3 Lethal Rider-Lords Of Deliverance (32 page)

The tap of her pulse against his teeth joined the hammering of his heartbeat, setting his blood ablaze. And as Regan’s panting breaths turned to whimpers and gasps, his pleasure peaked. She joined him with a cry, bucking and arching, and he thought she might have actually called his name.

Awesome.

They lay there in the aftermath, their ragged breaths drowning out the crackle of the fire. That had been … extraordinary. Never had he experienced anything like that, anything that involved the melding of bodies and pleasure and intimacy. Yeah, he and Regan had fucked that one time, but they’d been drugged, and he’d been distracted by fear for his Seal.

This
had been the true taking of his virginity.

“Is that…” He rested his forehead against her silky hair, his heart pounding from both exertion and a touch of embarrassment.

Still reaching back, Regan played with one of his braids. “Is that…what?”

Just spit it out
. “Is that what it’s always like?” And was he supposed to stay inside her like this? Or was he supposed to pull out? God, he hated this. He was as old as the wheel, as Reseph used to say, and he didn’t know a damned thing about what to do with a woman.

Regan tensed, a subtle hardening of her muscles, a mere sharp inhale, but it was there. “I don’t know.”

He lifted his head to stare at her. “I assumed—”

“That I was a slut.” She dropped her hand and shifted, and his cock slid from her warmth.

Well, shit. He had sort of called her that, hadn’t he?
You volunteered to play whore. How many men have you fucked for your job?
At the time, he’d been furious, and for all he knew, he’d been right. But in the time Regan had been here with him, he’d seen a woman who regretted what she’d done, who cared for the growing life inside her, who was ready to die in order to save that life. No doubt, she was still the badass Guardian he’d met nine months ago, but he’d seen the emotional, sensitive, vulnerable human beneath her demon-slayer shell.

“I don’t think you’re a slut,” he said softly. “And …” This was going to hurt. “I’m sorry for implying that you were.” Yep, ouch. He and apologies didn’t get along. “I just assumed you had some experience. Was I wrong?”

She sighed, and most of the tension melted out of her posture. “You’re only my second. My first… didn’t go well. We only did it once.”

He fucking loved that answer. He wrapped his arms around her and tugged her back into him. “Why just the once?”

“My power. When I…get excited…I lose control of it. That’s why it came out that night with you.”

He frowned. “Then why didn’t it attack me just now?” When she didn’t respond, he traced his fingers over the gentle slope of her shoulder. “Regan?”

“It’s gone.” She paused, as if struggling to find the right words. “I think it’s got something to do with the pregnancy. Please don’t tell anyone.”

“Don’t tell The Aegis, you mean.”

She didn’t answer, so he shifted back to the original topic, but he wouldn’t forget. “Did you kill the guy?” He kind of hoped so. He didn’t like the idea that there was a male out there who had touched Regan.

“No, but it was scary. I swore I’d never have sex again.” She shivered, and he immediately dragged a blanket up over her.

“And then I came along, and you thought you didn’t have to worry about your ability hurting me.”

“Yes.” She rolled over, with a little effort if her grunts and groans were any indication. “I’m sorr—”

“Don’t. Remember what I said about that? It didn’t hurt me.” He lowered his mouth to Regan’s, a kiss meant to comfort her, but the moment their lips met, heat ignited. His hunger for her was all-consuming. Dangerous. Undeniable. “And it sounds like both of us have a lot of catching up to do.”

God, sex with Thanatos was good. Even when he wasn’t inside her, his touch and voice alone worked her up.

“Come here,” he said roughly, as he rolled onto his back and lifted her so she was straddling his waist. He lifted his hips to penetrate her, but horrid memories gripped her, dragging her back down into the guilt Thanatos had asked her to leave behind, and she tried to scramble off him.

The last time they’d been in this position, he’d been restrained, and she’d been…taking him.

“Thanatos,” she whispered, fighting his hold. “I can’t do it like this.”

“Let it go, Regan.” He skimmed his hand up her ribcage to her breast, and despite her misgivings, she arched into his touch. “I wanted it. We both wanted it.”

“But you had no choice.”

He’d cupped her cheek, his palm warm, the calluses firm. “Neither did you.” With exquisite tenderness, he
brought her hand to his mouth, where he kissed her knuckles. “Take away the fury and death, Regan.” His lips were satiny against her skin. “Only you can do that. Only you.”

Tears scalded her eyes. Dear God, he was amazing. Dizzy with desire and some other emotion she couldn’t—or wouldn’t—put a name to, she began to rock on top of him. His hands caressed her, stroked her, encouraged her. This was nothing like their first time. This was how it should have been.

“That’s it.” His dark, guttural voice rumbled through her in a wave of heat. “Take me.” He surged upward, his shaft plunging deep, his pelvis lifting her off the bed.

His expression was intense, eyes wild, and when his lips parted to reveal the white points of his fangs, the first contractions of a climax coiled inside her. Those things were wicked sexy, and she wasn’t even going to ponder why she thought that or why she wasn’t denying it. Instead, she reached out and stroked one.

Thanatos let out a growl that should have terrified her, but the reaction that came with it made her want to do it again. His urgent thrusts crashed into her harder, faster, and his grip on her grew tighter, more possessive. And when she took the fang between her finger and thumb and caressed the smooth surface, he roared in ecstasy.

Bucking beneath her, he came in a hot, wet flow, triggering her orgasm. The pleasure crested twice, massive surges that left her gasping for breath and collapsing bonelessly next to him when it was over.

“Damn,” he breathed. “Holy … damn, that was good.” He shifted so he was facing her and tenderly brushed her hair away from her face. “The fang thing? We’ll have to remember that.”

For next time.
The unspoken words were there, hanging awkwardly between them. Well, maybe it was only awkward for her, because she had no idea where this thing between them was going. He’d taken the months-of-pleasure thing back, but what if she still felt like giving it to him? She owed him so much, but the reason she owed him had grown to include the fact that no one had ever made her feel so valued.

Not even The Aegis.

His hand and gaze roamed her body, light, soothing sweeps that seemed oddly like petting, as if he were showing Styx affection. The only place he wasn’t touching, though, was her belly. Smiling, she took his hand and put it just above her navel. It was funny—endearing, really—the way he was so tentative and unsure about handling a pregnant woman.

But then, she supposed that when you mainly dealt with violence and death, new life must be bewildering.

And talk about bewildering … she was still overcome by everything that had happened tonight. He’d come in from out of nowhere, his eyes full of murder, and then his energy had morphed into something else. The lethal, electric rage had still been there, but somehow, it shifted focus from violence to sex.

“Thanatos?” She idly played with one of his nipple rings. “Why did you say that when you were gone, all you could think about was me?”

On her belly, his hand stilled. Just as she thought he wasn’t going to answer, he grumbled, “I said it because sex makes a male stupid.” He took her hand in his and brought it to his lips. She liked it when he did that, which was good, because he did it a lot. “And because it’s true.
Usually when I’m trapped in a mire of hate and the need to kill, no other thoughts break through. But since you’ve been here, there’s been a sexual fever rushing through me that gets worse when I’m angry, or like today, when I’m forced to a scene of death. It felt like I could burn off the violent energy with sex instead of blood. That’s never happened before, and I could only think of you.”

“Do you think it’s because we’d had sex and it woke up that sex demon side of you?”

“Yeah. Ares and Reseph always found that to some degree, sex could use up energy that would otherwise cause them to kill.”

“It’s weird,” she said, “that for you guys, sex can stop bad things from happening, but it’s the opposite for me.” She bit down on her lower lip. “Well, until now.”

“Why don’t you want The Aegis to know you’ve lost your ability?”

She shrugged, not fully understanding it herself. The Aegis had condemned the ability as a curse, but at the same time, it had made her the only Guardian who could handle certain assignments. With that gone, all she had left was her psychometric gift, which was handy, but so limited by the fact that it only worked on skin and ink.

What if she lost that, too? She was a good fighter, but so was pretty much everyone in The Aegis. She probably knew more than anyone about vampires, but it wouldn’t take another Guardian long to catch up to speed, and if she couldn’t share what she knew about the day-walkers, she didn’t have much of an advantage over anyone else.

“I guess I worry about what they’ll do.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know… demote me back to a regular Guardian.”

“They’re assholes,” he muttered. “I don’t trust them.”

Which meant he didn’t trust her, either, but she couldn’t blame him. “I do. They took me in when they should have killed me, and they taught me to have control over my abilities.”

“On Ares’s beach, you said your father was put down. What about your mother?”

“My mom gave birth to me and left me on the doorstep at Aegis Headquarters before doing a death-by-demon.”

“She found a demon to kill her?”

“Basically. The Aegis had been taking casualties from a nest of demons hanging out in some electrical tunnels nearby. She armed herself, went in, and took out as many demons as she could before one killed her. It was a suicide mission, and she knew it, but she saved a lot of lives.” Val had found her body and the voice recorder she used to chronicle her kills. “So anyway, instead of killing me, like protocol demands, they put me with foster parents … other Aegis couples.”

“Couples? Plural? Not one set?”

She nodded. “The first couple divorced when I was four, and neither of them wanted the responsibility of raising a kid like me alone.”

Thanatos cursed. “Are they dead?”

“No.”

“Do you want them to be?”

She laughed. Thanatos definitely took his Horseman name to heart. “It’s okay. I barely remember them. The next couple kept me until I was nine, when my foster mother, Jean, was killed in a car crash. My foster father
was so distraught that he left The Aegis, so everyone thought it was best to put me with another Aegis family since my psychometric abilities had fully developed.”

The move to the new family had sent Regan into a tail-spin of depression and emotional outbursts. She’d lost the only home she’d ever really known, from her foster parents, to her house, to their black lab puppy named Buster. Even though Kevin, her foster father, had been strict about Regan’s Aegis training and remote with his own feelings, Jean had been warmer, and Regan had loved them both.

“How long were you with the new family?”

“Until I turned thirteen.” Her stomach churned a little, because she really hated revisiting this part of her past. Tabitha and Shawn had been stationed in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and they’d been kind… at least, on the surface. After the trauma of losing Jean and Kevin had faded, Regan had come to accept Tabitha and Shawn, thinking she’d found a family in them. “Then my foster mom got pregnant, and they didn’t want me around their kid.”

“Are
they
dead?” he growled.

She smiled thinly. “No, and I don’t want them to be.” She ignored the slight twinge of pain that always occurred when one opened an old wound. “I get why they got rid of me. By then, I was starting to exhibit signs of the power the Aegis feared. I could have been a danger to their kid.”