Jessa Slade: Vowed in Shadows

“It’s the demon,” he murmured. “Don’t let it take you.”

“You can take me. If you want.” Was that her voice—so needy?

“Not my demon. Yours.”

She hardly cared to make sense of his rambling. Something about demons, but she’d heard that nonsense before from the religious wack jobs who occasionally picketed outside the club when they weren’t contemplating their navels or the end of the world, whichever came first. He’d already promised not to try to save her.

His body, hard against hers, was made for sin. His big shoulders supported the weight of her elbows as she cradled his head. She tasted the sugar from the drink on his tongue. Between her knees, his lean hips jerked once, and she laughed into his mouth.

“Tell me you didn’t just come,” she said.

“You need to come with me.”

“I will.” She couldn’t silence the moan. “I will.”

“No, come with me after.”

After what? she meant to ask aloud, but her body was shuddering over him, caught in the grip of something more unnerving than the hook he’d braced below her breast, holding her upright as her vision grayed.

“Look at me,” he demanded. “Don’t let it take you.”

But she wanted to. It felt so easy, a blissful slide into nothingness that even a burning match pressed to her flesh wouldn’t illuminate.

“Nim?” His hand cupped her cheek, not the bullyboy grip he’d used earlier, but tenderly. That hurt worse than the cold sinking through her bare skin. “Nim, look at me.” His voice thickened.

She blinked into his violet eyes. “Did you spike the drink?”

“No. You are feeling the last stages of your demonic possession.”

“Oh, God,” she groaned. Not in a good way.

“No,” he repeated patiently. “Demon. It is rising in you. Like the bane demon is within me.”

Something was rising in him, all right, right under her hand. An aroused crazy man with a hook had her in his clutches—in his clutch, she supposed—and she was losing consciousness, probably drugged, never mind what he said, because, really, even a crazy man wouldn’t admit he’d poisoned his evening’s entertainment. Bane, he’d said. Men had always been the bane of her existence. Her thoughts did the cornered-rat thing, constricted by the darkness closing in around her.

“This will be hard for you to believe.” The crazy man’s voice, low and urgent in her ear, cut a path through the threatening oblivion, like a tantalizing way out. “That dream you had the other night?”

How had he known about that? Obviously, he’d been lurking around the club for the past week. Had he followed her home that night? Had he seen her touch herself in her sleep? Her face burned under his palm.

“A demon came to you then,” he said. “You let it into your soul. I know you didn’t understand, but your penance trigger—a weakness in your soul—made you uniquely vulnerable to one particular demon. It has anchored itself within you, and it is rising to take its place. Now, if you come out the other side alive, you will take your place with us. With me.” His voice deepened another notch, the insistence throbbing in her with an irresistible allure.

“Who?” she gasped. She meant to ask “Who are you?” but the question sputtered out. Come out alive?

“Your demon called to mine, and now you will be one of the talyan—a possessed warrior, like me—with a teshuva demon lodged in your soul.” His words sank into her brain, relentless as a strip-club bass line, but twisted with strangeness. “Strength, speed, deadly fighting skills, and immortality will be given to you. And the life you knew before will be stripped away.” A wry note crept into his voice, and once again he sounded more human. “Although that won’t be a problem for you, will it?”

She rallied against the brutal chill that sucked the breath from her lungs. “I like my life. It’s mine.”

“It belongs to the league now. And in return, you will fight against evil and earn what measure of grace you may.” Again, he gave her that doubtful look, which would have raised her hackles if she had any.

The cold seemed to press around her heart and close down her vision. “Do I have to give up an arm too?”

The cruelty rocked him; she felt it through his body. But he did not let her go.

Instead he kissed her back.

Well, she couldn’t blame him. It was a great way to shut someone up and turn the tides. Plus, he had such a wonderful mouth. The hard, tight set of his mouth was just an illusion—no, a lie to distract from the curve of his full bottom lip, the delicious reddened peach tone.

A wave of pleasure overpowered the chill, and she sagged against him. The scrape of denim and cotton, the brush of the metal hook and the rough wooden chair under her shins all tingled on her naked skin with distracting intensity. But mostly she felt his mouth. Softening, slanting under hers. This time, he parted his lips, but tentatively, as if the concept had just occurred to him. The tip of his tongue traced the front edge of her teeth and retreated.

Good God, he was as shy as a virgin. How could that be, with his wedding ring?

Maybe that was why he’d come.

The warm glow centered in her chest vanquished the cold entirely. “Is this your first time?”

His blue eyes glazed. “Yes.”

How sweet. How sad. And she’d dragged him in here like a lamb to slaughter. Probably ruined him forever. “I’ll make it all right,” she murmured.

When she eased off him, his desire-clouded eyes cleared. He clutched at her awkwardly, the hook skidding over her spine. He winced. “Don’t go.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“The demon realm is all around us. I smell it.”

What the hell with the demon thing? Damn, his wife had obviously done a number on him if he thought sex was demonic. How could that unknown woman have denied this sexy man? “You’re smelling the Power Slug we spilled. It’s probably eating through the carpet.” She touched her fingertip to the swollen center of his lower lip. “Sex isn’t always evil, you know.”

Under her finger, his lips twitched in a reluctant smile. “Not always?”

“Not this time.” Who would’ve guessed? She did have a merciful side after all. She wondered where she’d kept it hidden; certainly not under her clothes.

Straddling his hips, she leaned back and let her hair down. The blunt ends of the dreads tickled her skin, and she shivered.

“Stay with me,” he urged.

“Keep me here.” She lifted his hand and laid it against her breast, palm centered. “Stroke me. Tease me.”

“What happened to ‘no touching’?”

“I lied.”

His groan sent a lightning shaft of delight through her, which flared brighter when his fingers closed over her nipple.

“Oh yes.” She drew out the word to a hiss. Sex might not be evil, but it didn’t have to be all good either.

Still clutching his hand to her breast, she rucked up the hem of his T-shirt. He sucked in a breath that rippled down the ridged plane of his stomach. Oh, he had no reason to be shy. She danced her fingers down his fly.

“Wait.” He lifted the hook and stopped. He stared at the gleaming metal, surprise loosening his tight-clenched jaw for a moment.

She’d made him forget, she realized.

Before the hurt could flood in—and she knew it would; oh, how well she knew—she unzipped him. A briefs man, of course. Why make her job easy? Well, she’d teased Mobi out of tighter hideaways.

“Nim.” His hand slipped down between her breasts toward her navel, as if he might be going for the block again at his crotch. So she lifted her hips and let his knuckles bump her smoothly waxed mound.