bedeviled & beyond 03 - bedeviled & beleaguered (38 page)

Feeling layered over feeling.

Until my phantom lover built the tempo into something that couldn’t be resisted. Until he plunged deep and hit hard at the tiny center of my throbbing pleasure. I reached the beautiful end note and tipped over into a crescendo of release. Screaming wildly, without conscious thought, I moaned his name, over and over, in the throes of the most incredible pleasure. I writhed my release under the heated, spectral flesh of my invisible lover.

My ghostly lover stopped moving, still dangling on the razor edge of his own release. I could feel his spectral flesh quivering in anticipation and I opened my eyes, only to find myself looking into a pair of beautiful, almond shaped blue eyes. The impossibly handsome face that hovered over mine was framed by a silky sweep of blue-black hair, which tickled my face and shoulders and smelled of sunshine and sensual things.

“Dialle.” My smile met his and a stab of something almost physical made my heart pause and my stomach flip.

“My princess.”

My grin widened “Don’t call me that.”

“But I must.”

I shook my head. “Don’t call me anything right now. In fact,” I nipped playfully at the beautifully sculpted chin, dipping my tongue into the sexy dimple there, “don’t talk at all. You have important work to do.”

“That is true, I do.”

And then his dark head bent happily to its task. And his golden body started moving wonderfully within mine.

And everything I’d suffered up to that point—all the pain, all the frustration and every thought that I wasn’t good enough to do what needed to be done—was gone as my body reached for his and drew him in. We immersed ourselves in the age old dance of love, leaving everything, and everyone, else behind as we started the important work of building a future together.

The End

I hope you enjoyed
Bedeviled & Beleaguered
. But wait, you’re not done! Here’s a taste of Book 4 in the
Bedeviled & Beyond
series,
Bedeviled & Belittled
!

PROLOGUE

Milestones and Millstones

The Devil you know will comfort bring, though chaos be your friend,

The Devil you wish mayn’t solve a thing, and slay you in the end.

Sometime around 2060, the world went to war again and opened up a whole new can of worms. Up until then humans thought they had it pretty rough on this Earth, with poverty, crime, disease, your everyday evil forces and the general disintegration of morality.

However when the laser guns and plasma bombs finished smashing a geographic area comprising about seventy percent of the surface of the Earth into smithereens, something eminently evil used the resulting chaos to slither its way into the world. This evil something hadn’t been seen before by human eyes, but had always been there, in a parallel dimension, watching the show and waiting for its turn to join in the fun. And every once in a while, when Earth’s defenses were particularly low, this something would reach across that barrier and tweak us a little. Which explains things like mosquitoes, liver and onions, and reality shows.

Devils and demons were never meant to walk among us. But once they’d found a way to get through, God had no choice but to send his angels in to keep an eye on them. Several minor skirmishes have already been fought between the forces of good and evil, since that time thirty years ago when the first devil snuck through Earth’s defenses. The angels, with the Big Guy at their backs, are winning the battles so far, but the outcome of the war is still uncertain.

About ten years ago God started using halflings to help the good side out. The only problem with halflings is that, by our very make-up we are some portion devil. That’s why we understand and know how to defeat the forces of evil. But it is also what has made us a little bit unpredictable to the good guys.

What exactly is a halfling you ask? A halfling is a non-human. We have neither wings nor horns, but generally have both angel and devil in our family forests. Which is probably why we enjoy a higher sensitivity to spectral influence than regular human people.

My name is Astra Q Phelps. Don’t ask me what the Q stands for because that little piece of info will go with me to the crematorium. I’ve had all printed documentation of the name destroyed and, though a lot of my enemies have tried to dig it out, no one will ever know what it stands for. A girl has to have some secrets. Especially when the truth would cause her some serious embarrassment.

I run a business called the Angel Network, which is the only devil and demon locating and destroying business in the universe. In other words, I kick serious evil butt for a living. I am a halfling.

Recently, the Celestial Army has been keeping me pretty busy saving the world. Over and over and over and...well, you get what I’m saying. The human world just has trouble staying saved.

I’ve also been dealing with some pretty intense feelings for a certain gorgeous Royal Devil, who is most likely the great unifier of prophecy. It’s been a busy and confusing time. But it’s about to get much worse.

My twenty-fifth birthday is just a few months away.

The thing about that twenty-fifth birthday is...well...for halflings it’s kind of make or break time. It’s called our Settling and it’s the culmination of our growth period. The time when we become what we will be in life. It’s also the time when the dark side of our nature has the greatest pull.

It is on our twenty-fifth birthday that we decide which way we’re going to go. Good or bad. Black or white. Gray usually isn’t an option. And outside influences have a lot to do with the outcome. In my case, my influence pool is decidedly murky, given the fact that I hang out a lot with devils.

Really hot devils.

Extremely sexy devils.

Truly, stupendously, ripped, horny, sensual devils.

Incredibly...um...okay, you get it.

Right. Crossing my legs...

Anyway, as the fateful date approaches, I can feel the changes boiling just under the surface of my mind.

My skin quivers with it.

My body heats.

And my libido...well...let’s just say my boyfriend’s threatening to go off planet just to get some much needed rest.

Of course he doesn’t mean it.

At least I don’t think he does...

CHAPTER ONE

Crowned!

Our randy miss doth pitch a fit, o’re an audience of red,

But in the end she’ll welcome it, to warm her lover’s bed.

“Tell me again why we have to have sex in front of twelve hundred people?”

Dialle sighed, tugging on a stray lock of my auburn hair. “Not people, Astra. Devils.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. Answer the question.”

His full, soft lips dropped to within a single, steamy breath of mine. “Don’t you want to have sex with me?”

I sucked in his essence and my knees wobbled, my happy place clenched with desire, and my heart started to do the rumba in my chest. I licked my lips. “That’s not pertinent.”

His lips touched mine, a feather-soft kiss that stole air from my lungs and filled my sexy thong with moisture. “It’s extremely pertinent, my queen.”

My world tilted, wavered, and turned muzzy under a wave of lust. I even forgot to yell at him for calling me his queen. Sighing, I forced myself to focus. “It is not pert...pert...um, what you said.”

Those treacherous lips descended again, pulling my will to resist away and replacing it with a tsunami of lustful inclinations.

My lips met his hungrily. My mind might have wanted to argue, but my damn, traitorous body just wanted us to hump, hump, hump like bunnies. As the kiss intensified, I whimpered and ran my fingers up under his shirt.

His golden skin was smooth, hairless and unnaturally heated. His masculine scent folded over me, leaving my mind feeling as if I’d consumed copious amounts of some kind of drug.

The kiss grew hungry, nearly frantic. I tilted my head to capture his mouth more thoroughly and my tongue slid out to tangle with his. His mouth was hot and sweet, like melted butter under my tongue. He tasted of raw, unfettered sensuality.

Pure decadence.

I slid my fingers into the waistband of his tight, leather jeans and pulled him close. He gasped as my fingers stretched the soft leather and slid inside, finding him hard and more than ready for me.

I cupped the rigid proof of his desire in my palm and shivered with delight.

I was lost. Toasted. Sucker punched by my hormone-crazed body. My slut monkey side had beaten my weakened conscience into tattered, bleeding submission. I would have consumed him then and there, right on the floor of the throne room of the Royal Devil Court, but our skin sparked and it startled me.

I pulled away.

We never used to spark. Only my daemon hickey used to spark, and that, only when we communicated from a distance, or another male came too close.

But lately we’d been creating literal sparks whenever we touched in a sensual way. It was a bit disconcerting to say the least.

I pulled away and licked my lips. His taste lingered on the swollen flesh and my body clenched with desire. “I’m going to have to buy fireproof clothes if this keeps up.”

Dialle’s grin was wicked. “Or you could just go naked all the time.”

“Har! In your dreams, bud.”

“Actually, yes, that has been a central theme in my dreams on many occasions.”

I couldn’t help sharing his smile. Then I remembered the conversation I’d been trying to have before he kissed me. Crossing the room, I sat down. When he made a move to join me I held up a hand, palm out, to stop him. “You stay over there. So I can breathe.”

His black eyes sparked with mischief but, for once, he did as I asked.

“Now tell me about this crowning ceremony.”

He inclined his head and dropped his perfect, well rounded ass onto the arm of a nearby chair. “Since my father has been recalled to Hades I must serve as king until he returns.”

I nodded. “I’m with you up to that point.” Dialle and I had recently intercepted a plot by King Dialle the First to overtake Saint Peter and breech the Pearly Gates. The happy result of that fight was that King Dialle had been re-imprisoned in Hell for the foreseeable future, his “get out of Hell free” pass rescinded by the Big Guy.

“I am, of course the most obvious choice to succeed him—”

“Wait a minute. The most obvious choice? Aren’t you the only choice?”

He cocked his well-shaped head, the silken, black curtain of his hair drifting to rest against one broad shoulder. The strands curled enticingly where they touched the black silk of his shirt. His smooth, golden pecs showed in the deep vee of the unbuttoned shirt. My eyes glazed a bit and I had to do a metaphorical head shake to get my focus back.

The hormonal consequences of my Settling were...well...unsettling.

“Lovely, Astra, you of all people should understand that things are never that simple in the devil court.”

I lifted my eyebrows and shrugged. “Right. I forgot for a moment that I wasn’t talking about rational beings.”

“Devils are rational, Astra. Just not in the same way you are. We have our own rationality.”

“Whatever. Anyway...”

He slid into the seat of the chair he’d been resting against and crossed one long, slimly muscled leg across the other, ankle to knee, man style. Something hot and needy twisted in my belly. I blinked, trying to remember why I was fighting having sex with him. Oh yeah, twelve hundred horned and horny voyeurs. Got it.

“To become king, I must undergo the crowning ceremony. The words of the ceremony create powerful magics that ensure the loyalty of my subjects.”

I nodded. All that made perfect sense to me. The sex in front of strangers part though, not so much.

“Unfortunately for you, the ceremony isn’t complete until I consummate it with my chosen mate.”

“I’m not your mate.”

“Ah, but you are, lovely halfling. You bear my mark on your neck and you carry my heart in your pocket.”

Glaring at him, I got up to pace. “The mark was given against my will.”

“I would dispute that assessment, my love. But even if it were true it would not diminish its meaning...or its effect.”

I stopped pacing long enough to fix him with an angry frown. “This mark was given to me in a weak moment of passion. I had no idea at the time what it entailed. It wasn’t very nice of you to lock me into all of this without even asking if I was interested.”

He lifted his hands out to the sides and cocked his head. “Devil, Astra.”

I sighed. What could I say? He had a point. When you hung out with devils you kind of had to expect to get screwed.

Fortunately it was usually a frunkin’ fine experience.

~SC~

Dialle sprawled on the throne, his long legs spread wide, one stretched straight and the other bent at the knee. He wore only tight, white breeches, which outlined his natural assets beautifully, and soft, knee-high boots.

His hairless, golden chest glistened in the soft light of the chamber, looking as if it had been polished for my viewing pleasure.

I stood at the back of the room and wiped sweaty palms on the gauzy gown they’d held me down and forced me into, swallowing hard.

Call me chicken, but I’d rather fight an army of supra-demons than have sex in front of hundreds of devils.

Brawwwkkkk!!

I focused on Dialle’s angelic features and the way his glossy, black hair slid over his broad shoulders. Licking my lips, I allowed the twinge of lust that sparked easily to life low in my belly to grow with thoughts of our last time together. It had been a whole week since Dialle and I had done the horizontal mambo. Way too long. But unavoidable due to the restraints of ceremony and my own busy schedule, you know, saving the world and stuff.

No wonder my skin felt as if every nerve ending was on fire. My Settling was fully upon me, which meant I was a walking, talking hormonal mess. I needed to get me some hard, hot, sexy Royal Devil soon or I might explode.

Several feet in front of the throne was a long, low, altar type construction, with velvet padding on top. My eyes kept straying worriedly toward it, wishing it had a couple of walls at least, to provide some modicum of privacy for the act.