4. Chapter Four
CHAPTER FOUR
Mark
I should clearly have paid more attention to human traditions, because Neil’s Santa act was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.
And it was a complete surprise—I don’t know why, but I really thought he was a bartender or a waiter.
It never occurred to me that he was one of the dancers—although it makes perfect sense, given how amazing his body is and the fact he’s an incubus.
So when the emcee said his name and then he came onto the stage in those shiny red pants and suspenders, with the hat perched on his head… my cock has never reacted to anything so fast. Or hard.
So very, very hard. Especially when he was sliding upside down on the pole.
Not to be a cliché, but he can slide on my pole anytime he likes.
I check my hair in the rearview mirror, although I doubt he’ll really care if it’s not neat. More important is my breath, which I also check. Then I grab the empty container that once held the best cookies I’ve ever eaten and get out of the car.
Neil opens the door as soon as I knock. Could he have been waiting? That’s gratifying. He’s wearing a very short, very silky-looking embroidered peacock-green robe. The belt is so loosely tied that the whole thing looks like it’s going to slip open any second.
Or at least, I hope it will. Maybe I should give it some help.
I drag my gaze up to his face. “Hey.” My voice is husky.
His smile is knowing as he reaches out to take the container. “Hey. Come on in.”
I step into the house and turn to close the door. There’s a rustling sound, and when I turn back, the robe is in a heap on the floor and naked Neil is walking down the hall, the muscles in his truly superb ass flexing with each step.
Oh, yeah .
I pick my jaw up off the floor and yank my T-shirt off over my head, kicking off my shoes at the same time. Then I take off after him.
By the time I reach the room he’s gone into, he’s standing by the bed with a bottle of lube in his hand, eyebrow quirked enquiringly at me. “Top or bottom?”
“Either,” I manage, unbuttoning and unzipping my jeans.
“Me too,” he says, climbing onto the bed (and nearly giving me a heart attack) as he pops open the cap on the lube. “I’ll bottom this time, if you don’t mind.”
“Whatever you want.” I shove down my pants and underwear, my gaze locked on him, and kick them aside.
I’ve only taken a single step forward when he murmurs, “Your dick looks human.” He sounds disappointed, so I grin and leap onto the bed, making him bounce.
“The difference isn’t apparent until I come.”
His eyes widen as he hands me the lube, a silent invitation. “Really?”
I nod, and he turns onto his hands and knees. Someone should write a sonnet to that ass, seriously.
“Barbs,” I tell him, and he twists his torso to look at me over his shoulder.
“Barbs?”
“It won’t hurt,” I assure him, getting my fingers slick and tracing them down his crease. “They’re cartilage. You’ll definitely feel it, though, and it feels amazing.”
He gives a little wriggle of anticipation that makes muscles flex attractively. I can’t resist; just as I slide the first finger in, I bend and bite his ass.
“Hey!” It comes out with a note of laughter. “Nobody told me hellhounds ate their sexual partners.”
“Oh, I’m going to eat you,” I promise, adding another finger. Incubi rarely need much prep, and Neil’s definitely in that category. “As soon as I’m done with your ass, I’m going to swallow you down. And when you’re drained of every drop, we’ll start all over again.”
He whimpers, his ass clenching around my fingers. It’s signal enough for me.
I push slowly in, the hot, tight clasp of him a fucking miracle. We groan in unison as I bottom out.
“Oh, fuck yes ,” he mutters. “How did I live without this? Move, damn you!”
A huff of air, the closest I can manage to a laugh, escapes me as I draw back and then push in again. He wriggles, and I grab his hips, throw caution to the winds, and go to town on his ass.
With every thrust, he begs for more, harder, and fuck, I want to give it to him. I want to keep thrusting until we’re both sweaty and sated and can’t possibly take any more.
“Enthrall me,” I gasp, and he goes still.
“What?”
“Do it. Enthrall me. I want you to.”
He hesitates, and I stop moving.
“Nooooo,” he whines. “Mark!”
“Enthrall me,” I insist. “Trust me. We’ll both love it. Just lightly.”
In the next second, my mind goes hazy. My dick gets impossibly harder, and a surge of energy fills me. Somehow, I can feel Neil’s desire, his eagerness; it’s egging me on, pushing me harder, faster, until all I can do, all I’ll ever do, is feed this insatiable lust between us.
He cries out, clamping down around me, and in the next second, my orgasm wells up, barbs sliding out to hold him in place as I come, and he cries out again.
Finally, we topple to the side, but the haze is still there, and my dick is still hard as nails.
We’ve only just begun.
I’m whistling as I reach my desk. I may not have slept that much in the past two days, but I feel fucking amazing. Intellectually, I know part of that is an aftereffect of being enthralled, but I’ve been enthralled during sex before, and it never had this kind of effect.
No, most of it is Neil. Funny, sweet, sexy Neil, who turns me on, makes me laugh, and bakes the best cookies ever. I’ve had a lot of casual sex, but this feels different.
“What’s got you in such a good mood?” Jim asks, spinning his chair toward me.
Heads lift all around us. Our team, through a weird coincidence that was totally intentional but we pretend was an accident, is made up mostly of hellhounds.
Jim and one other guy are demons, and we have one sorcerer, a felid shifter, and a succubus, but the rest of us are hellhounds. Which means we’re all insatiably nosy.
I drop into my chair and spin it around and around. The dizziness that results doesn’t even touch my giddy happiness. I could do this all—
The chair jerks to a halt, and it’s only my shifter reflexes that stop me from tumbling to the floor. Three of my teammates are looming over me, and I can see the others gathering close.
Worse… they’re sniffing.
Fuck. Fuck . I was so determined to spend every last second with Neil before I left this morning that I had to rush through my shower. Clearly it wasn’t thorough enough.
“You had sex!” Cody accuses, jabbing a finger at me.
Please, please let that be the only thing they smell. I can handle the ribbing. The nosiness.
“So?” I say nonchalantly. “If you’re that excited about me having sex, it’s clearly been too long since you had any.”
“Did you take yesterday off just to have sex?” He’s way too indignant about that. I think it’s time we set Cody up with some hookup apps.
“Forget the sex,” Ashwini says, her eyes narrowing. “We all have sex. Nobody cares if Mark had a sex marathon.”
“Although we will want details later!” Jim calls from behind the wall of hellhounds.
“Tell us about the cookies,” Ashwini demands as though she wasn’t interrupted.
I will not show fear. Stonewall, stonewall!
“What cookies?”
In unison, every hellhound in the room sniffs deeply.
Shit.
“The cookies you ate recently. And didn’t share with your teammates, the people who have your back and protect you from death .”
That’s a threat. Our work isn’t truly dangerous. My teammates are threatening me.
“There was only one cookie,” I try. “I bought it on the way in this morning.”
Another group sniff.
“Peppermint,” someone growls.
“Vanilla, and cranberry,” someone else adds, and Ashwini looms over me.
“Nobody puts all three of those flavors in the same cookie,” she sneers. “Don’t treat us like we’re stupid. You had multiple cookies.”
“I would never—”
“And is that icing I smell?” Cody interrupts.
I give up and smirk at them. “That’s right.
You smell icing. And peppermint cookies.
Cranberry and white chocolate cookies. And vanilla cookies—made with real vanilla bean.
I ate them all, nearly two dozen of them, and some I crumbled onto the body of the superhot incubus I spent the day with and ate them off him.
Because my life is just that great, bitches. ”
They gasp, the front row drawing back like a receding tide. It would be funny if I wasn’t worried about being mauled.
Where’s Aunt Vivienne when you need her? I can’t even count the number of times she caught me misbehaving when I was a pup, but now that I desperately need to be rescued, she’s nowhere to be found.
Sure enough, they’re leaning back in, eyes narrowed, vicious sneers contorting their faces.
“You had cookie sex? And you didn’t invite us?”
Everyone freezes. Then, as one, we turn to look at Cody.
“What?” he asks defensively.
I rub the bridge of my nose. “Cody, I haven’t had group sex in about twenty years, and I’ve never had sex with someone on this team. Why would I suddenly invite my colleagues to join me in the bedroom?”
“And why would you expect him to?” Jim adds. “I always stick up for you hellhounds, but this is super weird.”
Cody opens his mouth, shuts it again, then blurts, “He ate all the cookies!”
And bam, I’m the target of a dozen glares again.
“This is unforgivable,” Ashwini tells me. “Two dozen cookies… there was more than enough for all of us.”
“Oh, please,” I scoff. “Like you would have shared them if it was you.”
There’s a discomfited rustle amongst the group as they all avoid each other’s gazes. Any one of them would have done exactly the same thing if they’d been in my position, and we all know it.
“You owe us,” Ashwini insists. “You need to get more cookies and bring them to us.”
I stand, forcing them all to step back. “You can’t seriously expect me to ask my hookup to bake you all cookies.”
“We’ll pay,” Cody volunteers desperately. “Please. They smell so good. Nobody brings us cookies anymore, and the store ones aren’t the same.”
“Besides,” Jim says suddenly, “was he really just a hookup? Because you don’t usually come in whistling after sex with hookups.”