Dark Desires After Dusk (14 page)

“Liar.”

Now she shrugged.

“Do you even know the logistics?” he asked.

“Of course I do. I went to high school.”

“And how does your boyfriend feel about all this?”

“Tim and I have decided to wait to have sex until we get married.”

“He's onboard with that?” Cadeon met her gaze. “If you were mine, I'd give you a good seeing to at least five times a day.”

This was why she avoided talking and reading about subjects like sex. Now all she could do was envision what a day would be like broken up by regular bouts of sex.

Would a male like Cadeon simply find her wherever she was and take her? She stifled a shiver.

He slanted her a heart-stopping grin. “Got you thinking about it, didn't I?”

“Got me thinking about what it'd be like with Tim five times a day,” she lied.

Cadeon's knuckles went white on the steering wheel. Almost as if he was jealous. But why? Maybe demons felt possessive of females that were in their care?

“So tell me about
Tim,
” he bit out.

“We've been dating for two years, and still, every day I'm struck by how perfect he is for me. He's caring and funny, and he's going to make a great husband and father. My parents both got to meet him before they died, and they liked him, too.”

“Planning on
marrying
this bloke?”

“We're getting engaged as soon as we get our degrees.”

In a brusque tone, he asked, “Aren't you a little young to get hitched?”

“Maybe, but when you find the right one . . .”

“And he's it?”

She sighed. “Yes. He's brilliant. One of a kind.” When Cadeon snorted, she said, “How many men can discuss
extremal combinatorics or how to use Mahalanobis distance in cluster analysis? How many know what a permutohedron or bipartite graph is?”

“Extreme combining?” He cast her a leer. “I'll discuss that any day.”

“It's
extremal
 . . . oh, never mind. You wouldn't understand. Tim and I comprehend each other on a different level.”

“How smart can he be if he hasn't figured out a way to sleep with you in two years? I'd have had that locked up tight already.”

Holly couldn't even manage a response. This male couldn't be more rude or overbearing.

He continued, “How're you going to know if you and Tim are compatible in bed if you don't do the deed before you get married? Come on, pet, you've got to kick the tires before you buy the car.”

“I think that's a ridiculous”—
valid
—“argument. Sex can be taught just like any other skill. If there's something one of us needs, I'm sure the other will figure it out.”

“You can't
teach
intensity. And who knows—you might discover a few kinks in your closet that old Tom might not be onboard with.”

I know this.
“
Tim
would do whatever it takes to make me happy,” she insisted. But a full, abiding relationship between them would work only if she were normal sexually. Otherwise, how could he survive her strength? And how could they deal with her weird conflicting needs?

At once, she had the instinctive drive to overpower, and the instinctive need to be overpowered.

“What happens when things get a bit out of hand with you and Tim? How do you kids pull back on the throttle?”

Tim took so many herbs and extracts that she suspected his libido was chemically stunted. “We're strictly platonic right now.” Yet even without his GNC stash, her boyfriend wasn't a very sexual person—which was perfect for her. “We're more cerebral than physical.”

“Your cerebrum can't have an orgasm.”

“We don't believe life has to be filled with orgasms to be meaningful.”

He coughed on a swallow of Red Bull, then looked at her as if she'd spoken the vilest blasphemy. “You're killing me, halfling.”

*   *   *

“I really don't want to talk to you about anything of this nature anymore. It's not an appropriate subject between us.”

“A shame. 'Cause it happens to be my favorite one.” Seeing she was unbending about this, he said, “Then ask about me more about the Lore.”

“Very well. Do beings get married? Or form family units?”

“Some marry. Especially the species that are more humanized.”

“Does your kind?”

“A lot do. More now than in the past. But not as a rule.”

“Oh,” she said, sounding as if his answer displeased her.

He hastily added, “Though we might not marry, we have something more lasting between us. A demon male has one fated female that he desires and needs above all others. He spends his whole life looking for her. A demon would be crazy to stray when he wants nothing more than to pleasure and protect his woman. Marriage is a little redundant.”

“Have you found yours?” she asked, seeming fascinated with the idea.

“I . . . don't have mine yet.”

“How do you recognize her?”

“You just know. A feeling. A connection. But, for my kind, we can't say for certain if she's ours or not without having sex with her. As they say,
In the throes, you know
.”

“How convenient.”

“It's true. Things
occur
when you're having sex with her. Things you need in order to claim her.” For the first time, the way would be opened, the dam breached.

“Like what?” she asked, then immediately added, “Wait—will your response be graphically sexual?”

To explain how a male rage demon could orgasm but never ejaculate until after the initial claiming of his female . . . ? “Odds are.”

“Then please don't answer.”

She gazed out the window, peering hard at the night, as if she desperately wanted to block him out. “Maybe I'll just rest for a while.”

Minutes after she'd closed her eyes, she had nodded off. He kept glancing over at her, wondering what she was dreaming about with her brows drawn.

As he drove, he decided two things. If they were going to be on the road together for potentially weeks, then he would begin teaching her how to defend herself.

If I turn her over to Groot, she's going to have a sporting chance.

And second, he would be with her sexually. He could never take her completely—she may not be far enough into the transition to immortality to survive it. And if she
did, once he'd experienced what it was like to be inside her, he might not ever let her go.

No, he couldn't claim her, but before he relinquished her, he would pleasure her. Cade thought she could be seduced—he'd seen a spark of interest in her eyes. She wasn't immune to him. Which meant he now had to coax her to trust him. Which meant he should be on his best behavior.

Except he had to admit that he kind of enjoyed baiting her like this. When her cheeks went pink and she grew flustered . . .

And Nïx did say she wanted her niece educated.

Cade wondered what his stalwart brother would think about his plans for Holly. Good money said he'd disapprove. Rydstrom was a fairly stand-up guy, with only a few skeletons in his closet.

Ah, but they were big ones.

Cade stilled. What if the Queen of Illusions discovered Rydstrom's secret weakness? What would she do to him then?

He also wondered if Rydstrom even now believed that their cause was lost because it rested on Cade's shoulders.

Cade wouldn't dwell on that thought. He was taking action, closing in on their goal.

Whereas Holly was plagued with unwelcome thoughts, Cade was mentally nimble, skirting disagreeable realizations with ease.

It was what would allow him to grow more attached to her with each hour—even as each second took him closer to the time he'd be forced to betray her.

H
olly was at a ball, standing out on a terrace with Cadeon watching her from the shadows. He wanted her to join him there, but she was afraid to go into the darkness.

She kept looking over her shoulder back inside, unable to leave behind everything she'd ever known.

Yet his green eyes glowed from the shadows, and he held out his hand, beckoning her, promising pleasure more wicked than she'd ever imagined . . . .

“Good morning, beautiful.”

Holly woke with a start, finding herself in Cadeon's arms in a dimly-lit room. He was staring down at her—with eyes that glowed.

“Didn't realize you had freckles,” he said, his voice rumbling.

“Put me down.” She squirmed to get free. She didn't need to be reminded of his deep voice, not when she'd just been dreaming about him—her subconscious telling her things with all the subtlety of a hammer's whack. “Where are we? What are you doing holding me like this?”

He set her on the edge of a bed with a soft comforter. “We're in a hotel for the day in northern Mississippi, and I was going to see if I could get you ready for bed without waking you.”

“Ready for bed?” She rubbed her eyes and surveyed the
suite. It looked like they were in an upscale hotel, not that she'd been in many—or any—hotels in the last decade. The place might be nice, but right away she could see some things that needed to be rearranged to make sense. First, the chairs at the dining table—

“Yes, ready for bed,” he said, plucking off her glasses, and setting them on the bedside table. Then he bent down to unfasten her heels.

“I'm sure I can manage the rest.” She frowned at his sudden attentiveness. “I can do that,” she insisted, but he wasn't listening.

He studied her shoe, with his lips curling as if he found it adorable. “You've the smallest feet, poppet.” Once he'd removed her shoes, he said, “And now your top.”

Before she could stop him, he pinched the bottom of her sweater and began tugging.

“Are you crazy?” She slapped his hands away, ducking under his arm to flee to the other side of the room.

“It's nothing I haven't seen before.”

With her arms crossed over her chest, she said, “Just call me about thirty minutes before you're ready to leave tonight.”

“I
will
be bunking here with you.”

Holly tensed. Sharing a room with the husky-voiced demon she'd been dreaming about in the car? This wouldn't work at all. “How exactly would I explain this to my boyfriend?”

“How exactly are you going to explain any of this?”

Indeed. “I'm not going to tell him. If I can get this reversed, he never has to know.”

“Good answer. It's against the rules of the Lore to tell humans about our world.”

“But why do we have to share a room?”

“Because we're still too close to your last known whereabouts. There could be more vampires.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“That you can,” he said easily. She was alternately discomfited and pleased by his ready confidence in her abilities. “But you'll have a hard time defending yourself when you're asleep. So that's where I come in.”

Her stomach chose that moment of silence to growl loudly.

He grinned. “If you're going to be up for about twenty minutes more, I could go for some food. It's too early for room service, but there's a breakfast place across the street.”

She nodded. “Can you just get me a bottle of orange juice? I don't like food prepared by others.”
Or by myself.

“We'll see. If you want to grab a shower, now's the time.” At the door, he said, “And, Holly, do not take those pearls off. Or we'll be in deep shite.”

*   *   *

She was still in the shower when he returned, which meant she was fair game. He grasped the bathroom door handle, gave a heft to easily break the lock, then swung the door open wide.

“The male's back from the hunt,” he called, grinning at her outraged screech.

“Get out! Shut the door!”

Since he could only distinguish a vague shape behind the clouded-glass shower stall, he decided to comply with her requests.