Hammer Down: Children of the Undying: Book 2 (22 page)

He wanted to taste her. Take her. He’d been rock hard from the first swing, but his ability to hide his arousal behind a stern mask fractured a little more every time she moved. She was beautiful. Hard muscle and soft flesh and shaped like a fantasy given form.

“You’re staring.” The teasing words had barely left her lips when she pounced, one arm guarding her body as she aimed a quick punch at his throat.

He jerked aside at the last moment and caught her fist, closing his hand around her fingers. “Who wouldn’t?”

She laughed. “Someone who didn’t want to see me naked?”

“I ask again, who wouldn’t?”

“Plenty of people.” She gripped his hand and tugged him closer. “Is this one of those times you mentioned?”

The urge to spill her to the floor and cover her body with his own was one step short of unbearable. “Sex and violence?”

“Mmm.” She broke away and spun, kicking out behind her as she moved. Her heel landed on his thigh, and he snatched her by the ankle this time. Anyone else he would have dumped onto the floor, but even with need riding him hard, he couldn’t forget her injury.

Instead he used a little bit of halfblood speed and rushed her, releasing her ankle only to curl his fingers under her thigh and drag her body to his. His other hand landed on the delicious curve of her ass, and he hoisted her up along his body with a laugh. “You got a problem with that?”

“Hell no.” She wound her arms around his neck, her sweat-sheened skin sliding over his. “As long as you can keep them mostly straight where I’m concerned.”

“Once I flip to sex, violence doesn’t hold much temptation.” He hooked her leg over his hip and dropped to his knees, landing with her astride him, grinding down on his aching erection so sweetly he thought he might come in his damn pants.

Her teasing vanished, and she bit her lip, stifling a moan. “What does tempt you? This?” She rocked.

He caught her hips with a growl he couldn’t entirely help. “You keep that up, you might find out.”

Devi watched him for a few heartbeats, her eyes dark and hot but somehow still gentle. “Might? You have to do better than that, baby.”

It was like she’d given him permission, and he grabbed it with both hands. Luckily, the thick padding on the floor was soft enough that he didn’t worry about hurting her as he flipped her onto her back.

He claimed her mouth first, kissing her hard and deep and thrilling at the way she arched under him. She held him tightly, meeting his kiss with a desperation that matched his own.

Her hands began to drift. Her fingertips skated down his back, finally easing just under the waistband of his pants.

Zel reared up and caught both of her hands, pressing them back against the mat as triumph surged through him. “My turn to play.”

“It’s always your turn to play.” She wiggled under him. “Do I get a turn at all?”

Plenty of potential there. He skimmed his lips over her jaw and then to her ear. “Depends. What are you going to do?”

She pushed hard and flipped him over, straddling his hips. “I was thinking of blowing you.”

Blood pounded in his ears, though it was a minor miracle that he had any blood left above his waist with how damn hard she made him below it. “I think I like your thinking just fine.”

“I thought you might.” Her ponytail slid over her bare shoulder as she bent her head to his chest. She licked him, her tongue tracing careful, maddening circles on his skin. He gave in to temptation and buried his hand in the curly mass of her hair, savoring the feel as he wrapped it around his fingers.

She wasn’t shy, that was for sure. Not about what she wanted or what she’d take, and for once Zel had no problem relinquishing control to someone else.

Mostly. “You get off on teasing me, don’t you?”

“No.” Her teeth scraped the sensitive skin over his rib cage. “I get off on touching you.”

“That works out well, since I get off on being touched by you.”

“Lucky.” Devi began to untie the drawstring on his pants. “You should tell me more.”

It was impossible to think past the promise of that wicked mouth. “What do you want to hear? What I plan to do to you once my patience snaps?”

She didn’t answer, just knelt over his thighs and eased his pants off his hips. Then she simply
looked
, her hunger plain on her face. “You’re beautiful, Zel.”

The words burned through him. Broke down every wall he’d struggled to maintain, crashed into the darkness that thrived inside and remade him as a creature of need, demon and man in harmony for the first time. He wanted her with every part of him, and the sheer overwhelming relief of it was akin to release itself.

She caught his gaze and held it, smiling slowly as she closed her hand around his erection. “I could get used to that look.”

His voice rasped out of him. “Like I need you with everything in me?”

Devi slowly stretched out over him and touched her tongue to the head of his cock. “Like there’s no place you’d rather be.”

“Except in your mouth.” His hips thrust up without his permission, and he groaned. “Hell, woman, you’re killing me. You’re fucking killing me.”

“You can take it.” Her breath feathered over him, and then she ended the torment by sliding her lips around him.

That was an entirely different kind of torment. It was a week’s worth of fantasies in one sweet, sweet package, except his fantasies had lacked the sheer illicitness of having Devi go down on him in the training room. Every hot drag of her tongue twisted him tighter, until he found himself fighting his headlong rush to orgasm just to prolong the ecstasy.

She lifted her head, replacing her mouth with one stroking hand. “Whatever you need, Zel. Tell me, and it’s yours.”

He wound her ponytail more tightly around his hand, giving in to the lust that gripped man and beast alike. “Make me come.”

“Hard and fast,” she promised, her lips already brushing his aching cock again.

This time, there was no teasing in the way she sucked him, and nothing hesitant about the way his body reacted. He couldn’t have conjured the truth of her in any fantasy, couldn’t have painted this picture of her blazing tongue and wicked mouth and the way he’d pant and twist beneath her, torn between commanding and begging.

In the end, he didn’t have to do either. The perfection of her touch gathered quick heat at the base of his spine, a perfect pleasure that exploded as he clenched his fingers tight in her damnable ponytail and came with a shout.

When she finally sat up, her chest rising and falling with each panting breath, she smiled. “I could get used to that too.”

“Yeah?” It came out as a growl, and he didn’t try to curb the urge to flip her over. She landed on her stomach on the mats, and Zel braced one arm beside her head as he traced a path down her spine and over her ass. “You ready for what I’m going to do to you?”

“Depends.” She arched under his hands as she echoed his words, pressing her body close to his. “What are you going to do?”

He slid his fingers between her legs and almost groaned at the heat he could feel even through her workout clothes. “I’m going to play with you, sweetheart.”

She drew in a hitching breath and released it on a laugh. “How soundproof is this room?”

“In case you missed it while you were sucking me halfway to insanity, I just made a whole lot of noise and no one’s banging down the doors.” The pants were a barrier he didn’t want to deal with, so he slid his hand back to the waistband and dragged them down. “You can be noisy. With as hard as I plan to take you, I’d be insulted if you weren’t.”

Devi twisted, making it easier for him to pull off her pants. “Right here, on the floor?”

“Right here.” He got the fabric to her knees and left it, dragging his fingers back up her thighs until he could touch the slick, enticing flesh he ached to taste. “On the floor.”

She exhaled shakily and rocked back. “Good. I’m not sure I could make it all the way back to your room.”

His laugh rasped out of his throat as he worked two fingers into her, reveling in how good it felt to drive reactions from her, to listen to her unsteady breathing and quiet noises. He wanted to learn her, to know every spot that made her shake, made her tremble.

Made her
scream
.

The back of her head hit his shoulder, and her nails scratched furrows into the training mat. “Deeper, Zel. Right…there.
Fuck
.”

It was too soon for his cock to stir, but he hadn’t counted on the way she’d sound as she begged. He matched the rhythm of her hips with his hand and lowered his mouth to her ear. “Keep talking. Tell me what you need. Let me hear it.”

Her voice was husky, maddening. “I want your mouth on me. Your tongue.”

In the next second, he had her on her back and was thanking any gods that might exist that they were both barefoot. He tore her pants down and off before urging her thighs apart, so hungry for a taste that he felt half-mad as lowered his mouth and let the breath from his words stir over her. “Fast and hot? Or should I fuck you with my tongue for hours?”

She reached down, her nails pricking his shoulders. “If you want to see me lose control, do both.”

He could do that. With every sense filled with nothing but her and arousal singing in his veins, making him wild… Oh, he could do that.

Zel ate pussy like his life, his entire being, depended on it. He caressed every inch of her with his lips and tongue, soft and slow and rough and quick, everything in between. Not for a moment was it dainty or careful. Every lick and suck was firm, determined. Insistent.

Devi tried to hold still but squirmed anyway, her body reacting without conscious thought to the sensual onslaught. “Christ, Zel. Don’t stop.”

He didn’t. Large hands curled around her thighs, holding her open and helpless as he worked her with his mouth. He seemed to know exactly what she needed, when to delve deep and when to back off, pushing her ruthlessly toward release and then easing her back so she trembled on the edge.

She’d challenged him to do it, to make her lose control, but she hadn’t realized how easily he could. Something beyond desire and pleasure drove her to writhe under him, almost thrashing as he coaxed her to the brink of orgasm, only to deny her once again.

Devi groaned and clenched her fingers in his hair, pulling hard. “Dominic,
please
.”

His name on her lips turned him wild. He lifted his head and surged up her body. Strong fingers locked around her wrists as he slammed her hands to the mat on either side of her head, pinning her upper body as surely as the hard press of his hips pinned the rest of her.

For an endless moment his gaze roamed her face, hungry and savage, but in spite of the unyielding grip of his hands and the insistent press of his cock, grinding down against her, his voice held an endless gentleness as he whispered one word. “Now?”

“Yes.” She tried to move her hands, but he held them fast, and an illicit pulse of pleasure rocked her. “Please—God,
yes
.”

He’d taken her carefully before, clearly driven by some instinct to exercise caution while she was injured. Whatever had held him back was gone. His hips lifted, and he pushed into her with one long, claiming thrust.

Devi had hovered near release for an eternity, and that single thrust pushed her past the edge of reason. She screamed, shaking with the force of her orgasm…and desperate for more.

He gave her more, angling his hips so every plunge sank him deep as he growled his pleasure against her lips. His skin was hot on hers, his body solid and strong, and she opened her mouth to his.

He set a driving pace and she matched it, arching to meet each thrust. Never before had passion gripped her this fiercely, as if her need for him was just that—
need
.

“Devi.” Her name, laced with an emotion that transcended need into something base and wild. His teeth scored her lips as he shifted from hard thrusts to an unforgiving rock, one that centered delicious friction on her clit. “Come again, around my cock. Let me feel it.”

The words fell somewhere between a plea and a command, and she couldn’t deny him.

Devi clenched her hands around his and tried to tell him how good it was, but she didn’t have the breath. She couldn’t even scream, so she held on to him and gasped his name as the rest of the world slipped away, lost somewhere in the maelstrom of white-hot pleasure he’d created.

His hips drove against her one last time, pressing her down against the practice mats as he threw back his head with a rasping groan. His body pulsed inside hers, and she watched his face, rapt.

He stayed frozen above her until his arms began to tremble. Only then did he ease to the side, releasing her wrists in favor of grasping her hips and dragging her with him as he rolled onto his back. “Sweet Devi, you could make a man sin and a demon pray.”

She couldn’t resist one teasing nip at the hollow of his throat. “Pray for what?”

Low, intimate laughter curled around her as he thrust his fingers into her tousled hair. “To be good enough to have you again.”

The words filled her with an entirely different kind of warm pleasure. “You can have me. You can have me
lots
.”

“Yeah?” His other hand settled on her back. “Then maybe I’ll take you. Lots.”

Before she could reply, the locked door rattled from the force of someone pounding on the other side. “Zel! Zel, open it up. We’ve got a situation.”

Zel issued a string of curses that ended with a growled, “Fucking
hell
,” and eased her to the mat before coming to his feet in one graceful movement. “There had better be skins at the damn door,” he shouted as he yanked up his pants.

Devi scrambled for her clothes as terror displaced lazy, lingering pleasure. “You don’t think something happened to the crew, do you?”

“We’ll find out.” He strode to the edge of the room and waited until she’d dragged her shirt over her head before slapping his hand to the sensor, triggering the lock. The smooth metal door
whooshed
open and Lorenzo stood there, looking worried.

“It’s Hailey,” he said quickly. “The baby’s coming.”