A Demon in Waiting (Crimson Romance) (4 page)

She’d had one.

Hitch was practically a palate cleanser in comparison.

• • •

John leaned against the men’s room’s outer door, barring any potential patrons’ entry, though there hadn’t been any attempts. He crossed his arms over his chest and took his lecture like a man.

“John, why is this taking you so long? I sniffed her out. She should be an easy pluck for you. You should have moved on hours ago,” Gulielmus said.

“I didn’t realize I was operating on a quota system here.”

“Damn right you are. Your brother, Trucker, averages about a woman every two hours on a good night.” He paced and rubbed his smooth chin. “Maybe I should have let you shadow him for a while before I sent you out … ”

John balked. “A woman every two hours? You mean
sex
every two hours?”

Gulielmus gave John a long stare. He didn’t have to be a genius to parse the expression. “Doesn’t have to go that far. You just have to get them to let their guards down.” He put his hands on John’s shoulders and gave him a teeny shake. “It’s about trust. When they trust you, their souls open up and all you have to do is stick one metaphorical dirty finger in the waterfall, and they’re gone. And, then you can drain a little energy off them while you’re at it.”

“So, what is this conference? Are you assigning me a deadline or is this a play-making huddle?”

John didn’t want a deadline. He wanted more time to talk to Ariel — learn from her. Be warmed by her smile. His plan was to drag it out indefinitely and tag along until she cast him aside. Shouldn’t take long, the way he figured it. He was used to being cast out.

Gulielmus released John’s shoulders and sighed as he walked to the sinks. Leaning over one, he studied his alabaster skin in the mirror and patted down an errant lick of hair that had escaped his ponytail. “No, I’m not giving you deadline. I’m just telling you to be cautious of your time management. The more time you spend with them, the more likely you’ll become attached.” He stopped patting his hair and cut his gaze toward his son. “You don’t want to become attached.”

“Why not?”

“Because you incubus cambions are weird and unpredictable. Sometimes it’s not a big deal if you like someone a lot. Other times, you can become infatuated. Crazed. They become obsessions.
Quarry
, even.”

“That doesn’t sound good.” John shifted his weight and studied the toes of his boots. Did he feel obsessed? Didn’t seem like it, but would he know if he was?

“Seriously.” Gulielmus leaned his butt against the sink edge and narrowed his eyes. “I’ve had to put one of my children out of his misery because of it before. I wouldn’t want to have to do that to you.”

John gulped.
Jeez.
“I see.” He may not have been particularly ambitious, but his sense of self-preservation was pretty damn well-calibrated. He valued his life. Wanted to keep it a little while longer. How long did cambions live, anyway? He should probably find out.

Gulielmus straightened up and extended his hand.

This time John knew the drill. His put his hand in his father’s, palm up.

“Good. It took,” the demon said, dropping the hand.

John studied his palm and didn’t see anything unusual about it. Just the usual lines and calluses. “Why wouldn’t it?”

With a gallant shrug, Gulielmus extracted a wallet from his slacks pocket. He leafed through the billfold and pinched out some currency.

John took it without counting it.

“I’ve got to go check on one of your sisters. She’s in rehab again. Call me if you need me.” Gulielmus vanished without so much as a finger-snap.

John blew out a breath and wrapped his fingers around the door handle, idling there for a while as he pulled his thoughts together. Time to go secure the soul of the pretty lady.

He kept repeating it to himself like a mantra, ready to use his demonic charms on her to put her where he wanted her — assuming he could figure out the magic — but when returned to the table and found she’d freed that dark brown hair from its ponytail so it shrouded her shoulders and framed her face, he forgot what his mission was.

She’d paid the check and their plates had been cleared.

She twiddled her thumbs as she looked up at him. “Where are you sleeping tonight, Hitch?”

“Where am I sleeping?” Suddenly, his mind went blank as if all the information he’d downloaded in his twenty-eight years had become corrupted and self-terminated. He was pretty sure Gulielmus had prepped him for this sort of thing. “Um … ”

Lie
, he imagined his father would say.

He pulled his knapsack out from under the table and heaved it up onto his shoulders. “I’ll hang out at the bus station and see what they have going east, probably. They don’t pay too much attention to stragglers.”

“Oh.”

She swallowed hard and cast a gaze down his body. When she met his eyes again, she pulled her plump bottom lip between her teeth and bit it.

He raised a brow in question.

“This is probably really stupid of me … ” she said, letting her voice linger off at the end.

“What is?”

“Do you … want to go upstairs?” She flitted her gaze toward the hotel lobby as if he couldn’t intuit her meaning without the visual aid.

“You mean me get a room?”

She shook her head and slowly eased out of the booth, grazing the front of her body against his as she reached for the handle of her suitcase.

He closed his eyes and curled his toes in her boots, willing his body not to respond to her softness — her sweet, citrus scent.

“No, I mean you come visit me.”

The blood drained from his head.

Keep it together, man. Your daddy is an incubus. You’ve got cool encoded in your DNA.

When he didn’t answer immediately, her cheeks reddened. “Never mind, it’s stupid.” She pulled her suitcase toward the lobby. “You must think I’m nuts. Just ignore me.”

He jogged to catch up. “No, wait. I don’t think you’re nuts. I think you’re stunning, so sometimes I stare at you and my sensors get all confused.”

She stopped in front of the elevators and stabbed the
Up
button. She didn’t look like she bought it. “Oh yeah? What are your sensors saying?”

“Mostly they’re saying you’re a nice lady and I’m trash and I should leave you alone.” True enough, he figured.

The elevator door opened and she stepped in, giving him a speculative look as she leaned against the back railing. When he didn’t move, she made a “come here” gesture with her hands. He slipped in just before the doors slid shut.

They didn’t talk, but he itched to ask if doing this sort of thing was normal for her, or if she was still affected by that psychic lasso he’d tossed around her earlier. Neither sounded great right then, but he wasn’t so conceited to think that he was
just
that good looking and that charming that she’d invite him into her inner sanctum for … Well, for what, exactly? Wasn’t he supposed to be the one doing the leading?

Upstairs, he followed her down the hall and watched her slip a card into a slot installed on her room’s door.

“That’s pretty fancy,” he said.

She pushed the door handle down and idled in the opening for a moment, studying the small piece of plastic. “Huh. I guess it would be for someone who’s used to metal keys.” She held it out to him. “Want to try it?”

Before “Yes!” could fall out of his mouth, he squashed his childish wonderment and spread a grin onto his face. Now wasn’t the time for dorkiness. “Maybe later.”

She shrugged and pulled her bag into the room.

He followed, letting the door swing closed on its own behind him.

She made a beeline for a luggage rack and set her suitcase on top, already winding the zipper pull around to open it.

He set his backpack on the floor and moved further into the room, studying the cream-colored walls decorated with soft, pastel watercolor paintings, the ornate dresser — the drawers of which he pulled open to assess what treasures they held — the desk in the corner, covered with a binder full of menus and local business information, and finally, the one large bed in the middle of the room.

It was bigger than any bed he’d ever seen. His mother’s “husband” didn’t even have a bed that large, not that he needed it. The only time that useless piece of shit slept in his own bed was when he was ill. The rest of the nights, he played musical beds.

“You could probably fit four of me on this bed,” John said, perching on the edge of it while Ariel extracted a toiletry case from her bag.

“One of you at a time is probably enough,” she said with a giggle as she set the case on the dresser top. She unzipped it and rummaged through the contents. “Hmm.”

“Hmm what?”

“I guess it’s been a while. Shouldn’t be surprised I don’t have any.”

“Any what?”

“Condoms.”

His jaw fell slack. “Condoms?”

“Yes.” She performed a slow nod and leaned her backside against the dresser, pushing her lips up into a smirk. “Condoms. Familiar with those? Ancient concept.”

That made him laugh. “I’m probably familiar with a lot of things I shouldn’t be, although I can’t say I have any personal experience with those.”

Her smirk snapped in as if she’d released the tension on a rubber band. He’d stunned her.

“You’re a virgin.”

He raised his shoulders. He wasn’t exactly ashamed of it, and it wasn’t that he’d
tried
to be chaste all those years. If it’d been up to him, he would have been sowing his oats for years. Still …

“Virgin doesn’t necessarily mean inexperienced.”

The expression on her face suggested rather plainly that she didn’t believe him.

He waved her forward. “Come here.”

“Why?”

“Come on,” he crooned. “You picked up a hitchhiker but now you’re suddenly apprehensive?” He made that
come here
gesture
with his hands just as she had earlier, and this time she took the few steps forward to bridge the gap between them. He rewarded her for it by pressing his hands against her belly and sliding them up to her fabric-covered breasts, mounding them beneath his hands and squeezing just until she sucked in a breath.

“You know … ” He grazed his thumbs over her protruding nipples and pressed them in.

She pressed her body closer into the open V of his legs, bracing her thighs against his swelling arousal.

“We don’t have to get naked to have fun.”

She shuddered as he dipped one hand into the warmth of her shorts and tickled the front of her panties. So hot and already so moist. His self-control was exceptional, but he began, suddenly, to feel that perhaps this engagement in foreplay would have them going too far.

He scoffed at the thought. What did it matter to him? He was half-incubus. One part of him more than anything wanted to reach out to that basest part of her existence and suck the well dry — to take from her everything that was carnal and sensual and leave nothing there for anyone else. To take the very point of life from her.

The other part of him said, “This is a lovely, intelligent woman who just wants to be touched. She doesn’t deserve Hell for that.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked, her euphoric expression wilting as she locked her gaze onto his. He’d stopped rubbing.

He wrapped his arms around her waist and lay back onto the bed, taking her down with him so her soft curves lay pressed against his body. “Absolutely nothing.”

Her lips pressed against his and he closed his eyes, savoring the feel of her tongue’s tip lapping around the edges of his lips, and reeling from the sound of her breath speeding as she kissed him. He hissed upon scenting her arousal — stronger than anything he’d ever experienced, although she was probably no more turned on than any woman he’d petted with in the past.

It was something Gulielmus had done to him, he was guessing. He seemed to have a hyperawareness of everything about her, and instinctively knew that if he squeezed her ass …

She whimpered over him and ground her crotch against his erection.

… she’d like it.

A virgin. Just my luck.

Ariel’s mind raced as Hitch left kisses on the delicate crook between her neck and shoulders. His hands roamed up and down her back, sending delightful shivers down her spine that made her pant and moan. If he hadn’t have told her, she would never had guessed. He didn’t
seem
like the sort who’d never pleasured a woman’s body in that way, judging by the careful attention he was giving hers. If she was that aroused with all her clothes on, what would happen once they came off?

I’m pretty sure there was a condom dispenser in the bathroom downstairs …

Before she could plot a trip to the lobby, he flipped them over so they lay on their sides and slipped a hand inside her waistband. She sucked in some air and held it as his fingers worked lower and lower, finding the elastic of her panties, then breaching it.

Inside, he swirled his fingers around her clit, and her body tensed, expectant as he dipped lower to find her wetness and returned to the sensitive nub.

He teased, flicked, pressed until her teeth clamped and she tossed her leg over his thighs, increasing his access. When his fingers slipped down and tested her entrance for size, she clenched around him nearly overwhelmed with the attention of his tongue in her mouth … and the knowledge that this wouldn’t end with consummation. Maybe that made it a bit hotter for her — teasing it out, leaving her hanging.

One finger, then two pressed inside her while he massaged her clit with his thumb. He scissored them, working them in and out, rubbing against her mound until she threw her head back and growled out her satisfaction. When he drew his fingers out of her, he brought them to his mouth and sucked them clean.

She nearly came again.

“Wow,” she whimpered, rolling over onto her back and staring up at the ceiling.

Hitch propped himself up on his side and looked down at her. “Still want to take your clothes off or are you okay for the moment?”

She closed her eyes to guard herself from his deep blue gaze and blew out a sigh. “I just want to melt right now, thanks.”