Steal the Night (8 page)

“Oh, goddess, please, please let me fuck your mouth,” he begged, his nails digging into the chair. I knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to wrap his hands in my hair and shove his cock in and out of my mouth until he worked his way to the back so he could press down and come straight down my throat. He liked to stand over me and watch his cock take my mouth over and over again.

I wasn’t playing that way tonight. Magic or no magic, this was about me and what I needed. I needed to be in control for a time.

I worshipped his cock with little kisses and licks and let the engorged head disappear briefly into my mouth before starting another assault. Dev was panting, his cock weeping with cream by the time I got around to sucking his balls into my mouth.

“Zoey, I’m gonna come if you don’t stop that.” There was a desperate edge to his voice.

I wasn’t about to stop. I was enjoying myself. “You are not allowed to come until I say so.” Turnabout was fair play. I loved the way his balls curled up, ready to shoot off at any minute. Rising up a little, I sucked the cream lubricating the head of his cock like it was a particularly good ice cream cone. “Besides I need to prove I’m not repressed, Dev.”

“You’re very liberated, my lover,” Dev agreed readily. “You might be the most liberated woman I’ve ever met. Do you know what liberated women like? Penetration.”

I laughed against his skin and he moaned at the sensation. “Is that what liberated women want?”

My pussy was about as soaked as it was going to get. I was feeling hot and ready to lower myself onto him. Picking the condom up, I opened it and started to work it down his cock. I had never actually provided this service for Dev. He was an expert and could roll a condom on before I even knew he had one. I was a little less knowledgeable. I tugged and rolled while Dev patiently waited through my ministrations. I finally pronounced it done and heard him sigh.

“Thank the goddess,” he breathed out. “If I survive the night it will be a miracle. Between Daniel’s bite and your sexual dominance, I think I’m going to die of pleasure.”

I straddled him again, positioning my knees on either side of his hips and looking down on his gorgeous face. I ran my fingers through his hair and loved the way he closed his eyes and sighed.

“It would be a fitting way for you to go,” I said and remembered what I owed him. I was his dominant this time. It was a little game we enjoyed free from anything heavy, but there were rules. One of the rules was the dominant always let the submissive know how much she enjoyed him. “God, Dev, I love everything about you.”

He smiled and I knew he’d been waiting to see if I would remember. Daniel and I tended to be quiet during sex, letting our actions speak for us, but Dev was trying to break us of the habit. He liked to talk. He liked to talk about the sex and the pleasure and what he felt.

“You’re so beautiful, my husband.” I lowered my pussy onto his stiff cock. He stayed still, letting me work my way down, letting me push him inside me inch by inch. He filled me up and stretched me, every centimeter an exquisite sensation. “I’m never happier than when you’re inside me.”

And he was. I moved up and down slowly, finding that spot deep inside me that felt like heaven with every stroke. I bit my lip, unable to talk now, focused solely on pushing myself over the edge. My every sense narrowed to the sweet pressure building. I was so selfish in that moment, needing to use him, needing to know he was here and he was mine. The only sounds were our breath and the increasingly urgent slap of flesh against flesh.

“Touch me, Dev.” I was so close. I just needed a little bit more.

He didn’t play or pretend. He knew exactly what I needed and he gave it to me. I rolled my hips against him as he rubbed my swollen clitoris with his thumb and I came forcefully. I ground myself against him, prolonging the pleasure before finally collapsing onto his chest.

I was drained for the second time that night, but this was sweet. This was heaven.

“My goddess?” Dev was still achingly hard inside me, and he had been a very obedient boy.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, baby,” I said, realizing my oversight. “You can come. I’m good now. Take over and do your worst.”

He lifted me up, never breaking our connection. He swept his hand across his desk and everything went flying. I was suddenly on my back and he wasted no time. He pounded into me.

“Did you enjoy that, lover?” Dev asked, his voice harsh with need. “I did. You should know that while I found the experience pleasurable, I have no intention of giving up my position permanently. You’re my little pleasure slave. You’re my sweet little submissive.”

“I am.” I spread myself farther, denying him nothing.

He pumped away, shoving his cock in as far as it would go only to pull back and start again. “I want you to do that to our vampire, though. I want to see how long he’ll last under that sweet mouth of yours when he’s not in control. I bet he won’t last a minute, wife.”

Then he was past the talking stage. He was fully focused on one thing as his head fell forward and his body began to shake. He leaned forward until his pelvic bone hit my clit with every forceful thrust. My hands found that perfectly muscled ass of his, and I urged him on because I was coming again. I held him against me and pushed forward as he groaned and ground himself against me. He pumped out his release and fell on top of me.

After a long soft moment, his head came up. Sleepy eyes stared down at me. “Are you all right now, Zoey?”

His hands stroked my face as he asked, and I knew he realized there was more to my story.

“I feel a hundred percent better, Devinshea,” I answered with perfect honesty for the first time in the last hour.

He stood up and disposed of the condom before lifting me into his arms and settling us back on the chair. He cuddled me against his chest and I buried my head in his neck.

“I wish you would tell me what happened.” He kissed the top of my head.

“I did.” I was back to lying. “I just got scared. It’s going to happen soon, isn’t it?”

His arms tightened around me. “I’m afraid so. I feel it coming faster than I want. When we started this, I just wanted it to be over and now that this fight is staring me in the face, I want to hide from it. Zoey, I don’t know what happens…after our time on this plane is done. I only promise you this; if I go first, I will wait for you. If there is any way, I’ll find it and I will wait.”

I wrapped myself around him and felt tears threaten again. “I’ll wait, too.”

“And Daniel will finish what he needs to and he’ll follow,” Dev said quietly. “If anything happens, I know we’ll be together again.”

We sat there for the longest time holding on, praying Dev’s words would prove true.

Chapter Five

“Have you tried a locator spell?” Christine’s mouth twisted thoughtfully as she regarded Nim.

I was very glad Nim didn’t roll her eyes at the question. I’d requested she try politeness with my dad’s girlfriend. I found Christine annoying from time to time, but she was good to my father and she’d made great strides in her witchcraft studies. Christine wasn’t a latent witch like my friend Sarah. Christine’s talents had been earned through study and discipline. They weren’t instinctive. I’d discovered that, in some cases, the very fact that Christine had been forced to work so hard caused her to think creatively when it came to a problem.

“I did.” The god-only-knew-how-old nymph sat on my father’s couch looking young and pretty. Nim was about my height, but of a much slimmer build. She had curly sable-colored hair and the most striking violet eyes. The eyes gave her away. Modern times aided her in passing as human because these days people assumed she was wearing colored contacts. She’d been quiet all afternoon. I expected her to chatter away about her sexual adventures with Michael from the night before, but she merely smiled and said she’d enjoyed herself. I asked if Michael had done anything he shouldn’t have and she insisted he’d been sweet.

I think she was missing Arawn, the Welsh death god she’d loved for so long. Michael had been her first foray into sex that didn’t include the man she left behind in Faery.

“And?” Christine prompted.

Nim shook her curls. “Maybe I’m out of practice. I’ve narrowed it down to three different places, but I don’t want to clue anybody in to the fact that we’re coming. I want to know exactly where I’m going. It would have been easier if I had a piece of the item I’m looking for, but I like to travel light.”

“And this…item you lost. What was its origin?” the blonde witch asked.

She couldn’t care less what the “item” was. Christine wouldn’t care that we were looking for a thousand-plus-year-old wizard, but Nim didn’t want witch worship to cloud the issue. Apparently before Merlin had been imprisoned, he’d had his share of groupies. “Was it something you crafted yourself or something you found?”

Nim thought for a moment and then smiled. “No, I didn’t have anything to do with that, I’m happy to say. I suppose you could say it’s demonic in origin, at least partially.”

I smiled as I exchanged a glance with Neil. We’d been doing a lot of research on Merlin. Well, I’d been doing a lot of research. Neil had been listening to the
Spamalot
soundtrack. The legend had it that Merlin was the product of a union between a human female and an incubus—a horny demon who ran around knocking up unsuspecting women who thought they were having a harmless little wet dream until, oh crap, nine months later they had to explain Junior.

“Well, naturally it involves a damn demon,” Lee grumbled. Lee sat on the couch in my father’s house in far north Dallas. We’d come to see Christine, but I hoped to catch a minute with my dad. He and Christine had been out of town when we returned from Faery, and this was the first chance I’d had to talk to him.

I heard the door open and knew I’d gotten lucky. My father walked in looking dapper in his golf clothes, carrying the clubs I gotten him for his birthday a few years back. He poked his head into the living room and waved to Neil and Lee. I introduced him to Nim, and then he got a very serious look on his face.

“I’m glad to see you, girl,” Dad said, his Irish accent heavy. “Why don’t you come up to the office? I want to talk to you.”

A little anxiety hit me. He’d asked me to come
up
to his office. My father had two offices in this house. The office on the first floor was the one he used on a daily basis. In the past, he would have taken clients into that office. It was a study in neat professionalism. The office upstairs was where Dad kept the secrets. If he was taking me upstairs, he had something serious to discuss.

I got up, giving Lee a nod. He relaxed and settled in to wait for me. My father’s house was secure, so he didn’t feel the need to wait outside the door like he normally would if we’d been in public. I followed Dad up the stairs and past the bedrooms that Danny and I had lived in during our high school years. My father and I had settled down once Danny had come to live with us. There wasn’t a room in this house that didn’t remind me of my vampire husband, my first love.

Dad unlocked the door to his private office and slipped inside. There was nothing vaguely professional about this piece of my father’s soul. It was filled with shelf after shelf of books, most of them incredibly old and beyond rare. All of them dealt with the arcane arts. Harry Wharton was a master thief, but he dealt in a very select clientele. He stole for and from supernatural creatures. It made him a very wealthy man.

“Sit down, Zoey,” he said in that voice that made me feel like I was eight again and we were about to talk about my report card.

I took the seat opposite the desk, but I didn’t relax.

Dad seemed restless as he drummed his fingers on the desktop. “How was Faery, then?”

“All right, I guess.” I had to be careful because we’d agreed not to bring my father into our war. “Dev’s family was a little weird, but I ended up liking his mom. I was glad to get back to actual technology.”

“Did Danny get the alliance he needs to take over the bloody Council?” The words were soft, but there was such accusation in them I was sure the blood drained from my face.

“What?” I asked because as far as Dad knew, Daniel was an ordinary vampire. We worked very hard to keep him in the dark about our political games.

My father sat back in his chair and studied me with hazel eyes that reflected my own. “Did you think I would never ask questions? You were gone awhile. I was worried out of my head, but I figured that was just an old man being anxious. And then I did a job for a friend in New York. I ran into a vampire there. Do you want to know what he called you? Only when we were in private, of course, and only after he found out I was your father, but then he called you his queen, Zoey. His bloody queen. What the hell kind of games are the three of you playing?”

I swallowed and really wished Danny was here being interrogated instead of me. I stalled a little. “Henri Jacobs?” He was the only vampire I knew who lived in New York and was loyal to Daniel.

“I met him and his wife through a mutual acquaintance,” Dad acknowledged. “They were eager to be nice to the queen’s father. I had to smile and pretend I knew what the hell they were talking about. Tell me I heard wrong. Tell me Danny isn’t a king and god, girl, tell me he ain’t the fucking
Nex Apparatus
. Do you know what that is?”