Devil Take Me (4 page)

“Don’t come any closer,” Annie said, fear once again trumping lust as he continued to advance and she backed away, flattening her body against the car behind her.

“You’re a beautiful woman.” He stopped only a few inches from where she stood, close enough for her to feel the heat of his body, to smell the faint odor of sandalwood and spice, an exotic scent that reminded her of incense.

“You can’t even see my face.” Fear and arousal warred within her as she looked up, up, up into his eyes. They reflected some unseen light, leaving the rest of his features in shadow, but hinting his face was just as stunning as the rest of him.

“I can see every part of you. I’m accustomed to the darkness.” For the first time she heard the strange lilt in his voice, the trace of an accent she couldn’t quite place.

Whoever this man was, he wasn’t a California native. But then again, who was? And didn’t she have more important things to worry about than her attacker’s country of origin? Attacker. He was her attacker, right? He didn’t seem violent, but he was most assuredly attacking her senses and wreaking havoc on her unsuspecting sex drive.

“I can see your raven curls,” he continued, his large hand reaching out to catch a lock of her hair.

Annie’s breath rushed from her body and her pussy contracted violently as she watched him twine her hair around his thick fingers in a caress as reverent as it was blatantly sensual.

“I can see your strong jaw.” The hand not busy in her hair moved to caress her face, sliding over the sensitive skin behind her ear and down the curve of her jaw to the tip of her chin.

“Strong jaw?” Annie shivered under his touch. She’d never considered her jaw particularly cute, let alone an erogenous zone. But she couldn’t deny his calloused fingers tracing along her skin made her ache with longing.

“You have the face of a royal and the lips of a courtesan.” His voice was husky as he moved the pad of his thumb to play along her full bottom lip.

Her breath wooshed from her chest and she had to struggle to hold back a moan as his caress grew increasingly demanding. His thumb slipped past her lips and Annie surprised the hell out of herself by sucking, pulling it along her tongue in a way that mimicked how she’d take something much thicker and more intimate into her mouth. He groaned softly in response and pulled free of her with a shudder.

Surely this man couldn’t be serious. He couldn’t be as consumed with instant desire as she was, especially if he could really see as well in the dark as he claimed. There was nothing royal or carnal about her. She was plain Annie, the woman no man looked at twice, the woman who couldn’t even keep her fiancé satisfied, who had about as much raw sex appeal as a baby anteater.

“Who the hell are you?” she asked, her voice harder, tainted with anger and lust. The anger she knew sprung from a variety of sources, but the lust was all for this man, this man who was quickly becoming someone she didn’t want to resist.

“I’m your destiny, I think,” he said. “And you, are mine.”

Before Annie could figure out what to say to that, her “destiny” lowered his lips to hers and she was lost, completely lost, and not at all inclined to be found.

He was simply grateful to be alive, to have found a mortal female before it was too late and his solid form vanished from the Earthly plane, perhaps never to return. That was the sum total of it. That was the true source of this instant, insistent passion, not the sensual loveliness of the woman in his arms, not the strange aura of innocence and danger surrounding her. And most certainly not the way her eyes looked deep into his own with a primal recognition that made him ache to claim her for reasons that had nothing to do with mere survival.

“Please, oh please,” his temptress murmured against his lips as his tongue speared into her mouth. Her arms twined around his neck, an action which caused her full breasts to press against his chest.

“Sweet Goddess,” Namtar whispered back, his shaft thickening impossibly further as her tongue grew less timid, her response to his mouth on hers quickly becoming the most passionate joining he could remember.

Her lips, teeth and tongue met his in an erotic battle, swirling, stroking, suckling, giving and receiving the rich pleasure of the flesh, and quickly building his need to a point that was nearly painful. She was simply too exquisite, too decadently female. Not to mention the most tempting woman he had tasted in his obscenely long life.

She tasted of wild cherries and dark red wine, smelled of the ancient fields where fertility rites had made the soil burst forth with fruit and grain, and felt like that little bit of heaven a member of the dark court, of a cursed race, never expected to experience. His body trembled with the force of his desire and his heart ached with a fullness that felt remarkably like sorrow.

Could he really do this? Could he use this woman’s life force to ground him in the Earthly plane? Would he be able to watch her wither and perish, see her fragile mortal body ravished with disease before she finally succumbed to death?

He’d been taught, once he had emerged from a portal, to claim the first available mortal member of the opposite sex. The Sumerians believed the wasting death the people of his family brought upon humans was simply a byproduct of their own sin. Still, the violent death did not affect their soul, which would go on to the afterlife.

But it suddenly didn’t matter to him that her soul would be free, Namtar was far too interested in her Earthly body.

“We cannot do this.” Namtar thrust the woman from him and backed quickly away.

There were other humans nearby, other women. He could sense the warmth of their mortal hearts beating outside the square cave. He would free himself and find another mortal woman to use for the grounding spell. For some inexplicable reason, he couldn’t fathom using this sweet woman so harshly, no matter that her brief life span was something his race had never respected.

“You wouldn’t dare,” she whispered, her eyes growing dark with something other than passion, an emotion he would have called vengeance if there had been any reason for her to suspect the deep wrong he had been prepared to enact upon her.

“I have no wish to harm you.” He held his ground as she stalked toward him, her lips still slick and swollen from his kisses and her nipples tight swollen points he could see clearly through her thin covering.

Goddess he wanted to taste her flesh, rip the fabric from her body and bury his head between her generous breasts. He would let his tongue play across her sensitive skin, draw her tips deep into his mouth, until she was wet and aching for him, until she begged him to fill her body with his straining cock.

“You do harm me, you’re harming me right now.”

“Stop, don’t come any closer,” Namtar ordered, doubting his own strength if her body were to come in contact with his. He was already dying for another taste of her lips, to know the feel of her soft curves molding into his body, fitting against him with a perfection he would never have dreamed possible.

“What’s wrong? Do I disgust you?”

“Are you mad?”

“Stop questioning my sanity and answer the question,” she snapped, a power spilling from her small form that seemed decidedly out of place.

She was soft, feminine and pliant, but at the same time her aura pulsed with a strange potential energy, a dark energy he had never witnessed in a mortal. It fascinated him, intoxicated him, made him ache to see how their bodies would fit together as they mated, how her aura would surge around him when her body found release while he was thrusting between her thighs.

“Did I seem filled with disgust, did my cock swell and press against you because you repulsed me?” Namtar willed himself to stand his ground, to do everything in his power to keep from closing the space between them and showing her how very delighted she made every inch of him.

“Then what’s wrong? I want you. I want…want to—to fuck you, right here in my garage, without knowing your name, without seeing your face.” Her voice was thick with equal parts grief and desire, as if she would die if she had him or die if she didn’t, a part of her soul lost forever no matter what choice she made.

“What is your name?” He had lost this battle. His best intentions were no match for the dark longing he recognized in her eyes, the profound sadness he could feel pulsing around him like a living, breathing being all of its own.

Perhaps the Goddess had placed him here for a reason, perhaps it was time for this mortal woman to move into the next realm. Such a thought would usually have helped assuage his guilt, helped him to use his temptress for both of their pleasure. Then he would draw a part of her energy into himself, the ineffable bit of mortality that would help him to survive on Earth, at least for a time. It would buy him the time he needed to find a mortal willing to sacrifice their soul for an eternity in darkness, giving him the power to overthrow the queen. It was a necessary evil.

But as her sad brown eyes lifted to meet his own, Namtar knew he would never forgive himself. He would always regret being the instrument of her destruction, no matter how she might have longed for it, or what power might have arranged for their paths to cross this blighted night.

“Annie, my name is Annie,” she said, her breath catching in her throat and tears flowing down her cheeks.

“Annie, I don’t want to see you cry.” Namtar’s throat was curiously tight as he lifted his hand to her face. He fought the urge to catch her tears on his fingers, to bring those fingers to his tongue and taste the unique flavor of her sorrow.

“Then take me, show me you want me, that someone wants me.” Her tears flowed more freely, turning her already liquid brown eyes into swirling amber pools, heartbreakingly expressive depths he would gladly have drowned in.

“Who would not want you? What man would willingly turn from your beauty? Whoever he is, he is the biggest fool ever born on this Earth.” Namtar was shocked at his own vehemence.

How could he feel such passionate hatred for anyone who would hurt this woman when he himself was preparing to take everything from her, to steal the very life force from her body? He was the universe’s worst hypocrite and the knowledge did not humor him in the slightest.

“I wish I could believe you. When you look at me like that, I almost do.”

“Annie, I—”

“Don’t talk. Kiss me, touch me, make me forget everything,” she demanded, her pale skin practically glowing with the strength of her desire, transforming her Earthly beauty into something ethereal. She was truly magnificent, a being alive with a kind of temptation that Namtar, Goddess help him, could not hope to resist.

He met her lips with a moan of surrender and an ardent promise, the promise of soul shattering pleasure, of release from everything that would ever seek to harm her. She replied with a kiss that nearly brought tears to his eyes. Her sweet tongue swept through his mouth with a passionate innocence, a pure craving he knew he would never forget. And in that moment, he vowed to make this last coupling the best of her life, to shatter her so completely with pleasure she would meet her maker with a smile still upon her face.

“Where do you want me to touch you, Ann?” he asked, already allowing his hand to massage the curve of her hip, to slide under her shirt, up toward the firm, round globes tempting him more than any he could recall.

“Call me Annie, and touch me everywhere. Everywhere, please,” she begged, surprising him by gripping the bottom of her top and pulling it over her head.

The breath rushed from Namtar’s body as she tossed the covering away and stood before him in nothing but a white scrap of fabric that only served to make her full breasts more tempting. The material was sheer and did nothing to conceal the deep berry color of her aureoles. The wires at the base of the contraption pressed her luscious swells together, deepening the valley between them and making his mouth water as he imagined being allowed to trace that tempting hollow with his tongue.

“You are more beautiful than I have words to express.” Namtar fell to his knees on the hard ground, cupping her with both his hands, abandoning himself to the urge to kiss the bare skin thrusting so temptingly toward his mouth.

She shivered and the pebbled nipples only an inch away from his eager tongue thrust toward him with an achingly beautiful need.

“Can I kiss you here?” he asked, dragging his thumb across one of her hardened tips and feeling his shaft twitch within his robes as a moan of passion burst from her throat. Without waiting for an answer, he dipped his tongue beneath the lace that covered her, tasting the salt of her skin, torturing them both by kissing, suckling everywhere but where she was puckered so tightly.

“More, please more.”

He answered her request by nipping at the side of her breast, nibbling along the bottom, until her breath came in desperate little pants and the teasing became too much for him to bear. He finally ripped the thin fabric from her body, the sound of the material tearing arousing him even before he was blessed with a clear view of her breasts.

“Such beauty, such perfect…”

He lost the ability to form language as she threaded her fingers forcefully through his hair, pulling him toward her with an abandon he knew wasn’t like her. The shaking of her limbs, the ragged rhythm of her breathing, told him this need, this overwhelming desire, was something she had locked tightly inside.

Why he, a complete stranger, and the least healthy choice she could have made, was the recipient of this gift he couldn’t say. But he was humbled by her. He felt like a boy at the altar of the holy virgins, that one lucky boy in a thousand who finally was granted permission to touch, to taste, to feel his bare skin against one of the women chosen by the Goddess.

“Suck me, take me in your mouth,” she demanded.

“With pleasure, my lady.” Namtar flicked his tongue across her nipple before he opened and took her in the wet heat of his mouth. He nearly lost what was left of his control at the cry of surrender that filled the darkened cave.

It had been so long since he’d heard such an honest, pure sound of desire. It overwhelmed him, made him want to pull his Annie to the ground at that very moment, to rip the small covering from her lower body and spread her wide, sliding into her soft, wet body while he watched her dark brown eyes turn even darker. He ached to pump his shaft in and out of her tight channel, to feel her ride him as she sought her own pleasure.

She was more sensual temptation than he had been prepared to handle. He wouldn’t have believed such fierce desire possible after the past several hours, but it was as if his body had never known the betrayal of his queen or the long arduous journey to the Earth’s surface.

“You make me so wet. I’ve never been this wet.” Annie moaned and arched her breasts toward his eager mouth. He suckled her even deeper in response, pulling her nipple to the roof of his mouth and toying with her with his tongue. He wanted to make her blind with need, lost to anything but the feel of his lips, teeth and tongue worshiping her heated flesh.

Her grip in his hair grew nearly painful, but for the first time Namtar understood the allure. He wanted her to hurt him, to be so lost in her desire she blurred the line between pleasure and pain.

“Fuck me, God, please, fuck me now,” she begged, dropping her hand to the close of her short pants and ripping open the button.

Namtar growled in response, helping her pull her coverings away even as he slipped the tie of his robe and threw it to the ground. The stone there was hard and cold and he didn’t want there to be any pain for his lover, only pleasure. Nude, he lay back on his robe, pulling her on top of him. She gasped as their bare skin made contact for the first time, but spread her legs eagerly, letting him feel the hot, slick heat of her pussy on his shaft. She ground against him with obvious eagerness, coating his pulsing length with her wetness. His hands tightened on the soft flesh of her hips and soon he couldn’t fight the urge to lift her up, to fit the head of his cock against the plump lips of her slit.