  The intensity built, until I was writhing with the same mindless ecstasy I’d felt when he was going down on me, only this time, he prolonged it. My moans turned into cries that turned into shouts as he held an orgasm just outside of my reach. H
e kept bringing me to the brink only to slow down before that crucial moment. Then he repeated the exquisite torture, until I was raking my nails down his back and shouting things I never thought I’d hear from my own lips.

  And I didn’t care. My loins burned in the most glorious way, my heart pounded so fast that it was probably dangerous and I slammed my hips against Adrian’s as if I were urging him to hurt me. He wasn’t, even if we’d left “slow” in the dust a while ago. No, each hard, rapid thrust felt ruthlessly rapturous, and I twisted against him in urgent need for more.

  Then he picked me up, holding my hips against his while he leaned back until I was half straddling him. The change in position caused him to penetrate so deep, I could barely stand it, yet I cried out with pleasure so intense that it brought me over the edge. As I came, he moved even faster, his thrusts rougher, until I felt his climax in the fierce way his grip tightened and the deep, wet spasms within me.

  He fell back against the bed, taking me with him, which was good since I’d suddenly lost the ability to move. I was vibrating with pleasure and so worn-out that I was dizzy; a unique experience for me. When Adrian brushed his lips across mine, I was too tired to kiss him back, but I did smile. Right before I gave into that anesthetic mixture of afterglow and exhaustion, I whispered the words I hadn’t told him since that night all those months ago when I’d pulled him out from under a pile of demon ashes.

  “I love you, too, Adrian.”

  Then, at last, I fell asleep.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  I WOKE UP to the unfamiliar weight of a heavy arm draped across my body. It made me smile as I rolled over into Adrian’s embrace. Yeah, I could definitely get used to this.

  “Hey,” I murmured, opening my eyes.

  Adrian’s eyes were open, too. In fact, he looked like he’d been awake for a while. “Hey, yourself,” he said, and kissed me.

  I kissed him back, but pushed him away when he began to deepen the kiss in a more serious way.

  “Wait,” I said, rolling away. I might be in a romantic mood, but my bladder wasn’t. His shirt was on the floor, and I pulled it on before I hurried into the bathroom.

  When I came out, Adrian was still stretched out on the bed, his muscled arms over his head and the sheets tangled around his hips. I enjoyed the sight of that so much, it took me several seconds to register the numbers on the clock behind him.

  “I slept for ten hours?” I asked in disbelief.

  His smile held a hint of wickedness. “You were tired. I can’t take all the credit for that, but I’ll take some.”

  Being up over thirty hours while bouncing back and forth between realms and time zones might have resulted in a lot of my tiredness, but Adrian definitely was responsible for some of it. And he was responsible for all my aches in very intimate places.

  “Zach’ll be here in about two hours,” I said, mentally calculating when dusk was.

  Adrian’s smile grew. “That gives you only an hour to eat, shower and get dressed.”

  “An hour?” I teased, coming closer.

  He lunged, using his incredible speed to grab me and throw me onto the bed before my next breath.

  “Probably less,” he murmured, giving me a scorching kiss.

  In the end, I had just over thirty minutes to get ready. At some point while I’d been sleeping, Adrian had ordered room service, so I scarfed the sandwich, fries and iced tea he’d gotten for me as soon as I came out of the shower. Then I got dressed in the new clothes Adrian had managed to get, too.

  I’d just finished putting on my jeans and lavender top when Zach appeared in the bedroom doorway. To his credit, he didn’t so much as wink at the messy bed or clothes strewn on the floor.

  “Time to go,” he stated.

  I looked at Adrian. “Do we need to check out?”

  He let out an amused snort. “No, Ivy, it’s fine.”

  I sighed as I fingered my new shirt, remembering that the nearest gateway was under the Brooklyn Bridge. “Guess all this is about to get wet.”

  “Don’t worry,” Adrian replied, going to the closet and pulling out a sealed plastic bag. “We’ve got more clothes.”

  “How long were you awake?” I asked in wonder.

  He shrugged. “A while. I’m used to all that.”

  “Oh, I could tell,” I replied, arching a meaningful brow.

  His grin promised things I now knew he could deliver on. “I meant realm-hopping without sleep, but I love your dirty mind.”

  The sound Zach made must’ve been Archon for “enough already.” “If you wish to go back to the realm, come with me now.”

  “We’re coming,” I said, and Adrian called out, “Brutus!”

  The gargoyle came out of his room, giving a wary look at the windows, which still showed the soft light of dusk. Poor boy. Wait until he saw where we were going. But we wouldn’t be staying long. Not when we couldn’t leave unless Zach was there to pull us through the gateway. The Archon tended to disappear a lot, and we still had to search for the staff.

  “After you,” I said, sketching a theatric bow at Zach.

  His mouth twitched in his usual version of a not-smile. “Marriage seems to agree with you.”

  Marriage. The word still felt foreign, as if it couldn’t possibly apply to me, but I didn’t argue. Adrian and I weren’t just bound together by mere human legalities. We’d been soul-tethered. It didn’t get more permanent than that.

  When Adrian put his arm around me, his fingers trailing over that stunning, darkly glittering ring, I decided that I loved the word marriage. It meant that we were going to face whatever life or destiny threw at us together.

  “Maybe I’ll change my name,” I mused as we left the suite for the elevator. “What’s your last name again, Adrian?”

  Something flashed across his face, as if I’d poked at an old wound. “I don’t know,” he replied lightly.

  I could have kicked myself. I thought I’d simply forgotten it, but Adrian had been so young when Demetrius had taken him, he hadn’t even known his full name. It’s not as if his mother had been alive to tell him, either. Demetrius had seen to that.

  “Well, you can always pick one, although I don’t recommend Iscariot,” I said, attempting to walk back the new, tense mood with my quip about Judas’s last name.

  Adrian’s wry smile said he appreciated my stab at humor. “That wouldn’t be my first choice, either.”

  “Or, maybe Zach knows what your mother’s last name was?” I said, remembering that he had an encyclopedic knowledge of lineage, not to mention children. But when Zach’s dark gaze landed on me, I knew I’d made a mistake.

  “You inquire about Adrian’s real mother, yet you’ve never asked me about yours.”

  I used walking through the busy lobby as an excuse not to respond. All my life, I thought I had known the basic story of my biological parents. Due to my mixed coloring, pediatricians had guessed that my father had been Caucasian, and my adoptive parents had believed that my mother had been an undocumented Hispanic immigrant who’d left me on the side of a highway when the tractor trailer she’d been hiding in jackknifed.

  I hadn’t hated my bio-mom for abandoning me. The Jenkinses had raised me better than that. Instead, the few times I’d thought about her, I’d pitied her for being desperate enough to give up her month-old newborn so she’d have a better chance at disappearing into this country. Her life in Mexico must have been truly awful. As for my bio-dad, well, I knew nothing about him. No Caucasians had been spotted escaping the tractor trailer the day of the accident, so he’d been gone by the time I was abandoned. Maybe he hadn’t even known that he had a daughter.

  That’s what I’d believed, and the Jenkinses had showered me with so much love, I’d been fine with it. Then I’d met Zach and he’d ripped my world apart, fir
st by telling me about my supernatural lineage and unwanted destiny, then by his comment about my birth mother. Your real mother didn’t leave you because she was running from the police. She did it to save you, just as your dreams revealed.

  He’d tried to tell me more, and I hadn’t let him. I’d been too overwhelmed after finding out that my adoptive parents had been killed, Archons and demons were real and demons had my sister in one of their realms. Add in the part where my best chance at saving Jasmine involved a lost supernatural slingshot and an arrogant, secretive man who wanted nothing to do with me, and I’d been full up on what I could handle.

  But Zach was right, I reflected as I got into the limo while Adrian gave Brutus instructions to follow us by air. I’d had chances since then to ask about my biological parents, and I hadn’t. Why didn’t I want to know? Was I afraid that the reality was worse than the fallacy I’d grown up believing?

  I’d ask Zach after we found the staff, I decided, telling myself I wasn’t taking the coward’s way out. I was only being practical. Whatever the truth was, it could wait until then.

  * * *

  WE TUMBLED INTO the light realm soaking wet from the East River. Well, all of us except Zach. He somehow emerged without a drop on him, then had the nerve to give me a condescending back pat as I coughed out the water I’d inadvertently swallowed.

  Archons. They really rubbed in their superiority at times.

  “Ivy!” Jasmine exclaimed, running over and hugging me despite getting dirty river water on her. “Are you okay? What happened? You were gone so long!”

  “Just two days,” I began, then stopped. Right, time moved differently here. “How long has it been on this side?”

  Jasmine let me go, flipping back her odd streak of white hair. “Weeks,” she said, a catch in her voice. “Zach came by an hour ago to say he was bringing you back soon, but before that, I hadn’t seen him in weeks, either.”