“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.”
Chapter Four
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.
He walked into the building, nodding to a nurse as if he knew her, before he exited through a door in the Emergency Room. The chaos of the night before still raged.
His lack of sleep didn’t matter. In his training, he’d gone three days straight without sleep and still taken down a wraith that had gotten in his way. One night, particularly after the way Dodie had jazzed him up, would not upset his fighting skills.
If anything, he’d never been so on top of the world.
The rooms would be colder the closer he got to the entity. Mindy’s had been freezing. He had no idea if Dodie noticed the abnormality, or if she’d thought it odd that the room was at least ten degrees cooler than the hallway, but modern convenience often hid monsters. A human might assume the air conditioner caused some rooms to be more frigid than others, masking evil. He’d been in places where he could see his breath in the middle of summer because of infestation. That had been before he’d realized why the bracing chill claimed a room, back when he’d been vulnerable and his parents died because of his failure.
Never again.
He always took the stairs and not for the exercise. How could he track temperature changes if he rode th
e elevator right through them?
It took ten minutes to locate the thirteenth floor as the problem. He rolled his eyes. Demons were nothing if not clichéd. Number thirteen, how typical.
He almost collided with a doctor as he exited the stairway. Wearing a white lab coat with a stethoscope around his neck, the man appeared the picture of perfection.
The doctor smiled at Christian and Christian almost smiled back, but then he saw it. The glint in his eyes, the way his left hand shook slightly, the soulless gaze of a creature not from the planet Earth.
Christian looked him up and down. “A doctor. Really?”
“Chaser.” The demon hissed his response before turning to run in the other direction.
“Running? Really?” He shook his head. “You know I’m going to catch you.”
An Incubus dressing up as a doctor. He needed to write this one down. Traditionally, the Incubus fed on the sleeping and sometimes fathered children with unsuspecting women. What a perfect place to hide. The sick and terrified being assaulted by evil while they slept.
The image fueled Christian further. He moved faster than normal and launched himself at the creature. They both went down. It had to die. Unlike the Hell hound, he’d never be able to simply order it back to whence it came. This disgusting thing could think and feel. It should have known better than to come to Christian’s town.
“Don’t hurt me, Chaser.”
Christian always hated that nickname. They were destroyers of evil, watchers and protectors. Chasers made them sound like some kind of dog trapped in a universal game of fetch, which was exactly why the demons preferred the term. The thing would win no points from him for slinging barely veiled insults.
“You think to get out of here alive?” Christian laughed. “Get over that idea.”
“But I’m nothing. I’m small potatoes. You let me go and I’ll tell you who is really here, what you really need to run after.”
Christian growled. “I’m not tricked by your kind. Every word out of your mouth is a false one.”