Base Instincts (4 page)

What. The. Fuck.

His mind kept replaying the alley scene in vivid detail, and with every passing second, his body heated more, his breathing grew more rapid, and his cock throbbed harder. He knew very well what arousal was, but this . . . this was different than anything he’d ever experienced. This wasn’t need. It was
want
, and on a level he couldn’t have comprehended before now.

As he sucked in panting breaths, he heard soft footfalls. Fayle. Shit. Schooling his expression, he pushed away from the door, but the look on the succubus’s ageless face told him she already knew what was going on.

“You aren’t due for a release for another four hours,” she said. “Which means
some male
got you all worked up.”

Gods, she was so freaking possessive. And the really fucked-up thing about it was that she didn’t even want Raze. At least, not for a relationship. They’d been together for nearly thirty years in a symbiotic partnership that operated on mutual respect and friendship, but there was no intimacy, no touching, no kissing, not since the day they’d met. There were no romantic feelings between them at all. That was fine with Raze, and it was exactly what he wanted from her, but sometimes the way she controlled and coveted the things she considered to be hers got frustrating.

“I thought you were out for the day,” he said, hoping the residual lust in his voice wasn’t as obvious to her as it was to him, but that was wishful thinking, and deep down, he knew it.

Fayle stood on the bright-yellow rug in the living room, her arms crossed under breasts that every straight man ogled no matter what she was wearing. “I went out to buy another suitcase. Now I’m packing.”

Raze held back a groan. Not this again. “Fayle, we’re not moving.”

One dark eyebrow cocked and her mouth tightened into a stubborn line as she stared at him. He met her silence with a refusal to engage further, moving to the fridge for a soda instead. As he popped the top off a bottle of root beer, he heard her curse softly. A moment later, she was in front of him in the kitchen, her fingers reaching for the fly of his pants.

“Let me take care of you.”

He stepped back. “I’m fine.”

She huffed. “You aren’t fine. You’re pale and sweating.”

“I haven’t hit the point of no return.” He skirted around her to head toward the living room. “This will pass.”

Fayle followed. “How far did you get with him?”

Not far at all, which was why this sucked so much. Raze was way more turned on than he should be. “Far enough, apparently.”

Knowing he couldn’t escape her, he halted at the threshold to the living room, which Fayle had decorated in glaringly bright colors. She hated subdued, natural tones, which meant that everything around her looked like a box of crayons had exploded.

She came around in front of him and shoved her straight black bangs away from her eyes. “Why didn’t you bring him up here?”

“I already told you. I thought you were gone.” As a Seminus demon, he needed sex or he would die, but he couldn’t get off with males, which meant that if he wanted to have sex with one, he needed a female to be present. Fayle had accommodated Raze’s desire for males on occasion, but she made life hell for him for months afterward and for the most part, he’d resigned himself to the fact that he couldn’t have what he wanted. That he could never have a relationship with a male, even for casual sex.

“Well, now I’m back.” She gestured to her bedroom. “Maybe you can help me pack my things, and then we can box up yours.”

Sighing, Raze sank down on the couch and threw his feet up on the coffee table. “I’m tired of moving, Fayle. I finally have a job I like. Friends. A life. I’m happy.”

Well, mostly. There was a hole inside he couldn’t fill with work. Or friends. Or sex. And every time he felt a glimmer of attraction for a male, the hole got bigger. Even now, after those few minutes with Slake, it was as if the hole had become a bottomless pit, magnifying and echoing his loneliness.

Fayle made a sound of long-suffering impatience. “You know my species is nomadic. I’m going crazy. We’ve already been here for a year longer than I wanted to be. We need to go. I was thinking . . . Tokyo. Or Manila. We’ve never lived in Manila. I hear there’s a pretty good sex scene happening there.”

As a succubus who fed on the sexual energy of those engaging nearby, Fayle liked densely populated areas. Naturally, Raze preferred the exact opposite.

“I said no.”

A blast of anger hit him in a psychic wave that made his brain hurt. Fayle never had learned to control her emotional outbursts. “Maybe I’ll go without you.”

She’d made that threat before—several times, in fact. Eventually, his gratitude for the fact that she’d saved his life by helping him through his sexual transition won out and he’d always given in, even though he was pretty sure she wasn’t serious. This time, though, the anger accompanying her words was different. More intense. Maybe she wasn’t bluffing.

And maybe he wasn’t, either.

He snared the remote and turned on TV. Ooh, maybe Dr. Phil could help. Ten seconds later, he realized Dr. Phil could only help if Raze’s problem was a controlling mother-in-law and a drug-addicted kid.

“Well?” Fayle tapped her foot on the concrete floor. “Do I have to go by myself?”

“Do what you have to do.”

She moved to stand in front of the TV, blocking Dr. Phil and the guest’s heroine-addled douche of a son.

“How dare you?” she snapped. “After I saved your life? After I spent the last thirty years giving you what you need to stay alive?”

“I’m grateful, Fayle.” Meeting her gaze, he leaned forward, hoping she’d believe his sincerity. “You know that.” He’d only said as much a zillion times. “But I can get sex from other females. I’ve never forced you to stay with me.”

He had to admit, though, that having a permanent partner made his life a lot easier. Most unmated Seminus demons had to scrounge up a partner every few hours. Fayle had made herself available to Raze anytime he needed her since he’d turned twenty and she’d helped him through his first stage of maturation, when he could have died without her.

“You are such a bastard,” she snapped. “I don’t believe you’re grateful.”

He blew out a long, frustrated breath. They had this argument more often than any other. If he didn’t tell her constantly that he was grateful for everything she’d done, she threw godawful temper tantrums.

“I thank you every single day,” he said.

“Words.” She waved her hand in dismissal. “I want action. Move with me.”

“See, that’s the problem.” He looked down at the floor between his spread legs and shook his head. “I’d be more than happy to move, but that’s not what you want. You want me to quit my jobs too.”

“To prevent anyone from tracking us. You know how much I’m risking by being with you.”

He lifted his gaze sharply, unable to believe she just said that. “Actually, no, I don’t. Every time I ask, you shut down or change the subject. So how about, after thirty fucking years of being together, you tell me what will happen if your people find you?”

Her chin came up and the stubborn came out. “It’s private.”

Standing, he slammed the bottle of root beer on the coffee table, splashing liquid onto the shiny surface. “Everything is private with you. I don’t know anything about your species. I don’t know anything about your family or your life before we got together. So maybe it’s about time you stopped expecting me to roll over every time you tell me to, just because you
saved my life
.”

Fury turned her face red. “You . . . you . . .”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m a bastard. A bastard who’s supported you financially and emotionally for the last three decades. I even do all the cooking. You wander around sucking up sexual energy from people, and sometimes you pick up a few things at the grocery store. So stop acting like I deny you anything.”

The muscles in her jaw leaped angrily as she ground her molars. “I’ve saved your life more than once,” she bit out. “You always seem to forget that. And I keep you alive every day.” She cast his groin a pointed glance and then shot him a wicked smile that made his balls shrivel. “But tonight, I think I’ll let you be reminded of how much you need me.”

With that, she stormed off to her bedroom. His cock throbbed, as if it knew what had just happened. He’d need sex in about four hours or pain would set in. Which meant Fayle would wait to come to him until he was desperate enough to beg.

Oh, sure, he could find himself another female fairly quickly. Thirst was crawling with horny demons, vampires, and humans who would respond to the pheromones his body would be throwing out like a drug. But he didn’t want to screw strange females. Hell, he didn’t even want Fayle, but at least with her, there was no pretense, no messy seduction, no awkward postcoital conversation.

Unfortunately, what he wanted was something he couldn’t have.

And for some reason, Slake’s face popped into his head, the poster boy for Can’t Have.

His cock throbbed again.

The fucker.

The Big Boss’s office at Dire & Dyre Hong Kong was, to the untrained eye, plush, extravagant, and elegant. Slake doubted a single speck of dust would dare to settle on any of the polished surfaces.

But to those who knew better, the office was a sinister dungeon filled with lethal traps and ensorcelled relics that could melt eyeballs, hypnotize the unsuspecting, or boil a person’s blood in their veins.

That Ming vase on the bookshelf across from where Slake was sitting? Sure, it was priceless, but it also contained the ashes of a Charnel Apostle that, if sprinkled in the flame of the black candle next to it, would drain a hundred years off the life of the nearest demon.

The painting of the cherubic baby angel with the sweet smile on the wall behind the Big Boss? Yeah, with a whispered command, the angel’s eyes would light up with heat that steamed the skin off its intended victim.

Slake was always pretty uneasy in the room.

Not, of course, that he showed any sign of being nervous. Nope. In fact, he made a point of casually lounging in the uncomfortable wooden chair across from the Big Boss. Frank Dire, humans called him—humans who were clueless about the fact that he was
ter’taceo
, a demon in a human suit. To his inner circle, he was Dyre, and he was as evil as anyone Slake had ever known.

He was, all by himself, Dire & Dyre. He was Dire
and
Dyre, and when human clients demanded meetings with both “partners,” he had the ability to replicate himself for short periods of time, but only after sacrificing an innocent. The dude was a definite five on the Ufelskala scale of evil.

“So.” From across the polished mahogany desk the size of a freaking pool table, Dyre stared at Slake, his dark irises ringed by glowing scarlet. The demon inside had come out to play today. Not a good sign. “You haven’t completed your assignment.”

“I’m close.” Slake eased back in the chair even more and crossed his booted feet at the ankles, the very picture of
everything’s cool
. “I’ve tracked her to a vampire club in New York. She’s been seen in the company of a certain male.”

The neutral expression on Dyre’s deceptively handsome face didn’t change. “Her species is parasitic. Did she attach herself to that male?”

“Unclear. But I’m working on finding out.” If she had, it was possible that Raze would sense if she were in trouble. And a kidnapping probably counted as trouble.

Dyre picked up a gold pen and began flipping it between his fingers. Slake tensed. The guy was the most dangerous when he appeared the most casual. “The client has been very patient.”

Slake slid a glance at the angel painting. No melty eyes. So far, so good. “The client didn’t provide a lot to go on.”

“You’ve never needed a lot to go on,” Dyre countered. “You’re one of Dire & Dyre’s best hunters. So why is it taking you so long to track down one parasitic succubus?”

Gods, he was impatient. “It’s only been a month—”

“You have one week to complete your assignment.”

Slake shot out of his chair. “One . . . week? That’s bullshit! I was supposed to have until the end of next month.”

“The clients moved up the timeline.”