Dark Desires After Dusk (Immortals After Dark #6)(55)

A clap of thunder boomed outside. He shot upright when the lights surged on and off. His skin pricked, as if from electrical energy. Holly . . .

Dashing from the shower, he shook out his hair as he hauled on jeans. He stumbled toward the door between their rooms, barely able to fasten his fly over his shaft. After breaking the lock and entering, he found her dressed, sitting on the side of the made-up bed.

She seemed dazed, staring at nothing. Had she had one of those dreams? Where she woke up coming?

From her shaky breaths, it seemed his female hadn’t got all the way there . . . .

He stifled a groan. She was in discomfort, aching for what he would easily kill to give her.

He moved in front of her and helped her to her feet. “You’re trembling.” He grazed the backs of his fingers over her cheekbone. Her breaths quickened from just that touch. “Ah, pet, you’re about to go off just standing here.”

She shook her head hard, eyes wide and flickering from violet to silver. Her tongue rubbed over one of her tiny fangs.

“Lie to me, but don’t lie to yourself.”

“This is why I need my pills, Cadeon!”

“That’s not what you need.” His instinctive drive was to use his body to pleasure hers, but he couldn’t. As if she’d ever allow him to, anyway.

What would she allow?

“You’re attracted to me, and you know I sure as hell am attracted to you. So I suggest we help each other out.”

*

“What do you mean by help?”

Cadeon answered, “Not having sex, just giving each other a hand when one or the other needs it.”

“Y-you’re assuming a lot. I don’t need release multiple times a day,” she said, lifting her chin. “I’ll be fine.”

“Bullshite. You need it as bad as I do.”

“That’s simply not true. I don’t even like you.”

“You don’t have to like me.”

True. It’s because he’s such a cad that I can enjoy him. Holly already knew better than to feel more for him. She could just use him as he’d proposed that first night.

He began to maneuver her against the wall. And she let him.

No, this is madness. I would never think this way . . . . “It’d be wrong. I’d betray my boyfriend.”

Cadeon laid his hand on the wall beside her head, leaning in. “Look at it this way. We can both release some pressure or we’ll blow.” At her ear, he murmured, “And when that happens, I’ll be f*cking you so hard to put out the fire. And you’ll be loving it. When you moan my name, then you’ll be betraying him.” He pulled back, leaving her breathless—and dying of curiosity.

“Exactly how would we . . . do this?”

“You could stroke me off, and I could finger you.”

She stifled a gasp at his coarse language, reminding herself that this was a very old demon.

If they did what he’d suggested, then he would see her naked, would touch her sex. A first.

Am I ready for this? No! No matter how much she might want to be ready. “You act as if we don’t have control of ourselves.”

He grazed one of her throbbing nipples, and she cried out.

“Does that sound like a female in control of her body? You need it so bad I could bring you off in three minutes.”

She gave a shaky laugh at the absurdity of that. Then, of course, her mind seized on it. He was saying he could make her orgasm in one hundred and eighty seconds.

What if he . . . could? What would it be like to be brought to climax by another?

But if he did it to her, she’d only want it from him again and again. It was simple human nature.

I’m not quite human.

“Got you thinking about it, didn’t I?” So smug.

“You know full well that you can’t do it in three minutes. You’re just saying that to initiate the contact and seduce me to do more.”

“Then bet me. What do you want to win? Risk the touching. Get the reward.”

Reward? Coincidentally, she needed something very badly. She hesitated, then said, “You let me refill my meds.”

“Holly, you don’t still want the pills—”

“And you have to go a week without cursing. Those are my terms. Take them or leave them.”

“Fine. And when you lose, you have to go a week without panties. And you have to use your hands on me till I come, too.”

The thought of fondling him till his big body shuddered and his semen released made her shiver.

No, that’s not why she would do this—she would do it for her medicine. With a swallow, she said, “Would I have to be naked?”

He leaned in over her, surrounding her with his heat. “Not completely. Just enough that I could suckle your breasts and get my hand between your legs.”

His mere words excited her. “I’ll take the bet.” Wait . . . “How will we know how much time has passed?”

He removed his dive watch. “It’s got an alarm.” He fiddled with it. “There. It’s set to count down. You can start it,” he said, handing it to her. “But we don’t start counting till I have you in position.”

“Position?”

Without warning, he lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed, following her down.