Tequila Sunset (Last Call #4.5) (5 page)

His apartment was neat, at least, not that
he gave a damn. All he cared about was the fulfillment of a fantasy
-- Iris, naked in his bed, moaning his name while he made love to
her.

He stood at the end of his bed,
hands shaking, unsure of whether he should get on the bed or wait
for her.
Fucking hell, Elliott. You’re thirty-five, not seventeen.
Snap out of it.

“
Zack?” He could hear her
bare feet against the floor as she stepped into the room behind
him. “I locked your door behind me.”

She was wearing some kind of demure silk
gown that shouldn’t have been as sexy as the smooth expanse of her
naked skin. But his heart stuttered, and he nodded stupidly.
“Okay.”

“
Okay.” She reached out a
hand and pressed it lightly against his chest. “Are you sure you
want me here?”

He laid his hand over hers, trapping it
against his skin. “Iris, all I’ve ever wanted is you here.”

“
For tonight?” Her eyes
drifted shut. “It would be too easy to never leave. You… you need
to tell me.”

He moved her hand over until it rested over
his pounding heart. “I don’t want you to leave. Not after a night.
Not for a long time.”

She moved slowly, her hand slipping out from
under his as she sank to her knees. Her hands came to rest on the
waistband of his pants as she opened her eyes and stared up at him.
“Not for a long time,” she agreed in a whisper.

There were a thousand things Zack wanted to
do to her. “I don’t know where to start,” he told her
self-consciously. “Everything feels so different with you, and I
still can’t really believe you’re here.”

“
I’m here.” She tugged at
the button on his pants and smiled when it came loose. “And I have
a few ideas about where to start.”

“
Tell me about them.” Zack
slipped his fingers into her hair. “You showed me the hot fucking.
What did you imagine when you thought of taking it
slow?”

“
Do you want me to tell
you?” Her fingers got his pants open and she stroked her fingertips
lightly along his cock. “Or can I show you?”

He couldn’t tear his gaze from her face,
even as he gasped and thrust against her hand. “Whatever you want,
sweetheart. Both. Anything.”

She closed her hand around the base of his
cock, and her breath feathered over him as she spoke. “It starts
like this. With me on my knees, your cock in my mouth. And you’re
in control until I close my eyes…” Her eyelids fluttered shut. “And
I do this.”

Her lips closed around the head of his cock
as her magic flared. A vision took him, one of Iris in his bed, her
wrists bound above her head and her voice rising in hoarse, needy
whimpers as his tongue rasped over her clit.

The combined sensation of her hot mouth
around his cock and her fantasy in his head stripped him of
control, and a low groan ripped free of him. “Jesus Christ, Iris.
Fucking hell.”

She pulled back and stroked him. “You’d have
to tie me down, because I’m not very patient. I always want to go
faster and harder, but you could stop me. You could make me feel
every touch, every kiss. And when I couldn’t take it anymore…”

Her mouth returned, and this time the
fantasy was of her on her side with Zack curled around her, joined
but barely moving. One of his hands held both of hers trapped over
her head, and the other slipped between her legs as he accentuated
every slow rock with a teasing caress. His lips brushed her ear,
and he whispered to her, whispered how much he wanted her, how he’d
fuck her so slow and deep that she’d never want it to stop.

His head fell back with another curse and a
raspy groan. If she didn’t stop, he was going to hit his knees. He
gave her hair a firm tug and growled. “You know exactly what you’re
doing to me, don’t you?”

She moaned and pulled her lips
back again. “You said you wanted all of me. Can you
handle
all of
me?”

“
Could do it a lot better
if I didn’t have to stay on my feet.”

“
So put me where you want
me.”

She felt slight and delicate when he lifted
her in his arms and crossed to the bed. “Here.” Her dark hair
spread out over his pillows when he lowered her to the mattress.
“Look inside me again, Iris. See how badly I needed you here.”

Her fingers brushed his chest and settled
over his heart as her eyes drifted shut. He felt the tingle of
magic, and her lips parted on a soft noise, one of wonder and
longing.

Zack kissed her eyelids, her cheeks, the
corners of her mouth, and listened to her heart race in time with
his. “I love you, Iris. Ianthe. Whatever you want me to call
you.”

“
Yours. I want you to call
me yours.”

A familiar wave of emotion washed through
him, lust and love and longing, along with a completely new, almost
content, sort of possessiveness. “You’ve always been mine, Iris.”
He began to gather the worn silk of her nightgown, baring one leg.
“Always.”

She smiled slowly. “Leo told me a few years
ago that the sort of sins that damned my soul are so common now
that people hardly blink. Maybe he’s been right all along. Maybe…”
Her eyes drifted open and she lifted her fingers to touch his lips.
“Maybe you’re safe with me.”

“
You can’t hurt me, baby.”
And, even if she could, the hell of being without her would
outweigh anything she’d possibly put him through. “I’m tough, and I
know what’s right for me.”

“
You’re tough.” Her fingers
smoothed along his cheek and down his neck. “And you love me.
Hundreds of years, and you’re the only man who’s ever loved me.
You’re the only man I’ve ever loved.”

There was no way he was the first to love
her, but it didn’t matter. He’d be the one who counted. The one she
loved in return. “Kiss me, sweetheart.”

She curled her fingers around the back of
his neck and dragged him into a hot, drowning kiss, a kiss that
claimed him even as she gave herself to him with every soft
whimper, with every eager movement.

His hand reached the top of her thigh, and
he stroked his tongue over hers while his fingers searched and then
slid inside her. She moaned into his mouth, and Zack steeled
himself against the soft allure of her body. He could wait, all
night if he had to, to make sure he’d drawn forth and exhausted
every ounce of her pleasure.

Her body trembled as she tore her mouth from
his and panted against his cheek. “You’ve seen everything I want.
Tell me what you want. Tell me your fantasies.”

“
This is all I want,” he
rasped. “You, calling out my name when you come. Being inside you,
feeling you around my cock…” Need shuddered through him, and he bit
her neck. “Stay. That’s all I want.”

“
Zack.” It was a whisper,
soft and needy. Her breath tickled against his forehead as she
rocked up against his hand and said it again, and a third time. She
chanted his name as he lifted his thumb to rub her clit.

“
Come.” He alternated
gentle thrusts of his fingers with firm pressure on her clit, and
gritted his teeth when her body tightened around his
fingers.

She screamed his name when she came. Her
head dug back against the pillow as her eyes squeezed shut, and her
fingernails dug into his shoulders until they broke the skin.

Instinct took over, a drive more primal than
rational, and Zack settled between her thighs. He pinned her wrists
to the bed and thrust into her with a growl. He knew he must have
looked wild, almost feral, and even after everything they’d shared
that night, he half expected her to recoil.

Instead she moaned and dragged her legs up
his sides, urging him deeper. Her eyes drifted open and he saw
nothing there but acceptance, nothing but blind need. She licked
her lips and spoke in a voice gone hoarse. “You don’t have to do
this for me. I -- I think with you I’d even like soft and
gentle.”

“
This is what I like,” he
panted, his arms trembling with the effort his restraint cost him.
“This is what it means to be mine, Iris.”

He heard her heart skip a beat as she
offered him her throat in perfect, trusting submission. “Then give
us both what we want. Let go.”

He closed his teeth on her neck with a
tormented growl, then whispered against her skin. “I trust you,
Iris.” And he did, with everything he was, and every bit of his
heart.

He let go.

There was something vaguely sacrilegious
about the realization that she’d finally found Heaven, and for once
it wasn’t the fact that she was a demon. Zack’s fingers tightened
around her wrists and she thought for a moment that she’d come just
from the sheer thrill of being able to give up control to the man
she loved and know he wouldn’t be hurt.

Zack drove into her with another growl. “Say
it. Say you belong to me.”

The possession in his voice soothed all
those dark places inside her that had yearned for this, the places
that had never been satisfied by the fake submission she’d offered
the string of men she’d corrupted over the years. “All -- all of
me… All of me belongs to you.”

He lowered one hand to her leg and raised it
higher. This time, when he plunged into her, it was deeper,
sharper. “Again.”

It was hard to speak with her body trembling
on the verge of another orgasm. This time she could only manage one
word, but she let everything she felt show in her face as she
whispered it. “Yours.”

“
Fuck, Iris.” His lips
descended on hers, wild and bruising, and his pace quickened. Every
thrust came faster, harder, and his muscles tensed as his tongue
swept her mouth.

She wanted to revel in it, to
bask in the anticipation, but his next thrust snapped the tension
inside her and scattered it to the wind. She’d never come so many
times before, never come so hard or out of control, but she
could
feel
every spasm as she screamed into his mouth and gave herself
over to madness.

Zack closed his teeth on her neck as he
froze and then shuddered over her, a low growl rising in his
throat. He stayed like that, unmoving, though he braced his weight
carefully on his arms. “Jesus Christ.”

It took forever for the pleasure to fade
enough to speak. “I love you, Zack.”

He rolled over to his back, pulling her with
him. “I love you too. Feels like I’ve loved you forever.”

“
Me too.” She dropped her
cheek to his chest and closed her eyes, listening to his heart beat
strong and fast. “Do you… do you really want me to stay here? I
mean, in your apartment?”

“
Mmm.” He wove his fingers
through her hair. “I understand if you need more time, or your own
space. But, sooner or later, I would like it if you’d move
in.”

She felt a little guilty about the moment of
giddy relief that rose up inside her. The stubborn pride that had
kept her alive for so long had kept her from accepting Leofric’s
offers of assistance, but the barren, exhausting existence she’d
made for herself had started to take its toll. The only happy times
she’d had in recent years had been the ones in Zack’s apartment,
showing him how to prepare the absurd quantities of food he’d
bought with the intention of making sure she didn’t go hungry.

In the end it wasn’t even a question. She
turned her face just enough to kiss his chest. “I’m subletting that
apartment from Mrs. Carson, and I can give it up whenever I want.
If you helped me move my things over here, I’d never go back.”

Zack grinned even as he tugged her up for a
kiss. “I’ll take care of you, baby. I’ll make you happy.”

She wrinkled her nose before nuzzling it
against his cheek. “If you’ll teach me how to use a computer
everyone in my office will love you forever.”

He laughed. “I thought loving me
forever was
your
job.”

“
Mmmm. And it’ll be easy.”
She kissed his chin before settling back against his chest and
closing her eyes again. A sleepy peace crept over her as she
relaxed in his embrace. “I’m sorry I lied to you, Zack. I should
have trusted you to be strong enough.”

“
Me too, Iris.” He flashed her a
serious look. “I shouldn’t have stayed away just because I thought
you were human. I should have at least
tried
to make it work.”

She couldn’t even blame him for
being wary. If she
had
been human he never could have let go the way he wanted to,
the way he
needed
to. A human wouldn’t be curled on his chest now in a
post-orgasmic haze, not after the rough, primal sex that had called
to everything inside her. A human would be broken,
damaged.