Dark and Deadly: Eight Bad Boys of Paranormal Romance (40 page)

She stilled him by leaning over and touching his face. His eyes met hers and he bore his fangs, needing her away from him, not wanting to hear what she would say in case it stripped him of his strength and shattered him.

“You can tell me,” she whispered, her expression soft and open. Concern and something akin to affection shone in her eyes. “Why do you feel you bring only pain to this world?”

Payne turned his face to his right and stared at the wardrobe there.

She sighed and stroked his left cheek, her touch searing him. Her warm breath skated over his face.

“I won’t push you to tell me... but I won’t deal pain for your pleasure either. I won’t punish you, Payne.”

He growled now and the reaction shocked him. Did he really want her to hurt him? Did he really feel as though he deserved pain?

Darkness welled up inside him. He tamped it down and refused to allow the memories to surface, afraid of what might happen if they did. He didn’t want to remember his past. He focused on Elissa, using her as an anchor to the present.

She stared down at him, that concern edged with disgust still in her eyes. He had made things awkward between them and he wasn’t sure how to take them back to how good things had been just a few minutes ago, before she had discovered he harboured dark needs.

She moved off him and waved her hand, and the rope around his wrists slackened. He pulled his arms out from under him and rubbed his wrists, flexing his fingers to get some blood back into them. Elissa left the bed and the room, returning with the damp cloth she had used on him earlier.

She held it out to him. He swiped it from her and cleaned up the mess on his stomach, and then retreated to the bathroom. He flicked the light on, revealing a dull grey tiled room, and a mirror and vanity unit directly in front of him. He wet the cloth under the tap, and started cleaning himself in earnest.

Payne paused to stare at the red marks that littered his torso.

He felt sick.

What did she think of him now?

He wasn’t even sure what he thought about himself. There was something wrong with him. Messed up. She had hit the nail on the head with that one. His right arm throbbed and he dropped the cloth and held it, fighting to stem the flow of pain as it leached from his heart, poisoning him and turning his thoughts black. Payne closed his eyes and struggled against the surge of memories. Tears stung his eyes. He clamped his teeth together so hard they creaked but it didn’t stop the darkness from rising within him, tearing him apart inside.

“Payne?” Her soft voice swept around him, warm and gentle, like a lover’s caress.

He hadn’t heard her enter. She caught him off guard and before he could think about the consequences, he looked over his shoulder at her. Her beautiful silvery eyes softened and her eyebrows furrowed. He could see himself reflected in her eyes and he ached to know what she thought as she looked up at him in silence. What did she think of the lost male standing naked in her bathroom, scored by a whip, broken by his past, his soul stained black with blood?

She lifted her delicate hand and laid it on his cheek, and gently pressed, silently commanding him to turn and face her. He followed without hesitation, coming to stand before her, unable to mask the pain in his heart.

“Do you want to stop? Because I was hoping you would pleasure me again,” she whispered and he wondered if he had ever heard sweeter words. They spoke to his soul and soothed his hurt, chasing the darkness from his heart and his mind.

She didn’t despise him or think him broken, a male she wanted nothing to do with. She still desired him.

Payne shook his head, slipped his right hand around the nape of her neck and tilted her head back. He dipped his head and kissed her, telling her that he wanted this to continue, whatever this was. He needed to be with her, needed to drown in her and have all of her, starting with this kiss.

She settled her hands on his chest, slanted her head and deepened the kiss, sweeping her tongue along his bottom lip before tangling it with his. Elation crashed through him, bringing bliss in the wake of it that was so strong that it threatened to overwhelm him.

Elissa drew back, a smile on her kiss-swollen lips. “You get that one for free, but the next one you have to work for. Got it?”

Payne nodded. He understood. If he obeyed her, she would reward him with a brief moment in control.

He followed her from the bathroom and she motioned to the bed. He mounted it and lay where he had been before, but this time she didn’t bind his wrists with the rope. Letting him have a little freedom? His cock twitched when she crawled onto the bed beside him, already growing hard for her again. He wanted another taste. He wanted to be inside her this time.

She was moist and hot down there, heavenly. He wanted to bury his cock into that tight sheath and ruin her to all other males, just as he had told her.

She wanted to know his incubus side. She would. She wanted him to pleasure her again. He would.

He would pleasure her so hard that she wouldn’t be able to walk for a week.

By the time he was done with her, she would be begging him to stay with her forever.

Payne had been wrong. It was beginning to look like he might be the one begging her. She teased his left nipple with her tongue, her command to keep still ringing in his head, taunting him. He had sworn to obey, wanting the bliss of kissing her. It seemed the incubus in him thrived on the thought of her kissing him. He had tasted magic in their first kiss. Was his fae side hungry for another hit of it?

Elissa crawled up his body, her inner thighs brushing his. She had ditched her bustier, revealing breasts that had him itching to touch. Touching wasn’t allowed either. She could touch, lick and bite him all she wanted and he had to keep still.

The biting bit had almost pushed him over the edge a few times and he thought she had seen it because she hadn’t done it in a while. Perhaps flashing fangs and growling had been enough to warn her that if she kept nipping, he would end up doing some nipping of his own, on her neck, with fangs.

Her hand glided down the length of his rigid cock and he couldn’t stop himself then. He bucked against her palm, seeking the delicious friction. She didn’t punish him or cluck her tongue. He took that to mean that grinding his hips was allowed. He did it again, closing his eyes, drinking down the intense hit of pleasure that jolted him to his bones.

“Payne,” Elissa murmured and he flicked his eyes open and looked into hers.

She moved back and held his gaze as she licked the length of his erection. She was trying to kill him. He groaned and rocked his hips, hungry for more. She rose off him and crawled back up the length of him, and he stilled right down to his breathing as she reached behind her. She grasped his cock and he clutched the bedclothes as she inched down onto the head and slowly took him into her hot sheath, gloving him tightly.

She stopped when the crown hit the furthest point it could go and opened her eyes and looked down at him. She traced patterns on his chest with her fingers, and he almost growled at her. He didn’t want teasing. He wanted thrusting. Hot, sweaty, dirty, thrusting.

He inched his hips downwards. She grabbed them.

“No.”

He did growl now.

She eased her grip. “I’m in control.”

She didn’t sound sure so he nodded to reassure her. She hesitated and then looked down at his stomach.

“You can’t come.”

“I beg your pardon?” He had surely misheard her. She couldn’t possibly be expecting him to make love to her and pull out before climaxing. She had spent the past god knew how long pushing him to the brink. She would be lucky if he could stop himself from flipping her onto her back and fucking her raw.

“I said you can’t come.” Her voice was small, almost too quiet for him to hear it, and then she lifted her head and spoke clearly. “You can’t climax until I let you.”

Payne groaned in anguish but his incubus side lit up, excited by the proposition. Dirty little fucker. He had thought that side of him would have been the one to complain about what she wanted from him, not his vampire one. He had never been into this sort of crap. Normally his incubus side hated not being in control.

Funny. It had been purring for her since she had started playing dominant to his submissive.

Payne really hoped it wasn’t a mate thing, because that would mean that at some point in this sordid affair, he had started considering the possibility of binding himself to Elissa.

“You don’t know what you’re asking,” he choked out when she moved on him, settling harder on his cock, her slippery heat encasing him.

She smiled very wickedly. “Oh, I know... incubus.”

Payne groaned again, already straining, too hot for her. His powers of attraction might not work on her but he was still a slave to them and his nature, and both incubi and vampires made piss-poor submissives. He had done his best so far but he wasn’t sure how much more he could take, and what she wanted from him might just push him over the edge and into dangerous territory for them both.

“If you refuse to do this, then I have no choice but to tie you up and gratify myself while you watch, and I will get very imaginative about the methods I use... but I won’t touch you or untie you until the moon has risen and set three times. I’ll make you watch me the whole time.”

Holy hell. His cock pulsed inside her. Was she trying to make him explode right now? The thought of spending three days at her mercy, without her easing his burden by laying her hands or mouth or any part of her on him, all the while teasing him by pleasuring herself, had him burning hotter and hotter. All of him screamed to obey. He could do this. Couldn’t he?

“I want you.” She shifted on his cock and he clenched the midnight blue satin sheets in his fists, trying to keep control. “But I can’t let you have all of me. Understood?”

Too well. “You’re cruel. It isn’t fair. I need you too.”

Fear lit her eyes and she went to dismount. Payne seized her hips and stopped her. Damn, he knew that it was going to be nigh on impossible to stop himself from climaxing but he would do all that he could. He needed a safety net though.

Payne lifted Elissa off him. Disappointment replaced the fear in her eyes.

“I get it.” She looked small as she curled up on the bed beside him, a contrast to the woman who had just been playing dom with him.

Payne teleported to his jeans, grabbed the condom from his wallet, and teleported back to the bed, landing hard beside her. He waggled the foil packet at her.

“We can play, Sweetheart, but I won’t guarantee I will be able to completely hold off. I can’t. I will reach a point of no return and my hunger will take over and demand satisfaction.”

She looked wary.

“You’ve never dealt with an incubus before, have you?” He frowned at her and stroked his hand down his cock, keeping it hard for her. The feel of her juices coating him was enough to have him hard as steel again.

She shook her head.

Payne smiled to reassure her. She was crazy for leaping into this without knowing what would inevitably happen at some point.

“Under the best of circumstances, asking me to do this is like asking me to stop my heart beating. Impossible. This isn’t the best of circumstances. This is the worst.” He couldn’t believe that he was going to say this and he wasn’t sure what her reaction would be, but he needed to put it out there. “I haven’t been inside a woman in nearly a century.”

Her eyes widened, wonderfully startled. “A man?”

He shot that one down with a glare and pink tinted her cheeks again.

“Why?” she whispered and her eyes darted between his, searching them for the reason.

“Just because.” He didn’t have a reason to give her, not one that wouldn’t reinforce what she already felt about him.

Her eyes narrowed and he again had the feeling she was seeing right through him, down to his tainted soul.

“You wanted to erase that part of you. You wanted to make it go away and you couldn’t, so you chose to deny your incubus hungers in the hope it would fade away... you really hate it, don’t you?”

Too close to the mark. Payne glanced away, settling his eyes on the ceiling. He could feel her staring still, probing and opening wounds that stung. He wanted her to drop the subject and accept what he had said. Some part of him had thought she would be pleased that he hadn’t been with a woman this way in a very long time, but he wanted to do this with her.

What the hell did that mean anyway? Was he already too far gone to save himself? That phantom’s words still haunted him.

He dropped his gaze to Elissa and the softness of her expression took his breath away. Only one other woman had ever looked at him like that and he didn’t want to draw parallels between her and Elissa. It hurt too much.

“We don’t have to do this.” Her voice was small but he felt as though she had shouted that.

“Oh, little witch, we’re doing this.” Payne grabbed her hand and wrapped it around his cock, forcing her to stroke. When she began moving her hand, he released her and let her continue, his length hardening for her again.

“Are you doing this just to get the ring for your friend?”

Now wasn’t the best time for questions, they broke his concentration and he needed all of it to mentally and physically prepare himself for what Elissa proposed, but he would answer this one.

He looked into her eyes and hid nothing from her, because she looked as though this had stopped being a game for her too and she felt as lost and uncertain as he did.

“No.”

A tiny smile curved her lips and she stroked him harder, tearing a groan from his throat that ended on a growl.

He took her hand away.

“I’ll do my best to hold back my hunger.” He tore the condom packet open, took it out and rolled it onto his cock.

“But that defeats the purpose of this.”

Payne felt like asking whether the purpose of this night was ever anything other than her getting into his pants but held his tongue.

“Fine, you’ll get your taste of my incubus side, Witch.” He grabbed her waist and pulled her onto his body. She straddled his hips and sat back, her heat trapping his cock between their bodies. “But I warn you that if my markings change colour, you have to stop. Promise me.”