The Long Way Down (Daniel Faust #1)(66)

I felt her hand on my belt, slipping it through the loops with a sharp tug. I gasped as her fingers slid over my hardness, her touch teasing, feather-light.

“Now then,” she whispered, hiking up her skirt and taking me in hand. “I’m going to need you to hold very, very still. Are you ready?”

I nodded, breathless. She lowered herself onto me as she lowered the needle toward my cut. We penetrated one another in the same instant, a wash of sensation that drew a strangled gasp from my throat. She rose up as the surgical thread tugged the ragged flesh closed and then lowered herself again, her body mirroring the needle, matching every sting with a slow wave of pleasure. I barely noticed when she finished the final stitch, reaching over for a tiny pair of scissors to cut the thread.

“I think,” she said, wrapping gauze around my arm and fixing it in place with white surgical tape, “we should adjourn to the bedroom.”

She laughed as I stood up with her still in my lap, her legs clenching tight around my waist. I nearly tripped over my own fallen pants, and she held out a hand to steady us against a wall as she guided me toward her bed. It was awkward and fumbling, and neither of us could stop giggling.

“So much for romance,” I laughed, kissing her.

“You’re just having balance issues, you poor thing. Feeling lightheaded? Did all that blood rush someplace else?” She paused, reaching down as we fell together onto her gray satin comforter. “Oh, it did.”

Her bed felt like silk feathers under my back as she rolled me over, sitting astride me. Her pace was slow, languid. She pressed her palms to my chest and tossed her curly hair as she rode to the beat of some unheard rhythm. My pulse rising, I tried to hasten her only to have her firmly hold my hips in place.

“Do you remember what you said when you freed me?” she said, her eyes gleaming in the dark. “When you thought I was going to kill you?”

“I said I wasn’t going to beg.”

She leaned down, almost nose to nose with me, flashing a wolf-like smile.

“I want to play a game with you, Daniel Faust.”

“What did you have in mind?” I asked, biting back a groan as she moved her body against mine, so slowly I could barely stand it. She whispered her answer, flicking the tip of her tongue against my earlobe.

“You don’t get to come. Not until you beg for it,” she purred. “Let’s see how long you can hold out, hmm? Impress me.”

Then she held me in an unyielding grip as she played my body like a finely tuned instrument, taking me to the very brink of ecstasy and then dragging me away from release again and again. The digital alarm clock by her bedside read 3:43 A.M. by the time I finally broke, the floating scarlet numbers bearing mute witness as I promised Caitlin the moon and the stars if she’d show a heartbeat of mercy. She giggled, listening to my pleas, then gave me everything I begged for and more.

? ? ?

I woke in the satin embrace of Caitlin’s bed, warm and tranquil. Morning sunlight filtered in through half-closed venetian blinds. I reached over, wanting to touch her, but my hand fell on an empty swirl of sheets. Sudden panic welled up and my eyes shot open, and then I heard her voice.

“I’m still here.”

I looked over. Caitlin sat in a chair in the corner of the room, draped in a gray silk robe, legs crossed.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, recognizing my fear.

I nodded, leaning back on the pillow.

“Neither am I,” I told her. “What’s wrong, couldn’t sleep?”

“I need very little sleep. It’s more like what you’d call meditation. I got up, read a little, did some digging. Decided to watch you until you woke up. You talk in your sleep, you know.”

“Oh? Did I say anything interesting?”

She smiled. “More like happy little murmurs. But I found something interesting, reading up on our Ms. Carmichael, and you still need to update me on everything you’ve learned.”

“I want to hear all about it,” I said, pushing the covers back and rubbing the sleep from my eyes. “But can I catch a quick shower first?”

Caitlin arched an eyebrow, rising and walking toward the bathroom. “Time is of the essence. Let’s combine the two.”

I soaped her back while I brought her up to speed, walking her through the assassination of Nicky Agnelli’s seer and the bloody attack on Spengler’s house. The twin showerheads filled the glass-walled stall with swirling steam as near-scalding water against my weary skin. Caitlin liked her showers hot.

“The only way to put Nicky’s father on my prince’s throne,” she mused, “is to remove Prince Sitri from power. That cannot happen.”

“Depends on what’s in the Box,” I said, “or what these people think is in the Box, anyway. Maybe they want to make him step down of his own free will? Could it be a blackmail thing?”

She laughed, high and merry. “Blackmail my prince? I think if anyone actually managed that, he’d reward them for their cleverness. Then destroy them. No, it must be an attack of some kind. Troubling, though. It sounds like this is just another side effect of Lauren Carmichael’s plan, not her real goal. A bone they’re tossing Nicky in order to secure his cooperation.”

“What could dethrone a demon prince as a side effect?” I said. “It would have to be something…”