Chapter 16 Demons of the Past
sixteen
Demons of the Past
Isuppose it’s only fair. He asked first and I deflected. He knew I needed the distraction and provided one. But now he needs answers, and I’m the only one who can give them. Am I ready to trust this demon with my darkest secrets? No…but a glimpse, I think he’s earned.
“I had a panic attack. I don’t always know what’s going to trigger them, but I think this time it was just being so exposed in a room full of strangers. Being so helpless when I’ve always been strong.”
He cradles the back of my neck and crushes our heads together so gently. His brow is wrinkled in worry. I want to smooth it away.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
“You couldn’t have known that would happen. I didn’t know until it was happening.”
He relaxes his hold on me. “I felt this from you before, when you called me. But when you cried, it stopped.”
“Can you feel my emotions?”
He nods.
“All of them?”
He nods again.
Well, that would explain some things.
“Tell me what happened to you,” I say, diverting.
He heaves a deep sigh that feels like surrender.
“I used to kill for money.”
He pauses. I think he’s expecting me to react, throw him off me, but I don’t do anything. I just keep watching him. His coal-like eyes snap open and he looks into mine. I don’t hide from his stare.
“That doesn’t scare me,” I say.
He swallows hard. “I would take my time. Draw out their pain. Feast on it.”
I should feel something. Disgust. Revulsion.
I don’t.
“You shouldn’t be okay with this,” he says, as if sensing my…
Oh, yeah, he can.
“I know people who do really bad things.”
“That doesn’t excuse me,” he says.
“Do you still torture people for money?”
His jaw flexes. “No.”
“Do you miss it?”
He blinks a few times. “No. It wasn’t good. This sounds worse, and I shouldn’t say it, but the taking made it lesser—” He shakes his head. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does,” I say, nodding. “Like, in a full-contact spar, we would hurt one another, but it felt good. We were giving and receiving the pain willingly.”
“Yes,” he says, relief rushing out with the word. His eyes crease with a smile, and I think he might be basking in the sensation of being understood. I wonder how many times that’s ever happened to him.
Then his face drops. “But that still doesn’t excuse what I did.”
“You did it to survive, didn’t you? You said that your siblings disappeared when they denied themselves their energy.”
“It’s true.” He purses his lips. “My energy needs were revered in days past. Many empires loved their warriors, their entertainers, gladiators. When I came to the new land—”
“Hold up. The new land?”
“America,” he says, and my brain stalls out.
“How old are you?”
His face hardens. “Old.”
Roman gladiators old…
I cringe. This is just great. I’m attracted to a cradle-robbing fire demon.
“Anyway, you said you were imprisoned?” I deflect again because I don’t want to examine the age gap too much.
He grunts. “I was caught by the IBMA—the Interdimensional Bureau of Magical Affairs. I had gotten sloppy and part of me thinks it was on purpose.
“The organization I killed for, they were not good people, and I knew in the pit of my soul that I couldn’t work for them any longer, but that they’d never let me go without a fight—one that would end in my death. I wasn’t ready to die.”
Fuck, can I relate…
“Centuries of life, and I still wanted more. Needed more.” His eyes have a far-off look in them and he whispers as if talking to himself, “Needed just one more thing.”
“What thing?” I ask.
He’s caught in some kind of trance, his gaze distant and disconnected.
I cup his cheeks, turning him to me. Our eyes meet and the tension between us crackles. The air rushes out of me as he descends on my lips. His kiss sears me down to the soul with a brand hotter and deeper than the one on my wrist.
His grip tightens on the back of my neck as if I’ll try to escape. I open my mouth to him, and he groans, stealing inside. I gasp at the feel of his fork-tipped tongue, and a rush of heat fills my core as I think of all the things it could do to me.
I slide my hands from his cheeks to his shoulders and use the leverage to try to get my legs on either side of his broad chest. He pulls my thighs astride him and settles me on the thick outline on his lap. We both grunt as the pleasure hits me. Just a tiny bite of it instead of the banquet I want.
He sits up, then flips us, pushing my back into the soft, pillowed pallet. The weight of him is comforting and sure. I want to melt beneath him. He moans my name as he pulls back a measure. He stares down at me, panting heavily with hunger in his eyes.
“What are we doing?”
I thread my fingers into his dark hair. “Making out?”
His tongue darts out to wet his lips, and I can’t help but stare. When my gaze meets his again, that hunger turns to starvation. I don’t know why he’s hesitating, but I won’t.
I push up on one elbow and kiss him, wrapping my arm across his back. My fingers brush his wing joint and he shivers.
“I want more,” he murmurs against my lips.
“How much more?”
“I want to touch you like I did the other night,” he says, kissing me again.
He moves aside, leaning against one of my legs to pin me open.
“I want you to ride my hand and moan like you did.”
His fingers slide up my bare thigh to the edge of my loose shorts. I push into the contact, craving more.
“I want to feel you pass the pinnacle your body was coiling to.”
He circles my inner thigh, moving under my shorts just a hair before pulling back.
He’s asking.
Pleading.
I know I shouldn’t be fucking around with an ifrit. I know this isn’t anything more than a temporary tryst. But I can’t find the will to care.
I grab his hand and push it higher. He groans and melds his mouth to mine, attacking my lips with fevered kisses. He massages my core with broad gestures that smear my arousal through my panties.
“Under them,” I urge. “Touch me.”
He mumbles a curse and shifts my underwear aside. His finger glides through my center and he moans as I do.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says, his bicep bulging from restraint.
“You’re not hurting me.”
I grab his wrist and guide his movements, showing him where to touch. The heat of his fingers has blood surging through my clit, engorging it to near painful levels. I need to come like I need to breathe.
He stills his hand just when I need the friction most, and I whimper in protest.
“Ride it,” he commands with a heady edge of dominance.
I move my leg between his and grab the back of his neck for the proper leverage. His erection strains against my hip, and I make sure to give him pressure as I move. A low rumble slips up his throat and I steal it with a kiss.
The rhythm comes easily. He flexes into my side and I grind down on his hand. With every thrust we both get closer, tighter, faster, harder. I’m crying out with every push of his hand. The muscles in my core tense with anticipation.
“Yes,” he groans. “More. I want to feel you.”
“Inside,” I gasp. “Inside me.”
His thick finger curls into my opening and I spasm, my body near the edge. I fist his hair, tugging harder than I know I should, but it makes him grunt in satisfaction. He finds my neck, nipping and sucking as I pant for air. I crave it just a little harder. Just a little more.
“Bite me,” I whine.
He growls into my throat and the sharp points of his fangs find muscle.
White heat explodes in my vision as the tight pleasure detonates in my core.
I lose the rhythm of my movement, but Rhazan keeps going, keeps thrusting.
I scream and my legs clamp shut around his arm as I lose myself to wave after wave of overwhelming heat.
I ride the orgasm as far as I can, until the pleasure turns too intense. My back curls, but Rhazan’s weight is holding me down. He laves my neck with his tongue and moans deliriously. It’s too much.
Too much.
I gasp, squeezing his wrist as the sensitivity turns back into explosive, fiery pleasure that’s already at the cusp.
“Oh, fuck,” I cry, bearing down on him because it’s all I can do to survive what’s about to happen.
Blackness closes in around my vision and my core bursts.
Star-studded oblivion circles me, and I am the center of it.
My astral tether thrums, seeking a new connection, a new home to live inside, too.
I suck down a fearful breath and will it to stay with me.
The vibrations of that rejection put a swift end to the pleasure, and I curl in on myself.
Rhazan releases my neck and stops moving. “Are you all right?”
I nod because I’m not sure words are a thing I can make yet.
“I felt you,” he says, his voice full of awe.
And I feel wetness sliding down my thighs…
I look down.
Oh, my god.
I fucking squirted.
All.
Over him.
And my shorts.
Fuck.
A fiery bark bursts into the room and I scream, pulling myself out of Rhazan’s grasp. He sits up and looks at the flaming furball that just bounded into the closed room as if it had a magical doggy door. It barks at him several more times and Rhaz nods.
“Good boy. Show Jade your hiding spot,” he says.
“What?” I ask, my arms trembling.
“They’re here,” Rhazan says. “IBMA. An agent—my parole officer, of sorts.”
My heart does a backflip. I don’t know what that means, but I’m sure it’s not good.
“This is Soot. He’ll show you where to go,” Rhazan says, petting the ball of flames.
“Wha…”
“I would send you home, but they’ll detect a portal—or any use of my magic.”
I’m not entirely sure I’m understanding, but my body is too jellified to move quickly.
“You have to get up.” He reaches out for me. “They’ll detain you if they find you.”
Detain.
I don’t like that word at all.
I grab his hand and he pulls me to my feet. I fall into him and he plants a heavy kiss on my lips.
“That was wonderful, and I’m sorry it was cut short,” he says. “I have so much more planned for you.”
I start to say something when a bang goes off down the hall.
“Go, now,” Rhaz says to the firefluff.
Soot does two little twirls in front of me and runs for the bookshelf. I chase after him and he jumps against a little book at the bottom. It pushes inward and a door meant for a creature much smaller than me opens. Soot runs inside and I turn to look at Rhaz.
“Really?”
“It’s safe.” He shrugs. “That or them.”
I growl and get on my hands and knees. I hope he likes the view as I crawl into the dark hole behind his bookshelf.