Alternate Worlds: The Fallen (5 page)

“If it was something questionable, I
wouldn’t have given it to you to shove up me,” I pointed out dryly,
snatching it back and squirting some into my palm.

He grunted like I’d punched him in the belly
when I grabbed his cock and rubbed it down.

When I had it thoroughly lubed from root to
tip, I turned over, got on my hands and knees and waved my ass at
him. He grabbed my hips, his fingers digging in tightly. This time
when he thrust, his cock slipped inside of me instead of merely
shoving me flat. I braced myself for the next thrust, trying to
think bad thoughts.

I believed in fair play. I really did. I
honestly tried not to enjoy it for his sake, because I could see he
felt like I’d gotten one on him and he just wasn’t going to be
happy unless he had one up on me.

I didn’t expect it to be any real problem.
I’d gotten my cookie. I was satisfied. I’d actually gotten it twice
in just a couple of days after a hell of a long dry spell—because
I’d sworn off men when I discovered they couldn’t give me what I
wanted—either a kid or a good climax. If they enjoyed it, they
wanted you to do things for them—like wash their nasty drawers,
clean their apartments, cook for them—and I didn’t really have the
time or inclination to tend to pets.

Besides, it was annoying to try to scrape
them off when I was done with them without hurting their
feelings.

I went over my laundry list in my head. I
thought about getting my car waxed—which brought me to my legs and
reminded me I was due for a leg and a bikini wax.

I totally lost the thread of my thoughts,
though, when he sank to the hilt inside of me at last and I could
feel all that rock hard flesh rubbing along my channel as he
withdrew and thrust again.

It felt good and it reminded me of how good
it had felt the time before, and the time before that.

Think bad thoughts
, I told myself
sternly, resisting the urge to moan as he began thrusting more
quickly.

Dropping my upper body to the bed, I buried
my face against the sheets in the hopes that I could muffle any
sounds of pleasure I made as he began to thrust harder and faster.
He had to be close. If I could just hang on a little longer.

My climax caught me completely off guard.
Fortunately, I had my face buried against the bed. I felt confident
he wouldn’t notice, particularly since he came at almost the same
moment.

I sprawled limply against the bed when he
finally gathered himself and moved, dropping on the bed beside me.
My mind was total mush. I struggled to gather my wits, trying to
think how I’d behave if I felt abused and mistreated.

Slugging him probably wasn’t a good idea.
Besides, I didn’t think I could manage it. I was feeling too
weak.

If I was girly girl, what would I do, I
asked myself?

Rage at him tearfully and throw things at
him, my mind supplied, dredging that information up from some of
the more obnoxious movies I’d seen.

I decided I couldn’t pull that off either.
It was me he had and me he was going to get.

Dragging myself off the bed, I headed for
the bathroom. After adjusting the water, I climbed in. Tired as I
was, I knew I wasn’t going to get a wink of sleep with cum
dribbling down my legs. I’d been too exhausted from my climax the
first time to worry about it. This time I’d been working so hard
not
to enjoy it, I actually felt a little let down—like I’d
almost got there but not quite.

So that was sort of a pay back, I
decided.

He was gone when I made it back into the
room.

Vaguely disappointed, I crawled into the
bed, covered myself, and dropped to sleep almost instantly.

I woke early, despite my nocturnal
activities. It took more of an effort than usual to struggle out of
the bed and stagger into the bathroom. I was only slightly more
alert when I came out again and felt my way to the kitchen in
search of my morning shot of caffeine.

Mixing my coffee, cream, and sugar like a
chemist until I was satisfied I had just the right number of grains
of each in the cup, I took a test sip. It scalded my tongue and
burned a path to my belly. Deciding to add a little milk, I stirred
it again and trudged to my living room.

The newspaper I’d bought the day before was
on the floor by the front door where I’d dropped everything when I
came in. Ordinarily, I didn’t like to mix bad news with my coffee,
but I grabbed it up and read the article about my misadventures
with the cult.

By the time I’d finished, I was wide
awake.

Knowing journalists’ tendencies to
sensationalize everything, I tended to take reports with a grain of
salt. I found it a lot harder to do that when the tale was about me
and a pack of the most outrageous lies I’d ever seen in print.

No one had been killed, which I was grateful
to hear, mostly because I didn’t want to go to jail. I don’t think
my conscience would’ve been killing me with remorse if there’d been
fatalities. I hadn’t gone with any intention of actually hurting
anyone and I certainly hadn’t tried to do so while I was there. On
the other hand, people like those sadistic cult members shouldn’t
be allowed to run free anyway.

If I hadn’t gone, they would’ve been very
gleefully preparing to murder Gideon by nightfall.

Thinking about Gideon reminded me that I’d
forgotten to take my morning pee test—damn it!

Sighing, I tossed the paper down and
finished my coffee, wondering what I was going to do with myself
all day.

I wasn’t used to doing nothing.

When I got up to grab the TV remote, I
decided gym time might not be a bad idea. I was sore as hell all
over.

Grabbing my bag, I stuffed what I needed in
it and headed to the gym for a thorough workout. By the time I’d
finished—workout, whirlpool, steam room—I felt pretty drained, but
also much better.

Since I still had half a day to kill, I left
the gym and headed for the office. Inside of fifteen minutes I
discovered I’d been replaced.

I wasn’t particularly disturbed. I didn’t
have to work—right away. My bank account was good and I hadn’t even
touched my savings.

I put job hunting on my mental ‘things to
do’ list and decided to grab lunch and wander around the mall for a
while. My sexy black jumpsuit hadn’t weathered the mission that
well. I bought another one and looked around the store a while
before I left and headed down the mall.

I’d already passed the baby store—slowly—but
decided to back track. It was reasonable, I assured myself. My test
could come up positive, and then where would I be? Nothing for the
kid and no idea what things cost.

The prices were pretty staggering. Besides
that, I didn’t know what the gender would be and I didn’t really
like the idea of taking the middle road and going yellow. I was an
‘all the way’ kind of gal. Once I knew for certain that I was
pregnant, and knew what it was going to be, then I could knock
myself out with frills or blue.

I kept looking anyway—because I just
couldn’t bring myself to walk out the door empty handed.

Finally, I decided on a baby book. It wasn’t
too expensive and I figured I could always use it for something
else if my plan fell through. It was a nice book. Something like
that was always useful.

When I’d made my purchase, I headed for the
parking area, figuring the best way to avoid temptation was to
leave the temptation behind me. I’d pretty much made a full day of
it anyway.

Stopping by a newsstand on the way out, I
grabbed a paper so I could study the classified ads when I got back
to the apartment and see what sort of job openings there were.

There was another article about the church
burning I discovered when I got home and sprawled on the couch. It
was below the fold, though, so I figured they thought they’d gotten
about all the mileage they were going to get on it. Arson hadn’t
been ruled out, but investigators weren’t as certain as they had
been before since they’d discovered the source of the fire was
candles. They were saying now that it was
possible
that it
was arson, but they couldn’t rule out the possibility of accident
or just plain carelessness since they’d found out there were lit
candles all over the place.

The cultists were still screaming Satanists.
One of the cult members claimed that she’d seen a Satanist
fornicating with the demon the cult had captured. She was in the
hospital undergoing psychiatric evaluation.

Dismissing it, I flipped through to the want
ads, found a pen and started reading. I had a headache before I’d
made it through the first column and decided to grab a bite to eat.
My fridge looked like something from a refugee camp. Aside from a
couple of twelve packs of canned colas, an over ripe tomato, a
partial stalk of celery that was withered and more yellow than
green, a quart container of milk that had about a half a cup of
milk in it, and some boxes of take-out that contained some really
funky, unrecognizable food type substances, the cupboard was
bare.

The cabinets looked about the same.
Discovering a can of tuna on one of the higher shelves toward the
back—it was out of my line of sight which explained its presence—I
opened it, squeezed the water out and looked around for something
to go with it.

No bread. Dragging the boxes of take-out
from the refrigerator, I dug around until I found a packet of mayo
and squeezed it into the can, then looked for a bread type
substance to go with the tuna salad. I finally managed to locate a
partial bag of chips—stale—and tucked them under one arm. Grabbing
the milk carton, I headed back into the living room.

The coffee table was where I did most of my
eating at home. I’d never gotten around to buying a dining table,
or stools to go with the built in breakfast bar. When I had
everything situated, I settled on the floor with my pen, newspaper,
and the food. I’d finished eating by the time I made it all the way
down the second column of job listings.

Frowning thoughtfully, I went back over the
possibilities I’d circled and scratched through the ones I decided
didn’t especially appeal to me. I had two left out of two
columns.

That wasn’t very promising.

Tired from sitting so long, I glanced at the
clock and realized I’d missed my evening jog. Glad for an excuse to
abandon something that was starting to depress me, I went to my
room and changed into shorts and a tank top, then headed out for
fresh air.

I wasn’t much of a jogger, actually, not in
the sense that I was always pushing myself to run a little faster
and a little longer anyway. There was a playground area near the
apartment complex and I limited myself to circling it a couple of
times.

It was dark, but I didn’t worry overmuch
about that. It was a low crime area and besides I was pretty good
at defending myself.

When I’d made my two circuits, I headed back
to my apartment, feeling a little more clearheaded. I was almost at
my door when I heard something land behind me with a soft thud and
the distinctive flutter of wings.

I’d learned hand to hand combat when I’d
been in the military. Part of that training had included martial
arts. It wasn’t any of the specific martial arts but rather a
combination of several.

Whirling on the balls of my feet, I sprang
into action, throwing three punches in rapid succession. He blocked
all three, finally grabbing me and shoving me against the wall
beside my door when I attempted a kick.

“It is I, Gideon.”

Like I hadn’t known that! “Oh. What are you
doing back?”

He wasn’t very pleased with the welcome. I
could see that in the glitter in his eyes. Grabbing a handful of my
hair, he dragged my head back and lowered his mouth to my neck.
Barbarian! I thought fondly as a rush of pleasure exploded in a
prickling wave across my body, moving outward from the point of
contact.

Chapter Five

I could get used to this, I thought a little
dizzily, feeling everything inside me go warm and mushy as he
gnawed a path along my throat and finally covered my mouth as if he
was starving and I was lunch, plunging his tongue into my mouth and
ravishing the sensitive cavern with breathtaking boldness.

I had to suppose he hadn’t figured out yet
that it was impossible to rape a willing soul. He could be rough or
gentle or anywhere in between. As long as he touched me I was a
happy camper.

Actually, I thought a little dimly, he
hadn’t been gentle. I might not like that. I was rather fonder of
the forceful conqueror than I should have been. If there was
anything I knew about men it was that the very minute you started
thinking about letting them become a habit, they were off to
greener pastures.

That thought dampened my enthusiasm just a
tad.

I broke the kiss. “The neighbors are bound
to call the cops if they see me being assaulted by a big winged man
outside my apartment. You think we could discuss this inside?”

While he was looking around to see who might
have witnessed his arrival—which told me he hadn’t actually
considered that he might be seen before that—I unlocked the door
and went in.

I’d barely cleared the door when he caught
me, dragging me up against him and capturing my mouth again as he
gave the door a push in the direction of closed. Everything in the
room shook when the door slammed shut.

That was bound to attract a few
rubberneckers—not that I cared.

By that time he had me on the floor. Carpet
burn came to mind, but I was too interested in a different kind of
friction to worry about that overmuch.

Grabbing my tank top, he shoved it up and
over my head. I was prepared to balk when he grabbed my sports bra,
but apparently he realized at once that it wasn’t going to stretch
over my head as the top had. He merely pushed it up above my
breasts.