Page 74

TEN

Sorsha

I wouldn’t say I was struck speechless, but Ruse hadn’t been lying when he’d said he would aim for luxury. The place he led us into a half hour later boasted sweeping velvet-carpeted staircases around marble pillars so wide the ancient redwoods would have been envious. I resisted asking the concierge if they’d stolen their lobby furniture from the Palace of Versailles.

The penthouse suite the incubus had charmed our way into wasn’t any model of restraint either. The main lounge area stretched wider than my entire apartment back home—before, y’know, I’d burned it down and all—with leather furniture so buttery soft a person could melt right into the cushions. The bathroom sported a small, marble-tiled swimming pool I couldn’t imagine anyone in their right mind calling a “bathtub.” And the bedroom…

“Where the magic happens,” Ruse said with his typical smirk, sweeping his arm toward the king-sized canopy bed draped with gauzy silk on the other side of a Persian rug so thick I was in danger of drowning in it. Holy mother of majesty, we were living like the crustiest of upper crusters tonight.

Pickle, who’d accepted being carted in via my purse, charged across that red-and-gold expanse and promptly tumbled head over heels as his tiny feet sank deeper than he’d anticipated. With an indignant snort, he changed course and trotted off to the bathroom, where he had designer towels to shred into a very high-class nest.

“Good night!” I called after him, but the little dragon didn’t glance back. Apparently we still weren’t on speaking terms.

Snap took the whole place in, beaming with wonder. “What a fantastic building. Mortals do make things so much more bright and colorful than anything in our realm. I think I’ll explore the rest of this… ‘hotel’ from the shadows.” He paused and looked at the rest of us with evident concern. “Unless there’s something you need from me.”

Always thinking of how he could help everyone else first. A renewed ache woke up in my heart.

“No, no, you’ve done plenty, whether you remember it or not,” Omen said, more gently than I was used to. Sometimes I forgot that underneath his preferred cold exterior, he really did care about the members of the team he’d assembled. He gave the devourer an awkward pat on the shoulder and walked with him toward the door. “But since we don’t want to lose you again, maybe I should make the rounds with you. It wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye out for any suspicious activity.”

“Yes, we can do both! Explore and investigate.” Snap beamed even brighter.

My heart might as well have been broken into pieces and fed to a pond of koi. “You be careful,” I said, unable to stop myself.

“Of course,” Snap replied cheerfully, and vanished into the shadows.

Maybe forgetting everything that had happened since he’d first ventured among mortals—not just forgetting me and his original companions but the way he’d used his power too—made things easier for him. With the pang in my chest, a lyric swam up and twisted in my mind. It came out mournful when I sang it. “You were always in a bind. You were always far too kind.”

Antic had leapt onto the bed and was now bouncing on the mattress, the satin sheets rustling beneath her feet. She grabbed the silk drapes of the canopy. “What shall I make for you? A clown on a surfboard? A fish falling from a skyscraper?” She vanished behind the fabric while swinging it into a shape that did somehow resemble that second offering.

“Er, I think I’d like to just relax, like we planned,” I said. “I don’t need a show.”

The imp harrumphed and popped back into view. “I’ll go see if someone else in this place would enjoy some antics from Antic, then.” She jabbed her finger in Thorn’s direction as she skipped past us. “I will be back at dawn when we ride again!”

Thorn managed not to grimace until she’d slipped out of sight. He gave me a baleful look. “And you think she’ll be a valuable addition to our plans?”

I threw my hands in the air. “I haven’t got a clue. If worse comes to worst, we can tell her building shoe towers is an essential component and let her occupy herself in the mall while we do the real work, right?”

“With allies like these, who needs enemies,” Ruse teased. His gaze had lingered on the bed. A thread of heat ran through my body at the thought of all the ways he could help me, ahem, “relax” between those sheets, but he turned as if to leave the room.

“Ruse,” I said. When he met my eyes, his were warm and maybe even intrigued, but something in his face struck me as uncertain. I found I didn’t know how to follow that up, and not only because his gorgeous face could steal my breath.

A deeper, sweeter emotion than desire welled up inside me. Even without peeking inside my head, I doubted it’d escaped his notice that my mood had gotten pretty dour during the drive. None of the shadowkind really needed pit stops. He’d come up with this scheme as much for my benefit as the fun he’d planned for my birthday last night. Why?

I wasn’t really sure, but I did know how badly I wanted to show him I’d noticed and what it meant to me. How much he was coming to mean to me. I could have invited him into my bed, but that was just a night’s work for an incubus, wasn’t it? He’d indicated before that no other mortal woman had ever wanted anything from him other than his talent for pleasure.

So maybe it was time he got to experience what it was like to be at the receiving end of that kind of attention. I could invite him into bed after all.

I held out my hand to him. “Come here. You arranged all this—I think you should get to enjoy it as much as anyone.”

He cocked his head. “What exactly did you have in mind, Miss Blaze?”

The suggestive lilt he gave the nickname sent a tingle all the way down to my toes. Even if I was focusing on him, I was still going to enjoy this a hell of a lot myself. “Get over here already, and you’ll find out.”

Thorn coughed. “In that case, perhaps I should?—”

Ruse gave the warrior’s arm a tug as he ambled over. “I don’t see any reason for you to go anywhere, my friend. Our mortal here has been known to require, shall we say, additional servicing.” He winked at me.

He seemed more at ease saying that—like he’d relaxed more when I’d asked him to join me and Snap last week. If he preferred the company, I sure as sugar wasn’t going to say no. I peeked at Thorn through my eyelashes as coyly as I was capable of. “The more, the merrier?”

The warrior’s tan complexion flushed slightly pinkish. He glanced between us as if waiting for one of us to laugh and say it was all a joke. When we didn’t, he took a step closer. His voice came out with a roughness that got any part of my body that hadn’t already been tingling on board. “If m’lady wishes it…”

Ruse did laugh at that. “Just get your medieval ass over here, my friend.”

I poked the incubus in his deliciously sculpted chest, prodding him toward the bed. “I’m starting with you. Now strip.”

“Oh, getting bossy, are we?” He raised his hands to the buttons of his shirt, the glint in his eyes turning more heated.

He didn’t move fast enough for my liking. Before he’d finished unbuttoning his shirt, I was reaching for the fly of his slacks. Ruse let me undo it and stepped out of his slacks gamely, finally shedding that shirt so nearly all the well-muscled planes of his body were on display.

“This doesn’t seem quite fair,” he remarked as I pushed him the last few steps to the bed, but when he reached for my blouse, I shook my head. He glanced past me to his comrade for assistance. “Thorn, are you going to get to work on her or what?”

Thorn let out a low rumble of a chuckle from where he was standing behind me. I rarely heard a laugh out of him—it turned my earlier tingling into an eager flare of desire.

“I don’t believe you’re in command of this encounter, incubus,” the warrior said.

I smiled. Indeed he was not. “Down you go,” I instructed Ruse.

The incubus sprawled back on the bed, everything on display other than the bulge hidden behind those briefs, so languidly sensual in his pose I practically orgasmed just looking at him. He shot another remark at Thorn. “But don’t you want to see that lovely form on full display? I doubt you’re in this to ogle me .”

That much was true too. Thorn rested his broad hands on my waist, grasping the hem of my shirt. “May I?” he murmured, his gravelly voice full of promise. Who was I to argue?

I raised my arms so he could pluck the blouse off me and then squirmed out of my undershirt with its silver-and-iron badge before he had to deal with that. I stayed put just long enough for Thorn to cup my breasts through my bra and press a kiss to my shoulder, soaking in the strength that emanated from his brawny form with an encouraging hum, but I had another lover I’d meant to attend to.

I crawled onto the bed next to Ruse, and Thorn sank down at my other side. The incubus teased his fingers into my hair as if to draw me to him, but I knew how easy it was to get lost in his skillful kisses. I diverted my mouth to the edge of his jaw, then the side of his neck. The bittersweet cacao scent of his skin flooded my senses.

As I charted a path across Ruse’s drool-worthy chest, Thorn unhooked my bra and palmed my breasts skin to skin, the roughness of his calloused hands adding a spark of friction to the caress. I sighed happily against the incubus’s toned stomach and raised my head to tug at his briefs. “These need to go too.”

Ruse lifted his hips to help me peel the undergarment off. He pushed himself up on his elbows and reached for my jeans, but I brushed his hand away, doing some ogling of my own. His cock had come to attention, jutting at its eager angle like a glorious leaning tower of pleasure. I couldn’t wait to be the one generating that pleasure tonight.

The incubus peered at me with what looked like genuine puzzlement. “Where are you taking this, Miss Blaze?”

I lowered my mouth to his hip, then his thigh, and ran my fingers up the straining length of his erection. “I’m taking care of you like you’ve always been taking care of me. About time we did a little role reversal, don’t you think?”

Before he could respond, I skimmed my fingertips back down his cock and wrapped my lips around its head. The cacao flavor of him was even more intense on that sensitive flesh, with a tang of salt when I teased my tongue over the tip.

He sucked in a ragged breath. “You don’t owe me this.”

I looked up at him, slicking my saliva and a bead of his precum down his cock with my hand. “I know. I want to do it. And even if I’m not the most talented gal you’ve ever been with, I’d imagine I can make it reasonably satisfying.”

“That’s not—” His mouth twisted into a crooked grin. “You don’t have to worry about being compared. Not many of the women I’ve been with would have thought to offer this. But why should you forego your own pleasure?” He beckoned to me, his eyes glinting slyly. “Turn around, and we can at least make this a mutual love-fest.”

The fact that so many of his past lovers wouldn’t have thought beyond getting their own rocks off only made me more sure of my intentions. I didn’t budge, giving his cock a firm pump that made it twitch against my hand. “I’m getting off plenty just knowing how good I’m making you feel. And I’m sure Thorn can add to that as he’d like. For once, you are going to do nothing except lie back and enjoy yourself.”

I bent over him again, taking him into my mouth as deeply as I could. Thorn had eased back to give me room, caressing my naked back with rhythmic strokes, but at my invocation, he leaned closer. He followed my spine with scorching kisses, one hand fondling my breasts again and the other sliding over my belly. The pleasure he stirred fueled my desire into headier flames.

I swiveled my tongue around Ruse’s cock, cupping his balls, and he groaned. When I glanced at his face, his eyes were flashing between their hazel guise and their natural glowing gold. Faint shimmers of that same sheen flickered over his skin as if he was struggling to hold himself back.

“Go ahead,” I said. “Let your shine out. You know I like it.”

His body flared in response, his incubus glow lighting up every part of him, even the cock I sucked down again. It curved at its sharper shadowkind angle in my mouth, the bump of his pubic bone protruding, all designed to give his partners the most possible satisfaction. But he’d fed plenty from me in that way in the last few weeks. He’d had his sustenance—now he deserved a treat.

His supernatural glow brought a giddying warmth with it. The sensation spread through my mouth and all through my limbs as I bobbed over Ruse’s thighs. Thorn fanned the flames higher with the pressure of his hands and mouth. His fingers trailed lower to tease right between my legs. I gasped against the incubus’s cock and reached back to caress the warrior’s arm in return.

As I sped up my rhythm, Ruse bucked into my mouth. I tightened my lips around him and sucked harder, and he came with a flood of bittersweet heat that I swallowed down. Before I could do more than give his cock one last swipe of my tongue, he’d sat up to tug me to him, his mouth claiming mine at long last.

Thorn was undoing my jeans. Melting into the kiss, I kicked them and my panties off, but my warrior seemed to think his work was done there. I snatched at his arm before he could withdraw and pulled him back. My lips left Ruse’s so I could twist around and capture the wingéd’s mouth for myself, my fingers tangling in his white-blond hair.

“I want you,” I said with a stutter of breath as Ruse pinched one of my nipples. “I need you.” My core was throbbing now, aching to be filled—and no one could fill me like Thorn.

“I think you’d better attend to our lady,” Ruse said, his amusement coming through the smokiness of his shadowkind voice.

Thorn dipped his fingers right between my legs from behind and groaned approvingly at the slickness of my arousal. He jerked at his trousers. “As m’lady desires.”

I did desire—oh, I desired every bit of his massive form. He bent over my back, easing his thick cock into me with that incredible searing stretch, and the bliss of it radiated through me. I moaned.

One of these days I was going to have to take him in his full form, even more massive as that was, but I knew he didn’t want Ruse seeing what he was.

As Thorn began to thrust into me, Ruse’s mouth crashed into mine. I arched to meet the warrior, my fingers slipping up to grip one of the incubus’s horns. I was locked between them, all that immense power looming over me and the giddy glow beneath, and yet I couldn’t imagine feeling more free. The pulsing rush of pleasure swept me higher and higher?—

I tipped over the peak with an even sharper surge of ecstasy and a cry I couldn’t contain. My sex clenched around Thorn, and his arm tightened where he’d looped it around my waist. He drove into me again. Ruse’s tongue tangled with mine, and I came apart all over again as the warrior found his own heated release.

As Thorn sagged down beside me, I rolled over to kiss him properly. He stroked his fingers down the side of my face, the gentleness of that touch a perfect contrast to the force of his mouth on mine.

Ruse slung his arm around me and kissed my shoulder. I snuggled in between my two lovers and clung to this moment of contentment before the thought of the lover I’d lost could creep back in.