Demon Forged (39 page)

In his mind, he had done this a thousand times. Bared her. Watched her head fall back, with the firelight warming her throat. It had never been with this enormous pressure in his chest. Or the frustration of being unable to see her face and read her emotions.

These small flickers of movement, the tiny sounds of her response, were not enough.

Patience
, he reminded himself.

But patience was slipping away.

“You hold yourself back, Olek.”

The accusation in her voice was a sharp prod. His hands on her hips, he surged to his feet and spun Irena to face him. He lifted her onto the table, bringing her almost level to his height, and pushed between her leather-clad legs.

Her gaze targeted his mouth. Her eyes glittered.

He tangled his fingers into her hair. Brought his lips a razor’s width from hers. “You hold yourself back, too.”

“I wait to see what you will do.”

What
he
would do? As if he would do nothing.

His blood pounded and urged him on, but it was with slow deliberation that he claimed her mouth. Slow . . . slow. He savored the taste of her, teased her lips open. Then Irena’s fingernails dug into his back and he thrust against the rough heat of her tongue, need riding over him.

With effort, he slowed again. Irena growled in her throat. He tore his mouth from hers, spoke harshly against her jaw.

“I will
not
take you in a frenzy. I have waited too long.” He ground his erection against her sex. She lifted to him with a husky moan that almost pushed him over the edge. “And if I come inside you now, I will
come inside you now
.”

“I have waited, too. So I will take it.”

His eyes closed. “Perhaps you will. My pride will not.”

She laughed, and he pulled back to see her face. His heart kicked, hard. By all that was holy, she was stunning. Strong. And he had to see more of her.

“You want to know what I will do?” He hooked his fingers in the neckline of her apron. “I will remove this.”

“That is all?”

His gaze fell to the vee of her thighs. His stomach clenched with need. “No. I also have a promise to keep.”

She hesitated. Her lashes dropped, hiding her eyes.

No.
Brash, earthy Irena wouldn’t look away when a man spoke of taking her with his mouth. But she would if she felt vulnerable or afraid.

He jerked his hand back. Her gaze snapped to his. He sensed her sudden anger, and his temper rose to meet it.

“I
will
finish this, Irena.” But not in anger. And not with Irena battling herself every step of the way.

Curse that bastard demon. Irena ripping the creature apart hadn’t been enough. Alejandro would’ve given anything to put the demon back together just to rip him apart again.

Feeling his control slip, he turned abruptly away from her to stalk across the forge. The light from the hearth fire stung at his eyes. How had this happened? He could never have imagined these hesitations when they finally came together, these false starts. One touch had always been enough for need to take over. Christ, they hadn’t even had to touch. All it took was a look. Need had never been a problem. The problem had been preventing himself from going to her, stripping her naked, and staking his claim in the most basic, barbaric way a man could.

Yet now he had to force himself to push forward. Force himself to kiss her, and try, for God’s sake, to forget that she had to
give herself permission
to enjoy it. The very thought revolted him; he could only imagine how fiercely Irena hated it.

But he also couldn’t stomach the thought of avoiding her again.

The path they were on now was right. They had kept from each other for too long. But, by God, he simply could not find his footing.

He stalked past the bed lying next to the wall. He wanted to burn it. Wanted to slash the furs to pieces. He could go back to her now with this frustration pounding at him, this hurt, and they would fuck on her worktable or the floor and he would lose himself in her. He knew it. Passion rode that edge with them, and never allowed for hesitation.

But why was it so damned impossible to make love to her without anger between them?

He stopped at the hearth and slipped his hand into the shallow bowl of fire. Pain licked at his fingers before he drew on his Gift and pulled the heat from his skin. With a soft nudge of power, the dying flames roared upward.

This, he could control.

But where was Irena’s fire? She responded to him, yes. But she had always burned hot on her own. Where was that now?

Without warning, she grabbed his arm from behind and wrenched it back, out of the flames.

“You stupid ox,” Irena hissed. “If you must burn yourself . . . to .. .”

Her voice faltered as he spread his fingers. She stared at the unmarked skin. He watched her fists clench, and the hard fury come into her eyes.

“You didn’t tell me you can do that,” she said with a carefully neutral tone that might have terrified a novice.

She wanted to hit him, Alejandro realized, and suddenly he felt like laughing. “In four centuries, there is much I haven’t told you,” he pointed out. In a single movement, he caught her waist and swung her up onto the stone ringing the hearth. Before she could flinch away from the flames, his Gift surrounded her. “Such as discovering that I only burn when I must create my own heat.”

Her brow creased. “You aren’t hurt by any other fire?”

“No. And this close, I can also protect you.”

Her gaze held his. Deliberately, she leaned back, suspending herself over the dancing orange and yellow tongues. Only his hands at her hips prevented her from toppling over into the bed of coals.

He didn’t need to ask if she trusted him. Earlier, she had given him control—even though that wasn’t her nature, any more than it was his nature to control her.

Perhaps that was where they had stumbled.

He pushed aside a charred piece of wood, sending up a shower of sparks. When there was an even bed of embers with no sharp edges, he lowered her into the hearth. She lay before him like a pagan sacrifice, her upper body surrounded by fire. The air shimmered around her; her eyes glowed as fiercely as the coals.

“Tell me, Irena.” He slid his fingers beneath her loosened apron. “Tell me to keep my promise . . . and to keep you safe.”

Irena vanished the apron. Her nipples were the delicate pink of an oyster’s shell, brushed with coral by the orange light of the fire. It took everything in him not to bend his head and suck at her wildly.

A smile curved her mouth. “Keep your promise, Olek.”

She didn’t say the rest, he knew, because she thought it was both obvious and stupid.
Of course
he would keep her safe.

Still, he didn’t move. “Tell me how.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Put your mouth on me before I kill you.”

Better, but not enough. “If you kill me, you will burn.”

With a snarl of frustration, Irena reared up and grabbed his hair. She dragged him down into the flames with her, shoved his lips to her breast.

At the first lick, her snarl softened into a moan. Pleasure skimmed over her psychic scent, then plunged as he drew her deep into his mouth, circling his tongue around her hardened nipple.

She pulled at his hair. “More.”

Both the demand and gentle pain rippled through him, sweet and hot. Yes. This was what he’d needed, too. For Irena to make demands, so that he could fulfill them. He licked and teased his way across her chest. He rocked against her, his heated shaft grinding against her core. Sparks shot into the air around them.

“More,” she said, and this time the word was both a demand and a plea.

His fingers tore at the laces of her leggings before he remembered. He stopped.

“Tell me, Irena.”

She looked at him down the length of her body, past her heaving breasts, the tips reddened from the heat of his mouth. “Keep your promise.”

He tugged a lace free. “How?”

“Push my legs apart and taste me.” Her hands fisted around burning charcoal. “And do not stop, even if I scream.”

He wouldn’t. She’d scream his name, hers, and every one of her gods before he finished. But that was not what his promise had been.

“Even if you
beg
,” he corrected.

Her laugh dared him to try. “We will see who begs.”

His fingertips met, as if the lace had been plucked from between them. Alejandro looked down and struggled not to forget his promise, not to ram inside her heated depths and pound against her. Her leather stockings and leggings had vanished. He wouldn’t have to push her legs apart. She’d already spread them to make room for his hips, and braced her heels on the edge of the stone ring. At the juncture of her sleekly muscled thighs, a small triangle of auburn curls guarded her glistening pink cleft.

He’d have begged. Oh, yes, he’d have begged. And then worshipped. Her beauty destroyed him.

He stepped back so that he could bend and press his lips to her bare hip. “I make a new vow, Irena.”

“First fulfill this one—
if
you can from that position. My hip is too far north.”

A soft laugh escaped him. Gliding his mouth over her flat stomach to her navel, he flicked his tongue into the indentation.

“I vow that your ankles will soon be on my shoulders,” he said.

Her hands tightened in the coals. Pale gray ash dusted her fingers. “That is . . . a good vow.”

With the barest pressure, he stroked his fingertips up the inside of her thigh. “I vow that I will soon sheathe myself in you, inch by inch, until I can push no deeper.”

Her eyes closed and her hips rolled, as if she imagined taking him inside her. An ember popped, sending a glowing chip to land on her stomach. Alejandro brushed it away. His tongue traced the crease of her torso and thigh.

“
Lower
, Olek.” She unfurled her fist, scattering crushed charcoal and ash. Her fingers threaded into his hair, directing him to her center.

She stopped, holding him there. He looked up and met her eyes. She had hesitated, but it didn’t have the flavor of anger or shame.

“I haven’t allowed this. Not since—” She moistened her lips. “It is too . . . open.”

Alejandro nodded his understanding. Fucking didn’t require intimacy. It didn’t make her vulnerable. The same couldn’t be said when tongue and teeth were against the softest, most unprotected part of her.

She released his hair and let her hand fall back into the fire. “It is easy to open myself to you, Olek. But know that I expect the same in return.”

She already had it. With his Gift protecting her from the fire, she felt his every emotion. His awe, his overwhelming need. She might have even felt his vulnerability, that she held his heart in her hand.

He swallowed past the tightness in his throat and dipped his head lower. He spoke to prepare her; anticipation made his voice rough.

“My mouth will be hot.”

A sound like a purr vibrated from her chest. “I know.”

Not just his mouth. He parted her soft cleft with a lick and the clenching need tore through him, stiffening everything but his lips, his tongue. One lick, and he was on the burning edge of release. One lick, and Irena became still, so still—but the serpents on her arms writhed in a primal dance. She felt as he did, then. She would contain this, or shatter.

He drew his tongue through her center before circling her clitoris, sucking lightly. Irena’s body shook. His hands clamped on her hips and he increased the suction. Irena broke into motion, her upper body twisting violently. She cried out. Alejandro held her, stunned by the frantic throb of her flesh beneath his tongue.

That quickly? He glanced up. Irena lay still again, her heart racing. Flames heightened the flush on her cheeks; heated air currents moved gently through her hair.

She looked down at his expression and laughed. “It has been a very long wait, Olek. And then I looked at you. Your lips were . . .” Her body made a single, rolling undulation. “I could not hold after that.”

“You should close your eyes.” Amused, Alejandro slipped his fingers down, sliding them through her silken wetness. “For although you are already spent, I am not near to finished.”

“I am not spent.” Her eyes glittered with challenge. She didn’t close them.

He would wear her out, then. So be it. Alejandro lowered his mouth and began to play.
Slow,
she told him, and so he moved faster, until she gasped and tried to break away. He slowed, and she moaned for him to quicken his tongue. He eased his fingers between her slick folds, and had to withdraw his mouth and tease until the need to taste her again overwhelmed the desire to work his shaft into the tight heat his fingers invaded. She snarled in frustration and he devoured her. She shook and he didn’t stop when she closed her eyes, when she twisted and screamed his name. Then she lay still for a brief second and laughed again.

It
had
been a long wait. And he still wasn’t finished.

He drove her hard, his mouth and fingers ruthless. Had it been any other woman he would have stopped, would have tired of it, would have been ready to seek his own pleasure. But he’d never found as much pleasure as this, watching Irena try to hold back, watching her give in. Listening to her breathless laugh each time.

He felt a gradual change in her response, a softening beneath his mouth and hands. She
had
opened to him, yet the tension within her hadn’t only been erotic. And she’d reveled in her arousal, but now, she luxuriated in it, like steel that had heated to melting. Still hot, but no longer trying to hold a shape.

He eased up, each lick a long slow taste, sliding his hands up her sides. Irena arched, her head tilting back.

“You lied, Olek.” Her breath was ragged. “I am burning.”