My Wicked Enemy (18 page)

His hands pushed upward, along her spine, taking her shirt with the motion, keeping her on his lap with the pressure. Cool air brushed over her shoulders. He leaned back a little, scanning her up and down, devouring her with his eyes.

“Nikodemus,” she said. Her sense of him tickled in the back of her head. She ran her hands down his back, over and around the muscles of his spine.

“I like women who are small like you,” he said in a soft, low voice. He had his hands well underneath her shirt, on the bare skin of her rib cage. “Want to know why?”

“Yes.” The way Nikodemus looked at her and touched her right now was different from anything she’d ever felt before. His gaze was hungry, full of anticipation, and his hunger transferred to her, too, when she’d never been all that wild about sex before. Nikodemus slid his hands to her front, and she grabbed on to his shoulders to keep her balance. A jolt zinged through her fingertips and shot straight to her belly. Between her legs she was wet and heavy with desire. He had his hands on her breasts, right over her bra, holding her.

“I get worked up when the woman’s small, and I’m not. Especially when she’s a witch.” His eyes flashed silver. “Guess what, Carson?”

“What?” She leaned forward, into his hands. She saw his eyes change from blue-gray to glowing charcoal-black.

He brought his mouth within inches of hers. “I’m feeling really worked up right now.”

“Me, too,” she said.

His breath whispered against her ear. “You ought to be totally off-limits, Carson, but I really, really want to do you.”

She looked at him, and through the little thrill of seeing his planed cheekbones and parted lips, she said, “I think I should do you.”

“Oh, yeah?” He pushed her back enough to slide his mouth down to her throat, pausing at the cut he’d made. He leaned forward, and she had to hold on to his shoulders to stay put, but with a little awkwardness, she got closer to him. His teeth closed on her throat, not hard, but not exactly gentle, either. A scratchy moan rolled out of him. “Oh, that’s nice,” he said. “Carson.” His voice was tense. “Goddamn. We shouldn’t be doing this, but just—goddamn.”

A whole jumble of emotions came at her too fast for her to absorb. He ramped them down. Her heart felt too big for her chest, because she’d gotten a glimpse of how he’d felt, and what he’d done to keep her from dying. She held his head between her hands and waited for him to meet her gaze. Any future she had, she owed to him. “Thank you, Nikodemus. For everything. For saving my life. For finding me in the first place.”

He held her with one hand and with the other drew a line from her throat to the top of her jeans. She still had on his borrowed T-shirt; it was loose and too long. His hair fell lovely dark bronze past his face to his shoulders. Any minute now, she was going to drop off the earth with the sheer intensity of her feelings. He raised his gaze to her. His fingers spread over her back, holding her weight.

“Jesus, Carson.” His torso bowed toward her. “Jesus, I can feel this totally fucked-up magic in you, and I want it so bad I hurt. I fucking swear I hurt.”

Maybe it was the Copa that made her feel like she was expanding outside of herself. Or maybe it was her connection with Nikodemus, because she felt that, too. An awareness of him in her head. After he lifted his head, Carson leaned forward and kissed him, leading for the first time in her life, savoring his mouth, touching his tongue with hers. The mental contact rippled through them both. The sensation made her even more aware of the two of them. That he was male, and she wasn’t. The room seemed to get smaller and her need for him even greater.

“Like it?” he asked softly. He slid his hand down her back until his fingers slipped underneath her shirt. On her bare skin.

“Yes.”

“This is just a taste of what it’s like between kin, Carson. We connect like this. Do you want more?”

“Yes.”

This wasn’t like before, when he’d reached inside her and scoured through her thoughts, when he’d held her frozen, unable to move, uncertain if she’d be able to catch another breath. This time his deliberate and purposeful presence in her head didn’t feel like an invasion to be resisted at all costs.

Nikodemus said, “Just so you know, this isn’t just about the magic and you swearing fealty to me. It wouldn’t be like this if we didn’t have some chemistry already.” He tilted back so she didn’t fall when he let go of her to slide his hand around to her belly. His stomach muscles went taut, the muscles of his upper legs, too, holding them like this. He caressed her, teased until she thought she would explode. His torso was warm and firm. Her palms landed on his muscled shoulders, sliding down the backs of his arms and around his biceps.

“Yeah.” He closed his eyes and lowered them both to the mattress, her T-shirt pushed up around her stomach. And then he shifted to lay his hips against hers. She responded with a want from deep inside her. Her fingers closed around his upper arms. She arched again. Deliberately. In her entire life she’d never, ever deliberately teased. She’d never dared to ask for what she wanted and hardly dared now.

The energy between them just about melted her. She put her hands on his shoulders and drew her palms along the unfamiliar curves and indentations of his body. Heat built in her, hotter yet when she caught a glimpse of his face, the intense concentration of his expression. When her spine was flat to the mattress again, his eyes popped open, locking with hers. Carson felt a flash of something alien. A consciousness that didn’t process the world like she did.

“Does that bother you?” he asked. That he wasn’t human couldn’t have been more clear. “I was careful before, but now I don’t give a fuck. I want to see where this goes, okay?”

“Okay,” she whispered. Her surroundings had shifted somehow. Changed in some subtle way that had her struggling to identify what was different. She saw more clearly, color was more saturated, her sense of smell was better, her hearing more acute. There was a moment, just a moment, when she felt her emotions as if she were outside herself. She felt a hunger, an extra-sense that wanted to dive into his magic. Her body leapt at the sensation, and then the feeling attenuated. Her focus shifted to his mouth.

He sat up, straddling her hips, and fingered the top button of his jeans. “I need to be naked.” His hair hid part of his cheek, but there was no hiding the impish smile. “Don’t you think?”

“Yes,” she said. She wanted to touch him, to taste him, to have her mouth on him, to wrap her arms around him while he slid into her body. She wanted to hurry in case he changed his mind. “I do think you need to be naked.”

He grabbed the bottom of his shirt and pulled it up and over his head. The waist of his jeans hit low, and Carson feasted on the sight of his body, pecs, abs, the taper downward to his belly and hips. His skin was golden-brown everywhere. The buzz between them tweaked her higher and higher.

His smile did something wonderful to her inside. A melting something. He put a hand on the waist of his jeans and thumbed the fastening. He was aroused. Very much so. Her attention tracked his fingers unbuttoning his 501s. Underwear, she discovered, was not a choice he made. He laughed at her surprise. She knew his desire; she could distinguish his from hers and that freed her even more. He wanted her. He was aroused because of her. He wanted her body beneath his. He wanted her human warmth and emotion feeding him, slaking his thirst while they had intercourse. They could do anything, she thought as he worked the last button free. Anything at all, and no one would ever know Carson Philips had been wicked and depraved.

“Anything you want,” he said. His voice was low and determined, as if it were important to him that she believe him. “Any way you want it.”

With his fly open, his jeans rode low on his hips. She drew in a breath as he got to the last button and stopped. He caught her wrist. Carson looked into his eyes. His fingers squeezed her wrist. “Touch me. Please.”

“My pleasure, Warlord.” That made him laugh softly until she put her palm over him, holding him gently. He pressed forward into her hand. Her reaction to him, to touching him and having him arch into her, seeking more from her, made her giddy. She hadn’t ever been this bold before. Nikodemus didn’t make her feel awkward at all. His penis had an unfamiliar breadth and length. With her heart beating hard and her chest tight with reverence for the experience, she explored him with her fingertips and her hand, gently gripping, harder when he squeezed her wrist.

“Fuck, yes,” he said.

She raised up on her knees and put her other hand on his abdomen. Her injured palm ached, but she didn’t care. “You’re so warm,” she murmured.

“Touch my balls, too,” he said. The words came out on a low breath, almost a moan. Had she brought him to this? Her hand delved down to skin ever warmer. His chest expanded, and his eyes closed halfway. She felt the weight of him on her fingers and stroked him. “Oh, yeah.”

He kissed her, roughly at first, a little out of control, his hand around her wrist showing her the movement he wanted. When he stopped it was to lift his hips and push at his jeans until they slid off. He shucked them off and grabbed her around the waist again. “Know what I like best about human women?”

She didn’t care about the answer, because she was trying to decide what she liked best about warlord fiends. He was naked, and he was beautiful. Long-limbed, muscled in a way that made her think he was quick and strong. Sculpted. He let her look at him. What little body hair he had was golden-brown. So beautiful she was afraid to touch him.

He laughed. “I like the way human bodies can’t change, the way their minds feel when I’m inside. And with you, it’s doubled. I can feel your magic, Carson, and I feel you as kin, too.” He looked her up and down. Keeping one hand on her side, up high and underneath her shirt with his fingers touching her side. “Carson,” he murmured. “Tell me you want this, too.”

She wasn’t used to being looked at with such lust. His fingertips brushed across her, tightening her body in places she hadn’t known could react like that. Nikodemus wrapped her in his arms, and somehow they ended up on the mattress again, only with her on top of him, supporting her weight on her arms, desire streaking through her like fire.

“Jesus God,” Nikodemus said. His reaction flared in her head, and for a disconcerting series of seconds or minutes or hours, she saw herself through Nikodemus’s gaze. She looked sexy. Wanton, even, with pale skin and dark green eyes.

“Sweetheart, yes,” she heard Nikodemus say. “Like that. Just like that.” The intensity of his expression scared her. Her heart beat slow and hard against her ribs, her breath uncontrolled. The sizzle of energy in her head caught her up. Nikodemus pulled himself up, pushing up her shirt, his mouth on her stomach while he worked on her pants.

Her breath hitched, caught in her chest. She didn’t understand what had happened to her, how her body could have reacted like that. She surfaced from the mental tidal wave and realized Nikodemus’s hand was on her face, slowly caressing her. She leaned down to kiss his shoulder, her hair falling forward, as she bit down a little, smelling the heat of his skin and the blood underneath.

“Oh, fuck, that’s nice,” he said.

“Yes,” she whispered. “It is.”

He let go of her and reached between them to unfasten her jeans. He was present in her consciousness, but not in a way she understood. Even without eye contact, they connected viscerally. But when he looked up, his gaze pierced her, and he came alive in her head. His emotions flared so intensely she wondered if he was even aware she felt him. If that’s what this was. The sensation was too new for her to be sure of anything.

Head back, he let out a low, sighing moan. The mental connection between them ratcheted up. Sex had never been any big deal to her before, but now she thought she’d die if Nikodemus didn’t make love to her.

A noise behind her broke the intimacy. She ignored it until the back of her neck prickled. She pushed away the disturbance and concentrated on Nikodemus and his mouth, and her hands on his body, sliding over muscle and sinew. Nikodemus replaced his mouth with his fingers and turned his head toward the door. “Look what the cat dragged in,” he murmured.

“Carson?” said a male voice.

She jumped and then realized she was tangled up with Nikodemus. His eyelids lifted just enough for her to see a flash of blue-gray on its way to turning black. “Ignore him. He’ll go away once he realizes he’s interrupting.”

“I can feel her,” Harsh said, his voice nearer, a little shaky. “She feels like a mage, but like the kin, too. She’s bound to you, and now I can feel her like she’s kin. The closer I get, the more I know what she’s feeling. Both of you. It’s killing me.” Harsh came to the edge of the bed and touched Carson’s shoulder. His fingers were cool. For God’s sake, Nikodemus still had a hand on her breast. “I feel the warlord in your mind, Carson Philips,” he said in a low voice. “So much that there’s no room for me.” The air around them quivered.

“Go away,” Nikodemus said. But he quickly pulled down her shirt.

“I missed this,” he whispered. “Being with other fiends. When you’re mageheld, all that’s gone. It’s like dying a little every single day. Only you can never die and stop the misery.”