Dark and Damaged: Eight Tortured Heroes of Paranormal Romance: Paranormal Romance Boxed Set (69 page)

She lifted those stunning peridot eyes to meet his and a touch of colour stained her cheeks, the blush only luring him deeper under her spell. He brushed the backs of his fingers across her cheek, feeling the heat of her on his skin, and relished the way her eyelids fell to half-mast and she leaned into his touch.

She slowly lifted her eyelids and her gaze was wicked as it drifted over his bare chest, passion darkening it and commanding him to satisfy her. She wanted him, and he would give himself to her. He would ruin her to all other men, so she would never want another.

He would make her belong to him.

Her eyes followed his hands as he skimmed his palms up her silky bare thighs, her breathing coming quicker as he slid them under her skirt, pushing it further up, exposing her cream knickers. He slipped his fingers into the sides of them and eased them down. She pressed her hands to the counter on either side of her hips and raised herself so he could remove her underwear.

His own heart beat harder as he pulled them down, revealing a neat thatch of dark red curls.

His cock jerked hard against the confines of his trousers, aching with a need to be inside her and feel her wet heat gloving him.

He focused on pulling her knickers down her legs, his gaze slowly shifting upwards, over her hips and then her chest as he gradually came to kneel before her. She looked down at him, her hands still grasping the edges of the counter, her eyes dark with need. They were no longer soft though. No longer tender nor submissive.

A command filled them.

One that thrilled him.

She tipped her head back, her eyes still locked on his, and he knew with every fibre of his being what she desired.

And he would give it to her.

He tossed her knickers aside, ran his hands up her slender calves to her knees, and gently parted them, revealing her to him. She moaned and he groaned with her, the sight of her plush petals glistening with moisture and the smell of her desire almost doing him in. He wanted to taste her, needed it like a starving man needed sustenance. He would drink from her, would devour her, and take a piece of her into him. A piece he knew would only make him crave her even more.

He caught her hips and pulled her right to the edge of the counter, until she was close to his face. His gaze held hers and she issued that silent challenge again, one that demanded he satisfy her.

Lucifer kept his eyes on hers, unable to tear them away, hungry to see her reaction as he dipped his head towards her. The moment his tongue flicked out and over her tight bud, she tossed her head back and moaned. Her lips parted sweetly, her wild auburn hair falling back from her shoulders and neck, exposing them to him.

He groaned and licked her, softly at first, eliciting breathless gasps from his little female. As he pressed harder, each stroke of his tongue firmer than the last, her moans grew louder, filling the room and seeming to fill him too, satisfying him as he satisfied her.

He growled and she shuddered, as if that sound born of hunger and need had satisfied her too.

Thrilled her.

Lucifer couldn’t hold back the possessive snarl that rumbled up his throat. He unleashed it as he licked her harder and delved lower, dragging her against his face and closing his eyes. He found her opening and thrust his tongue inside, and she jerked upwards, a sharp gasp leaving her before she sank back against him. He thrust again, mimicking sex, his thick cock throbbing with a need to be where his tongue was. She was tight and hot around him, tempting him into surrendering to that need to be inside her.

The soft rustle of material drew his gaze back up to her and he groaned as he swept back up to lick her tender nub, watching her as she unbuttoned her blouse and parted it. His pulse accelerated, his blood on fire as it rushed through his veins and he silently willed her to remove her clothing for him. He wanted to see her breasts. He wanted to devour their hard peaks as he made love with her.

She shirked her blouse, letting it fall behind her, and made fast work of her bra.

He had barely a glimpse of the dark pink buds of her nipples before she covered them. Tease. He swept his tongue harder over her clit, ripping another gasping moan from her, punishing her for being so wicked.

She punished him right back.

She took her nipples between her finger and thumb and rolled them, the look of bliss that crossed her face stopping him in his tracks and making him forget what he had been doing.

He shot to his feet and kissed her hard, bruising her lips with his, unable to control himself as the image of her touching herself filled his mind. He braced his hands against the mirror behind her, his fingers splayed against the cold glass, trapping her between his arms. She moaned and slipped her hands between their bodies, capturing his hips and then drifting lower. Her fingernails lightly scraped his skin as she traced the waist of his trousers, tearing a moan from him as he tackled her tongue with his own, driving her back into submission.

She refused to go.

Her fingers made swift work of his button and zipper, and he shuddered and moaned, his arms shaking as he braced his weight on the mirror, when she cupped his hard cock and wrapped her fingers around the rigid length. She groaned, her kiss growing fiercer as she lazily stroked him. Her thumb brushed the head, smearing the evidence of his need into the softer skin.

He couldn’t take it.

He growled at her, dropped one hand to her hip and the other to his cock, and pulled her towards him. She released him and leaned back, surrendering to him at last, and he stared down at his cock as she opened for him, parting her thighs wide to accommodate him. He ran the head of his length down her, groaning at the warm wetness and the promise of what was to come.

His gaze sought hers as he pressed inside her and he drank in the pleasure that flitted across her beautiful face. Her eyebrows furrowed, her lips parting on a whispered gasp, and her eyes closed as he eased into her. Inch by inch. She gloved him tightly, was so hot and wet that he trembled as he fought to stop himself from climaxing at just the feel of her around him.

His control shattered again as he reached the halfway point and he shoved deep into her, until he was fully seated, and could feel every inch of her and the way she trembled around him.

“Lucifer,” she murmured and he obeyed that command.

He clutched her hip in one hand, braced himself against the mirror with the other, and slowly eased out of her before sliding back in. She moaned and tossed her head back, and he swooped on her throat, devouring it with wet kisses and nipping it as he thrust into her with long leisurely strokes. Every inch of him screamed for more, demanding he take her harder and faster, ordering him to find the pleasure he wanted with her.

He ignored that pounding need, because he needed this more.

He buried his face in her throat and drove into her, drinking every gasping moan that left her lips and savouring how she clutched his shoulders, as if she needed an anchor in this moment and he was that for her. He would be anything for her.

He growled, screwed his eyes shut and increased the pace of his thrusts, his legs trembling as pleasure rolled through him. Her lips pressed against his shoulder, her kisses softer now, coaxing that gentler part of himself that he had forgotten existed but that he had found again in her arms.

She wrapped those arms around him, cradling him to her as he made love with her. He lowered both hands and held her to him, clutching her tightly as he thrust into her, losing himself as he found himself.

She moaned and her legs came up, sliding around his waist and her feet locking behind his backside. He shuddered and groaned as he slid deeper into her with each thrust and she tightened around him, her soft sighs pleading him for more.

More that he willingly gave to her.

He held her to him, crushing her against his chest as he thrust deeper, each stroke faster than the last. Her heart thundered against his, their pace matching as his breath sawed from him. Her rapid pants in his ear drove him on and he groaned as he gave himself over to desire again, to the pressing need beginning to fill him. He needed to feel her climax. He needed to hear her cry his name at the height of her pleasure.

Nina clung to him, her nails digging into his back and her feet pressing into his bottom, driving him forwards whenever he retreated. His wicked little female. She knew what she wanted and how to get it from him.

He grasped her hips and thrust faster, shallower strokes that struck as deep as he could go.

“More,” she uttered and he shuddered, his knees shaking as he obeyed.

He grasped the back of her neck with his right hand and kissed her, bending her to his will as he took her, making her feel every inch of him as he withdrew until he was almost free of her before driving back into her. She cried into his mouth, the desperate sound laced with purest pleasure. He snarled and pumped into her, not relenting, driving her higher with each fierce thrust.

She tangled the fingers of her right hand in his hair, clutching it so tightly that it hurt, and grabbed his shoulder with her other hand, her kiss frantic as she began to tremble.

She tightened, her body flexing around his cock with each deep plunge of it into her.

“Nina,” he groaned into her mouth and shoved into her.

“Lucifer!” She arched against him, thrusting her breasts against his bare chest, and tensed, every inch of her going rigid before she quivered around his cock, her thighs shaking against his hips with the force of her climax.

The feel of her milking his cock sent him careening over the edge with her and he shuddered and groaned, her name falling from his lips with each one as fire and lightning arced through him and he spilled himself inside her.

He sank against her and she cushioned him, her grip on him easing but not releasing him as she leaned back over the sink. His head came to rest on her shoulder and he sighed out his breath as he tried to bring himself down and settle his racing heart. She trembled around him, the aftershocks of her climax sending ripples of pleasure through him, echoes of his own.

Her left hand skimmed downwards and she was stroking the line of the thick ridge of scar tissue on his right shoulder before he realised what she was doing.

He tensed and she murmured softly, “I’m not going to ask about them.”

Lucifer closed his eyes, sighed out his breath, and relaxed against her. Her fingers lightly stroked the scars and his wings itched for freedom. He held them at bay, fighting them as he absorbed with awe the comfort that she could give him with only a soft caress. There was tenderness in that touch that floored him, left him speechless and reeling. He had never realised he could feel so relaxed, so at peace while someone was holding him like this.

While his guard was down and he felt as if he had been stripped bare.

Made vulnerable.

Not by making love with her, but by that simple light touch that ran up and down his shoulder.

No one had ever touched him like this.

With love and understanding.

With hope in their heart.

For millennia, he had known only the despair of others. He had relished their fear, their desperation and their pain. He had savoured their defeat.

Now he relished Nina’s affection, her tenderness and the care she showed to him. He savoured her hope, even when he knew she would never understand. She believed that she would.

She wouldn’t, and he couldn’t blame her. All he could do was steal every drop of her growing affection for him and hope it was enough to keep him going if she ever discovered the things about him he was beginning to want to hide from her forever.

He knew that she wouldn’t ask about the scars on his back. She would keep that promise until he was ready to tell her.

He wasn’t sure he would ever be ready.

Because he feared that if she knew what he was, who he was, that she would leave him.

She would take this away from him.

He had found heaven again in her arms.

He had found his home in her.

Nina had the feeling she had made a terrible mistake by sleeping with Lucifer, but she couldn’t bring herself to regret it. She ran her fingers through the short dewy grass, lost in the feel of the blades tickling her palms as she stared at the mountains opposite her. Time slipped through her fingers as easily as the blades as she thought about the man in the fortress at her back and watched the sunlight playing on the river.

Lucifer had been reluctant to leave her this morning after they had dragged themselves out of bed and eaten breakfast together. She had sensed his need to go somewhere, and had mentioned that she wanted to spend more time in the valley. His smile had been charming, a little boyish but touched with pride that had brought out her own smile. She had pleased him by desiring to visit this place of his creation.

He had made her feel it really was a place he had constructed and therefore controlled when he had walked her down the long black tunnel and opened the door for her.

It had still been night, and she had enjoyed the stars for a time with him, her standing in the valley but him inside the tunnel.

Their hands linked through the barrier that prevented him from joining her.

When he had announced that he needed to leave her but that she would be safe in the valley, she had asked him to change night back into day. While she loved the beauty of the valley at night and the stars that filled the heavens, she couldn’t stop herself from thinking about the sensation she’d had in the woods, the feeling that something was in the darkness watching her.

Lucifer had responded by drawing her into the tunnel with him, lifting their joined hands to his lips and pressing a kiss to hers. His eyes had sworn a promise to her that no one would ever hurt her, that she had no reason to fear because he was there for her. It had melted her, and she had wanted to hold that promise to her chest and take it into her heart, but a piece of her still feared the darkness.

So Lucifer had given her light.