Page 50 of Demon Loved (The Witches of Mingus Mountain #5)

Someone was in bed with her.

For just a second, Brianna’s brain skidded to a halt…

and then memory caught up, and she recalled how she’d asked Belshegar to lie down next to her after the battle with the Collector.

Although she’d realized she would probably be just as safe if he’d slept on the couch out in the living room, it still had felt better to know he would be there beside her if she awakened from a bad dream.

Or if the worst happened and the void that had trapped their enemy failed after only a few hours.

Neither of those things had happened, though.

Instead, she’d slept deeply and soundly, untroubled by any nightmares or incursions of evil men from alternate dimensions.

Yes, Belshegar had warned her that the Collector might not be locked away forever, but he hadn’t shown up on her doorstep last night or this morning, so she was going to take that as a win.

She shifted carefully so she could look at the clock, although she had already guessed from the quality of light streaming through the sheer curtains out in the living room that the sun must have been up for quite a while.

Sure enough, the hour was getting close to nine o’clock.

When was the last time she’d slept that late? Some of her friends were the type who seemed as though they could stay in bed all day, but she wasn’t wired like that. Normally, 7 a.m. was sleeping in for her.

Well, no one could say she hadn’t been through a lot the night before.

Parts of the battle had already begun to grow hazy, as if her brain somehow understood it would be better for her sanity if she forgot those moments when she hadn’t felt quite human, but rather a conduit for energies she couldn’t begin to comprehend.

She’d survived, though…thanks in no small part to the man who slept beside her.

His eyes were closed, and his chest rose and fell with regular, deep breaths. And although he’d told her that this body needed sleep like any other regular human, she didn’t know if she’d quite believed him until this moment.

Goddess, he was gorgeous.

And strong, and kind, and….

Well, pretty much every positive adjective she could think of.

In that moment, she realized she wanted him to wake up. She wanted a whole lot of things.

But did he want them as well? Of course they’d kissed more than once, and she had to believe he’d felt something of the same need and heat she’d experienced.

And yet….

He looked human, but he wasn’t. It was very possible that he’d need a whole lot more time to grow into this new life, of being both Belshegar and Bill Garrett, the traveler who’d come to Jerome for a vacation and decided to make it his home.

That was all right, though. Brianna told herself she could wait as long as necessary.

Yeah, right.

Just watching him like this was enough to make desire stir in her.

Sure, she’d been asleep for nearly ten hours and some of her muscles still felt sore, as if she’d done a whole lot more than simply stand out on the promontory and channel the Goddess only knew what kind of energies, but she couldn’t ignore the way her body craved Belshegar’s touch.

Nothing ventured, she supposed.

She shifted again, this time not being quite so careful about her movements. The bed squeaked, and immediately, his eyes opened, and he looked over at her.

However, he seemed to understand there was no emergency, that this was just a natural awakening, because he smiled and said, “Good morning. How did you sleep?”

“Like a log,” she replied. “Although I’m not sure why a log should sleep any better than anything else. How about you?”

“Surprisingly well. To be honest, I hadn’t expected to sleep this long. It is quite late, isn’t it?”

“A little before nine,” Bree told him. “But I suppose we can both be excused for sleeping in, considering everything that happened last night.”

“Yes, it was something of a confrontation.”

They both went quiet then. Brianna had a feeling he was mentally replaying the events of the night before, while she…well, she just wanted to reach over and pull him down on top of her.

Probably better to do this in baby steps, though.

She moved closer to him so she could reach over and take his hand. “We did good, didn’t we?”

“We certainly did.” His gaze caught hers, and she thought she might get lost in those smoky hazel-green depths.

Depths that now seemed to hold a certain heat that she was pretty sure hadn’t been there a moment earlier.

To her dying day, she knew she would never be able to say for sure which one of them moved first.

In the end, it probably didn’t matter.

What mattered was that in the next moment, his arms were around her, pulling her close, and his mouth was on hers, warm and slightly sweet, with not a hint of morning breath.

She supposed there was something to be said for being with a guy who looked human but wasn’t. Not quite, anyway.

The embrace lasted for a long moment, but then Brianna moved, sinking back against the pillows so he lay on top of her. Although he still wore his T-shirt, the jeans were long gone, and there was no denying the hardness of him against her leg, his obvious arousal.

Well, that part seemed to be pretty human, too.

He paused, though, and stared down into her face, his expression earnest and oddly sweet at the same time.

“Is this…is this what you want?”

“More than anything,” she replied. “Honestly, the only reason I didn’t jump your bones last night was that I was just too damn tired.”

A brush of a kiss against her cheek, and then he smiled. “But now we are both rested.”

“Yes,” Bree said, “we are.”

And she grabbed hold of his T-shirt so she could pull it up and over his head, could take a moment to savor the perfection of his muscled body in the warm morning light filtering in from the living room.

The Collector might have been a raging dickbag, but he’d definitely conjured a gorgeous human form for Belshegar.

But she banished all thoughts of their enemy, because in that moment, all she wanted was to think of the man she loved, the surprisingly expert way he kissed her…the way his hands moved down to tug at the hem of her tank top and then pull it over her head.

His hands moved over her breasts, just the slightest bit hesitant, as though he still wasn’t sure if she was ready to go any further than this.

“I want to,” she told him in a whisper. “If — if you do.”

“Very much so.” He paused, and a hint of a wicked smile touched a corner of his mouth. “I learned something of what this is about when Elena would watch movies late at night that her grandmother had forbidden her. It was…educational, if somewhat embarrassing from time to time.”

Brianna could imagine. Lord knows it had been awkward enough when she was watching a movie with her parents when she still lived at home and a sex scene popped up out of nowhere.

But there was nothing awkward or embarrassing about being here like this with Belshegar. No, it was perfect, the culmination of a desire that had its origins in that very first moment when she’d seen him standing on the sidewalk outside the Caduceus Cellars tasting room.

She ran her fingers through his thick hair and pulled him close to her again, and this time his tongue moved across her nipple. A gasp escaped her throat, and she lay back and savored the exquisite sensation for a moment…until other parts of her body let her know they wanted attention as well.

Carefully, she guided his hand to the waistband of her yoga pants, and he took hold of it — and the panties beneath — and slid them down her legs.

Soon enough, they’d landed on the floor, and his warm fingers brushed against her thighs and then slid up to her mound.

For just a moment, he hesitated, as if he still wasn’t sure this was what she wanted.

“Yes, Belshegar,” she whispered. “It’s fine.”

He touched her then, fingers gentle and yet urgent at the same time, and she gasped again, closing her eyes so she could savor the pulses of pleasure moving through her, so much more intense than anything she’d experienced during foreplay before.

Not so surprising, she supposed. Those other times, she hadn’t been with Belshegar.

As he continued to stroke her and suckle her breast, those waves of pleasure grew stronger, and she knew it wouldn’t be very long now. She put one hand on top of his, letting him know this was exactly right, that it was perfect in every way.

Warmth flared all through her, spreading out from her core and moving through every limb. She cried out, gasping, and he held her as she rode the orgasm, breath finally slowing as she let her head fall against the pillows.

“Wow,” she said, and he smiled.

“I assume that was all right?”

“So much better than all right, it’s not even funny.”

She lay there for a second or two longer, but she knew she couldn’t rest now, not when she needed to show Belshegar everything he’d been missing.

Her hand reached down and found him, feeling how hard he was still, how ready. She wanted to feel him inside her…but first, she needed to let him know that there were plenty of ways for him to experience pleasure as well.

A line of kisses down the hard muscles of his torso, and then she ran her tongue along his shaft. Air escaped his lungs in a startled gasp, almost as if he hadn’t known such a thing was possible.

Well, even HBO didn’t show every little bit.

Then she pulled him into her mouth, tasting the faint saltiness of his flesh, relishing the low, almost involuntary moan he let out. Yes, this was very new to him, and she had a feeling he wasn’t sure of the ways this body responded to pleasure.

He hadn’t seen — or felt — anything yet.

If possible, he’d grown even harder, and she realized if she kept at this too long, he’d surely come.

That would have been fine, except she didn’t want to wait even a minute more to feel him inside her, and she had no idea whether he had the same refractory time as a normal human or whether he might bounce back a bit faster.