DemonicPersuasion (5 page)

She couldn’t look at him. “Yes.”

“And the beast?”

Fade sucked in a breath. “Yes.”

“They left the marks on your body so I would see them.” His
hand, cool from the stone sink, curved around her hip. He dipped down, his
fingers playing across the crease of her thigh and achingly close to her mons.
“Why do you need me?” His voice burned against her skin and he teased her
earlobe with his teeth. Fade exposed her neck, desperate for his mouth on her
skin. “Say it.”

His fingers dipped to stroke across her clit and a shock of
fire flared through her flesh. “I want you.” It came out in a rush. “I’ve
always…”

“And yet…” His clever,
clever
finger curled and
little spots of light filled her vision, her spine arching involuntarily. “You
took Mercer’s money and went into the Cage.”

Fade held his gaze, the anger and desire for her blatant.
Did he want her to apologize? He
still
played her, even now. She pressed
her hand to his, urging his finger deeper, faster. “I’m not going to say
sorry.”

“You wanted me to watch.”

Her face flushed, the stain of it spreading down her neck.
Before Athanasios she would have denied it. Denied it to herself and everyone.
But now? “Yes.”

“Why?” His breath burned against her neck, his teeth drawing
lines into her skin. He licked the marks. “What would I have seen?”

“What you were missing.”

He grinned against her neck, his gaze still fixed on her. “I
knew what I was missing, Fade. I was aware. Every second.”

His fingers brushed against her backside and her pulse
jumped. He wasn’t touching her, he was doing something to himself. She sucked
in a breath as his dick teased against her sex and her fingers bit into the
stone of the sink until the bones hurt.

“Foster…” Raw pleasure wrapped around her and she fought to
keep her eyes open, to watch him, to see his reaction as he sank into her
willing body. But he didn’t move, and his sly fingers continued to torment her,
ramping the growing need in her flesh. “If you knew what you were missing.
Please.” She wasn’t above begging, not at that moment when she would have
everything she wanted, for however brief a time.

“Say you want me.” His gaze was dark fire, angry and
possessive. “Say it.”

“I want you.” The words came out on a rush, her lips and
throat dry. “
Please.
”

He pushed forward one delicious inch, just one, but it
worked for Fade’s heated flesh. Fire and light and joy flared over her in a
quick, tumultuous wave and a cry broke from her…but it wasn’t enough. Nowhere
near.

And Foster, controlling bastard that he was, hadn’t moved.
He simply waited, his eyes narrowed, that wicked smile lifting a corner of his
firm mouth. “So easily pleased, Fadeyka.”

“With you.” She closed her eyes and the deepening blush
burned across her cheeks. This wasn’t anything more than a quick fuck. For him
to take something always on offer. Nothing more.

“Look at me.”

Fade bit at the inside of her cheek and let that distract
her from the sudden, tight pain in her chest. She opened her eyes and her gaze
flitted across his. “I’m looking.”

“Look. At. Me.” His order was a low growl. Fade lifted her
chin and glared at him. “Better. I want to see you when I fuck you.”

She blinked, her belly tightened and the quick sweep of
fresh want darted into her flesh. She pressed her lips together and fought to
breathe. Foster gripped his dick, his knuckles brushed against her ass as he
eased into her, and his eyes—his eyes burned with need. A muscle jumped in his
clenched jaw.

“You’re tight.”

“It’s been…” The automatic words fell away and something
sour twisted in her gut. But it hadn’t been. He’d caught her with two sated and
unconscious men not an hour before. “It had been a while.”

“
I
have you now.” The possessive murmur skittered heat under her hot skin, his
mouth brushing against her ear. His hand bit into her hip, his fingers pushing
harder against her clit as he continued his inexorable slide into her body.
“Mine.” It was a growl that swept down to her toes and little sparks of light
danced across her vision. “Say you’re mine, Fadeyka. Only mine.”

“Just…” She groaned as he sank deeper, her body gripping
him, wanting and aching for him. “Yours.” She gasped the word as he drew back
as slowly as he’d stroked into her.

The strain of his control was there on his face. On the
sweat that beaded his hairline, the tight clench of his jaw and the tremor that
rippled through his frame. What he was waiting for, she didn’t know. She wanted
him to fuck her. Hard. Bend her over the sink and take her like they both
needed.

Foster’s eyes narrowed. “Need me?”

She wanted to swear at him, point out that she could walk
out the door and get any dick she wanted. But she didn’t…because he was right.
She needed him. More than she had any other man in her life, but she didn’t
want to pull apart that thought. Didn’t want to examine the uncomfortable
emotions attached to her need for Foster. Fade held his gaze, willing a
hardness to disguise her nerves. “Fuck me or don’t. Up to you.”

His smile was dark. “Such a hard little thing. Is that how
you survived?”

Her mouth fell open and he stroked forward, forcing a half-cry
from her. The spike of quick pleasure cut with the shock of him knowing so much
more about her than she suspected. “You’re here for sex.”

His fingers flicked hard at her clit and she saw stars, her
hips jerking back to take him deeper again. His other hand teased a slow line
up over her stomach to her breast and she sucked in a breath as he tugged on a
peaked nipple. The live wire connecting her nipples to her sex forced her spine
to arch. She had never been so sensitive to touch before. Not like this. Was it
Athanasios or was it simply Foster?

He groaned as he slid into her again, his teeth gazing her
earlobe, his breath hot and quick against her skin. “I’m
also
here for
sex.”

“Bastard.” She couldn’t tell him about herself. He was
right. She had to survive. And opening up to him was wrong on more levels than
she could name.

The rub of material against her ass, against her spine
pricked her skin and the heat of his body, of knowing it was Foster who crushed
himself against her rioted, increasing need. She pushed back against him. She
had to lose herself in his touch, in this moment. When he was done, she could
resurrect her armor. But in this moment she was more exposed to him than simply
being naked. He could find the truth of her.

“I watched you. Watched you watching me.” His gaze in the
mirror was hot and sparked with desire. “Did you imagine my fingers when you
fucked yourself, Fadeyka?”

“Did you?”

He licked a line along her shoulder, the sensation pushing
liquid joy through her flesh. “Every time. My daydream? Bending you over one of
the balcony railings, stripping off your suit and giving everyone a fucking
good show.”

Her breath hitched, the reality of him doing just that
burning up through her body. He had her bent over his sink. Was he playing out
his fantasy now? She had to push it. It would pull his thoughts away from her
past. “Are you recording this?”

He licked an earlier bite on her shoulder and lifted an
eyebrow. Her heart missed a beat at the delicious wickedness she found in him.
“What do you think?” He increased his rhythm and the sudden shift caught her,
made her cry out. “Nights are cold and lonely here on this rock. To see myself
fucking you over and over again.” He growled against her skin. “How could I
resist?”

“You’re really…?” Pressure built low in her belly. The
thought of him watching her, them, of his hand closing around his dick and
finding his release… “Please. Say you are.”

“Kinky, Fadeyka.”

She tried to tell herself this wasn’t her, that the aliens
who had played with her flesh had twisted her mind. But that would be a lie.
This was her.

“Straight ahead. Behind the mirror.” His low growl skittered
under her skin. “In the walls. And they’ll catch every whimper, every wet slide
as I fuck you.”

Fade’s heart hammered, her chest tight and every inch of her
flesh on fire. She held his dark gaze. “I want to see it.”

“As I fuck you again?”

“Yes.” The thought of that, of him driving pleasure into her
flesh as the wildness of their first time surrounded her quickened the
pleasure. She was so close to coming. So close.

Foster ground against her and the intensity flared. She
shook, only his hard body and firm hands holding her up. “Your mouth or your
ass?” He squeezed her breast, the pleasure-pain rioting through her veins and
he stroked into her harder and faster. “He’s had his claws all over you, but
did he make you like this?”

“No…” This was
Taras Foster
. A man she’d ached for.
Promising more, promising to have her again and if it was more than sex, more
than a fuck he could watch over and over—

A white wave of joy smashed over her, thick and hot and
unending. Her body was hardly her own, Foster wrapping his arms around her as
he chased his own release. His touch, the brush of his hands, the smooth silk
of his shirt pressed to her skin bringing with it the delicious heat of his
body whipped up the remnants of her orgasm and she groaned as he stiffened
against her.

His moan of her name against her damp neck twisted her
heart. She loved this man. Had since almost the first moment when she’d stood
in his office. Scared of what lay beyond the club doors, of what she would have
to do to survive. But not of him. Never of him.

Fade let out a long breath, her body sated. Being with
Foster felt…right. Almost as right as Athanasios. A lazy smile touched her
mouth and she looked in the mirror to find Foster watching her. “Have you
decided?”

He frowned and a darkness shadowed his eyes. “Decided what?”

“Mouth or…” She rolled her backside against him, his
still-hard dick darting fresh desire into her belly.

Foster shut his eyes. His chest lifted and he simply
breathed. When his gaze met hers again, it was the old Foster. Cold. Distant.
Her heart turned over. He pulled back from her and buttoned up his trousers.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Fade looked down to the sink, the sour burn of rejection
pushing tears. She didn’t want that on his recordings, to witness her
humiliation, her grief at his ability to turn away. Foster was a bastard. Fuck,
she wished she could run. But she was trapped with him as her protector. And
she was stupid to think that she could mean anything to him. Completely stupid.

“Fadeyka, I will protect you, but that’s all I’ll do.”

The sour self-pity in her belly roiled into anger. She
turned, not trying to hide her nakedness, even though Foster had picked up her
towel and was offering it. If he had no interest in her, a slice of bare flesh
wouldn’t bother him. She tilted her chin up. In the angled light of the
bathroom, his face had cut into stark shadow. As always she couldn’t read him.
“Why? Why bother to protect me?” Her bitterness was a tight pain in her chest.
“What do you want from me if not my body?”

He winced, the expression of a moment. “Fadeyka…”

“Or was I simply a wet and naked woman and, hey, that’s a
tempting hole—”

“Fuck, Fadeyka.” He pushed the towel at her and turned away,
but she let it fall to the floor. “It isn’t like that.”

“Then tell me…”

But she was talking to empty air. Foster had strode out of
the bathroom. Fade swore to herself, cursing him, her life and everything else
she could think of as she followed him. He stood before the expanse of
reinforced windows that overlooked the mesh of buildings, platforms and the
canyons of black rock that formed the small planet. Theta-Scorpii was a
brilliant binary yellow glow just over the dark horizon. A new day was
starting, but not it seemed for them.

“Why, Foster?”

He tensed before glancing back at her. “Put clothes on,
Fadeyka.”

She shrugged and caught the quick track of his gaze down her
body. A vein in his temple ticked. “You have no interest.”

His gaze fixed on her face and the darkness there caught her
breath. He wanted her. She could almost feel the pulse of it in the cool air.
“You don’t understand.”

“Try me, I’m amazingly unstupid.” A wry smile tugged at her mouth.
“Most of the time.”

“I know about you and Dolon. What you were to him, I don’t
know, but I’m aware that you saw something, overheard something that made your
life forfeit. And that you’ve used the club to hide out.”

Fade pulled in a breath and the cool air suddenly chilled
her skin. She shivered. Foster moved to drag a throw from a nearby couch and
wrapped it around her. His fingers skimmed her skin, but it wasn’t a rush of
pleasure chasing through her flesh, but comfort and regret. Foster wanted to fuck
her. He didn’t want anything else.

She gripped the edges of the soft material, working it
between her fingers. “I didn’t think you’d have something like this.”

He frowned and his expression cleared. “The throw? Last
occupant. Not me. Taciturn ex-military man, remember?”

Fade gave him a quick smile. Her world was shifting beneath
her and now even his hints of humor felt strange. “How did you find out about
me?”

“The owners of the club hired me for a reason. I’m thorough.
I found…discrepancies in your files.”

“But you didn’t mention anything.”

He shrugged. “I wasn’t ready.”

“Ready?”

A light curve swept over the window behind her, the red
screen and the dull drone announcing an incoming connection. Foster swore under
his breath and guided Fade to the couch. “Sit. Filters are on—so whoever it is
will only find me on their screen—but we should still be careful.”

Foster moved to stand before the curve and waved a hand. The
tech burst to life and Mercer’s reddened face filled the rectangle.

“Where are you, Foster?”

He glanced behind him and turned back to the screen. “It’s
my night off. I’m at home.”

“You can be facetious later. That cleaner of yours—”

“She’s not mine.” He broke into Mercer’s pressured words and
gave him a slow smile. Something almost wicked, and Fade’s heart jumped. It was
so similar to how he’d looked at her. She tightened her grip on the soft throw
and willed herself not to make a sound. “Is this your reason for interrupting
me?”

“The bitch stole it!”

Foster’s face hardened. “I will not tolerate members of my
team being insulted. Or false accusations made.”

“False?” Mercer slammed his hand on the desk. The curve of
light rippled. “She took the money, went to the beast…and now it’s gone.”

Foster frowned. “Gone?” His whole body had tensed. “It can’t
be gone, Mercer. Is the data corrupted? Has Gallagher gone over the data with
you?” His gaze narrowed. “You sent her down? You wanted to see her get fucked.”

“The beast is gone. Rotherham will have your hide for this!”

“You put Fadeyka Bryce in with the beast. Against my express
order.”

There was a chill to Foster’s voice and Mercer paled, even
inching away from the screen. Fade wasn’t surprised. The cut of anger in
Foster’s voice had her own gut twisting.

“That’s irrelevant now.” Mercer found his bile again, his
face flushing. “I’ve put out a bulletin for her. She will be found and
arrested. This won’t fall on me.”

Foster snorted. “Rotherham has my written recommendation
that she should not be put in to cleanse the system. My staff will testify to
the discussions I’ve had with you concerning her. And that you chose my day of
absence to act.” His fingers moved, streaking through light until he brought up
her money records. “And here, payments authorized by you.” He let out a long,
slow breath. “Have Gallagher run a full diagnostic. I’ll be in shortly.”

He waved his hand and the screen died. He swore, long and
hard. They were screwed. And he knew it too.

Fade was already on her feet, her heart panicked. Mercer had
blasted her trace—a portion of her bought Fadeyka Bryce DNA—across the planet.
It would be on every official channel. And it was only a short time before more
of Dolon’s people picked it up and tracked her down. “I have to get out.
They’ll find those two men…then they’ll come here.”

“I said I’d protect you.”

Fade stared at him, solid, strong, and she wanted more than
anything for him to pull her into his arms and hold back the insanity that was
her life. Even for a few minutes. But he wasn’t that man to her. “I need to get
a full gene swipe. Not like the partial I grabbed in London. That’s what I was
hoarding my money for. That’s the only way—”

Foster put a finger to his lips and her babbling stopped.

In the sudden silence, the strange blips stood out. Her
heart turned over. She’d heard that series of sounds before. It was a key, an
override to a security system.

It was too late. Dolon’s men had found them.