Jessa Slade: Vowed in Shadows

The breath exploded out of him.

While he was distracted, she eased her fingers past his waistband. His erection surged, hot and ready, into her hand, the first bead of moisture damp on her skin.

The rest of him was only a half beat behind. He clamped the hook behind her back and dragged her down so she sprawled across his chest. His mouth captured hers with a fury that bore no relation to the naïve, neglected man she’d imagined.

When she tried to sit up, to keep some measure of control, he angled his hand between them to find her slick heat. She gasped. Not naïve at all. With his thumb on the white-hot point of her desire, he slid a finger into her, then two. She bucked her hips against him and cried out. He chuckled into her mouth, a dark sound that made her suddenly believe in devils.

He’d played her, one-handed, the bastard. He knew exactly what to do, and he did it pitilessly. He stroked, he teased, just as she’d asked. He kissed his way down her neck. She had a split second to think about standing up, slapping his face, and screaming for a bouncer, but then his lips fastened on her nipple.

As if he’d completed some previously unwired circuit in her body, every nerve came alive, lit her up like a damned Christmas tree in August. She let her head tip back, let the rush of sensation fill her and overflow.

She clenched her thighs around him, the yearning threatening to break her apart unless she gave him what he wanted, what he was taking from her with each caress of his strong fingers. She didn’t want to give it to him—he was practically stealing. But her will was weak, and her body betrayed her; it wanted and would not be denied.

What had he said about her soul?

“Come now,” he whispered. His words blew soft and cool across a tight-budded nipple.

She convulsed against his hand and what was left of her vision went black.

Sweat beaded at his temple, and Jonah closed his eyes as Nim’s pleasure throbbed around his fingers, the pulse doubled and redoubled by the demon’s energies.

When the leader of the Chicago talyan had explained, haltingly, how sex would ensure the human body stayed balanced in this realm, he’d actually blushed. To see the tall, rangy Irishman blush while the blade-bearing beauty at his side snickered had been unnerving.

Liam Niall had spent almost two centuries bashing monsters to bits with his huge war hammer, but the appearance of little Jilly Chan had changed everything. And Jilly had been only the second female to take on a teshuva demon. The first, Sera Littlejohn, had broken all the rules they’d known. It was she who had initially noticed Jonah’s restlessness and identified it.

He’d been pacing the rooftop of their warehouse sanctuary, driven by an agitation he couldn’t pinpoint, hoping the noon sun bouncing off the flat tar would fry him into oblivion. Sera had cornered him, her mate, Archer, behind her. “When’s the last time you slept?”

Jonah deflected the cool assessment of her hazel gaze with a one-shouldered shrug. “We’ve been busy.”

“Right,” Sera drawled. “Unusually intense demonic activity, weird nightly light shows, plus PMS-ing male talya. What could it possibly mean?”

Jonah stiffened. “Excuse me.”

“Pre-mating shakes. I just made it up.” Sera waved her hand toward the skyline. “We know how this works now. Sort of. She’s out there somewhere. Go find her.”

“Who?” Jonah had asked.

Archer—a big, brooding man with whom Jonah had tangled in the past—looked at him with something disturbingly like compassion in his bronze eyes. “The woman of your nightmares.”

Sera just laughed, but Jonah’s heart shrank.

He’d given up his life, his soul, his peace to the mistake that had made him a pawn of the devil. He’d given his pain, his suffering, his hand. He’d kept one small piece of who he’d been, one tiny, untouched sliver of his past that no one had thought to ask for, no one had wanted.

And now he had been very much touched.

Nim took a deep, shuddering breath that lifted her from him. She looked into his eyes and he caught a glimpse of the fading violet fire. “I guess now I’ll have to pay you.”

“The price has already been paid.” He trailed his hand down her thigh where the demon’s mark had risen. The dark traceries emphasized the smooth skin over toned muscle. His body screamed for release. He ignored it.

She stumbled off his lap. “What the fuck?” Under the sparse lighting, the old burn scars across her inner thigh showed only as a faded pearl sheen when she tilted her leg. She swiped at the black lines that eddied around the faint remnants of her penance trigger. “Did you Sharpie me when I wasn’t looking?”

“While I have a certain dexterity with the hook, I could not have drawn those marks with it,” he said. “And my other hand was occupied.”

She shot him a furious glare. “I don’t do tattoos.”

He’d noticed. No tattoos or piercings, along with the no body hair. As if she’d been wiped clean. Not anymore. “It’s called a reven . It marks the demon’s presence in your soul, and acts as a tether between it and you, between you and the demon realm.”

“What are you on?” Unease—and anger at being uneasy—tightened her mouth.

To his surprise, Jonah decided he preferred that faintly mocking smile, wide and easy on her generous mouth, instead of this fear. Not that he blamed her. And not that he had any choice about frightening her.

He could have chosen to ignore the fleeting thought that he liked her lips under his best of all. His immoral handling of her had been vital, according to the new rules the league was fumbling through with its unforeseen female colleagues. He’d done what was necessary, and no one could ask for more. “I’m sorry. There’s no easy way to explain. Not in this day and age, not in this country.”

She planted one hand on her hip. “Oh? Since when is crazy talk ever okay?” Then she glanced down at the reven that curled up toward her hip bone, and her hand sprang away.

Despite the vulnerability she must be feeling, her hands never fluttered forward to shield her feminine curves. Once, he would have always worn a jacket in public, something he could have offered a woman in a moment like this.

Well, never a moment quite like this. He thought it best to bite back his smile. And he’d be wise not to take off his T-shirt for her. What might start as a feeble attempt at old-fashioned gallantry could quickly become a more ancient ritual if the unabated strain in his jeans was any warning.

“I wish you had something to cover yourself,” he said. “Besides the snake. It’s difficult to talk to you when you are unclothed.”

A flush rose under her dusky skin. “You guys aren’t usually here to talk.”

He wondered how mere conversation could bother her more than her nakedness. Perhaps he could use her body to make her understand.

“You fear I’m an enemy,” he started.

“I’m no idiot,” she retorted. “If I was afraid of you, I’d scream. But I’m not, so I didn’t.”

“Oh, you’re afraid. Feel how you face me. On the balls of your feet, your body angled to present the narrowest target. Instinctively, you would fight me. That is the demon, rising to take on its opponent. Feel how your right hand flexes. What weapon do you imagine there?”

He stepped toward her and, since she had no clothes, was treated to the sight of every muscle tightening down her limbs, across her belly. When he brought his gaze to hers, the violet flickers made him nod. “Do you feel it rising in you when you call on it, even unwittingly?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Her voice wavered.

“You’re uncomfortable around men, which is why you seek to control us on this most primitive level.” He took in her state of undress with a sweep of his hand. “And yet now, you’re afraid, but you don’t call out. You believe, deep inside, that you could take me.” He tilted his head, studying the waves of violet in her irises. “The demon inside you may have repented, but it retains some bad traits: violence, cunning, arrogance.”