Devil at Midnight (12 page)

“I’m not human,” she gasped through her agitation. “Not really. Not anymore.”

Her own words struck a blow inside her. Her mortal life was over. Flawed as it had been, perhaps she should have appreciated it more. Then again, Christian had not been there, so maybe this shadow existence, with its mysterious and unpredictable rules, ought to be cherished, too.

Her eyes were hot, the moisture that had risen to them blurring her vision. Christian didn’t shy away from the emotion she was exposing. In fact, his eyes seemed brighter than normal. His shoulders straightened, a muscle tightening in his jaw as if he’d come to a decision.

“You are human to me,” he said. “Human and real.”

“And to think I only had to die to have someone feel that way.”

He touched her cheek at her sardonic tone, a soothing stroke along its hollow. She realized she loved looking at his face. His nose was unexpectedly elegant, long and narrow, with a small bump at the bridge where it might have been broken. An equally elegant scar bisected his left eyebrow. When he spoke, his voice was soft.

“Where did you go, Grace? I have not seen you for hours.”

“Hours!” Grace exclaimed. Something that might have been a memory rolled through her mind. Pressure thrust against her back, compressing her ribs and lungs, but the reason for the phantom sensation was as indistinct as fog. Oddly reluctant to unravel her recall, she shook herself. “I don’t know where I went. It only seemed like seconds to me.”

Christian’s palms framed her cheeks in warmth. “It does not matter. Not now that you have returned.”

Grace slid her hands along his forearms, loving the feel of their long, hard tendons, of their silky, ruffling black hair. Her caress was shy, but it darkened his face again.

“Would you kiss me?” she asked.

They were so close she saw his pupils swell. Christian drew a breath but hesitated. “I do not wish to frighten you.”

“I don’t think you will this time.”

His big, lean chest moved faster, his oddly delicate lips parting. “Warn me if you think you are going to disappear.”

Too impatient to speak, Grace leaned forward and kissed him.

A soft tenor cry caught inside his throat. His lips pushed against hers, parted hers, and then their tongues were sliding like wet satin over each other. He didn’t rush her, but savored her, slow and deep. The taste of him was a drug, melting her, weakening her, until the curve of his long arms around her was a requirement to hold her up.

He pulled her onto his lap and groaned. His chest was her support then, matched only by the clinging, probing, devastatingly seductive kisses she didn’t think she could live without. Diffidence forgotten, she strained to him, her own arms twining behind his neck. He rubbed her waist, her hip, his caresses restless and careful. She knew he didn’t want to alarm her, didn’t want to lose the taste and feel of this close embrace. She was sitting on his huge erection, his thighs alternately bunching and relaxing under her, as if he both wanted and feared to push that sexual part of him harder against her.

Grace was too enthralled to care. Her head fell back when his hand moved upward to mold her breast through her sheer white gown. She was making noises just like he was: small, muffled, impossible to hold in. She already knew he liked the lushness of her bosom. With a throttled cry, he tightened his fingers, his palm pressing and turning on her stone-hard nipple. The friction felt so good no force on earth could have kept her from wriggling. As she did, Christian’s cock jumped beneath her. Stiff from head to toe with tension, he dragged his open, panting mouth up her neck.

“I would do more than kiss you,” he said, his voice hoarse enough to burn. “If you would allow.”

Grace turned in his lap and lifted his head with her hands. The look she found on his face shocked her. His expression was so intense, so naked with desire, that when his gaze searched hers, she truly thought she’d go up in flames.

“Yes,” she said with what was left of her breath.

He closed his eyes—in relief, she thought—those thick black lashes dropping to his lust-flushed cheeks. Despite the reaction, despite her
permission
, he didn’t push her back to fall on her. His hand found her ankle and began sliding up under her thin gown. When he reached her knee, his lashes lifted, his eyes shining like dark jewels.

With surprising gentleness, he pressed his warm lips to hers. “This is for you, Grace. Upon my honor, this time is all for you.”

She didn’t mean to, but she jerked as he caressed her thigh.

“Hush,” he murmured, his fingertips drawing circles too near her most private flesh. “Breathe, Grace. Look into my eyes and breathe.”

His expression hypnotized her, its mixture of hard need and soft concern. He looked languorous, sensual, licking his lips as his longest finger first brushed her hidden curls.

She wondered if he was thinking of kissing them.

“I shall not penetrate you tonight,” he promised, his voice deliciously graveled. “Just touch you and stroke you and bring you whatever pleasure you are comfortable with. Trust me, Grace, your maidenhead is safe with me.”

She gasped as one fingertip bumped her labia—and again when he pulled her hot, welling moisture up the plump meeting of those folds. He was gentle, barely touching her at all. The intimacy tickled and mortified. Though it made no sense, both reactions aroused her. The little button of her clitoris swelled, pulsing, twitching, practically stretching with its hunger for him to touch it, too. Even as her hips were trying to lift toward him, she had to fight the urge to tighten her thighs to keep him from doing more. Christian seemed to sense her struggle, ducking closer to nip her ear. The tiny bite distracted her. When the pad of his thumb joined his finger’s light teasing, she knew she wanted him to overrule her more fearful side.

“I’m not sure my ... maidenhead matters,” she managed to push through her tightened throat. “Who but you would even know if I gave it up?”

Christian nuzzled the bend between her throat and shoulder, his hot breath sending shivers sliding down her spine. “If you are still feeling shy, it matters to you.”

“Not so much,” she groaned.

He chuckled against her breast, a sound she suspected men had been making since their days of dragging women into caves.

Without warning, he rolled them both onto their sides. He was spooning her, still wrapping her in both arms, but one hand snaked beneath her gown to caress her breasts while the other remained tucked and playing between her legs. Her awareness of his size and hardness could not have been stronger. He must have liked her softness, because he dragged his stubbled cheek in a catlike motion against the side of her face.

“You see how nice this is?” he soothed in her ear. “You feel how safe you are cradled against me? I can hardly see any of you from this position. Your modesty is perfectly preserved.”

Grace rather doubted that, considering that the clever fingers of his right hand were delving with extreme directness into the immodest heart of her responses. She was so wet she could hear as well as feel him exploring her. Embarrassment threatened, but his touches were too welcome. She moaned as he took her swollen button between his thumb and finger and gently squeezed. The ache she’d been experiencing edged into pleasure, and her body tightened to draw it in.

When his other hand found her puckered nipple and pinched that, it felt like those fingers stroked lower parts as well. Traitor that it was, her body spilled more heat over him.

“Grace,” he said, a ragged whisper that sounded awed. He shifted as if he couldn’t stop himself, until his groin was jammed against her bottom, the hardness of his ridge grinding into her cheeks. Soft from many wearings, his hose weren’t much of a barrier. She gasped, feeling every inch of him in length and girth. With a grunt, he started to move back, maybe fearing his intensity frightened her.

“No,” Grace panted. “Stay close to me like that.”

He froze, then rocked forward tighter yet. “As you wish. I cannot hide what pleasuring you does to me.”

Obviously, he didn’t mean to try. He jerked back just long and far enough to shove the clothes he wore past his hips. As soon as he pressed his body back, she felt everything: the pounding of his heart, his ragged breathing, his heat and sweat as she writhed helplessly in his hold. His fingers were long and hard, scarred from swordplay, but obviously not strangers to this kind of fooling around.

Her teeth bit her lower lip as one finger sank into the outermost inch of her passageway.

“Just a little,” he promised, his voice gone deep. “I will just rub you a little here along with the rest. It feels nice, yes? You can almost imagine how it would be to have my prick easing into you. I would be so gentle, Grace. I would slide like silk into all this beautiful wet heat.”

Grace could tell he was arousing himself as well, was picturing the action his words described. Unable to speak, but wanting him to know she was completely with him, she reached back to hold his hip. Its muscles felt amazing as he strained to her, hollowed strongly at the side from him clenching them. He gasped when she slid her hand onto his buttock. Loving that reaction, she let her fingers dig into his hardness just as they wished.

His hands contracted—on her breast, on her sex—the edge of his teeth pressing unexpectedly into her bare shoulder. The bite was almost hard enough to break skin. His chest vibrated with a growl before he forced his jaw to relax. Through it all, Grace didn’t release her grip on him.

“Grace,” he rasped. “You are going to be a little she-wolf someday, I think.”

The compliment made her blush, but she didn’t have long to do so. Her actions had encouraged his. The manipulations of his hands grew bolder, firmer, making no apologies for their incursions. He had two fingers curled an inch inside her now, and his thumb and forefinger pulled and squeezed the hood of her clitoris in a strong rhythm. He was jerking the little organ out from her body, intensifying and building the sensations, until she felt so good she wasn’t sure it was normal. She knew what was coming, but this pleasure seemed too potent, like something crucial inside her was about to snap. The place his fingers pressed inside her passage was aching, though his amazing deftness wasn’t focused there. Driven beyond shyness, she cupped her hand over his to help those two digits push into her harder.

She moaned at how sweetly they compressed that mysteriously sensitive wet cushion.

“Yes,” Christian panted next to her ear. “Show me what you want.”

Now that he knew, Christian redoubled his efforts. Grace’s body began to jerk in his arms, which he wrapped around her even more securely. His hips were bucking against her, his heat a furnace, his breath broken by curses and pleasured gasps. Feeling his excitement rise heightened hers. When she tightened her thighs, it was only to trap his hand closer.

The ache of need that swelled inside her was as wonderful as it was frightening. She was mindless, speechless, every nerve coiled for an explosion she could only beg to be given with wordless cries.

Christian did not miss the nearness of her breaking point. “I’ll wait for you,” he ground out, his body as taut as hers. “Take your pleasure—” He groaned, momentarily unable to go on. The breath he sucked in so he could speak was huge. “Take your pleasure, and then you may give me mine.”

She wanted that: wanted him in her hand, in her mouth, solid and hot and real.

The idea shot her orgasm through her like a bullet. She came with a cry of agonized pleasure. Her womb was contracting, her spine stretched back in a violent arch. The climax
owned
her, as if she’d sold her soul to it. White spots danced across her vision as she attempted to recover her power to breathe. Her skin was buzzing, the ecstasy that seized her a kind of terror. Christian’s arm was too tight, the pressure on her ribs not helping her fill her lungs. She pushed at his forearm, abruptly wanting this vertiginous delight to stop. Christian didn’t understand. Grunting, teeth bared against the back of her neck, he tugged her clitoris faster. Her sensation spiked, built, and then the fleshy cushion he was pressing with his other fingers gave a perversely rapturous throb. Fluid spurted hot from inside her as a second orgasm broke.

She didn’t think that was supposed to happen, couldn’t believe a climax was meant to be this immense.

“
Grace
,” Christian snarled ... and suddenly fell through her body onto the bed.

 

 

D
espite the shock of her untimely disincorporation, Christian was too far gone not to finish what they had started. Reduced to bestial grunts of need, he gripped the corners of his narrow mattress and ground his hip bones down hard. His right hand still dripped with Grace’s emissions, the shining reminder of her climax drawing yet another snarl of lust from him.

Her ghostly self tried to hug him, to soothe its hands down his bucking spine. Suddenly, she was inhabiting the same space as he was, her energy seeming to prickle and pulse in time with his. It was the most terrible of teases: that she was
in
him, rather than he in her. Worse, he could not deny that her being in him felt wondrous.

Resenting this, loving this, he surged so forcefully against the blanket that his member burned. His orgasm burst as hers had, copious and dramatic, the fiery pleasure jetting out in uncontrollable spasms.

He lay there after, felled by his own climax.

“God’s blood, Grace,” he panted into the covers.

“I didn’t do that on purpose!” She had drawn out of him to sit on the edge of the damp mattress, their sweat and ecstasy mingled there. The scents made his groin tighten.

“I know.” He groaned, then sat up himself and raked back his hair. She stared at him, worried, her succulent lower lip caught between her teeth.

“I was too rough with you,” he said gruffly.