The Darkest Pleasure (Lords of the Underworld #3)(76)

"Can you blame me?" she asked, the words spoken on a trembling sigh. "Now, let me undress."

"No, I can't blame you." He dragged the shirt the rest of the way over her head and tossed it aside.

The shoulder-length mass of her sunshine hair tumbled down, framing her face. She wore a black lace bra - one he'd purchased for her - and her breasts swelled from the top. He swallowed, wondering if she wore the matching panties.

Gaze glued to his, she gripped the hem of his tattered shirt and began to lift. He raised his arms. Ultimately, she had to stand on her tiptoes and he had to lean over to remove it. When he straightened, she uttered another of those heated gasps.

"So strong." She reached out with a shaky hand and traced her fingers over one of his wounds.

At the first brush, he closed his eyes in surrender. There was such sweet, sweet pain in having an injury stroked.

"When did you get this?" she asked.

"I thought you craved silence?"

She sighed.

"A little while ago," he said.

"From the Hunters?"

"Yes."

Her lips compressed into a thin line. "At least it's healing."

Healing? Damn. If any of his injuries decided to repair themselves before he'd taken Danika, he would pour salt into them or reopen them himself. Nothing would stop him from having this woman. Gently. Sweetly. The way he'd always dreamed of taking a woman but had never been able.

"Am I hurting you?" she asked, and then she laughed without humor. "Never mind. Just...kiss me. Take me to bed."

Bed. Yes, oh, yes. He opened his eyes and stared down at her. One step forward. Two. He backed her into the mattress. Her legs hit, and she tumbled down. Licking her lips, watching him, she scooted backward.

"Take off your jeans," he commanded hoarsely.

She eased to her back and raised her hips. Unfasten. Unzip. Down, down the denim shimmied. Oh, sweet gods, she'd worn the matching panties. They were like a violent storm cloud against her creamy skin. Hopefully wet.

His cock strained, desperate for her. Suddenly Pain seemed to stretch awake in his mind, yawning, purring. He gnashed his molars.

"Your turn," Danika said, propping her weight onto her elbows.

Had he thought her lovely before? His chest actually hurt as he looked at her just then. She was Aphrodite in the flesh. She was seduction incarnate. She was...his.

Not yet...Not just yet...She wanted him to bed her, she didn't want to get to know him. He would not allow one without the other.

"You mentioned my life story. Well, I spent several years locked inside a cell," he said, "a willing prisoner. Not because of the Hunters but because I could not control my intense need to give and receive pain."

"I don't think - "

"Back then, in ancient Greece, I battled Hunters and I destroyed cities. Screams were my sustenance. After one of my friends was killed, a man I had once laughed with and fought beside, the truth of what I was began to sink in."

"The Darkest Pleasure"

"I don't want to hear this." She shook her head, those silky locks dancing at her temples.

"I knew I could not learn to control my beast when temptation lurked in every corner. Everyone who smiled, everyone who enjoyed, I wanted to eradicate. In my demon-soaked mind, they had no reason to experience joy."

"Reyes."

"So I asked Lucien to lock me up. Of all of us, he was the one who first gained control of his demon. He did not want to, but he agreed. During those months of confinement, I learned to cut myself whenever the need for pain arose. Eventually, I trained myself to crave only that, my own pain. My demon craved it, too, the rest nearly forgotten." If only confinement worked on Aeron....

"Stop. Please, just stop."

"Why? Because knowing I suffered makes me seem more human? Because you do not want to think of me as anything more than a demon? Because one day, when we've parted, you hope to forget I ever existed?" The last was uttered in a feral snarl.

"Yes!" she shouted, jolting upright. Her chest rose and fell, fast and shallow. "Yes, okay. Yes. I shouldn't desire you, but I do. I can't get you out of my mind, even though I should be thinking about a thousand other things. We have no future. I mean, really. One of your friends wants to kill me and everyone I love. You live a life of war and all I crave is peace."

True. All that she'd said was true. "Yet here you are, in my bed." And here I am, unable to let you go.

"Yes." Both her voice and her expression softened. "I'm trusting you. With my family. My body. Don't make our eventual parting any worse for me. Please."

Please. The word echoed in his mind. Reyes met her heated gaze with his own. For the briefest of moments, he was transported to the heavens. To the past. In his mind, he saw himself standing beside Aeron, Torin, Paris and Galen.

Galen. Until Danika, Reyes had not thought of Galen in centuries. Galen had pulsed with life; his mere presence somehow made them feel stronger, better. Reyes hadn't known the warrior plotted against them every time their backs were turned.

And seeing the image of his carefree friends, so unburdened then by life and sins and suffering, he had to fight the urge to shout a warning he knew they would not hear.

They'd been celebrating that day, he recalled. The night before, a horde of Gorgons had sneaked inside Zeus's chamber, intending to awaken the god and turn him to stone. A single glance would have done it, and the king would have been unprepared, too surprised to cast his gaze downward in time.