My body liked that, liked the fact that his eyes had bled black, with only a thin ring of emerald fire around the iris. But it liked a lot less that he was just staying there, wasn’t moving away, but wasn’t coming closer. It hurt not to touch him, an actual, physical ache, to see the rivulets sweat had carved down all those muscles, the swirling patterns it had made in his body hair, and not be able to trace them with my fingers, with my tongue....
He was saying something, but I didn’t listen. Didn’t care. My hands were fixed to the seat, but in holding mine, he’d immobilized his own as well. And we were close, so very close, that he couldn’t stop me from winding a leg around him, from arching up to rub my cheek against the soft fur on his chest, from finding a peaked nipple and biting—
“Cassie, please . . .” It came out choked, desperate, but to me it sounded like encouragement.
I bit down a little harder, and he cried out. I let my tongue lave the small mark I’d made, and his whole body shook in pleasure. It rippled into me, banishing the pain, but increasing the hunger. It felt wonderful, touching this much flesh, feeling his heart beat hard under my lips. But I wanted more, wanted to feel all that velvet skin on mine, wanted everything.
And so did he. Whatever he said, his hunger radiated down through his skin and into mine, making me cry out, making me crazy. I arched up and his chest barely brushed my erect nipples, but the shock of pleasure was intense, overpowering, magnifying the craving by a power of ten. I writhed against his hold, needing the pressing weight, the fierce cadence of skin on skin, the—
“Cassie!” A hand gripped my face, turning my eyes up to his, making me focus. Green eyes blazed down into mine, no longer black but strangely, unearthly bright. “You’ve been influenced. Do you understand? Remember how it felt before?”
A memory tugged at my mind, but it was vague, uninteresting. I pushed against his hands, throwing everything I had into it, but it was like fighting a statue. I cried out in pain and raw, unfulfilled need.
Pritkin cursed, but not at me. “What did you do to her?”
“What do you think?” someone laughed. “You know, you really should help the poor girl.”
“Stay out of this,” Pritkin snarled, and the tone was enough to send tongues of flame licking at pleasure points deep inside me. I whimpered.
“If I had, you’d be dead,” the other voice commented. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
He may have said more, but I didn’t hear. Because those warm hands had released me to close over my feet, gently sliding off my shoes before smoothing possessively over my calves. The sensation was exquisite, torturous, had my whole body jumping like a sensitized nerve ending. I started to reach out, to touch, to stroke, and immediately the hands were removed.
“No. Stay still.”
It was Pritkin’s voice, the one he used for command, the one I rarely heard but automatically obeyed. Usually because it meant that bad people with nasty weapons were aiming them at my head. I didn’t know what the cause was this time, but I fell back against the seat, breathing hard. And the hands returned.
Callused palms brushed the soft undersides of my knees, then slipped around to warm the outsides of my thighs. They smoothed all the way up my body, encountering no barriers until they reached the thin material of my track shorts. Rough skin caught on the smooth nylon as he slid his hands over my hips, fingers slipping just under the elastic of the waistband.
They just stayed there for a moment, and our eyes met in the almost dark. Pritkin’s held the same fierce, focused intensity they did when he was bending over me in the training salle, a sword resting hot against my neck. Only there was something more there tonight, something fierce and hot and possessive. I was shocked to feel myself start to tremble.
The feeling intensified as those big hands slowly spread against my skin. For a dizzying moment of clarity, I could feel everything: the fingers smoothing over the line of stitching running up each side of the shorts, the faint scratch of the tag against my skin, the sweat-damp material sticking to the small of my back. And then those hands began smoothing, oh, so slowly, back down my body. And they took the shorts with them.
I heard myself make a sound, nothing I recognized. And then time seemed to slow again, going soft and liquid. To the point that I could feel every inch of the thin, silky material as it skimmed over my belly button, glided past my hips, drifted across my pelvic bones and then stroked down my thighs.
Somewhere along the line, a spiraling, falling feeling took over my head, banishing any kind of rational thought. I didn’t fight it. It was something I needed badly—something that let me forget what we were and where we were, and all the reasons why this was a very, very bad idea.
The silky cloth brushed over my feet as he pulled it completely away from my body. He never said a word. But as I lay there, bare except for a brief thong, I slowly realized that he was shaking. The tremors were almost imperceptible, as controlled as everything else about him. But I felt them.
I tried to tell him it was all right, that I trusted him, that this wouldn’t change anything. But then warm hands found my skin again and slid up my legs. And all I could manage was a low sound, deep in my throat, as he slowly pressed my thighs apart.
He bent his head, not hurrying, but with an intensity on his face that made my brain start to short-circuit. Warm breath ghosted over me as he tracked up my body, pausing here and there for long seconds, as if breathing me in. But never stopping, never touching. His lips were millimeters from my flushed skin, so close that every breath raised goose bumps. And that’s where they stayed, until I thought I would scream.
I wanted to touch him; I needed to move. But I couldn’t seem to do anything but writhe in helpless counterpoint to that merciless nonassault. Within seconds, I was biting my tongue to hold back something perilously close to a whimper. Then those hands slid up my sides and that mouth finally made contact, closing on the tender flesh just above the bow on my thong.
I gasped at the warm, wet sensation, so different from the feel of hands. And suddenly it was much easier to lie still, my whole body going heavy and languid. I sank back, surrendering to the weight that settled between my legs, the cool feel of his hair and the shockingly intimate caress of lips and tongue on sensitive skin. Satisfying a monthsold craving, I laced my fingers deep into the soft mane, feeling his head move under my hands.
The tender mouth went on to feast on my thighs, drawing another sound of startled pleasure from deep within me, a sound that turned to a groan when the hot tongue found the crease where thigh met hip. It made me want to touch him again, to flow against him like water, to slide along that muscled warmth and return pleasure for pleasure—
“Stop,” he said mildly, nipping lightly at my hipbone. And my body reacted with a sweet, surprised rush.
He slowly tracked across my skin until I melted, becoming a malleable creature of pure response as the warm, wet onslaught moved over my hips, my stomach and then lower. His tongue ran around the top of the thong, tracing the lace, catching on the small satin bow. I couldn’t see what he was doing; his head was in the way. But I felt it when a warm mouth closed over that small scrap of material, brushing my skin as he started tracking back down my body. And pulled it off with his teeth.
I stared at him blankly for a moment. All my fantasies, and still I’d never guessed, never known that this man simmered all the time below those grumpy looks, that stubbornset jaw and stiff-necked control. Or maybe some part of me had known, and known the risk....
And then I couldn’t watch him anymore. I lay back against the seat, panting, as I was stripped bare to the warm night’s breeze. Rosier was gone, or at least I couldn’t see him. I couldn’t see Caleb, either, because of the seat back, but wasn’t sure if the opposite was true. At the moment, I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything but the golden head now working its way back up my body.
He was drawing light patterns with his lips, his tongue, runes and symbols I was too far
gone to read but that burned through my skin. The sensation was so intense, so overwhelming, that it felt like my body couldn’t contain it. He stopped at a point where, had I been wearing panties, he would have been below them, feasting on skin I’d just waxed a few days ago. But he wasn’t low enough, not even close, and that all-consuming need was building again.
I sank my hands into his hair, trying to direct that head to where I so needed it to be. But he ignored me, continuing to nuzzle softly against my flesh with that same deceptive gentleness. Until a stab of longing tore through me, so strong that I thought the emptiness might kill me if it went on much longer.
I did whimper then, a ragged, involuntary moan that didn’t even sound like me. It would have been embarrassing if I’d been capable of caring about such things. But I wasn’t and I didn’t, not about that, not about anything but the almost unbearable intensity of need. I gasped out his name on a sob.
And finally, finally, he dropped that last inch. Warm lips closed over me, a wet tongue circled me. And a fierce, spiraling ache of need shot down every nerve I possessed. There. Oh, there, yes, there.
A faint shudder ran through him and his breath caught audibly. “Yes,” he hissed, so soft it might have been my own imagination. But the hands on my hips tightened convulsively, and that tongue became demanding, forcing me open, learning me intimately, discovering what I needed.
And then I couldn’t think anymore. It was sensory overload, hearing the sounds he made deep in his throat, smelling that peculiar mix of sweat and gunpowder and magic that may as well have been his signature cologne, feeling the assault of that mouth, all wet, silken heat and fiery passion, nothing safe, nothing sane—
And then he gently bit down.
And oh, dear God.
Pleasure racked me, a deep, primal shudder of response followed swiftly by a surge of pure, molten lust. The rush of heat started in my belly and swept outward in an unexpected, uncontrollable wave, the raw force of it wrenching a cry from my throat. Merciless, he sucked me deeper and did it again. And my body simply couldn’t take any more.
Ecstatic release flashed like chain lightning through my lungs and thighs and every place in between, right down to my toes. It rippled into Pritkin, tightening his hands, causing his fingers to dig into my flesh. And the sound he made, deep and vulnerable and desperate, made my body shudder harder, as if trying to come again even in the middle of mind-shattering release.
“God—” I heard myself choke, and didn’t know if it was a plea for mercy or a prayer of thanks.
When it was finally over, I clung to the heavily muscled body, the skin fever hot with the thrum of magic pulsing just under the surface, gasping. A hand crushed my head to his chest, fingers tangling in my hair. I didn’t even try to move; didn’t think I could. I just stayed there, listening to his heartbeat pound strong and sure, if a little erratically, under my ear.
And then the car touched down, bumping asphalt, somewhere outside Vegas.
Chapter Twenty-seven
The shape I was in didn’t really hit me until I stumbled out of the car. And face-planted onto something hard. I didn’t know if it was the afterburn of adrenaline or being a snack for a half-incubus war mage, but I was completely wiped. To the point that the concrete under my cheek actually felt pretty damn inviting. I was all for sleeping wherever the hell I was, but somebody picked me up. I didn’t have the strength left to protest.
Those same hands gently wrapped me in a blanket. It had to be three, maybe four a.m., but Vegas in August is stifling even at that time of the morning, and the blanket was scratchy and hot. I decided not to care, because it was easier.
We started across a cracked parking lot toward a brightly lit aluminum building with a couple of trucks and, incongruously, a limo parked outside. I squinted at it blearily. If that was war mage HQ, color me disappointed. It looked like it ought to be warehousing shoes. But I guessed it was more interesting inside, because a couple of leather-coat-clad guards were roaming around, giving us the hairy eyeball.
I didn’t care about them, either.
I did care a few minutes later when I was put down on something puke green that smelled like cigarettes and old shoes, but decided I could live with it. I went to sleep. And then woke right back up at the furious, whispered conversation going on over my head.
“They called ahead; told them to expect you. What the fuck am I—”
“Tell them whatever you like. I am more concerned with getting a healer in here.”
“You’d best be concerned with your job!”
“I could care less about—”
“Then how about your neck? Because that was assault, and assault on the Pythia carries a mandatory death sentence, as you damn well—”
Which was when I sat up. “No doctors,” I croaked.
“Cassie!” We were in a small office, with Pritkin crouched beside what could best be described as an antisofa. Besides the unfortunate color and the more unfortunate smell, it was also hard and lumpy and stained, and had sad little tufts of stuffing dribbling out of one of the cushions. Kind of the Platonic ideal turned on its head.
Two sets of startled eyes looked at me, so I guess I’d said that last part out loud. “What? I read.”
“Are you all right?” Caleb asked, crouching down beside Pritkin. Which gave me nowhere to put my legs. I thought about drawing them up, but then I’d probably go back to sleep again, and that was a bad idea for some reason that currently escaped me. I sat there and blinked at them, and waited for it to come.
“She needs a healer,” Pritkin said harshly, and started for the door.
That was it. “No doctors,” I said again.
And then I flopped over.
“You heard her,” Caleb said, as Pritkin paused, his hand on the knob.
“Damn it, Cassie—”
“I’m just really, really tired,” I told him, wondering why the fake wood paneling behind him was bleeding over into his body space. And then I realized that my eyes were crossing. “Do you have any booze?” I asked Caleb.
“You probably shouldn’t drink,” Pritkin said, looking conflicted.
I thought about that. There was a phrase I was looking for, but my brain was really not cooperating right at the—Oh yeah. “Fuck it,” I said brightly. And then I sat up again, because the antisofa seriously reeked and because Caleb was coming over with a paper cup in his hand.
It was the kind you get out of watercoolers, small and cone-shaped, but it held some really fine whiskey. Really, really fine, I decided, tossing it back, all smooth and peaty.
And then it hit the party going on in my stomach and oh, shit.
“Trash can,” I said thickly.
“What?” Caleb looked at me.
“Trash can!”
Pritkin cursed and grabbed one, just about the time everything I’d eaten that night paid a repeat visit. Whiskey, pizza, milk shake, beer—and a lone, half-dissolved gummy bear, which was a surprise, since I couldn’t actually recall having eaten any. Fun times.
I finally finished, and was rewarded with another little paper cup, only this time filled with water. “Keep it coming,” I said hoarsely as Pritkin held my hair back from my face and Caleb handed him a box of tissues.
Cleanup took a while, since I’d been pretty damn dirty to begin with. During which Pritkin kept bitching about a doctor and I kept saying no, until I got pissed. “You’re not putting your head in a noose when I’m fine,” I croaked. “I’m just tired. For God’s sake!”
He finally shut up, maybe because he realized he was giving me a headache. Or maybe because he had one himself. He looked like nine kinds of hell. He’d had the presence of mind to leave the shredded coat in the car and to toss a blanket around the two of us, which had hidden the fact that he had no shirt and his jeans were acid-washed and not in the fashion sense. His face was drawn and pale, despite the feed, there was dried blood on his chest and his hands shook. And the less said about his hair, the better.
But then, that was always true.
“You need clothes,” Caleb said roughly.
“There are some in my locker,” Pritkin told him. “Two twenty-one. Or there should be. I don’t remember what I—”
“I’ll get them. Stay here.”
Caleb looked at me sharply, why I don’t know. Like I was actually up to shifting us out of there. Or walking out. Or sitting up.
I slumped back against the stinky couch and stared at Pritkin, who stared mutely back. I didn’t know if it was because he’d fed, but his eyes were a little freaky. Almost neon green, bright and burning. And full of some dark emotion I couldn’t read, but could guess at pretty well.
“I volunteered,” I reminded him.
“To be used!” His hand tightened on the sofa cushion, until the knuckles bled white. “He wouldn’t have cared if I’d drained you!”
“He’d have probably preferred it,” I said, staring at that hand. “Save him some trouble.”
“How can you—” He stopped and closed his eyes, and just breathed for a few moments. That wasn’t a good sign; Pritkin was better when he was yelling and stomping around. But maybe he didn’t have the strength right now. I could sympathize.
I moved my hand over the top of his and he immediately pulled back, something close to horror on his face. It seriously pissed me off. “That’s a little hypocritical, don’t you think?”
“It isn’t—” He looked away. “It isn’t you.”
“I know it isn’t me. What? Am I stupid?”
That got an eye blink, and I grabbed his hand again and tugged at him. I was too weak for it to have much effect, but he came anyway, sitting beside me. I held on to the hand, partly to be an ass, but also because, for some reason, it made me feel better. And right then, anything comforting, I’d take without question.
“I’m sorry,” he said, after a moment. His jaw was tight enough that it looked like it hurt. I sighed.