Chapter 20 #2
“That,” I say, my voice dripping with disappointment, “was an embarrassment to the concept of violence. My grandmother could do better, and she’s been ash in the wind for three centuries.”
“I’m not a demon, Malachi!” she snaps, her eyes flashing with the real, hot anger.
“Correct.” I nudge aside a pile of rusted rebar and retrieve a length of discarded iron pipe. I weigh it in my hand before pressing the grit-covered cold metal into her palm. “The porcelain sink over there. Fuck it up.”
She takes the pipe, her fingers trembling as they wrap around the rusted grip. She stalks toward the porcelain basin, hesitates for a second, and then swings.
The sound is delicious. Shards of white ceramic spray into the air like frozen sparks. She swings again, a guttural sound tearing from her throat, and then again, until the sink’s nothing but a stump.
She turns back to me, her hair whipped wild from her swinging, a smudge of grey dust across her cheek.
And she laughs.
A full-blown, startled, genuine peal of amusement that cuts through the gloom of the construction site like a blade. She looks at her hands, then at the carnage, and beams at me—a wide, breathtaking smile that makes her eyes dance.
I’ve seen and felt many things in my lifetime—I’ve made men scream and cry and beg for their sanity, but I’ve never felt the air leave my lungs quite like this. My heart gives a heavy, thudding kick against my ribs.
In this moment, I am so damn glad I clawed my way into this realm.
The heat in my blood shifts, thickening and pooling in a way that is distinctly un-chivalrous. I want to swallow that laugh right out of her throat. I want to see if that giddy joy tastes as sweet as it looks.
“What’s next?” she asks breathlessly.
I reach out, my hand trembling just a fraction as I tuck a wild lock of hair behind her ear. My thumb brushes the corner of that smile, lingering on the soft, damp skin of her lower lip.
“Everything,” I growl, my gaze dropping to her mouth with carnal hunger. “We’re going to break every single thing in this building…”
The heat in my gut flares hotter as my touch drags lower, exposing the wet, pink skin inside her lip.
Why waste energy on breaking more bricks when I have something so much more volatile right here?
“Starting with you,” I murmur, brushing my nose against hers.
Her head tilts, lips parting just a fraction in a silent invitation. So I lean in, and crush my mouth against hers.
Every muscle in her body turns to stone beneath my hands, and I’m already preparing to pull back, to offer some biting, arrogant remark to mask the mistake. But when her tongue meets mine, every thread of restraint that barely existed in the first place snaps.
Saints be-fucking-low.
A low, guttural groan vibrates from my chest into hers, and I thread my fingers deep through those silken strands of hair, fisting them at the nape of her neck to pull her even closer.
She lets out a soft, broken whimper, and the iron pipe slips from her grip, hitting the concrete with a heavy, ringing clang that echoes around us.
Her hands scramble for purchase on my shoulders, her nails catching on the stupid coat.
I’m hard as a rock in seconds, my blood turning to liquid fire that pools heavy and demanding in my gut.
I can smell the arousal on her, washing off in thick, needy waves, cutting through the scent of wet cement and sawdust.
I need her. I need her like I needed that first delicious breath of mortal air when I stepped through the Veil.
Driven by a molten, all-consuming greed, my hand slides from the silk of her hair down the arch of her spine, finding the soft, fleshy curve of her ass.
I hike her up, pinning her back against a pillar.
Her legs lock around my waist, heels digging into the small of my back as I anchor us in the shadows of the skeletal building.
“My little summoner, so brave and angry with the world,” I rasp, pulling back just enough to see her blown-out pupils and the feverish flush blooming across the tops of her breasts. “You want more, don’t you?”
Her answer doesn’t come in words. It comes in the desperate, instinctive tilt of her pelvis. She rolls her hips against mine, her heat searing through my layers.
“Use your words, Eden,” I command.
My fingers dig into her hips, bruisingly tight, as I anchor her against the stone. I force her to feel every inch of me, my head tipping back as the pleasure spikes behind my eyes.
Every instinct I possess is screaming for the same thing—to be inside her. My tongue, my fingers, my fucking cock. I want to fill every part of her until there’s no room left for anything that isn’t me.
“Tell me what you want,” I growl. “Before I stop being polite about taking it.”
“Yes,” she chokes out, her head falling back to expose the long, pale line of her throat and her pulsing jugular. “Yes. I want... I want more.”
I bury my face in the crook of her neck and press a desperate kiss to her pulse point, and then I bite down.
My fangs graze the edge of the skin, sinking in just enough to mark her, hard enough to make her hiss through her teeth.
Before the sting can turn to pain, I soothe it, my tongue sweeping over the mark in a long, slow lick.
“Atta girl,” I murmur against her damp skin.
I shift, dropping us both onto a stack of discarded plywood and pallets. A fine cloud of brick dust rises around us, coating our skin in a grey shroud as she settles onto my lap, straddling me.
“Let me take the stress away, Eden. Let me give you something else to cry about.”
I slide my hand down the waistband of her jeans, finding a soft patch of hair that makes my blood roar.
Fuck—she’s already soaked for me. I run a single finger through that slick heat, dragging it right over her swollen clit before sliding two deep into her, curling them upward, watching her brow furrow in pleasure.
I can't help it—my other palm connects with her ass in a sharp, stinging slap that echoes through the cavernous construction site.
“Look at you,” I rasp, my thumb circling her clit in time with the rhythmic, punishing force of my fingers inside her. “You’re fucking filthy, aren't you? So fucking pretty when you're coming apart.”
Her breath’s coming in short, desperate hitches that have nothing to do with her stress and everything to do with the way I’m fucking into her.
“That's it, Eden,” I encourage, fangs digging into my lip so hard I taste the metallic tang of my own blood. “Take it. All of it.”
I slide the hand on her ass down the back of her waistband and use her wetness to push against the tight, fluttering ring of muscle, before slowly sliding a finger inside, completely filling both holes.
The moan she lets out is the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard—a raw, uninhibited sound that vibrates through the rubble.
“There you go,” I murmur as I stretch her open. “I wonder how loud you’ll scream when I finally trade these fingers for my cock.”
Every muscle in my body is straining with the effort not to rip these stupid slacks open so I can fully feel the friction I’m currently wasting on my hand.
Her eyelids flutter, a beautiful, broken moan spilling from her throat as she hits the precipice.
And then she lets go.
She comes hard, her back arching as her pussy pulses around my fingers. She’s tight—so fucking tight—clamping down around me as a hot gush of her release floods over my hand, soaking into the fabric between us.
Her forehead falls heavily against my collarbone as she gasps for air. Slowly, I withdraw my hand and bring my fingers to my lips, tasting her—the salt, the grit of the site, and the absolute, exquisite surrender.
I’ve tasted the climaxes of thousands in Hell, but this mortal sweetness is a revelation.
“Delicious,” I whisper, my eyes locking onto hers as catches her breath. “Now... let's see if we can't find a way for me to taste the rest of you.”
I reach down between us, fumbling with the fastener of my slacks, intending to finally free myself and sink into her. But before I can make the trade, her still-trembling hands clamp over mine, pinning them to my stomach.
“No,” she whispers. “Wait.”
My fingers are still slick with her, my body screaming for the finish with a violence that makes my vision swim. “What? That felt good, didn’t it?”
“That isn't the point.” She pulls away, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand as if she could scrub away the taste of me. “We’re in a construction site, and I’m a mess, and you look human, and the adrenaline, I—”
She scrambles off my lap, her boots skidding in the gravel as she puts distance between us, tugging her clothes back into place.
What a spectacular fall from grace. If I were still in Hell, I’d have leveled the building for such an insult to my momentum.
“Of course,” I drawl, standing slowly. I adjust the set of my borrowed shoulders, smoothing out the invisible wrinkles in the Corpse-Boy’s coat with practiced, arrogant precision, as if my heart isn't trying to kick its way through my ribs.
“The little summoner has found her limits. How very predictable.”
The ache in my trousers remains a stubborn, punishing reminder of how close I was to fucking her into the gravel. I want to snap something—another tile, a window, or perhaps the neck of whatever idiot decided to give humans such a tiresome sense of self-respect.
“I’m tired,” she says quietly. The adrenaline and the pleasure have finally deserted her, leaving behind only the hollowed-out, grey exhaustion of a woman who remembers she’s supposed to be grieving.
“Naturally,” I say, offering a bored, razor-edged smile that doesn't reach my eyes. I turn away from her, scanning the hollowed-out ribs of the building one last time. “The catharsis has reached its expiration date. Come along, then. Let’s get you back to your hovel before you start weeping again.”