Demon Seed (7 page)

Demon wanted to howl. Instead he gritted his teeth and settled her small hands over the bulge of his erection. “Feel that. I want to. Pity’s the furthest thing from my mind. I’m hard and aching, and all I can think of is being inside of you.”

“Oh.” Her nostrils quivered, and she stroked the length of his arousal. “I know women like sex, a lot. And I liked what happened in the restaurant, but the other—”

“Hurt for two reasons. One, it was your first time, and the piercing of your hymen does hurt. Two, you weren’t ready for me. Not like you were in the restaurant.”

“I trust you, and I know you would never hurt me. I shall try it.”

He snatched her back onto his lap and kissed the bejesus out of her. Eating at her mouth relentlessly, he thumbed her nipples to tight peaks and then shoved the T-shirt above her very naked, absolutely perfect breasts.

A foghorn cracked the still silence of the night.

Demon opened his eyes, tore his mouth from hers, and stifled a curse when three rows of moving lights came into focus. A river ferry approached them on the starboard side. During his inattention, they had drifted near the right bank. He should have turned off all the lights. Everyone on deck would’ve gotten a blatant peep show of the two of them going at it.

Demon reached behind, felt for the light switch, and flicked it. Blessed darkness descended. “I want you to very slowly make your way up to the front of the boat. Get into the bunk and stay there. Try to get some sleep.”

“I can pull my own weight. I will bring your coffee and keep you company.”

“No, honey, you need your sleep, I need to concentrate, and I can do that best if you’re not here.” He stroked her cheek. “I want you to know that the second I find us a safe place to moor, I’ll be finishing what we started. More than once. So rest, Jacinta.”

* * * *

He made it through the night by studying the detailed river maps Fredo had compiled. Before dawn’s rays lightened the sky, he found a remote tributary and located a small cove deep enough to drop anchor. Thick mangroves framed the tiny bay; he couldn’t have designed a more perfect hiding place.

After cleaning up in the kitchen, he hurried to the bed cabin. The floral drapes he hadn’t noticed the night before hadn’t been drawn, and he feasted on the sight of Jacinta in deep sleep.

Curled on one side, both hands resting under a cheek, her lips twitched, and he had to grin for she looked like a kitten. The T-shirt had ridden above her waist, and his dick did a happy dance when he glimpsed the white cotton panties. Thongs were so not going to do it for him anymore.

He shed his clothes in record time and set the garments and his boots within easy reach. The bunk would be a tight fit for the both of them. Tough; he’d take her any way he could. Easing onto the bottom of the bunk, Demon edged up the thin mattress until he spooned her, curled an arm around her waist, and brought them skin to skin.

She smelled intoxicating, she felt silky and soft, all curvy and round and perfect, and he had to nuzzle her neck. His lips traced that spot of velvet fuzz at her nape, moved onto the slight rise of the vein feeding her brain, and, for a second, he wished he had vampire traits and could bind them together for eternity with one suck, one taste.

Somewhere a flock of birds chirped a welcome to the dawn. The sweet morning song coupled with the lifting of the shadows had Jacinta’s eyelids fluttering. He captured her earlobe, suckled gently, slid his hand under the white panties, and palmed her mound.

Heat radiated from her folds; he closed his eyes and gave his fingers free rein. Her plump labia dewed after the first stroke. Demon tugged a crisp pubic hair, and she moaned.

“Morning, Jacinta.”

Twisting and craning her neck, she gifted him with a sleep-fogged smile and peered at him through hooded eyes. “Good morning. I will not call you Demon.”

“You’re feisty first thing in the morning, kitten.” He hit a sweet spot, her eyes opened wide, and one tooth snagged her lower lip. “Like that, do you?”

“You’re not wearing anything.” She slid her hand from his shoulder to his neck. “So hard and hot, like a smooth rock that has been baking in the sun for days.”

“I’ve been baking, all right.” He guided her hand to his erection. “Feel me, Jacinta. I am so cooked for you.”

“I want to see you.”

She really would kill him. All he wanted was in her, but no way could he take her the way he wanted to. Not yet. Demon clenched his jaw, rolled onto his back, and jammed his hands under his head. “I’m all yours.”

Chapter Four

Jacinta sat back on her haunches. Never had she seen such glorious male beauty. Even the photographs of Michelangelo’s
David
couldn’t rival the chiseled planes of Demon’s haunting features or his broad shoulders and narrow waist. The scar on the left side of his mouth added a sinful sensuousness to his face and gave him that three-dimpled smile. Fate had gifted her this man, this warrior whose honor shone brighter than even the Greek gods, and fool she would be not to jump at the opportunity to wallow in him.

She knew without a doubt that he was hard and jaded. That he would never believe what she herself had refused to acknowledge until now. She had fallen in love with him.

Plain. Simple. Irrefutable.

How else to explain throwing away all she’d been taught for a chance to know him as a woman? How else to explain her immediate and complete trust in him? The ache in her heart when she considered what would happen after he left had her eyes prickling. For though he spoke like a native Venezuelan, he was not, and he would leave as soon as he finished what he had to do here.

If anyone had told her fifty-seven days ago that she would be on a bunk with a naked man and about to fornicate, she would have rolled her eyes. But fifty-seven days ago, she had not seen the outside world and had resigned herself to living out her days in the cloister.

Freedom had her in its entrancing hold.

The sheer joy of choice. The thrilling chaos of civilization. The hedonistic appeal of decadent foods, colors of every hue, the feel of a yard of silk. Her senses had grown drunk on all the tastes, sights, and sounds. She had succumbed to the wicked world in a heartbeat.

And threw herself into all the confusion, the wild extremes, dirt and poverty, and shiny new buildings with glass exteriors and, miracle of all miracles, air conditioning. The craving to experience everything life had to offer had her in thrall.

She had never expected this man, these feelings, and the way her body responded to him, as if she had been made for those large, calloused palms, the thick fingers that brought her unbridled ecstasy. And here was her chance to dive into a carnal chasm, the one sense she had never indulged: touching another human being.

“I have never seen anyone naked besides me.” Heat burned her face, but she met his intense scrutiny. “Though I did steal the picture of Michelangelo’s
David
from a book in the cloister’s library. I thought him perfection until I saw you.”

She ran her fingers up his arm, lingered on his bulging bicep, traced the three-pronged fork tattoo, and then caressed his shoulder. “You are like hot steel—hard, invincible, and unyielding. And yet your touch is gentle and when you hold me, I feel cherished. I should like you to know that I cherish you too.”

He made a strangled noise, a half grunt and half snort. She flinched and made to hop off the bed, but he hauled her on top of him, and his arms tightened around her back.

“I did something wrong?” He smelled of a male spice she couldn’t identify, and of the lime soap in the tiny bathroom tucked into the corner.

“Trust me, you can’t do anything wrong. I need to take charge now, kitten. Another time I’ll let you have your fill. Okay?” He rolled them over.

Jacinta couldn’t help but grin at his fierce, growled words. “Okay.”

“First, let’s get you out of your clothes.” He tugged the T-shirt over her head, and when Jacinta toed off the white panties, his eyes narrowed. “One day, you’re going to play with yourself for me.”

Her cheeks blazed.

He cradled her face and rained kisses over her brows, temples, nose, and cheeks. She wanted to shout her joy, luxuriate in the happiness welling tears to her eyes, but instead threw her arms around his neck and kissed him in kind.

“Grab on to the post.” He loosened her linked hands from his neck and curled her fingers around the post that supported the bunks. “I have to taste you. Need it bad.”

She couldn’t take her gaze off him. His eyes had gone all brown with no hint of green. He slanted his lips over hers, and she sighed into his mouth and gave herself over to him. Reality receded, replaced by the spell of his teasing, tantalizing tongue. That anyone could taste like paradise she hadn’t expected, but he did—a smoky, flaming paradise.

He nipped the edge of her mouth and then laved the bite tenderly. His warm breath tickled her throat, and an overwhelming yearning to caress him had her fingers digging into the rough wood.

She whimpered when he sipped at her jaw and trailed a path of hot, moist kisses to her ear. A delicious shiver chased fire and ice over her skin when he bit her lobe. Pain and not. Sensations cascaded one after another, so fast and furiously she ceased thinking, her mind ruled by the frenetic demands of her body. She burned with need, her breasts grew heavy, and her sex throbbed.

She dug her heels into the mattress when his lips covered her nipple and he suckled hard, his tongue lapping the turgid peak. Arching and squirming under his weight, she kissed every inch of skin within reach. When he lifted his head, she groaned and urged him back down to her breast, but he chuckled, returned her hand to the post, and latched on to her peak.

The exquisite torture scattered her thoughts, and she could only react to the tight suction, his sliding tongue, his fingers plucking the wet nipple he’d ministered to seconds earlier.

“So pretty.” He gathered her breasts and mounded them together, moving from one to the other, suckling the tips to a sizzling inferno.

Jacinta thrashed on the mattress, and her lungs refused to draw air. She wanted his hand between her legs, wanted his fingers inside her, wanted him to thrust into her scorching core. “Please, por favor. End this.”

“Soon, soon.” He dipped into her navel. His lips skipped down her belly, leaving a moist trail that smoldered. “You smell like heaven.”

He leaned to one side and grazed the tip of his forefinger over the nub at the center of her sex. She gasped and dug her nails into the post. A shudder raced through her when he slowly and carefully separated her folds. “Spread your legs, kitten. Just like that. Nice and wide.”

Jacinta didn’t realize she’d held her breath until he settled between her thighs and glanced up at her. “I’m drunk on you. This gorgeous pussy, the smell of your cream, and I know you’re going to taste like nectar.”

The cabin spun at the first flick of his tongue. One palm cupped her bottom, the other held her sex open, and he buried his face in her folds.
Mãe de Deus. Mãe de Deus.

No more. More.

She bit her lip, tasted blood, but was lost to the magic of his mouth and fingers. He lapped each fold, held the pulsing, plump flesh between his teeth, slurped at the slickness, and then he plunged a finger inside. Jacinta shrieked, the pleasure so sharp, so potent she levered off the bunk.

But he held her down, one hand on her belly, and added another finger and yet another, the driving rhythm of his thrusting hand and fingers building and building like an orchestra reaching for crescendo, almost too much to bear. All at once, his touch vanished. Her eyes flew open, and there he was above her, his features contorted, jaw clenched, teeth bared. She felt his rod probing her core and angled to meet him, feverish for his entry. He cupped her cheeks and drove inside.

“Mãe de Deus,” she moaned as he stretched and stretched her, the throbbing thickness of him hot and heavy and pure ecstasy.

“Jacinta,” he rasped. “Look at me.”

Her eyelids were anchors and she had to concentrate to obey him, but the effort was more than worth it to see the animal desire written in his blazing stare, his dilated pupils, the color of his eyes now a dark molasses.

“I want to see you come, kitten. Stay with me.”

She couldn’t move away from his piercing gaze, loved when he gritted his teeth and grunted, loved the way he drove into her, loved the grim set to his mouth. He lifted her higher, and his rod struck a spot that blurred her vision and sent her spiraling into a series of sharp, frenzied convulsions. Aching, unbearable contractions that had her seeing black spots. She surrendered to the delicious clenching, to the feel of his pulsing cock, to the crushed embrace of his arms.

He smelled all male powerful, musk and tang and spice and soap all rolled into an irresistible aroma. She drank in the dizzying fragrance, ran a finger through the light dusting of hair on his chest, and then set her mouth to where his heart beat under her palm. A thin sheen of sweat coated his skin, the slight wetness both salt and sweet to her lips. Wanting to prolong the precious intimacy and hold him inside her until the memory was branded into her senses, she tried not to move, not to press another kiss to his ripped muscles.

The boat rocked.

He tensed, his shoulder bunching under her hand, and he cocked his head. All trace of the lover vanished, and the warrior mask settled over his face.

When she opened her mouth to ask what was wrong, he rested two fingers on her lips.

The birds had stopped chirping.

Boughs creaked. Water rippled. Branches swished.

All the normal day sounds had receded. No croaks, hisses, no hint of a bee buzzing, no undergrowth being trampled. Within seconds Demon slipped out of her, rolled over, and motioned for her to be quiet and stay put. He pulled on his trousers and boots and ducked under the archway.

Jacinta scooted off the mattress and dressed quickly in jeans, a T-shirt, and socks. After removing the knife from her boot, she slipped past the kitchen, dropped to her knees, and crawled to the engine room’s open door.