Demon's Fire (16 page)

He gripped the arms of the chair to prevent himself from doing exactly that. He wanted to taste her arousal enough to cry.

“Tell me a story,” he said, literally hanging on by his fingernails. “Anything you like.”

She smiled dreamily, and suddenly the power was hers again. “Oh, no. You’re the mysterious demon prince. I think you ought to tell me one.”

“I need distraction.”

Her grin broadened. “Then I guess I’ll have to offer you an incentive for the questions you answer.”

Her sisters were right to call her the Fearless Philips. He watched her finger circle one nipple, which—unless his keen Yamish eyesight had forsaken him—bore a faint set of his tooth marks. He shivered, his desires pulling in two directions. To master or be mastered. To fuck or be fucked. Either one sounded blissful now. “What do you want to know?”

“Tell me why you look tired today.”

The compassion in her voice pulled his gaze from her breasts. “An old family issue has reared its head.”

“You have family?”

“I do. Or did you think I hatched from a serpent’s egg?”

She returned the smile he hadn’t known he wore. “You seem so independent I didn’t think of you as having ties.”

“I have one friend in all the world, and she’s in love with and married to a man I owe my life.”

He hadn’t meant to say it, and wished he could take it back the instant tears welled in her eyes. She blinked them away as quickly as a Yama would have, but when she spoke her voice was all human, the emotion that shaded it as vibrant as the shelves of silk outside.

“I don’t believe that’s true. I’d be your friend in a heartbeat.”

Her offer overcame him, until all he could do was hang his head and shake it hopelessly. Who but a human could be this unhesitating and sincere? And who but she could make his heart stop with emotion? His throat was immediately so thick he could not swallow.

“Tell me,” she said, on her knees before him, her hands gently covering his where they clutched the chair. She seemed to have forgotten she was naked. “Tell me the whole story.”

He sighed, the breath dropping from him like a weight he hadn’t known he carried. He turned his hands beneath hers so he could rub his thumbs across her knuckles. Her skin was soft, her energy warm. With another tiny sigh, he released his hold. It would be enough of a challenge keeping his emotions controlled without absorbing hers.

“Once upon a time,” he said, appropriating the human phrase with surprising ease, “I was married to a beautiful princess named Thallah…”

Beth knelt on the soft, patterned carpet, loving the excuse to stare at Pahndir this way. She listened, rapt, as he told her how he’d met his wife at a fancy party her parents had arranged to mark her sixteenth birthday. They’d held it in a lush green garden with ropes of pearls and diamonds dripping off the trees. To her, picturing it was better than a fairy tale.

“I was two and twenty,” he said. “Far too old to dance attendance on a girl her age. I had not, however, found the black of my eye yet, and my parents were insisting I meet every possible candidate. The first time an adult royal male’s eyes go black, it can only be for his genetic mate. As it turned out, Thallah was mine. She came to thank me for my present—a pair of antique gloves, as I recall—and I swear I thought my body had caught on fire. Laying eyes on her was like being struck by lightning bolts of lust. I remember taking at least thirty seconds to stutter, ‘You’re welcome.’”

“And she liked you, too?”

“She did, though Infinity knew why. She had other princes after her, from better families, at least one of whom she could have matched closely enough. I was lucky she chose me. I’m what they call a solitary, and she was the only one for me.

“We waited three years to marry, until her parents thought she was old enough. By that time, my father had died unexpectedly, and I’d inherited leadership of my house. I was young for it, and while I had the intelligence to oversee the Shan businesses, I didn’t know how to command respect. My various siblings and cousins circled me like sharks until Thallah put her foot down with them. She defended me. She watched my back against everyone.”

Beth laid her cheek against his knee, trying to imagine him needing this. He seemed the quintessence of command to her, even with his hand falling to pet her hair.

She suspected he’d tried to stop touching her before. She was selfishly glad he’d forgotten to keep it up. She loved this sense of connection.

“Thallah and I were married fifteen years,” he said. “I thought we were as happy and as close as any couple in the world. I thanked Fate every day I woke up beside her, for sending me a mate who suited me body and soul.”

“And then?” Beth said, her hand curling protectively around his leg. She willed her touch to bring him nothing but comfort.

“And then,” he said, “I returned one evening to our palace after a business trip. I was in a hurry. We had a party to attend that night, and I needed to shower and dress. I called out to her, didn’t even stop to see her before I stepped into the bath. When I came out, I found her lying on our bed. She was dressed in a pale pink gown, which she knew was my favorite color for her to wear. Her hair was perfect, her jewels…” He shook his head, one fist rubbing his thigh. “She was dead, Beth. She’d taken pills, too many for it to have been an accident. She’d been lying there dead for hours.”

His eyes were haunted, his pupils shrunken to pinpricks.

“Did she leave a note?”

He drew a ragged breath, pulling himself together. “She didn’t, but it wouldn’t have been expected. It’s unusual for a Yama to commit suicide—disgraceful, to tell the truth. I suspect Thallah thought it would be crueler to explain why she killed herself.”

“You think it was your fault? Pahndir, that can’t be!”

He smiled at her, a sad little crooking of his lovely mouth. “It could be, Beth. Things happen in a marriage. You believe the other person doesn’t mind, but maybe they do. I’m afraid I’ll never know for sure.”

“I don’t believe it. If she loved you as you say she did—”

“But maybe she
didn’t
love me as I thought. Maybe she grew tired of protecting me. I was…flawed. I didn’t take her death well, to put it mildly. My family gave me a year to conquer my grief. When I couldn’t, they had me declared legally incompetent.”

Beth squinted up at him. “You mean ‘incompetent’ as in ‘insane’?”

“Excessive grief is a form of insanity to my people.”

He appeared so calm as he said this that she felt obliged to swallow her protests. This was his culture. Perhaps it wasn’t her place to judge.

“Is that why you came to Bhamjran? Because you were thrown out by your family?”

He snorted through his nose. “I wasn’t just thrown out. My behavior was so shocking they decided they’d better declare me dead before my taint rubbed off on the whole bloodline. Another of my cousins, Muto Feng, arranged for them to fake my death in an accident. Then he had me imprisoned in a pillow house, which is where—willingly or not—I became an expert in my current trade. I’d still be there if Cor Midarri hadn’t broken me out.”

“A pillow house?”

His eyes took on a gleam of wry humor. “For six long years I was a teaching tool. The madame used me to train her courtesans in pleasing royal males.”

The air was abruptly thicker in Beth’s lungs, a tiny tapping between her legs reminding her of the blood flowing to her sex. The words he’d said their first night together came back to her. “They needed to use you because royal Yama are different. Because only royals go into heat.”

He’d taken her face in his hands, his thumbs stroking lines of warmth up her cheekbones. “Only royals go into heat, and only their genetic match can bring them to ejaculation. Or so I thought, until I met Xishi.”

It was hard to be jealous with his silver eyes burning down at her. “Xishi?”

“The woman who eventually married Cor Midarri. She was one of the students. Unbeknownst to everyone, she’s one-quarter human. I came when I was with her, truly came for the first time in the seven years since Thallah’s death.”

“That’s why you want me? Because you think—” She swallowed, arousal blazing through her in a nipple-tightening wave. “Because you think a full-blooded human could help you spend?”

His hands slid down her face to her neck, the movement slow and sensual. His gaze dropped to the caress, each of his lashes iridescent and mink-black. “Not just any human: you. You call to me, Beth. To all of me. I would want you even if I didn’t think you might be able to give me a full release.”

She sat deeper on her heels, trying not to be stunned by what he’d revealed. She knew it wasn’t common for Yama to be this frank. He let her search his eyes, seemingly patient while she decided what to make of his tale.

“You’re older than I thought,” she said, which maybe wasn’t polite.

The skin around his eyes softened. “You know Yama live longer than humans.”

“And age more slowly, yes.” She put her hands over his, stilling them on her neck. “Do I remind you of her?”

“Of Xishi?”

She laughed dryly, seeing she’d set herself up very neatly for that. “I meant Thallah. Because she was younger than you when you met.”

He drew his hands away, resting them on his own thighs. “You don’t remind me of either of them. Thallah was far more serious than you, and Xishi is far more sweet.”

“Oh, thank you very much!”

“I’m not saying this correctly. You have…you have some of the qualities I admired in both of them, but you are your own flavor. Possibly you are too young for me—”

“I didn’t say that,” she protested, still laughing. “I’m twenty-four, the same age as Charles.”

“I like hearing you laugh,” he said as if he couldn’t explain it any other way. “It makes me feel good inside.”

For someone who liked her laugh, he looked awfully sad right now. That, however, hadn’t dimmed his desire for her. His cock stood straight in his lap, the broad, damp head throbbing beneath his robes. His organ seemed bigger than before, taller than her hand, a prodigy of a phallus that made her insides squirm. She wasn’t afraid the way she should have been. She wanted to touch him through the beautiful salmon silk, wanted to stroke him and lick him and do whatever he required to achieve his cure. She realized she felt
important
—which might not have been the best reason to become involved with a man.

It didn’t seem any more appropriate to dwell on the fact that he’d certainly be strong enough to satisfy her mysterious new longings, or that going all night with him might be exactly what her body was crying for.

But she’d left the prince too long without a response. His face went from sad to stiff and dignified.

“I see you do not wish to explain your feelings. Please forgive me for pressing you.”

“No,” she said, touching his knee hastily. “You call to me, too, Pahndir. In more ways than I can count. I’d be honored to find out if I could…be what you hope.”

“You don’t have to be honored.”

“Isn’t it an honor, though? When people trust one another with their desires?”

Her hands slid up his thighs, preparing to part his robes and claim the object of her fantasies. Before she could, he clamped her wrists in his. The sudden change of mood surprised her. His grip was tight enough to hurt.

“Don’t,” he said as harshly as if he were human. “Touch me now, and I’ll fuck you right on the floor. Touch me now, and I won’t let you go for hours.”

Her fingers curled against his thighs. His muscles were tense and hard here, and she longed to argue in the worst way.

“Trust me, Beth,” he insisted. “You’ll want to be alone with me for this.”

She knew he was right, but her body was afire to have him now.

“Take me home then,” she said as roughly as he had. “We’ll do this as you wish.”

The hot black lust that flashed across his eyes was almost reward enough for the delay.

Beth couldn’t tear her gaze from Pahndir’s darkly handsome face, or her thoughts from the consummation that lay ahead.
He
arranged for the pile of untried clothes to be delivered to Herrington’s mansion.
He
led her to the intersection where he hailed the electric cab.
He
told the bored female driver where to go. His presence of mind aside, Pahndir was breathing more deeply than normal, though not so deeply others would have noticed. No, all they would see was his cool demon face and eyes. His excitement was Beth’s secret—Beth’s delicious, sensual secret.

When he caught her watching him, his perfect, rose-colored lips went thin. “Stop looking at me like that.”

She smiled and slid her hand under his, thrilling to the way his fingers immediately curled around hers.

His frown deepened. “I’m not making love to you in a cab.”

He sounded like she could entice him to if she tried. Hugging the knowledge to her, she swiveled toward him and leaned her cheek against the seat’s tobacco-scented leather.

She relaxed there, enjoying her body’s anticipation, until she realized where the hansom was taking them.

“We’re going to Herrington’s house, to the
haveli
.”

“You’ll be missed, Beth. And you were right to remind me of your relative youth. I don’t want Herrington to hunt you down and embarrass you.”

“That’s my concern, not yours!”

“Beth—”

“Damn you.” She swept his hands from her shoulders, where they’d been trying to soothe her. “You’re a beast to change your mind after what you said to me in that shop.”

“Believe me, I’d rather do exactly as I threatened.”

She slitted her eyes at him. “If you tell me this is for my own good, I swear I’ll slap the words out of your mouth.”

Her temper seemed to take him aback. “It’s only a postponement. Until I’m certain we won’t be found out.”

Her body boiled with more than anger. He’d promised her fulfillment, and she bloody well wanted it. What’s more, it was her right. She swung one leg across his lap, her grip at the top of his arms far less conciliatory than his had been. Though Pahndir gaped at her aggression, the advantage it gained her was debatable. The muscles she squeezed in her fury were hard enough—not to mention male enough—to goad her arousal infuriatingly higher.

“No,” she growled at him through her clenching jaw. “No more waiting. You’re not the only one who wants things, and you’re not the only adult here.”

The hansom rattled to a halt outside Herrington’s tall town mansion. Pahndir shot a glance out the window and wet his lips. He seemed nervous, unsure of his own resolve. He was certainly aroused enough to be swayed. Beth could feel the evidence of that radiating heat between her parted thighs.

“You two getting out?” the female cabbie prompted. “Because I have to charge you for sitting here.”

What would Tou do in my place?
Beth asked herself. Not give up, she was convinced. No, Hhamoun’s queen would demand she be satisfied.

“There’s a plunge bath next to the garage,” she said, her attitude as firm as Pahndir’s was undecided. “It’s big enough to swim in, and no one uses it but me. You could join me. Take your fill and then slip out with no one the wiser.”

Pahndir’s hands tightened on her waist as if tempted to pull her closer. “It’ll be five days before I can take my fill of anyone.”

A hot, wet quiver ran through her private folds. He had to mean his heat was five days away. A confidence that did seem oddly regal swelled in her breast. He was putting this off because he feared it would torment him, not just because he was protecting her. Knowing that, the kind thing would have been to respect his wishes, but Beth couldn’t quite let the matter be.

“I want you inside me now,” she said softly. “If you don’t share that desire, I’ll do my best to understand, but I don’t want you contacting me again until you’re ready to live up to your promises.”

“But I like being with you.”

The protest took her by surprise, and maybe him as well. He shook his shoulders and sat up straighter on the seat.

“I like being with you,” he repeated more calmly, setting his face into sterner lines. “This isn’t just about having sex.”

His words turned her heart to mush. She would have agreed to any postponement then—and Tou’s example be damned. Fortunately, she didn’t have to, because he lifted her gently off him and handed the driver her fee. His movements were brisk as he pushed out the door and offered his hand to her.

“Come,” he said. “I don’t want us seen together here.”

She didn’t question why this concerned him more than it did her. She simply took his hand and grinned blindingly.

The plunge bath was a cavernous room, tiled from floor to ceiling in intricate blue-and-white patterns. Before Herrington moved in, it had probably been lit with candles, but at present brilliant electric lights were rigged to its roof by wires. Bereft of windows, the bath took up all the space beneath the mansion that the garage did not. Its tiles were sparkling, so someone kept it clean, but it did indeed have the air of a little-used luxury.

Pahndir let Beth point him to the changing room. Despite his worldliness, he was glad for the privacy.

He needed time to wrestle his fears into submission.

Physically, he was more than ready to do this. Emotionally, not as much. Many times when he’d been a prisoner at the pillow house, Xishi had brought him into heat early. The idea that Beth could do the same concerned him. What if this encounter became the Test of Tests, and he discovered he couldn’t truly come with her? Then again, if Beth could bring him into heat ahead of schedule, she ought to be able to inspire an ejaculation, too. Surely the universe wouldn’t be so cruel as to give her one power and not the other.

Unconvinced that the universe harbored much kindness where he was concerned, Pahndir felt a bit of a wreck as he stepped naked into the main room. Beth was in the pool already. She stood facing him, her hands paddling lightly on the wavering surface. The water covered her breasts, deep enough to swim in but not to dive. Adrenaline flooded, tingling, through his veins as he descended the shallow steps. He had to use the brushed nickle handrail to pretend his shaky knees were firm. Chances were he was insane to be doing this, but—Creation help him—he wanted her.

Beth appeared to feel the same. Flatteringly dumbstruck, her gaze traveled his body from face to chest to pounding groin. There her attention stopped. Only the rising water level wrenched her eyes from his erection, until he longed to flush as deeply as she was.

He was in a position to know that humans and Yama were born with a similar range of genital sizes, the sole exception being royals. For good or ill, they were bigger, and became more so as their heats approached. Only the most skilled of princes could take a human woman without hurting her.

“I’ll be gentle,” he said, pushing through the water with his heart nearly choking him. “I know you’re inexperienced.”

She hardly seemed to hear him. As soon as he reached her, her hands settled on his chest above his nipples, her fingers wet and humming with energy. He stiffened when they kneaded restlessly into his flesh, the tiny movement affecting him as strongly as if she’d stroked lower things. Indeed, his “lower things” were jerking uncontrollably. When her lashes lifted, her eyes were dazed.

“Be as gentle as you want,” she said. “Just don’t make me wait anymore.”

Her breathy voice destroyed him. He lifted her, felt her thighs part beneath the water to wrap his waist. He slipped one hand down to cup her bottom, and suddenly his tip was trembling at her gate.

He gasped at the sensation of that first contact, but she did more: She groaned and used the strength of her legs to pull herself down on him.

He had one brief moment to marvel at the ease with which he slid into her slick channel. After that, he was too inundated with pleasure to wonder who had been here before him. She was so warm around him, so snug and perfect and strong, her human energy seeping into every cell of his penis. She took all of him, tightly but without resistance, from thickened root to quivering crest, as if she had a Yama’s ability to shift her sheath for extra-large partners. Large he was, his too-stretched skin on fire with sensitivity. It felt so good to be surrounded that he began to thrust almost at once, if only to convince himself these amazing sensations were real.

To his relief, her reaction to his movement was favorable.

“Oh, God,” she moaned, her head falling back to trail her auburn hair across the water. “Oh, yes, I needed that so much.”

“Smaller strokes,” he said, fighting to keep his voice decently steady, gripping her hips to control them. “You don’t want to lose your lubrication to the pool. We’re going to be at this a while.”

He wondered if he’d been too blunt for a human female. Her head came up and she blinked at him. But something made her smile. She leaned to him, winding her arms more securely around his neck. The simple but powerful gift of holding her naked washed over him.

“I don’t think I can lose my lubrication,” she confided. “My body keeps making more.”

He swore in his own language, swore and began to shaft her the way he’d dreamed of since he’d first seen her in the market square.

He took her with a potency that awed her, though she’d known his kind was stronger than hers. The ease with which he brought them together, the sheer force he commanded with his very talented fingertips, thrilled her more than she had breath to say.

He didn’t stop when he came like Charles had. He kept going and going, despite how many times she felt him stiffen in climax. She lost count of her own orgasms, though she knew they’d started kissing sometime after the fourth.

As clever as his mouth was, kissing him should have been a distraction, but after her too-short time with Charles she found herself motivated to pay attention to everything. Her nerve endings seemed to make a record of each caress, each thrust and squeeze and skin-ruffling sigh. She hadn’t expected her sheath to be so sensitive. If other women liked this act half as much, she didn’t see how they let their husbands leave the house. This sex business was amazing: a work of genius from a higher realm.

The best part might have been that her enjoyment spurred his higher—the effect, she supposed, of her orgasmic energy flaring over him.

Whatever the cause, each peak loosened him a little more, until he touched her as tenderly, as passionately as any woman could desire. His spine relaxed beneath her caresses, its movements both freer and more adamant. This was a change Beth couldn’t pretend not to revel in.
Gentle
was definitely not what either of them needed. Lost to rapture, Pahndir’s groans began to echo off the ceiling tiles.

“This feels so good,” he moaned, one hand stroking down her back possessively. His hips rolled as smoothly as if they’d been oiled, his thighs apparently tireless. “I never want to stop taking you.”

“It doesn’t—” She gasped as he forged into her again. “It doesn’t bother you that you can’t spill?”

“I feel the relief of each orgasm, even if I’m not softening.”

“And my energy?”

“Oh, yes,” he agreed throatily, his head dipping to nip the bend between her neck and shoulder. “That might be the best part of all.”

Talking about what he was feeling seemed to excite him more, maybe because his kind normally didn’t express such things. Beth swore she felt his shaft grow harder, though logic should have said this was impossible.

“Fuck,” he breathed, which seemed to confirm her impression. His fingers clamped on her bottom. “I need more leverage. I’m carrying you to the steps.”

The water splashed as he laid her down, her breasts now rising above the waves their thrusting bodies were making. His gaze fell to her nipples, sharp as pebbles with her arousal. That and the change in pressure immediately made her arch. Her body did something she didn’t think she had voluntary control over, her inner muscles stretching somehow, struggling to accommodate the bit more of him there was now.

She groaned as she felt him reach
all
the way into her. His cock-head struck some unsuspected sensitive spot deep inside, and it was like a gong had been rung. The sensations were softer, thicker than those he created farther out, and almost unbearably erotic. This was true penetration. This was being pierced to the core.

“Don’t come,” he cautioned, clearly feeling her tighten. “Hold off as long as you can and make this one really strong.”

She’d thought all her orgasms had been strong, but of course he’d know better than she would. Unfortunately, the very idea of holding back made her wriggle hungrily.

“Breathe,” he said, his silver eyes smiling. “Breathe through the tension and relax.”

He seemed to know exactly what she was feeling, as if he’d reached into her mind and read it all. The suspicion stripped her defenses, until holding his gaze felt painfully intimate. She was in his hands, a newcomer to this act in which he was expert. As if emotion could flow in both directions through their energy, she sensed his gratitude for her trust, his banked excitement at her vulnerability. In many ways, he was a stranger and yet, in that moment, with their gazes locked together, he seemed as close to her as her own soul. His lips softened and curved fondly.

“When you go over, so will I,” he promised. “If you make me wait long enough, you might hear me scream.”

Oh, she wanted that, too much to laugh at the suggestion.

“Scream then,” she whispered, rippling muscles she hadn’t known she had to tug at him.

He went at her so hard then he should have hurt her, but the pounding felt good. Water surged up her body with his big, rolling movements, and she couldn’t doubt where harem dances had come from. He was the dancer, she the extremely willing captive audience. He held her bottom, lifting it for the angle his cock desired, while his other hand cradled the back of her head. Despite his care, it was she who saved her skin from the friction of the concrete steps, her arms flinging out to grip the handrail and the marble coping with surprising strength.