Ruby Shadows (13 page)

“
Touch me how?” I asked, still reluctant to go to him. “What
are you going to do? I need to know.”

“
Simply caress you.” His eyes were heavy-lidded with lust and
his voice was soft and deep. “Come, Gwendolyn—don’t fear me. I will
never hurt you, I swear it.”

“
And if I let you do this—if I let you touch me—we’ll be able
to get on the ferry and go across?” I demanded, crossing my arms
over my chest.

He nodded. “Exactly
so. Come.”

At last I came
to him and stood in front of him. I couldn’t meet his eyes
though—instead, I stared down at my little black shoes.

“
All right, here I am. Go ahead,” I muttered.

Laish sighed. “May I remind you that you must be a willing
participant in this? It is
you
who are paying the toll—not me.”

“
But I don’t know how to do that.” My heart was pounding but I
made myself look up at him anyway. “I don’t know how to…to make
myself willing.”

“
I
c
an help you,”
Laish pulled me into his arms and nuzzled my neck, pressing a hot,
open-mouthed kiss to the sensitive skin of my throat.

I couldn’t
help the shiver that ran through me. Goddess help me, I knew it was
wrong but I wanted him to do this. It was scary and dangerous and
absolutely sinful but I just couldn’t deny it—his touch felt
good.

I thought he would
continue kissing me but then, to my surprise, Laish turned me
gently in his arms so that my back was pressed to his front.

“
It’s all right,” he murmured in my ear, running his big, warm
hands up and down my shivering bare arms. “I won’t hurt you,
Gwendolyn. I wish only to bring you pleasure.”

He was doing a
pretty good job of it already, and he hadn’t even really touched
any “sinful” areas yet. I bit my lip as his warm hands moved
inward, caressing my belly and sliding up the thin silk dress to
cup the under-curves of my breasts.

“
You don’t know how much I wanted to do this as we were riding
earlier,” Laish murmured in my ear. I had to bite back a moan as he
cupped me more fully and rubbed over the hard bud of one nipple
with his thumb.

“
You…you did?” I asked, wishing my voice didn’t sound so
breathless.

“
Mmm-hmm.” His voice was a low growl of pleasure and I could
feel something hot and hard poking against my lower back. Gently,
he plucked at the other nipple, squeezing it between his thumb and
finger. I gave a little cry as sparks of pain and pleasure shot
through me, then bit my lip, trying to keep back the other sounds
that wanted to come out.

“
It’s all right,
mon ange,”
he
murmured in my ear. “You can make noise if you need to. I like to
hear it—like to know how I am affecting you.”

I wished desperately
that I could say he wasn’t affecting me at all but Laish would have
seen through my lie at once. It was obvious by the way my heart was
pounding and my breathing was short and shallow that his hands on
me made me react.

I
didn’t know why I felt his touch so keenly
. I had let other guys touch my breasts
before—mostly back during my reckless, rebellious phase in high
school—before I saw what happened to Keisha and decided I didn’t
want to end up that way. Since every boy I ever fooled around with
had to stop above the waist and couldn’t go any further, it never
ended happily. But I had to admit, it had felt damn good while it
lasted.

But no one had ever touched me the way Laish was touching me
now. His hands on my body were gentle but
incredibly possessive. He stroked over my
flesh as though he owned me and intended to do exactly what he
wanted with me—which was apparently to make me moan. Because I
couldn’t help doing exactly that.

“
Does this feel good,
mon ange?”
he murmured, pulling down the thin top of the dress
to reveal my naked breasts.

I
wanted to protest that we were in public, that we weren’t alone,
that I couldn’t let him do that to me. But somehow nothing came out
of my mouth but a
nother moan as he touched me.

“
Laish,” I gasped as he cupped my bare breasts, twisting both
nipples at the same time and then letting them go and stroking them
with feather light caresses.

“
Yes,
mon
ange?”
he growled
softly in my ear, his breath hot against my sensitive skin. “Tell
me, my little witch—after so many years of enforced virginity—are
you hungry to be touched? Hungry for the feel of hands on your
body?”

That, of course, was the real problem. I
was
hungry to be touched—so hungry that I didn’t
even care that it was a demon who was doing the
touching.

“
Stop,” I whispered. “Stop, we…we must have paid the tax by
now.”

“
Not quite.” Suddenly one of his hands left my breasts and
stroked down, sliding over my trembling abdomen and coming to stop
between my thighs.

“
Laish!” I protested, squeezing my legs closed as tightly as I
could. I was already over stimulated down there from riding on the
hard saddle. I was afraid if I let him start touching me when I was
already so hot, I wouldn’t want him to stop.

“
Relax, Gwendolyn,” he murmured. “I wish only to feel the heat
of your sweet little cunt in my palm. I promised not to penetrate
you and that is a promise I intend to keep.”

I didn’t want to—I
told myself I didn’t, anyway—but somehow I found myself spreading
my legs for him.

“
That’s good. Good girl,” he growled softly. His large, warm
hand slid down my
leg and before I knew it, his long fingers were trailing under
my dress and up my bare thigh.

I trembled against
him, expecting to feel those fingers slide into my lacy panties at
any moment. Instead, he simply cupped me, as he had promised he
would, holding my pussy gently but firmly in the palm of his
hand.

“
Why, Gwendolyn,” he murmured, tracing the slit of my pussy
delicately through the thin lace. “Your panties are positively
soaked.”

I gasped and jumped
at his light, teasing touch. “Laish, please…” I pleaded, uncertain
what I was begging for.

“
Please, what,
mon ange?”
His deep voice was filled with lust. “Do you wish me to touch
you more, to slide my fingers past this flimsy barrier and fill
your soft little cunt while you grind against my palm?”

“
I…you shouldn’t,” I whispered breathlessly.
But I kept feeling closer
and closer to something I’d never felt before—some hidden peak that
had always been denied me, no matter how I searched for it. “I
shouldn’t want you to.”

“
But you do, don’t you?” he insisted. “You want me to fill you,
to penetrate your hot little cunt and fuck you with my fingers
until you come all over my hand. Come, Gwendolyn, admit
it.”

“
All right—
fine
,” I
moaned, unable to help myself. “I…I admit it. I want you to.” The
moment I said the words, I felt a ripple in the air around me—as
though something vast and inimitable had somehow disappeared. The
tiny part of my brain which was still capable of rational thought
wondered what the hell it was. But most of me was still completely
centered on Laish’s hand between my thighs. “Do it,” I begged him,
shamelessly. “I want you to—I want you to touch me.” I was panting
now, unable to catch my breath. “There,” I gasped. “I said it.
Satisfied?”

“
By no means, and neither are you, I know,” Laish murmured.
Suddenly, he drew his hand away and stepped back from me. “But the
Sin Tax is.”

“
What?” I was so dizzy from desire I didn’t understand what he
was saying at first. I turned to face him. “Why…why did you
stop?”

Laish raised
an eyebrow at me. “You mean why did I stop without giving you
satisfaction? I do not like to leave you hanging, as it were,
Gwendolyn, but I was under the impression that you didn’t want to
do any more than was absolutely necessary to pay the
toll.”

“
And…we did? It’s paid?” Without his hands on me, I was
beginning to get a little control back. It occurred to me that I
was standing there with my breasts still completely bare and I had
just begged him to touch me. Not just touch me—
penetrate
me. Blushing, I pulled up the top of the
red silk dress and pushed down the bottom, trying to ignore how wet
I still was between my legs.

“
Yes, I believe it is.” Laish was still looking at me
steadily. “At this early juncture it was enough for you to simply
admit your lust aloud. Now we should be able to cross over the
river to the second circle.”

“
Great,” I muttered, smoothing down my dress and feeling like a
fool. Not just any fool either—a stupid,
horny
fool. Ugh. “Perfect. Just perfect.”

“
Gwendolyn…” Laish lifted my chin and made me look at him,
though I was so embarrassed I never wanted to meet his eyes again.
What must he think of me now? With just a few kisses and touches he
had reduced me to a whimpering pile of hormones. “Gwendolyn,” he
said again. “You should know that it
was
perfect—for me, anyway.”

“
What do you mean?” I muttered, still having trouble meeting
his eyes. “You didn’t, uh, get satisfaction either. Did
you?”

“
No, but that is not important,” he said softly. “What was
perfect was the way you trusted me. The way you put yourself in my
hands and allowed me to give you pleasure. You have no idea how
long I have been waiting for you to do that.”

“
Yeah? Well don’t get too used to it,” I snapped. “And anyway,
I only did it because I had no choice. How else was I supposed to
get to the next circle?”

“
How else, indeed.” The warmth went out of Laish’s eyes and he
dropped my chin abruptly and stepped back. “Come, then—let us board
the ferry and move on.”

Abruptly, I felt
sorry for my outburst. “Laish—” I began, but he appeared not to
hear.

“
Come.” He beckoned to me but made no more attempt to take my
hand. “Charon is waiting for us and he will not tarry
forever.”

“
Fine.” I stepped aboard the ferry feeling miserable. What was
wrong with me, first reacting so strongly to Laish’s touch and then
snapping his head off like that? And what about the feeling I’d had
when he was touching me? The sensation that I was finally going to
reach that elusive peak that had been denied me all my life? If
he’d gone on a little longer, would it finally have
happened?

Stop it,
I
told myself uneasily.
Stop thinking like that. You ought to be more concerned about
how you reacted than how you felt. Not to mention—what are you
going to have to do in order to pass into the next circle of
Hell?

I had no idea but I
was afraid I was going to find out.

Chapter Eleven

Laish

After we paid the Sin Tax, Gwendolyn had no further trouble in
climbing aboard the infernal ferry.
For my part, I decided to give her some room. I
stood beside Charon while she gravitated to the far end where Kurex
was standing patiently, waiting for the ride to be over.

I
watched as
she
stood close to the big horse, stroking his neck and taking comfort
from the gentle way he nudged her with his nose and nickered
softly. She wouldn’t look at me at all, preferring instead to stare
into the distance. If she was trying to make out the other shore,
she was out of luck—the Styx is always shrouded in mist. The great
city of Baator and its outlying areas would not be visible until we
landed and traveled a little distance to the Iron Spike.

Though I tried to
control my frustration, I couldn’t quell it completely. Why was she
so stubborn, so unwilling to accept any gesture of affection from
me? I wasn’t thinking about the way she had responded to my hands
on her body—she had given herself freely then, gasping and
trembling in my arms until I longed to do much more than simply run
my hands over her lush flesh. I loved the deliciously wanton way my
little witch gave in to her emotions, to the pleasure of my hands
on her curves. That part of our encounter had been delightful.

It
was afterwards, when I had bared a little piece of my heart (if a
demon
ic creature
like myself can be said to have a heart) which bothered me. Or
rather—her reaction to me, bothered me. Why was she so quick to
turn away? So defensive and unwilling to let me in, even a little?
I understood that she feared to lose part of her powers but it
seemed that there must be something else, some other reason she
resisted feeling anything for me. Would I ever find out what that
was?

As
I mused, the flat bottom of the ferry at last ground to a halt
against the pebbles of the far side of the river. Gwendolyn and I
had made the passage safely—a passage few living mortals had made.
Even fewer had come back, but I promised myself that Gwendolyn
would be one of them. No matter what I had to do to keep her safe,
I would protect her until the end
of this journey we were taking
together.