Betting on Julia (A Melville Sisters Novel) (Entangled Covet) (11 page)

“Nice.” She rested her palm against his stomach. “Hmm, you feel a little warm, Bastian-baby.”

He winced at her use of the name and then forgot everything as her fingers strayed lower. They trailed over the length of his erection, so the last of his blood supply drained to his cock. She flicked open the fastener on his pants, lowered the zip, and finally his shaft sprang free, ready to burst.

Sitting back again, her brows drew together as she glanced from his dick to the tub of ice cream, and he groaned.

Her gaze shot to his face. “I’ve never done this before. Just considering the logistics.” Reaching behind him, she pulled open a drawer in the table and grabbed a spoon, picked up the ice cream, and flicked off the lid. She held his gaze as she took a spoonful and placed it slowly in her mouth, her eyes closing. “Yum.”

He was going to go insane here. Finally, she tugged his pants down over his hips, dug the spoon into the ice cream, and placed a large dollop right on the head of his cock.

“Jesus.” The word was hissed through his teeth. Cold met heat and he was sure his dick sizzled. As his muscles locked, his spine arched and his hips jerked forward. Breathing became impossible as she lowered her head, licking the ice cream as it melted down his shaft. Then she took him into the warm, wet cavern of her mouth, the heat of her burning through the cold. Hands gripping the table behind him, he closed his eyes and leaned back. The strength drained from his body and he lost the will to focus on anything but the tug of that mouth around his cock. Already, he could feel his orgasm building at the base of his spine. He was so close.

He groaned as she left him to peer up through her lashes. “More?” she teased.

“Oh yeah.”

This time she let the cream slide all the way down to the base of his shaft. He groaned again as her tongue lapped the dessert from his balls, up the length of his cock, licking and sucking the head. His hands shifted to grip in her hair, holding against him as the hot wetness engulfed him, and he gave himself up to the pleasure.

Chapter Eleven

Sebastian let himself into his house two hours later. His body was sated with sex, but he still wanted more.

He reckoned he would never get enough of Julia’s loving. He’d never met a woman so giving, so attuned to what he needed. But he’d had to leave.

His week free from the
demon was almost up, and he couldn’t risk being with Julia when Dante made his first appearance. Tossing his keys on the side, he headed into the sitting room, poured a large measure of scotch, and flung himself on the sofa.

This week had been a revelation. He’d felt almost what he pretended to be…normal. Though it was an illusion. Even if he got rid of Dante, he would hardly be normal. And Julia deserved better than him.

He was four hundred years old, and for half of those he’d been possessed by a demon. But even before Dante’s appearance in his life, he hadn’t been a good man. He’d avoided the darker aspects of his art, but he’d still gone way beyond what most people would consider moral.

His mother had been a gypsy. She’d done fortune-telling, among other things, at fairs across the country. Though it wasn’t from his mother that he got his peculiar talents, but from his father. A father he had never known, but his mother had told him he was one of the fae.

A fucking fairy.

A fairy who had courted her briefly, left her with child, and never been seen again. It hadn’t taken Sebastian long to recognize that he was different, that he wasn’t aging as normal people, and he’d had no choice but to keep drifting.

Until he’d fallen in love. Sophie had been twenty-one when they’d married, and he’d spent the next thirty years with her, using glamor to blend in. But something must have given him away and he came to the attention of the local werewolf pack.

They’d approached him to join. When he’d refused, they had kidnapped his wife and their daughter, who was pregnant at the time. They’d killed Sophie as proof that they were sincere and threatened to do the same with Anne.

He’d allowed them to tie him between two stakes, strip him to the waist. The burning pain of the claws as they’d scored down his back was seared into his memory. Bastian had prayed to God, but when he received no answer, he’d drawn on black magic and called for help from elsewhere.

Dante had answered him, offering him the chance to save his daughter and get his revenge.

Grief, pain, and rage had mingled inside him.

The rage had won over. He’d always suffered from the sin of pride, had thought himself higher than others, untouchable by those around him. Now the wolves had shown him different. The demon had been drawn to Bastian’s rage, identified his powers, and decided he would be a good fit. Dante had lent him the strength to free himself of the bonds, fight the wolves.

And so began their strange partnership.

That first full moon had been a huge relief, he’d dreaded the idea he would turn into one of the monsters he loathed so much. But he had never turned, never become a true werewolf. Dante claimed it was because of his fae blood and his magic, which was stronger than that of the werewolves.

Dante was a huge source of information, had explained things about the supernatural races that Bastian would never have discovered on his own.

They’d reached all sorts of accords during their time together. Bastian had done some bad things to appease the demon’s cravings, but there were lines he wouldn’t cross. He would not target the innocent. Though wasn’t that what he was doing with Julia? But she wouldn’t be hurt too badly. She would recover, he would be free, and Dante would be back where he belonged.

And that had to happen soon, because slowly and surely the demon was taking over his soul.

He jolted upright as he felt Dante return to his consciousness.

Melanie was hot tonight.

“Welcome back,” he muttered.

Hey, I’m just saying. The blowjob was good but a bit vanilla for my taste. Or should I say strawberry.

As most things were a little vanilla for Dante’s taste, he didn’t bother to comment.

I want out.

Sighing, Sebastian stood up and pulled out the piece of chalk he always carried in his pocket. He drew a circle around the sofa, whispering the words of a spell that would allow the demon out of Bastian’s head, but not out of the circle.

Dante appeared in front of him, tall, thin, his white-blond hair short against his skull. His dark eyes narrowed as he stared at the chalk circle, his upper lip curling in a sneer.

“You know this could all be over if you’d let me go.”

He wished he could, really he did, but how could he in all conscience let Dante free on the unsuspecting Earth.

Dante took a step toward the line and came to an abrupt halt. The spell was holding and Bastian gave another sigh—this time of relief.

“So she hasn’t said I love you yet?”

“Obviously not.”

“And she won’t, you know. Not a woman like that to a man like you.”

He wanted to defend himself, but how could he? “Oh, I think she likes me, she just requires a little nudge. If we hadn’t met Melanie tonight, I think you would now be back in Hell where you belong.”

“Maybe. But you did meet Melanie. Sadly. What a coincidence.”

“Shit.” He turned away and paced the confines of the circle. “You?”

“I’m not entirely without friends. Someone may have suggested it would be a good idea to eat at a particular restaurant tonight.”

How the hell was he going to be able to get Julia to say I love you with Dante interfering every step of the way? He had to get the Demon out of the picture for a while longer.

“What do you want?”

“Hmm, maybe a session with Melanie.”

“No way.” The words were out before he could think better of it and a cunning smile curled the demon’s lips. But the idea of screwing around with Melanie made him want a hot shower and a scrubbing brush. He didn’t want Melanie and her whips and ropes and sex toys. She was everything Julia was not.

“You’re falling for her aren’t you? Julia might not love
you,
but you love her.”

“Don’t be stupid,” he snapped.

Dante ignored the interruption. “You still believe that under there, you’re a decent guy. That maybe you even deserve love.”

“No, I don’t.”

“That you can get rid of me, and everything will be all sweet and roses and happily ever after.”

“Fuck off.”

“Really, Sebastian, you’re delusional.” Dante sat down on the sofa and stretched his arms along the back. He had an entirely too complacent smirk on his face; he was very confident and Bastian wished he understood why.

“A fight in exchange for another week,” he said. “Colin says he has someone lined up for tomorrow night.” Maybe a fight would do him good as well. Get rid of some of his restlessness in a controlled environment.

“Hmmm, tempting but I don’t think so,” Dante murmured. “I think I’ll stick around. This is going to be way more fun.”

Fuck.

With the demon poking his nose in, he’d have almost no chance of getting Julia to say the words. Dante had a way of interfering, bringing out his darker side. How was he supposed to come across as a nice, normal guy with a fucking demon riding his shoulder the whole time? Each year it got harder to say no, to ignore his presence, and Bastian knew that meant he was growing stronger. One day, if he didn’t get rid of him, their positions would be reversed and it would be Bastian in the background while Dante made the decisions. God save the world if he allowed that to happen.

“Oh dear, I fear Ms. Melville is going to see a different side of you over the next few days.”

Bastian took a step forward and shoved his face up close, so a faint tang of sulfur filled his nostrils, sharp and acrid. He jabbed Dante in the chest with a finger. “You do anything to hurt her and I swear we will die together.” It was the one way he knew to safely dispose of the demon. Dante wouldn’t die permanently but he would remanifest back in the Abyss where hopefully, whoever it was he’d been hiding from all these years would find him and finish him off. Of course, Bastian would rather not go that route, because unlike the demon, he was pretty sure he would die dead.

But he’d do it if he had to.

“Jesus,” Dante said. “You have got it bad. But don’t get your panties in a twist. I won’t hurt your precious Julia.”

They were both silent for a minute, but Bastian was aware the conversation was not over. From the start, he’d known there was more to this wager about Julia than Dante was letting on, but it would have been a waste of time to push. And really, he’d had no choice. He never had a choice, or not one with any good options, and he was getting pissed off about it. He was tired of the constant fighting, always being vigilant in case the demon slipped past his defenses. This last week had been so good, but it just served to show what a pile of shit his life usually was.

“What do you really want?” he echoed his earlier question.

Dante sat up straight. “Stop pacing and I might tell you.”

Bastian plonked himself down on the sofa as far away as he could get. “Tell me.”

“Someone approached me with a job.”

He knew Dante had contact with beings from his own world, that he kept track of what was going on. “Who and what sort of job and why would you do it.”

“The why first. If I do this job, my little…problem back home will be canceled out. I can return and you’ll be rid of me.”

“Sounds too good to be true.”

“Really, Bastian, you are such a cynic.”

“It’s the company I keep.”

“You wound me.”

“Come on, Dante, get to the bad news.”

“Okay. They want me to kill someone. And seems as you and I are tied together and you refuse to give me any freedom, I would like you to do it for me.”

Bastian sighed and ran his hand through his hair. Exhaustion, or maybe depression, tugged at his mind. “We’ve had this conversation before.”

“Oh I know. You’re clinging to what’s left of your humanity—silly as you’re hardly human—wanting to pretend there’s a scrap of conscience in there.”

“There is,” he ground out.

“How about I tell you that this is not a good person. That they deserve to die, that maybe you would even enjoy ridding the world of them. After all, you’ve killed before.”

“Only werewolves.”

“Well, that’s good because it just so happens the person I want you to kill is a werewolf.” He gave a self-satisfied grin. “There, doesn’t that make things look different?”

…

Julia woke early the following morning, a sense that something wasn’t quite right nagging at the back of her mind.

Last night their lovemaking had been wonderful, somehow they’d reached new levels of closeness. Many times, she’d hovered on the edge of saying I love you, but something had held her back.

She’d put off thinking about the whole Melanie conversation. Maybe because she’d subconsciously known that if she analyzed what had been said, a load of questions would raise their ugly little heads, and she’d desperately needed to let go last night.

Now in the dim light of dawn, she couldn’t put off thinking any longer.

She dragged herself out of bed, her body aching from the exertions of the night before and the one before that and… After pulling on her oldest robe, that she’d had since she was sixteen, she shuffled down the stairs and into the kitchen. Working on autopilot, she made herself a coffee in her favorite Buffy the Vampire Slayer mug and shuffled back up the stairs and into bed.

As she stared at the mug, a weird thought crossed her mind. What if vampires existed? If werewolves existed, what about the rest of the monsters? At the notion, a little shiver of excitement ran through her. What if Buffy was real?

She knew she was procrastinating, putting off the moment when she would have to think about Sebastian. Finally, she inhaled deeply and ran the conversation through her mind.

Okay, so there were a couple of problem issues. Sebastian had definitely given her the impression he had recently moved to London. Or had he? He had said he came from up north, but hadn’t actually said that was where he had moved from. She’d just presumed. But now it appeared he had an apartment in the city. So why had he rented the house next door.

Or had Melanie recently moved as well and the apartment was actually somewhere else? But that was unlikely; she’d said she ran a club in Soho.

And another thing, neither Melanie nor Sebastian had come across in any way brokenhearted. In fact, they hadn’t seemed to have that sort of relationship at all. Melanie was with another man and she’d seemed interested but unconcerned at seeing Bastian with Julia.

And what about the fights? Amateur boxing, Sebastian had said, but he’d never mentioned his little hobby before. In fact, he’d claimed he didn’t have any hobbies. Maybe he was aware that Julia abhorred violence. But amateur boxing sounded pretty tame. She’d once thought about it herself—it was supposed to be a great work-out method, but she would never have been able to bring herself to actually hit someone, and she’d probably run away if anyone tried to hit her.

The doorbell rang and she jumped. Was it Sebastian? Was she ready to see him yet? She didn’t know. She liked him, suspected she could feel a whole lot more, but now these doubts were nagging at her brain.

Was he lying to her? And if so, why? Or was he just not telling the whole truth about himself. And she could sympathize with that, after all there were certain aspects of her life that she wasn’t exactly being open about.

Hi, Sebastian, I’m a….

No, she was on very shaky ground, but her secrets were huge and life changing and…secret. Whatever Bastian wasn’t telling her, she could guarantee one hundred percent that they weren’t as earth shattering as what she wasn’t telling him.

The bell rang again and she got out of bed and peered out of the window. Down below, Lissa stood staring up at her bedroom window. Julia tapped on the glass and waved, then hurried out of the room and down the stairs to let her in.

She led the way into the kitchen and switched the coffeemaker back on before turning to her best friend. Lissa was studying her, a frown forming between her eyes.