The Darkest Night (marked souls ) Page 8

  She eased her hands out of his grip, and the loss shocked the breath from him. He hadn’t realized how much he needed her touch.

  “Cyril, that is so…” She framed his face with her soft hands. “…So fucked up. And, yes, I see.”

  A surge went through him, a shock from the chill of her fingers, but also a gentler swell that mediated the burn of his hands and the ice of her touch into a strange warmth centered in his chest.

  She leaned down and kissed his forehead. “Poor angel-man. The sphericanum asked too much. Even the talyan with all their centuries of sin are not so broken.”

  “Don’t pity me,” he warned.

  “The tenebrae don’t feel pity. That is too close to mercy.”

  “I don’t want that either.”

  She tilted her head, the red of her beehive a match to his hands, as if he’d reached into her fire and burned himself. “Then what do you want, angel-man? Don’t make it a prayer, because those I can’t answer.”

  “I want, for one night, to forget,” he murmured. “I want you.”

  She straightened, doubt sketched into the furrow between her brows. “You want an imp?”

  Why couldn’t she be a good demon, happy with lies and his downfall into temptation? He took a breath—as shallow and empty as the house he’d inhabited alone for too many years—and met her gaze steadily. “I want someone who has looked into the darkness. And somehow lived.”

  Still she did not waver. “I did not look into that place, Cyril. I am the darkness.”

  “And still you fought your way out. That is what I want.”

  She stood there so long in a silence so deep he heard only the shush of his pulsing blood, keeping its own time. This was his twisted purgatory: to wait for a demon to give him one night of peace before the next battle.

  Then she opened her arms.

  He picked her up—her red boots and her big hair were the heaviest things about her—and carried her upstairs to his bedroom.

  The master suite was as big and empty as the rest of the house. He didn’t even turn on the light because he didn’t want to see it. Instead, making his way by the dim glow from the chandelier in the foyer, he bore her directly to the bed and laid her in the middle of the indigo duvet.

  While he unlaced her boots, she reached up to tug out the pillows, but the tight tuck defeated her. She laughed a little breathlessly. “You make your bed as tight as a chastity belt.”

  “Not me. My cleaning crew. I’ve told them to leave it alone.”

  “They want to make you happy.” With a mighty heave, she wrenched the duvet and blanket back, revealing the stark sheets underneath. Against the white, the sight of her red in his bed made his eyes widen and his pulse pound.

  Slowly, he stripped off his coat, ignoring the ache in his hands. “Now I want to make you happy.”

  She knelt in the bed facing him, but her expression was somber. “Forget happy, just make me come.”

  “You should fight for more.”

  “There is light in that, light enough to hold back the cold and dark.”

  “Enough,” he murmured.

  “For now.” She reached out and hooked her finger through his third button, the one she had stopped at in her apartment a million years ago when she’d told him she was a demon. “Come here.”

  What did it say about him that he was faster on the buttons than she was? He stripped out of his shirt while kicking off his boots, but she held up one hand.

  “Wait,” she ordered. “I want to see.”

  He stood in front of her, hands clenched, blood raging. It seemed the house temperature control had soared with a vengeance. “What do you see?”

  “A man. An angel…” She flopped back on the pillows, her legs coiled to one side. “Why does the angel need muscles like those?”

  “The sword was heavy.”

  Her clouded gaze drifted downward. “I’m sure it is.”

  He didn’t know what she saw, but he felt the response in his body, his erection surging to free itself from the unbuttoned fly of his trousers.

  She gave him a smile of such wicked promise all his memories fled, and his scattered thoughts converged to here, now, her. Enough, he reminded himself.

  He knelt on the bed beside her and reached for her glasses. “May I?”

  “Please.” Despite her permission, her lashes drifted down in a shy flutter.

  He eased off the cat’s-eye frames and folded them on the bedside table. “Do they make a difference?”

  “To the people who don’t have to look me in the eye.”

  He leaned down, poised to kiss her. “What would they see?”

  “Nothing.” Her tone pitched to a minor key. “Nothing at all.”

  Though he longed to cover her mouth with his, he lifted his head instead. “Look at me.”

  Her lashes lifted to half mast, her clouded eyes dark in the shadows beneath. “What do you want?”

  “I said already: you.”

  She opened her eyes wide, and he stared down.

  Without the glasses in the way, the cataract-clouded pupils swallowed her eyes in the low light. He didn’t see the demon, he didn’t see himself, he just saw her, now, here.

  With a sigh, he closed the distance between them in a long, slow kiss.

  For a moment, her mouth was tense under his, then she parted her lips on a moan and wrapped one arm around his neck, anchoring him to her. The kiss went on and on, tongues and teeth and the hot exchange of gasps fueling the epic caress.

  Without parting, he fumbled at her shirt, but the little buttons down the front resisted his big fingers. Finally, he just yanked the last few off and shoved the striped fabric from her shoulders, banishing the thankfully front-clasp bra with it. She tugged at his trousers and boxers, and he shoved them away awkwardly between their tangled legs. She laughed into his mouth, and his heart pounded as if the extra breath had expanded his chest, as if she had made her way into his body with that one laugh.

  While she was distracted, he unzipped her jeans and sank his hands into the gap at the waist, sweeping his fingers over the curve of her waist.

  She squirmed. A ticklish demon? With her scooted up closer to his chest, he was able to skim the denim over her hips and ass and down her thighs. Refusing to let go of the kiss, he struggled blindly with the skinny jeans at her heels, and she finally kicked them off inside out and gone.

  Naked, skin to skin, breath to breath… She arched up into him, her breasts soft and giving against the hard thud of his heart, the tight peaks of her nipples a tease. She traced her hands down his flanks and closed on his ass, fingers driving into his flesh, pulling him closer yet. He angled between her thighs, his cock thrusting toward her, seeking a different kind of possession…

  He yanked his mouth free. “Fuck.”

  “Please,” she moaned. “Yes.”

  “Can’t. No condom.” How could he have been so careless? Had he really believed he wouldn’t find his way back to her?

  She yanked on his hips, lifting her body toward him. “It doesn’t matter. I’m a demon.”

  “You’re more than that.” He kissed her again, hard and fast.

  She moaned against his mouth. “You’re an angel-man. I trust you.”

  “That’s sweet, but if you trust me, I can’t betray that trust.”

  “Never mind then. Betray me.”

  “No.”

  She thumped her head back on the pillows in frustration. “I’m betting you don’t sleep around, and I can’t get pregnant.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “You’re still wearing your ring.”

  “I mean why can’t you get pregnant?”

  She turned her face away, pressing her cheek into the pillow. “There is nothing to quicken. This is a body with no soul.”

  He touched her chin, easing her back to him. “You are its soul now.”

  She stared up at him, clouded eyes even wider than before.

  Then she surged
up against him. The surprising force of her knocked him backward, and for a heartbeat, he thought she would leave.

  But instead, she pushed him over the rest of the way, her palms flattened across his chest as she straddled his thighs. “Angels say the damndest things.”

  She shimmied down the lengths of him, her fingertips trailing over his nipples, her mouth… She smiled at him.

  “You first,” she murmured.

  And then—ah!—her mouth found the hard length of him. He couldn’t stop the jerk of his hips as she closed her lips in a tight suction that brought blood surging toward the tip of his cock where her tongue swirled. He sprawled back on the pillows.

  God, too bad he needed his angel to kill a djinn-man or he just might let her suck out his soul.

  Chapter 9

  Mirabel had blown a couple guys at the club for drugs. Bella had done it just once when she tricked the club owner—the trickery hadn’t be that tricky, being second nature to a demon—into selling her the business. But this was the only time it had ever felt…right.

  She curled her hands around Cyril’s cock, her fingers and his flesh interlaced and somehow beautiful. This was something the imp could see in vivid detail, this atavistic surge of blood and hunger, a force beyond the merely mortal realm.

  She wanted him so badly, wanted to milk the brightness from him, to coat her fingers and her tongue, to drown the old, bad memories with his desire for her.

  He shuddered under her touch, his breath rough but his hands gentle on her head, guiding her down. He gasped as her mouth enclosed him.

  Under her stroking tongue, she felt the rising rush in his flesh, and she quickened her pace. His grasp on her hair was a little less gentle and she wanted to laugh, but he pulled her down and his cock nudged the back of her throat. She took him, and he groaned her name, so she took him deeper yet.

  His hips lifted from the bed and she gripped his shaft with one hand, his tight-strung balls with the other, pulling him in.

  “I’m going to come,” he warned.

  She hummed her acquiescence and that was the end of him.

  She choked, almost withdrew, then closed her eyes and took him another inch. He spasmed again, his whole big body racked. The hot spurt filled her senses with musk and man and the faintest hint of honey.

  She lifted her lips slowly, easing over each ribbed vein of his swollen flesh. He gasped and tightened his fingers in her hair another notch. She paused with her mouth just fitted over the tip of his cock and hummed again, gently. His arms fell limp to his sides.

  She tucked herself up under his arm, her head pillowed on his shoulder. He laid one heavy arm over her waist and pulled her closer.

  He kissed the top of her head. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Sorry if I was rough. It’s been awhile.” He kissed her head again. “How do you manage to keep your hair up like this?”

  “Evil magic.” She reveled in the squeeze of his arm. “Also crazy hair gel and bobby pins galore.”

  He grunted. “More magic.”

  Abruptly, he rolled away, and she made a sound of protest. But he grabbed her hand and tugged her across the bed. “Come on.”

  “What? Where are we going?”

  “Shower. Double showerheads. I’ve never used them. Speaking of magic.”

  “If you’ve never used them, how do you know?”

  “My imagination just kicked in.”

  The white marble bathroom was as barren and unnecessarily big as the rest of the house. She spread her hands ahead of her to traverse the featureless space. “It’s like a cold storage locker. You need to add a decorator to your cleaning service.”

  “I don’t need anything. You brighten up the place just fine.” He cranked on the shower and steam began to fill the room. “Now come here. I think I made a deal with a devil, and I want to pay.”

  Under the hot spray and his hotter hands, she tilted her head back while he banished the bobby pins from her hair and the stressed kinks from her shoulders. She might wish he could banish the demon too. Then there’d be nothing left for the tenebrae to hunt, nothing left at all. But for now, if she wanted to feel him, wanted this moment, she just had to live with what she was: a masquerading monster hiding in the light.

  Enough, she reminded herself. He wanted to forget and so did she. Then his mouth found her secrets and she surrendered herself to this one night—however long it might be.

  * * *

  Thin winter sunlight pierced like a sword between the white curtains, and Bella rolled over with a groan. The formerly pristine sheets wafted up the scent of sex as she pulled a pillow over her head.

  How long was the night? Not long enough apparently, although they had used every single moment of it.

  But today would be the shortest day.

  A hand slapped her ass, and she groaned again, burrowing deeper into the blankets.

  “Rise and shine.” The pillow was tugged back from her resisting fingers.

  She glared at Fane through the curtain of her tangled hair. “You didn’t just say that.”

  “I did.”

  “I should have sneaked out in the middle of the night.”

  “If you’d left, we wouldn’t have—”

  She yanked the covers back over her head.

  “Fine. Peace offering.”

  The covers a little farther away tented, and she was about to goose whatever flesh he was sticking toward her, when the glorious perfume of coffee wafted between the sheets.

  She sat up carefully, pushing back her hair, and reached for the cup Fane held toward her.

  “Careful. It’s hot.”

  She took the first rejuvenating sip. Now she felt almost human.

  Almost. “Cream and sugar. How did you know?”

  “I’ve seen how you drink. You don’t do half measure.”

  She huffed into the cup. “How are your hands?”

  He showed her his knuckles, still red but not blistered. “The healing power of…” When she raised one brow, he finished, “…ice. Your eyes are like lake ice.”

  She took another sip to cover her sudden nervousness at his intent focus. He was sitting on the bed between her and her glasses on the side table. Between her and the door too. Not that she’d planned to run away in the middle of the night. No, she’d planned to wait until just about now…

  He bounced up from the bed, and she grumbled at his early-morning verve. “Come on. The bacon is almost ready.”

  Well, she could wait to run away. She’d be able to run faster after a good breakfast.

  “I’m afraid I couldn’t find a few of the buttons from your shirt.” He pulled a T-shirt and sweatshirt from his dresser drawers and tossed them toward her. “Sorry I don’t have anything in red.”

  “I’ll live.” She took the opportunity to grab her glasses and slip them on. With coffee and glasses, certainly she could face the day.

  He tilted his head. “Why do you always wear red?”

  “It’s one of the few colors I can see clearly.” Of course the tenebrae favored red. Red for blood, rage, conflagration. But she didn’t need to explain that part to him. He already knew.

  “If you wore white, maybe you’d draw less attention from the demons.”

  She shook her head. “They aren’t fooled. Also, you’re not supposed to wear white in winter.”

  “Fashion advice from the woman with a beehive.”

  She touched the massed red ringlets that had taken over after their hot shower last night. “Not anymore.”

  “I like it curly and soft. It’s… cherubic.”

  She gagged on her coffee. “Go flip the bacon.”

  After he left, she dressed quickly in his borrowed shirts and her jeans, once she turned them right-side out. The memory of the frantic coupling implied by the convoluted denim made her flush.

  He’d said he wanted to forget, but she wasn’t sure she could, not now…

  And she only found one bobby
pin, damn it, so she had to leave her hair down, but she tucked it ruthlessly behind her ears. So there.

  She followed the perfume of bacon down the stairs. The house, white and echoing and bare of almost all emotion, was essentially invisible to her tenebrae senses so she trailed one hand down the banister lest she crash into something.

  The curve of the stairs led to the office adjacent to the front door, and for a moment she stood there, disoriented. But a gleam of silver caught her gaze. She drifted toward the big wooden desk and skipped her fingers over the detritus of a working man: computer, printer, various stacks of papers, a cheap ballpoint pen (she would have thought better of him) with the clip broken off (she didn’t doubt he had done that), and a silver photo frame.

  To the tenebrae, the photo beckoned. Bella settled her fingers where her imp perception found the psychic imprints of many touches though the engraved silver hearts were scrupulously shining. She studied the image of the woman, not smiling, and the tiny infant in her arms. Here, white meant not innocence but hospital sterility, and the color of death was the pale, pale blue of the baby’s skin.

  The glass had been imperfectly cleaned, and a human fingerprint remained hovering over the child’s cheek, leaving a smudge like tears; the glass, so thin, but the loss an impassable barrier.

  With a soundless sigh, she returned the photo to its place.

  Between his earthly cleaning service and his divine calling, Fane worked so hard to empty the world of its stains and sins. But he would never forget this.

  She managed to find her way to the kitchen more by way of the bacon than her sketchy vision. Fane plunked a paper towel-wrapped English muffin loaded with the folds of an omelet in her one hand and slipped a travel mug of coffee into her other. “Half coffee, half sugar and cream, just as you like it. And you already have your boots. Good. Let’s go.”

  She had her boots because she’d been planning to sneak away at the first opportunity. “Go? I have things to do today.”

  “No you don’t. You were going to wall up in your club and hide from any tenebrae who came caroling.”

  “And drink.” She wished that hadn’t sounded quite so pathetic.