Page 5 of A Wicked Dance of Obsidian and Light (Echoes of Darkness #1)

My heart leaps in my throat, hammering my blood through my veins as I throw out my right leg to spin kick him in the face. Kaiden’s head snaps to the side as my foot connects with his jaw. His eyebrows draw together in a scowl as he brings his thumb to the corner of his lips to wipe the blood trickling down on his chin. Huh, his blood is not tar-like as I was expecting, but a very deep shade of crimson. His burning gaze slams into mine as he turns, disbelief evident on his stupidly gorgeous face before he starts…chuckling.

What the?

I freeze, taken aback by his reaction, the beautiful lilt of his laughter, and the way his whole face lit up, making my heart do crazy acrobatics inside my chest. Kaiden shakes his head as if he’s sharing an inside joke with himself, and our gazes lock—mine confused as hell, and his flashing something akin to respect.

I bristle, aggravated by my body’s reaction to hearing him laugh. “What the fuck is so funny?” I don’t waste a second, cocking my arm and sending my fist flying in a powerful uppercut.

Lightning quick, Kaiden dodges my attack and uses my momentum to turn me around and pin me to the wall with his body, one arm around my waist, right under my breasts, keeping me in place. I dropped the sheet when he spun me around, and it’s now pooling at my feet, so I’m standing only in my panties, his chest pressed to my back.

Damn it!

He’s strong and fast . Faster than me.

Kaiden bends his head slightly, bringing his lips to my right ear while his still-wet, silky strands brush my cheek, making me shiver. “You’re spectacular, you know that?” Our bodies are flush, the naked skin on his chest in direct contact with the naked skin on my back. I don’t know where I end and he begins. His warm, sensual smell washes over me, spicy and musky with a hint of rum and black cherries. It reminds me of the decadent black cherries dipped in liquor and covered in chocolate. The ones I receive every year for my birthday. It makes my insides warm, like staying in front of a cozy fire on a cold winter day.

“I don’t take compliments from demons,” I bite back and buck my hips, trying to escape, but I’m met with his hard-on, pressing deliciously in my ass. I can feel how big he is, even with the rough fabric of his jeans covering it. Heat instantly pools between my legs, and my clit throbs when I feel he is as affected as I am by the contact of our bodies.

“So, this is how you thank me for saving you? I should spank you for this behavior. Tell me, Iris, would you like that?” he says gruffly, his voice thick and rough from his arousal. It wraps around me like liquid silk.

My heart skips a beat at my name on his lips.

How the fuck does he know my name?

His warm breath tingles the sensitive skin behind my ear, sending ripples of desire that make my core muscles clench as my juices wet my panties. My nipples pebble hard against the wall. The contact sets my skin on fire.

Kaiden’s breath hitches before he inhales sharply, and a shudder goes through his body. “You would like that,” he rasps, surprise and something else evident in his tone. I know this seems crazy, but he almost sounds...Nah, that can’t be right. I’m reading too much into things. That’s not…hope I’m hearing, is it?

Earth to Iris. A demon is holding you!

“Dream on, demon! I would never let you touch me. You make me sick!” I spew as I make another attempt to escape, stomping on his foot with my heel as hard as I can. The bastard doesn’t even flinch.

He laughs, the sound hollow, almost as if my words deeply hurt him, and with ease, he separates my legs using his knee, immobilizing me further against the wall. “Don’t give me this holier-than-thou attitude. I can smell your desire from here. I bet if I moved your panties and touched your pussy, I would find it drenched. My cock would slide right in,” he snaps, his tone as cold as the Arctic.

Shit.

It’s infuriating how right he is. My legs start shaking uncontrollably. I’m a heartbeat away from begging him to fuck me against the wall. To hell with all the consequences.

“I need you to promise me you won’t try anything stupid again before I release you. As much as I would love dry fucking you against the wall, we have more important things to discuss,” he says calmly and continues, “So here is how this is going to go, Iris. I’m going to release you; you’re going to go to the bathroom, have a few minutes to yourself, calm down, and then we’re going to talk over breakfast in my kitchen. After we talk, you can go on your way, unharmed. Okay? I need you to answer me now,” he demands. His deep voice rolls over me like silk.

Ha, he must have hit his overly inflated head on something if he thinks I’m going to give up just like that.

“Okay,” I snap.

“Promise you won’t try anything stupid again.”

“I won’t try anything stupid again. I promise. Now release me,” I clip out through clenched teeth while rolling my eyes in annoyance.

He relaxes his hold and releases me slowly to make sure I’m not going to attempt hitting him again. Yeah, sure, like that’s even a possibility. One thing I’m proud of is that I never back down from a fight, even if the chances are stacked against me.

As Kaiden steps away from me, my stupid body almost weeps from the loss of delicious warmth. In the next breath, I turn around to face him and swing my right arm in an arc, aiming a fist at his annoyingly beautiful face.

My knuckles barely graze his jaw as he grabs my wrist with inhuman speed and tugs me with so much force toward his body that my front clashes with his chest, my breasts pressing against his pectorals while his hard-on digs exactly in my center. My back hits the wall. Hard. All the air leaves my lungs in a huff.

Holy shit.

He then grabs my other wrist and pins both of my hands above my head on the wall, keeping them fused together in one hand. Tattooed fingers collar my throat. His thumb presses on the fluttering artery on the side of my neck, the silver rings adorning his fingers cold against my heated skin.

My feet are dangling above the floor, and he’s acting as if I weigh nothing more than a feather while bracing my whole weight with his body. I haven’t even noticed until this very moment how Kaiden’s six-four frame towers over me. It makes me feel small and dainty.

Ugh .

This up close and personal, I can truly appreciate his full, sinful lips. He also has a small bump in the middle of his otherwise straight nose, probably from having it broken and put back together more than once. This imperfection doesn’t take away from his beauty; it only makes it more striking.

His chiseled jawline is covered in a day’s worth of stubble, and I suddenly have the urge to lift my hand and rub my fingers against it. Our bodies are aligned perfectly in all the ways that matter, and a heaviness settles in my breasts when my diamond-hard nipples rub onto his chest. My skin feels as if it’s caught on fire, and my blood turns to molten lava into my veins.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck me now.

I didn’t think this through.

The air between us thickens and sparks. I whimper when he rolls his hips, creating friction with the rough fabric of his jeans on my overly sensitive clit, covered just by my very thin, drenched panties.

Our gazes collide, and the corner of his lips lifts in an infuriatingly sexy smirk. “I love how feisty you are, angel, but I would appreciate it if you would stop trying to hit me.” His smile drops, and a muscle ticks around his jaw. “So. Don’t.” He pauses. Then his Adam’s apple rolls with an audible swallow. “Do. That. Again.” He’s breathing hard, labored breaths, and his eyes are two obsidian pools of desire, the golden flecks swirling with red streaks as he looks up and down my body like he wants to devour every inch of me.

I’m frozen in place by the fire in his eyes, my limbs and brain turned to mush. Kaiden’s scent is an inferno blazing through me, making my clit throb almost in pain. I need the release like I need my next breath. I’m so out of my mind with need I start to gyrate my hips slowly to create more of that mind-numbing friction.

Kaiden sucks in a jagged breath, and his nostrils flare as his gaze flicks between my eyes and lips, a deep frown pulling at his eyebrows. Obsidian fire traps me like a binding spell as his eyes snap back to mine…searching, and alight with so much emotion and longing that my heart jackhammers against my ribcage, and all my blood rushes in my ears. Desire sears me from the inside out. His tongue darts out to moisten his lips. The movement is so sexy I bite into my lower lip to suppress a moan. He swears loudly under his breath before his thumb comes up, freeing my trapped lip and running a fiery path across it with the pad of his finger.

He rests his forehead against mine. My heart sputters in my chest as we share the same breath.

One heartbeat passes.

Two.

Three.

I close my eyes and wait for that moment of devastating destruction when Kaiden’s lips are going to meet mine, but it never comes. Instead, my world tilts on its axis as I’m thrown over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

All of this happens so fast, it takes a humiliating amount of time for my sex-induced brain to catch up. My ass sticks up in the air, and my breasts are pressed against his back, my eyeballs in direct contact with his ass, his grip on the underside of my knees strong and firm, keeping me in place, not giving me even an inch of wiggle room so I can try to escape.

I can’t believe I feel disappointed that a demon didn’t kiss me. Clearly, the umbra’s touch fried all my working neurons. I even hallucinated that a demon had black angel-like wings.

“What in the actual fuck?! Are you insane? Put me down right now!” I screech, my anger fueled not only by the fact that he’s manhandling me, but mostly because I’m still so turned on I can’t see straight, my body strung high like a string over a bow, ready to snap at any moment.

He takes long strides to exit the dressing room and walks toward the bathroom attached to the bedroom I woke up in.

“Are you deaf? Put me down!” I scream again while banging my fists on his ass. Instead of answering, he slaps my left ass cheek hard three times in rapid-fire succession, and then he shocks the hell out of me by caressing the stinging skin.

My body is a live wire as I feel the vibration of those slaps right in the center of my pussy, my panties getting soaked again, if that is even possible. Liquid fire races through my veins as the image of Kaiden taking me over the knee and making me come just by using his hand flashes through my mind. I’m so angry I want to gouge his eyes out.

He enters the bathroom and doesn’t even make a sound as he unceremoniously slides me down the front of his body. The contact fires my senses, making my skin tingle all over. I suck in a sharp breath. My feet slap the floor tiles hard when he drops me in the walk-in shower.

“You—” I don’t get to finish what I was going to say because he moves his hand, and all of a sudden, ice-cold water starts pouring on my head.

He didn’t just do that!

The cold water is so jarring I just stand there with my mouth agape, giving him a death stare while seething with anger. I wouldn’t be surprised if fire starts coming out of my nose, dragon style.

“I’ll let you cool off. I’ll wait for you in the kitchen. We need to talk. You’ll find some clothes on the side of the bed when you come out of the bathroom. Unless you want to finish what we started,” he says while arching an eyebrow at me, his tongue rolling over his lower lip. Desire dances in his eyes like hot embers.

I feel his gaze on me like a physical caress. It only manages to make my blood boil in my veins even more. “Fuck! You! Get the fuck out!” I bellow. My fingers clench and unclench, my nails digging deep into my palms, leaving crescent indentations behind. I turn around, and the door shuts behind Kaiden as he leaves the bathroom.