A Very Demon Christmas [Demon Hunters 1] (10 page)

His sensual stroking continued until she sighed, boneless with contentment. But his arousal branded her bottom, and she burned to be closer, to bring him comfort and pleasure.

"Restless, slave?"

"Please let me ease your need, Master."

"You please me best by obeying my will."

"But—"

"Quiet. You will do what I tell you to do—nothing more and nothing less.” His voice deepened with a compulsion to obey she couldn't flout.

Being that much in his power should scare her more than it did, but she couldn't erase her feeling of total safety. She bowed her head and accepted his will. “Yes, Master."

"Assume the position."

Holly scrambled to obey his order, but Master's hold on her hip tightened, keeping her in place. Instantly, she stopped struggling.

"I want you facing me, hands laced behind your head, and thighs spread across my lap—completely open to me.” Although his tone was deep, firm, and allowed for zero rebellion, he guided her gently into place and arranged her limbs as he wanted.

The different sides of Colin, the stern Master and the gentle lover, much as she hated to think of herself as submissive, made him the perfect lover for her. How could she guard her heart when everything he did made her long for him as her forever Master? His tender handling aroused her almost as much as his firm guidance.

Color flared along her chest, neck, and face while her heart beat faster, her nipples beaded into needy points, and the musky, vaguely sweet scent of her excitement wafted from her exposed, dripping-wet channel.

Master held her face with devastating tenderness as he leaned closer and lightly brushed her lips with his. She parted for him with a whimper of needy delight as he plundered her mouth, stealing her breath, stealing her will, and stealing her heart.

Holly edged closer. Even the worn denim of his jeans scraping against the tender skin of her thighs made her tingle, hyperaware of how exposed she was, and yet her tiny concern over her vulnerability only heightened her arousal. Finally she was close enough to flatten her breasts against the hard planes of his chest. She pushed his orders, rubbing her sensitized nipples on the light dusting of coarse dark hair on his pecs.

An instinct made her close her eyes. The crisp hair changed to the sensuous smoothness of feathers. Her body shimmered in reaction to the intensely erotic sensation—like the brush of wings fanning warm a breeze. Her body softened and moistened further, inviting his penetration.

When he broke the kiss, he demanded, “Unfasten my pants, slave."

She stole a peek at his chest. While breathtakingly stunning with its rich bronze skin, dark hair, and beautifully defined muscles, it was still that of a human male. She shook off the erotic memory of sensuous plumage and asked, “May I use my hands, Master?"

Colin was seriously tempted to order her to use her teeth, but her blend of fear, courage, and graceful submission already had him too close to the edge. For the sake of his frayed control, he growled, “Yes, but lock them behind your head again when you're done."

One of the best parts of giving her orders was watching her response. A light sheen of sweat made her natural fragrance more intense and more intoxicating. As she grew more excited, she flushed. The high color showed clearly on her fair skin. Every wonderful curve seemed to glow. Her nipples darkened even more than her cheeks and beaded into tight little buds that begged him to roll, nip, and suck. The tender lips of her slit parted, revealing damp pink petals quivering for his attention.

He shifted to try to ease the strain on his growing cock. He'd always had a healthy sex drive, but this level of excitement was something else, and since when did he think in terms of a slave's damp petals?

Then she nodded and lowered her arms in a slow glide to his shoulders. His discomfort took a backseat to the pleasure of enjoying his little slave.

Using her open palms, she explored with a barely there touch, skimming over his pecs and down his abs. Her gentle caress lit him up like a megawatt spotlight. Then she made one of her needy little sounds, somewhere between a hum and moan, that yanked his arousal off the chain.

From Holly's blonde hair to her scarlet-polished toes, she didn't have a rough edge. She was all delicious curves and satin smoothness with soft, soft skin. He found himself stroking her smoothness without ever consciously planning to touch her.

There were a hundred reasons to love her, starting with her perfect ass. He liked breasts, and hers were world-class. Her legs were amazing; hell, even her toes were absolute dimpled cuteness. But Holly was more than a sexy body. She was warm, caring, brave, and so damn submissive that he couldn't get enough of her.

While she worked to free his cock, her tongue darted, circled, and poked, mirroring the cautious tugs and determined pull of her fingers. After watching her sensual mouth twist, he was past ready to lick her busy tongue into submission. But then, her full breasts bounced, demanding his total attention. He palmed her lush curves, pressed both mounds together, and then licked from one furled nipple to the other until both tips were rosy, wet, and tight.

Her small appreciative whimpers encouraged him to continue his mission of erotic torture.

After she'd finally freed his shaft and locked her hands behind her head again, he planted his bare feet and levered both of them off the couch far enough for him to skim off the pants. He kicked aside the jeans before he returned to tormenting her responsive breasts.

Then he caught her chin and tilted her face up for his kiss. Citrus, sunshine, and the sweet feminine musk of his woman coated his sinuses and lightened his dark heart.

Something new, alive, strong, and as personal as his sins uncurled deep in his belly and rumbled a single word,
Mine
.

He ignored the weird internal dialogue to marvel at the way her ridiculously long lashes made graceful crescents on her creamy skin, at the faint blush that lit her cheekbones, and at the temptation of her full lips parting for his possession. “You're so fucking sexy, slave."

A brighter pink flared across the tops of her breasts, raced up her neck, and deepened the color on her cheeks. He traced the heated trail from her jaw to her tensed nipples.

Gently brushing his coarse thumbs over the fine, beaded tips earned him a small moan. He placed nibbling kisses along the same track he'd explored with his fingers. When he reached her rigid nipples, he drew the first taut peak into his mouth, sucking and nipping hard enough to win him another happy groan as she arched closer.

His cock dripped desperate tears of precum and bumped blindly against her hot silky wetness—a heat-seeking missile, trying for a target lock and much too ready to detonate.

Holly rose to her knees, and his shaft shot up after her. With exquisite languor, she slowly folded her legs. As he notched into her entrance and her satin sheath tightened around his aching cock, she slid lower. Each increment of penetration drove him nearer to explosion.

By the time her damp curls pressed into the blue plumage that cushioned his sex, the last strands of his frayed control snapped, and he grasped her hips and pumped into her silken channel with the same finesse as a rutting beast.

The primitive monster in his belly stretched and roared and surged, adding raw power to his strokes. He pounded into her delicate core so hard and so deep that he nudged her womb. Afraid of hurting her, he pulled back and growled, “You okay?"

"More...please...Master."

Though his own release balanced on a razor's edge—threatening to erupt—from somewhere he found the sheer force of will to hold back. He needed the thrill of her orgasm tightening around his cock first. Forcing himself to slow down, he changed his angle and thrust deep. When the sensitive rim of his cockhead scraped over the bump of her G-spot, a groan of torturous pleasure rasped from his throat.

Feminine groans, whimpers, and urgent squirming pushed him another heartbeat closer to explosion. Her core wrapped him tighter than a fist—her silken heat was sheer paradise. More precum welled from his crown. His hot juice blended with the lavish cream gushing from her core, adding more erotic sensation to his overloaded system and threatening the hair trigger holding back his climax.

His erection swelled to new a length and thickness, and she stretched to accommodate his monstrous cock. A primal need to give her complete satisfaction kept him clinging to edge, hanging on to the release.

He gritted his teeth. Whatever it took, he didn't care if he never came again. He needed Holly to come apart with his cock buried so deep in her cunt they merged into a single entity.

Her soft hands rode his biceps; next she clutched his shoulders. Before he found the breath to correct her breech of discipline, she began rubbing his shoulder blades. As she explored the ridges where his wings would have mounted, the markings on his back throbbed. A new erogenous zone lit him up with arousal. Ripples of erotic bliss jolted through him, setting wildfires of urgent hunger.

The barriers around his heart cracked a little more, his usual scent grew stronger, and his cock began to leak with an undeniable compulsion to fill her with his cum.

She screamed his name, fresh scalding cream spilled over his shaft, and the clasp of her satin sheath grew impossibly tighter, softer, and then tighter again. Her inner muscles pulsed around his cock faster and faster as she shattered against him with small jerks of her perfect, round hips, irresistible full-body shivers, and broken cries of joy.

Her orgasm drove him like a bullwhip and he gave her more, harder, deeper, and faster, and he still wasn't fucking close enough. He wanted to be in her mind, in her blood, and in her bones. He wanted her to burn for him with the same helpless craving he felt for her.

For half a second, the small sane part left of his mind whispered a warning about mating signs. But then rational thoughts vanished. His inner beast roared in triumph as cum streaked through his cock in lightning blasts of ecstasy.

His climax gripped him like leather restraints and went on and on and on like nothing he'd ever experienced. Even when it was over and he was drained, he still held her tight with a frightening tender possessiveness. He couldn't let go.

What the hell had just happened?

Eventually Holly wriggled off his lap. The loss of contact goaded him into action. He prowled after her like the hunter he was, suddenly unreasonably unwilling to let her out of his sight. “Are you okay?"

She smiled at him over her smooth shoulder. “Fine, Master."

The irresistible curve of her lips had his inner beast roaring
mine
and his cock stirring, which should have been fucking impossible. Then his heart did an odd little lurch, and his scent intensified again, almost like mating sign.

Exactly like mating sign. Is that even possible?
Sure as hell shouldn't be. He was latent. But there was no denying something had happened. His feelings for Holly were different. He'd lusted after her from the first time he saw her round little ass as she bent to get groceries out of her car.

Now he didn't want to let go of her, literally. What he wanted was to lock her in a nice safe dungeon and bring her bites of the finest delicacies to feed her by hand. The reality that he didn't have a dungeon or delicacies didn't have any impact on his urge. And urge was way too mild to describe what he felt. He needed to take care of her more than he needed to hunt.

Oh, yeah, that sounded a whole lot like absolutely crazy bonded-male shit.

Hell no, he wasn't going there. He was one of only seven demon hunters. The secret cadre already battled insane odds. They could not lose another warrior. Demon survival rode on their backs. The other males were closer to him than brothers. Letting them down simply wasn't an option. Bonding would make his work—his life impossible.

They'd just lost Thad, the only bonded hunter—proof mating and nightly death matches didn't mix. There had to be something he could do to fix this, or else he was screwed, and so was the whole demon race.

Belinda's ringtone played from living room where he'd dropped his pants.

"Go ahead and get that. I'll just be a moment.” Holly disappeared into the bathroom.

After a little tug of war session with his insane need to stand guard outside the door to the bathroom, he dragged his butt over to his jeans, dug out the phone, and called Belinda back. Maybe she knew a potion, a spell, something—anything that would help. “Talk to me."

"Colin.” Belinda's husky alto rose with relief. “I'm so glad you called back. I finally figured out what I heard in your voice. Are you ready?"

He unclenched his jaw long enough to grunt, “Yeah."

"Mating sign, and from the sound of you, it's gotten worse.” Belinda sighed sympathetically.

She had no idea how much worse. Colin kept the bad news to himself. “Tell me how that's even possible—I'm latent."

"And the female?"

"Don't get cryptic on me. I'm not in the mood."

"Sorry, I meant what species is the female?"

Colin started to say, human, you idiot, like nine out of ten people on this planet. Then memories of Holly's sweet cocoa taste made him slow down and wonder. Human women didn't come chocolate-flavored. Not that he'd heard... “Not sure."

"If she were even a tiny smidgeon demon, that would change things. You might not be quite as latent as you thought."

"Is this your idea of help? Thanks for a whole lot of nothing.” Colin reached to end the call.

"Wait.” Belinda's wail stopped him.

"There's more?” A pathetic note of hope crept into his tone.

"Just a couple of things,” she said briskly. “As long as you don't...finish inside her sex, then mating can't happen. But if she has even a little bit of demon blood and if she's ovulating when you climax, then she could be bound too. So you need to play safe unless you want a really long-term—as in lifetime—relationship."

"What if I did come in her pussy?” he growled. “How do I reverse the process?

Belinda paused, then said softly. “You don't."