Larissa Ione - Desire Unchained

“That’s because after years of fucking my brother,” he growled, “you were damaged goods.”

She continued to tongue his chest, even sucking lightly on his caduceus pendant, and he wondered just when the torture would begin, because all this was doing was turning him on. Yeah, it was messed up, but shit, he was an incubus, capable of getting it up under the worst of circumstances, and the female in front of him was throwing off arousal like she was in heat.

“We’ll see who is the damaged one.” She dropped to her knees, eyeing the blood on his thigh. And he knew. Oh, shit, he knew exactly how his suffering would go down.

Every noise that filtered through the wood and iron door made Runa flinch. She should rejoice at the knowledge that Shade was being tortured. She should volunteer to help. But damn her heart, she wanted to save him.

So she could kill him herself.

Except, she hadn’t come back to New York to kill Shade. She’d returned to her hometown with military orders to gather intel on a demon hospital, and to locate an ex-soldier and Aegis Guardian who hadn’t been heard from since reporting the existence of the hospital. The Army feared he might have become a traitor not only to the United States, but to the entire human race. And when the U.S. Army’s Raider-X Regiment issued an order, you followed it—and not just because they’d planted a microdetonator in your brain. No, the supersecret military unit inspired loyalty by giving “special humans” a purpose and a sense of belonging in a world that had rejected them.

She hadn’t been rejected, but her situation had guaranteed that, without help, The Aegis would have killed her, but probably not before she slaughtered countless innocent humans. Fortunately, her brother, a high-ranking officer at R-XR, had known exactly what to do the night he found her bleeding to death in the alley where she’d been attacked. The Army had saved her life, had even attempted to prevent the lycanthropic virus from taking hold. They’d failed, but the side effects of their experimental treatment turned out to be handy.

She still turned into a giant, slavering beast three nights out of every month—a beast with no control over her actions and very little memory of what took place while she was in beast form. But thanks to the Army, she could also turn into the beast any time she wanted to. Even better, when she changed form intentionally, she retained her humanity and could control her actions and remember everything once she returned to her human form.

Laughter bubbled up from somewhere, female laughter, followed by a long, drawn-out noise. An erotic growl. Shade ’s erotic growl. She’d know that sound anywhere. So what, they were torturing him with sex?

That bastard. She hated him. But she was pretty sure that just before the werewolf attack, he’d saved her brother’s life. And, truth be told, probably hers, as well.

Runa had met him when she’d been at the lowest point in her life. Twenty-five years old but feeling double that, she still hadn’t gotten over the death of her mother four years earlier—how could she when her mother had died alone and miserable, thanks to Runa? But more recently, her best friend had moved to Australia with her new husband, Runa’s coffee shop had been only days from closing, and her brother had been dying. Arik had, in fact, been dying in her house, and the only reason she wasn’t with him was that he’d insisted that she tend to her shop and employees, who would soon be jobless.

One of her employees, a pierced, green-haired girl who called herself Aspic, had been razzing Runa about never taking risks, which was probably why her business had failed in the first place. No risks in love, business, or life. And where had that gotten her?

Arik might have been dying, but he’d lived. Should she be struck by a mysterious disease that killed her by slow measures, would she know the satisfaction of having truly lived life to the fullest?

The answer to that had been painfully obvious, especially because guilt had been killing her as surely as whatever had struck down Arik. She had denied herself anything that even resembled pleasure with the ruthlessness of a religious zealot. How could she allow herself to experience what she had denied her mother?

Not a day had gone by that she didn’t think about how she’d ruined her parents’ marriage and sent her mother into a downward spiral of depression. No matter how many times Arik tried to tell her that she needed to forgive herself for telling their mother about finding their father with another woman, she couldn’t. Because Arik didn’t know her secret—that deep down, Runa feared that she hadn’t done it out of concern for their mother.

She’d done it to hurt their father.

The day Shade walked into her life had been the day she’d wondered, for the first time, if she would have anything to live for once Arik was gone.

He’d sauntered into her coffee shop, huge, impossibly gorgeous, black motorcycle boots thudding on the floor, his leather pants and jacket making that soft rasp, the pirate earring in his left lobe glinting in the light. His right hand had been tattooed, as well as the right side of his throat, and she’d wondered if tats on his arm had connected the two.

All female eyes latched on to him. All male eyes had averted.

“Oh, fuck me,” Aspic whispered. “All. Night. Long.”

There was no looking away from him as he moved to the counter, his gaze locked onto Runa’s.

Aspic started to pant, honest-to-God pant. “Here’s your risk, Runa. Take it. Make a move or I swear I will.”

He stopped in front of Runa. “Coffee.” The word rolled off his tongue as if he’d said, “I’d like to give you an orgasm.”

“Yes,” she whispered, because he could give her … oh, right. Coffee. She cleared her throat. Twice. “Regular, tall, or grande?”

“Whatever your largest size is.”

“Do you have a brew preference?”

“Strong and hot.”

“Milk? Soy or dairy? Cream?”

“Hell’s freakin’ bells.” He planted his palms on the counter and leaned in. “Just. Coffee.” His intense gaze roamed over her figure in a blatant appraisal that should have infuriated her but only made her heart beat faster. “Though I might be tempted to try something sweeter.”

Aspic nudged her with an elbow and then stepped forward. “Runa’s a little shy. Do you have a motorcycle? Because she loves motorcycles. Bet she’d love to see it.”

“Aspic!” Runa’s cheeks burned with mortification.

“Runa,” the leather man said softly, as though testing the feel of her name on his tongue. “Would you like to take a ride?”

“She’d love to,” Aspic said, and plopped his coffee in front of him.

Runa shook her head. “I don’t think—”

“Good,” he said, as he threw down a ten-dollar bill. “Keep the change. Let’s go.”

Before she could utter a protest, he grabbed his coffee, came around the counter, took her hand, and led her toward the back door. She planted her feet at the threshold. “Look, Mr. …”

“Shade.”

Odd name. Then again, she worked with a girl who called herself Aspic. “Mr. Shade.”

“Just Shade.”

“Shade, then. I’m afraid I can’t go anywhere with you.”

He cocked one black eyebrow and pushed open the door. “Who said anything about going anywhere?”

“But, you said ride.”

Her flowing skirt whirled around her calves as he whisked her into the side street and toward the alley. “Yep.”