Beauty's Beasts (6 page)

Damian glanced along both directions of the corridor, then reached out for the doorknob. He gave it a twist. It seemed like a gentle turn, but the door gave a low agonized metallic groan and gave way. Damian pushed Riley inside, shut the door, grabbed a slim visitor’s chair from in front of the big wooden desk and rammed the back of it under the handle of the door.

The desk took up most of the room. There was a silver plaque sitting on the front of it.
John Sandford.
An in-tray and a computer monitor with a blank face.

As Riley blinked in astonishment, Damian was suddenly there
in front of her, his hand sliding under her hair and curling around her neck. His lips were on hers, his other hand on her waist, sliding right around her, possessing her.

But then the kiss took hold and she lost track of what his hands were doing to her. She dropped the bags, or maybe he took them from her. But her hands were somehow free. Her coat came adrift and slipped from her shoulders as the kiss lengthened.

When Damian finally lifted his lips from hers she was panting, her thoughts a chaotic tumble of incoherent erotic needs. She reached for him, with a hazy, half-formed thought of undressing him, but he caught her wrists in his hands and turned her, bringing her hard against him. She could feel his cock throbbing against her ass and moaned, pushing herself back against him. She moved her arms so his hands would rub against her breasts.

“Sweet Dion…” Damian muttered. His grip on her wrists tightened. “You’re pushing me, Riley.” There was a note of warning in his voice that both frightened and aroused her beyond belief.

She moaned. “Fuck me,” she begged. “Fuck me hard.”

“Ah,
Christos.
” Damian’s tone was that of a desperate man. His hand snagged in the top of her camisole and yanked. The tough cotton gave way with a tired sound. He grabbed her bra and ripped it the same way and she was abruptly bare from the waist up. He spun her around to face him and there was a light in his eyes she had not seen before. Raw lust, animal need, unshuttered. He licked at her throat with a hungry growl, his hand fisted in her hair. His mouth worked its way down her flesh to her breasts as his hand lifted them one at a time for his mouth to latch on to each tip and sip at it. Then he nipped with his teeth, drawing them out, making the nipples hard, erect and rosy with arousal.

Riley clutched at his shoulders, clawing at the coat he still wore, feeling an odd excitement at being half-naked while he was still fully clothed.

Damian’s hand was at her belt buckle, unsnapping it, slipping the leather out of the slide, pushing the belt aside, and tackling the fastening of her jeans. His fingers brushed against the flesh of her abdomen, making her abs quiver and tighten and her pussy to throb in anticipation. Her clit was swollen, beating with promise, a bare inch or two from his fingers. She trembled with the possibilities.

The zipper slipped undone and her jeans sagged around her hips.

“Take them off,” he breathed and she barely recognized his voice. It was thick with desire and strong with the accent she knew was his, but was normally suppressed and controlled better. “Your panties, too. Everything. I want you naked.”

Excitement shuddered through her. She bent to do as he had demanded, her hands shaking, and stripped herself of her garments. Her panties were soaked through. She put her new boots to one side. Barely had she dropped the last item to the carpet when Damian’s hands curled around her arms, turned her and pushed her so her back was up against the door he had so recently closed and jammed shut. She could feel the cool steel frame of the visitor’s chair against her thigh.

“Undo my pants,” he commanded, his voice hoarse with lust. His thumbs moved against the sides of her breasts as he held her against the door. She remembered that even though the light was low in here, he would be able to see far more detail than she could. She reached for the strained buttons holding his trousers closed and struggled to push them undone. They popped open. Next, the zipper. She merely had to lift the tab and start the zipper sliding down and the pressure on the metal teeth did the rest. The zipper almost unraveled by itself.

Riley caught her breath. No underwear. No belt. As Damian’s trousers opened she saw his erect cock beating against his hip. It was thick and hard, with a flaring head. Just the sight of it made her moan and lick her lips. She looked up at his face.

He was watching her, his black eyes narrowed and sleepy. “You’re a gourmand of a different sort, aren’t you?” he murmured. “Perhaps the rumors were true after all. That would be…interesting, if it were so.”

A question barely began to form in Riley’s mind before Damian pressed himself against her, stealing her breath and her thoughts in one hard kiss. His cock pushed against her stomach and she could feel it beating with the tattoo of his pulse, as his hands gripped her thighs, lifting and separating them, opening her up to him.

The tip of his thick, blunt cock nuzzled her sopping pussy and the muscles around the entrance gripped him convulsively, trying to draw him in. Riley clawed at Damian’s shoulders, her nails digging into the coat. “Harder. Deeper.” Her voice was husky. She desperately wanted him to thrust into her with every bit of strength he possessed…except that in the back of her mind she knew he could possibly crack steel girders with one hand if he chose to. “Please,” she begged hoarsely. “Fuck me.”

He was studying her, watching her writhe against him, trying to take him deeper into her. Almost clinically, he gripped her legs and pushed into her with one long, smooth stroke, burying himself to the root. “Like that?” he asked softly.

Riley let her head fall back as he filled her. She curled her legs around his hips and her arms around his neck. “Mmmm… Good,” she told him. She moved her hips. “More.”

Damian’s smile was wicked and lust-filled and she glimpsed, just for a moment, over two thousand years’ worth of sexual mischief in his eyes. “Of course,” he said simply. “But there is little more delightful than this moment right here,” and he withdrew his cock a little and pushed it back into her.

Riley felt her pussy walls quiver and ripple around him and in response, his cock seemed to pulse. She sucked in a breath. “Oh!”

“Mmm…” he agreed and pushed into her again.

This time even her clitoris beat in response to his impalement. Riley felt her hips jerk of their own volition as a shocking wave of pleasure jolted through her, centered upon her clit and her pussy. She gasped, but Damian did not slow down his assault upon her, or spare her a moment to recover. The delightful assaults rolled over her one after another, building up inside her a tidal wave of intolerable pleasure. She clawed at Damian, feeling the monstrous great climax building in her and frightened by it.

“Come for me, Riley,” he breathed.

She shook her head.

“Sink into it,” he breathed next to her ear as his cock slammed into her. “Let yourself go.”

She couldn’t. Not something this large, this awesome. It would overwhelm her. Consume her. She would lose control. Riley panted, staying on top of it, beating the excitement back.

Right next to their heads, on the other side of the door, a sharp knock sounded.

Damian covered her mouth with his hand. He thrust into her. Once more. Twice. She felt his seed spill into her in hard spurts, his fingers digging into her thigh.

The knock came again. “Anyone there?” Security. From the tone of the question it sounded like they were doing rounds and checking every door as per standard procedure.

Damian’s hand fell from her thigh, down to the doorknob and curled around it, over the top of the chair thrust under it. She saw the knuckles tense. Only the pressure of his hips against her was holding her up against the door now.

On the other side of the door, the doorknob was rattled – they had tested to see that it was still locked. After a few seconds, there was a soft patter of steps heading away from the door. The guard had moved on, satisfied.

Riley dropped her head onto Damian’s shoulder, weak with relief and trembling as adrenaline pumped through her body. He lowered her to the floor and kissed her, his hand tangling in her hair. “Get dressed,” he murmured, fastening his trousers. “I’ll check for the guard. We can slip out via the fire escape.”

Of course, they couldn’t go back out into the gallery where the guard might see them emerge from the corridor he had just checked and found empty.

He slipped off his coat and drew his singlet over his head. “Wear this. I’ll have to replace your shirt for you.” He put his coat on again and zipped it up so his bare chest was hidden.

Riley reached for her discarded clothing with a shaky hand as Damian lifted the chair away from the door, peered out carefully and slipped out.

When he returned, she was fully dressed. Damian’s singlet was much too large for her, but by knotting the arms together at the back, she could make it sit high enough that her breasts were covered decently.

Damian picked up the bags once more, and led her silently from the room, turning right instead of left when they stepped out. They moved down the corridor to the fire escape door.

“Watch for observers,” Damian told her, putting down the bags.

Riley turned to look over her shoulder, back toward the gallery. The small slice she could see of the white, light room was empty of people. She heard Damian moving, a small grunt of effort. Then, “Quickly.”

She turned back to him. He had the fire escape door open and brilliant late afternoon sunlight was pouring in. She blinked. High up by the top of the door, bare gleaming wires hung loose over the frame. That was what he had been doing while she had been watching out—severing the alarm wired to the fire escape door so their opening the door didn’t set off the alarm.

Riley picked up the bags and stepped out onto the metal landing. Damian followed and shut the door behind him. Quickly, they climbed down the ladder to the ground and hurried along the alleyway onto the street, where Damian relaxed once more and looked at his watch. “Time to find a perch to observe the skylights. Nicholas should be here for this, too.” He scanned the skyline around them as he spoke.

Riley stared at him, as she realized the terse orders and his imperious air were not going away now they had reached safety. A chill touched her middle.

“Damian?”

He glanced at her. “You need food first?” he asked. “It
is
getting late.”

“I’m fine for now,” she assured him. “Is something wrong, Damian?”

His eyes pinned her to the pavement in a searing glance utterly without concession. “I think that is a question I should be asking you, but now is not the time for it.” He hesitated. “I’m not even sure there
is
a time.” He looked away, as if he were still searching the skyline.

Riley could feel her breath drop out of the bottom of her lungs, exactly like someone had opened a trapdoor and let out all the air without warning her. Suddenly, she had no oxygen and her chest wouldn’t work properly.

For sixty queasy seconds she fought to breathe, as her mind raced and her heart labored. She knew exactly what Damian was talking about. Even though he spoke in euphemisms, even though he was being deliberately obscure, she
knew
. She hadn’t been able to give up control. She didn’t trust him enough to let go, even in his arms, even though he was possibly one of the most powerful creatures walking this planet.

Riley was flawed, weak, useless. Damian knew it now. He suspected it was a weakness she may never be able to overcome and already wondered if he wanted to try.

She watched him scout the terrain. More than ever, she wished Damian would try. She wanted him like no other man she had ever wanted in her life.

Except Nicholas Sherwood.

Tears pricked her eyes at the cruel dilemma.

Yes, she was indeed flawed.

The roof of the building Damian finally chose was higher than the gallery building by two floors, which gave them an elevated viewpoint. The building had a supermarket and gym on the first floor, a dance studio on the second and apartments on the remainder. The apartments made it easy to gain access to the roof. Damian showed Riley how simple it was to dazzle one’s way into gaining access into buildings and public areas of almost any building in New York with a bit of charm and a lot of very sincere lying.

Once they were on the roof, Damian selected the best vantage point, then called Nicholas on his cell phone. “And bring food,” he said curtly, before dropping the phone back inside his jacket. He glanced at Riley. “By the time he gets here, it will have been four hours since you last ate. You’ve worked your body hard today. I won’t have you pass out on me from low blood sugar.” He turned back to watching the roof of the gallery below.

Riley was sitting on an air-conditioning vent. Now she pulled her knees to her chest, and wrapped her arms around her legs. “You’re pissed at me.”

“No.” He spoke with his back to her.

“You’re angry about something.”

“You’re trying to give me human emotions. My reactions to day-to-day petty concerns are not the same as yours any more. Do not make the mistake of trying to think of me as a man. I’m not.” His face was in profile to her and he looked for all the world like he was disinterested.

“Bullshit, Damian. You think I don’t know how fragile the male ego is? This happens to be something I
do
know about.” She put her feet down and stood up, wanting the authority the height would give her. “It bothered the crap out of you I wouldn’t let go back there, and now you’re pouting.”

Damian turned to face her, a startled expression on his face.

But Riley wasn’t finished yet. “I don’t give a shit how old you are, and you can shove that ‘being above petty concerns’ lie over the ledge you’re leaning against because I don’t believe it for a second—not for this instance, anyway. You’re hiding behind it because you just don’t want to talk about it.
Again
.”

“
Jesus
,” he breathed. “You and Tally. Straight for the gut. No quarter given.”