Summoning the Night (Arcadia Bell #2)(33)

He slowly shook his head up and down, then reached for me. His hand slid around my neck. He gave me a gentle smile as he stroked my ear with his thumb. It felt good. Relief rushed through me. I let out a long breath and curved my hand over his, holding it still against my neck.

“I don’t want secrets between us,” I said. “Not ones that matter, anyway. I keep secrets from everyone all day long. But not you. Okay?”

He tugged me toward the bar stool, closing the remaining distance between us. “I’ve been waiting for you to say that for weeks,” he whispered.

“You have?” I whispered back.

He pushed my hair back over my shoulder to expose my neck. His eyes wandered there. “Sometimes I think I might die if I can’t touch you.” He said this with great seriousness, his voice suddenly much lower.

A fire sparked inside my chest and lit a path downward. “Is that right?”

“I swear.”

“On what, holy man?”

“Guess the Bible’s out.”

“Whose fault is that?”

“I swear on Liber Magica Daemonica.” He grinned sweetly, then gave me three kisses, placing one at the cleft above my lip and the others at each corner of my mouth. Delicate, lingering, drugging kisses. So very good.

His head bowed. He went straight for the sweet spot behind my ear. I shivered with pleasure, then reached between us and skimmed my palm over the front of his jeans. He made an appreciative noise. His hands skated up under my shirt, then dropped to unfasten my jeans.

“If he wakes up and catches us in here—”

“He’s asleep. I’m listening,” he assured me as he tugged my jeans over my hips, rocking them until they dropped to the floor. My panties followed. He barely gave me time to step out of them and kick them away before his hand slid between my legs. I yelped in surprise.

“Shh,” he warned playfully. His fingers smoothed, flicked, and rubbed. My breathing quickened. God have mercy, but the man had serious skills. I could hardly do better myself. He hadn’t memorized what I wanted—or what he thought I wanted. He listened to my emotional responses and made adjustments in his explorations. I sagged against him and muffled soft moans against his chest. Ten points for the empathy knack.

I somehow summoned the wherewithal to push his hand away. He smiled down at me with heavy-lidded eyes as I yanked his shirt up. He raised his arms briefly. I pulled the fabric over his shoulders and off his head, tossing it somewhere behind me with my discarded clothing, then reacquainted myself with the delightfully warm, rock-solid wall of his golden chest. So beautiful. I scored a fingernail down the golden trail of hair that bisected his torso and bent to kiss the scar over his ribs. He shivered violently. I couldn’t wait any longer.

Breathless, I pushed aside the nearby stool, then turned around and bent over the stainless steel countertop. The metal was cold against my stomach as he slowly smoothed a splayed palm down my spine. “Hurry,” I instructed, but I really meant, I need you right now. The metallic jingle of his belt buckle unfastening behind me made my breath hitch. A second later, there was heat and a familiar, insistent pressure . . . and with one long push, he was inside me. Every cell in my body suddenly roared to life.

“Holy Whore of Babylon,” I swore, clinging to the sides of the counter for support.

His pace was fast and hard and hyperventilatingly wonderful. Between a couple of hard smacks on my ass, I was thanking both him and every saint in the Bible. Even a few more that weren’t in it. I glanced over my shoulder so that I could watch him through jostling vision.

Unexpectedly, he pulled out with a groan. I cursed at him, then squealed when he flipped me around to face him. He slung an arm around my waist to haul me up until I was sitting on the edge of the counter. It was a good height for us. His jeans hung around the middle of his thighs, threatening to fall down to his feet any second. “Yes,” he whispered as he entered me again. “Just like that.”

I stretched a leg out and pressed my toes against a stool, struggling for leverage. He dug his fingers into my hips as they lifted off the table to meet his. Our pace increased. We gave each other no quarter—it was furious, breakneck, bruised-and-sore-later sex. My pulse jackknifed and sped up. The stool under my straining toes clinked against the counter. I became increasingly sure that I was going to have a heart attack or an aneurysm. Maybe my bones would snap from the strain. But I didn’t care, because it was just there, in the distance, so close.

“Look at me,” Lon growled.

“I can’t . . .” do two things at once.

“Yes, you damn well can.”

A strangled laugh caught in my throat, then I groaned in frustration.

One of his palms slapped down on the counter behind me. The other gripped the back of my neck. He lowered my hips back down on the table and pressed his forehead against mine again. Our labored breath mingled. I wrapped my legs around his waist and dug my heels into his ass. “Yes, yes . . . God, yes. Hold on—”

The transmutation roared in my ears and sent chills dancing across my skin. His horns brushed my hair as they spiraled into place. I curled my fingers around them like handlebars on a bike.

“Look at me,” he said, a breathless, gentle command this time. And I looked—I couldn’t not look. His eyes were a lush, dark forest, his lashes guarding the only entrance; everything I wanted was inside. He kissed me like he was staking a claim. His wavy hair and fiery golden halo fell around my face, blocking out everything but him. “No secrets.”