Demon's Kiss (14 page)

Asmodeus took her, plunged his cock deep inside her, and
fucked her as savagely as he could, wanting to possess every inch of her.

Wrenching her head back, Asmodeus struck, his fangs pierced
deep into her throat to claim her finally and completely as his.

Her pussy clenched around his throbbing cock, worked him
even as his mouth closed. Her body bucked with each hard pull of his mouth on
her. Asmodeus feasted, devoured her, ravaged her throat. He drank her in great
greedy gulps, her body tightening around him with each swallow.

His cock was so full, so hard inside her, she was so
tight—he couldn’t fuck her hard enough. He pounded inside her. All he wanted
was more of her, and more.

Gabriel jolted as his venom poured into her, as it flashed
into her bloodstream. It seemed as if she combusted instantaneously as the heat
of it exploded through her, setting her skin, her body, her soul on fire.

She drowned in pleasure. Heat pooled in her belly, swelled
within her, electric shimmers of bliss ran through her from the top of her head
to her toes as she opened to him, quivering helplessly.

Delirious as he ravaged her, she could only experience,
could only let him fill her, fuck her, his cock driving into her, ecstasy
racing through her. His shaft was so deep inside her, driving so hard it
stretched her as he hammered into her, the delicious friction of it
indescribable while his tail pumped into her ass. Every part of her was so full
of him. She was lost in him.

Her back bowed in the pleasure of it and she shuddered
wildly as ecstasy possessed her. As Asmodeus did.

Gabriel was transported as he filled her, as he came.

Asmodeus exploded inside her, plunging deep.

It was astonishing. His whole body rigid as he filled her,
emptied into her, unable to think of anything but the joy of filling her with
his essence, with his seed, her body wrapped tightly around him.

She came again as he poured into her, clenching around him
as he bathed her pussy with his cum and she shuddered, clung to him through the
storm of emotion, of pleasure.

Asmodeus wrapped his arms around her, held her as they both
came slowly back down to earth. He cradled her close in the curve of his arm,
her head on his shoulder, her leg wrapped around his.

With a sigh, Gabriel curled into him, brushed her mouth over
the strong curve of his chest as she slid her hand over his waist to run it
over the ripples of his abs.

She looked up into Asmodeus’ beautiful long-lashed ruby
eyes, the swirling gold in them nearly still and smiled as she ran her fingers
over one perfect cheekbone, brushed his hair back with a flick of her fingers,
and then skimmed them over the curve of his ear again. He quivered just a
little and smiled.

“So beautiful,” she said, running her hand over him. “I do
love to touch you.”

As her hands glided over him, sent shivers through him that
she could feel, Asmodeus said, “I cannot say that I mind. In fact, I would not
be averse if you never stopped.”

She smiled. He was so handsome, strong, aristocratic.

Which brought up another matter.

“Is there something you forgot to tell me, by the way?” she
asked and arched a brow at him.

Puzzled, he shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Ba’al called you his prince,” she said.

“Ah.” With a shrug, Asmodeus said, “Someone must lead, so I
do.”

With the death of his father at the hands of the church, it
had fallen to him. The responsibility was heavy sometimes. She was an ease to
that. Just her touch soothed him. It also reminded him that this time must come
to an end. As he had his duty, she had hers.

He sighed.

As much as he wanted her at his side, he knew he could not
ask her to join him here. What she did on her plane was important and important
to her. She was good at what she did, he understood that much from Templeton’s
fear of her and it was clear she was needed there. Whether it was the battle
against evil with a capital E or the lowercase type of evil, that battle still
had to be fought.

Nor could he leave his people to join her.

“What’s wrong?” she asked as she sensed his sudden shift.

“As much as I do not want you to go, how soon must I send
you back to your plane of existence? How soon before you’re missed?” he asked,
his heart already heavy at the thought of being separated from her but he
needed to know how much time they had left.

He did not know how they would manage, only that somehow
they would. Settling his hands on her hips, he brushed his thumbs over her
belly and wondered if his seed had already been planted there.

He felt Gabriel close her mind to him, quite deliberately,
even as she brushed her fingers over his mouth to reassure him.

“Asmodeus, will you trust me again? There’s something I’d
like to show you.”

That puzzled him. There was no question in his mind. She was
his mate. “Always.”

“Can you take me to a place you have only seen in my mind?”

He nodded. “I can.”

“Take us here,” she said and showed him just a glimmer.

It was enough.

With only a thought, a shift between the planes, they were
there.

Asmodeus’ breath caught.

For a moment he could only stand and stare in simple wonder.

It was breathtakingly beautiful, a deep valley between
mountains, so peaceful and so astonishingly green. It nearly hurt his eyes, so
long accustomed to the barren and sere redness of the escarpments of that other
plane.

The sun shone brilliantly out of a clear and cloudless blue
sky. Above and around them the thickly treed mountains rose steeply to create
the small cup of a valley between them, dotted with pockets of meadow. A narrow
stream cut through the center. Beams of sunlight speared between the trees. A
soft breeze blew to rustle the thick long grasses.

With the mountains to block, no human sounds drowned out the
susurrus of the breeze through that grass, the whisper of leaves rustling or
the sweet songs of the birds.

Sounds such as Asmodeus had not heard since he and his had
passed over to the other plane. Templeton had not been much for places like it.

In wonder he looked around.

Clover grew to wave its thick purple heads and he smelled
something sweet—summer flowers, honeysuckle and lavender. Bees hummed
contentedly.

Tucked away beneath the trees was a small cabin, neatly
kept.

It was too easy for Asmodeus to imagine his wings filled
with air as he flew to catch the thermals high above that would carry him up,
soaring into that brilliant blue to bask in the sunlight as it warmed his skin.

Nestled between the mountains, the secluded little valley
was a small pocket of paradise.

Asmodeus drew Gabriel close, wrapped his arms around her
shoulders to stand and look as contentment filled him.

“What is this place?” he asked, almost reverently.

Gabriel looked at him over her shoulder, her hands curled
around his powerful wrists where they encircled her.

His voice was a soft rumble she could feel throughout her
entire body. She loved the sensation of it.

“It’s home,” she said simply.

“Home?” he echoed, not quite comprehending.

Gabriel’s heart ached for him, for what he and the others
had lost—Ashtoreth and Ba’al, the others of his brothers she had met—but she
smiled and nodded.

“Home.”

His hands tightened on her, his breath going still as she
sensed understanding dawn.

“Yours?”

A little lightly, she said, “Yes. Mine and the bank’s, but
it’s my name on the deed.”

Asmodeus let out the breath he held and pressed his cheek to
her hair.

Stroking his forearms, held within the circle of them,
Gabriel spoke quietly, uncharacteristically diffidently, her throat tight.

“I have an apartment in the city, in D.C. but when I can, I
come here,” she said, and looked around at the quiet beauty, “to escape. When I
need to remind myself what it’s all about, when I need to ground myself, to be
around green and growing things. No one wanted it, the ground is too stony to
grow much, so the land was cheap. I didn’t know when I bought it why I bought
it.”

She looked back over her shoulder at him, at his strong
handsome face, at the peace in his eyes, and the longing there.

“I think I do now. Is it big enough, Asmodeus, for all of
you? For all the Daemonae?”

Asmodeus looked around and his heart went still.

A home. And not just for him, but all of his people. All of
the Daemonae. It was there in her mind, opened now to him. She was offering
them a home and so much more.

A return to this plane, this world. Not just that, but a
place to fly, to be unobserved, where they would not have to hide their true
nature as they had in the past.

Asmodeus looked around at the pretty, little valley and
brushed his cheek against his mate’s silvery hair, seeing in his mind’s eye the
sky above them filled with Daemonae wings. If ever he had loved her, he loved
her more now for what she gave him and his people.

He turned, looked back toward the entrance to the valley, to
the world that waited for them out there.

“Templeton,” Gabriel said, following his gaze.

Nodding, Asmodeus took a breath. “Does he know we survived?
We know he knows about my brothers. It’s unlikely he has given up.”

Around him birds chirped and the air smelled sweetly of
grass and trees.

“We have to know.”

Chapter Ten

Around the room, keyboards went still, voices stopped
talking on telephones and cell phones, and, an unusual enough occurrence there,
silence fell. In this place that was striking.

Gabriel saw heads turn, women—and one or two men—sighed
while others broke into smiles.

There were only a few people she knew who could provoke that
reaction among some of these cynical hard cases. She turned in her chair to
watch with pleasure and admire the man who walked down the aisle between the
desks, her small office cubicle clearly his destination.

He moved like a cat, lithe and graceful.

To all appearances he was a handsome man—tall, beautifully
built, with high, sharp cheekbones and slanted dark eyes, his
silvered
dark hair drawn back at the nape of his neck. He made his way toward her with
long, easy strides. The deep curves of his pecs were limned beneath a tight,
thin silk tee shirt. The short sleeves revealed strongly muscled arms while his
jeans hung comfortably on narrow hips. The man practically radiated sex.
Looking at him, you knew he could wear a designer suit as if he’d been born to
it. He lifted a hand to some of those watching in easy greeting.

Like all his kind, he was astonishingly beautiful but
surprisingly he roused little envy in those who looked at him.

She smiled to see the warmth of those greeting him in return
and as he smiled at her, his grin changed his face completely, making him
appear much less daunting.

Planting a hand on each arm of her chair, he bent and laid a
hot kiss on her that would have rocked anyone’s world, his mouth moving over
hers slow and easy.

Grinning, she curled a hand around his head and slid her
fingers into hair like black silk, sinking into the kiss as warmth filled her.

A hard hand clamped on his shoulder to pull him back and
away.

With a grin Gabriel let him go.

“Five minutes to park the car and he’s trying to steal my
woman. Get your own, Ash,” Asmodeus complained with a smile and a shake of his
head, nudging his brother aside to yank Gabriel up out of her chair and into
his arms.

The kiss he planted on her did more than rock her world, it
blanked it out completely. There was nothing for her except his mouth and his
strong, hard body against hers as he lifted her off her feet as if she were
nothing.

Gabriel smiled, savoring the taste of him as she wrapped her
arms around his shoulders, slightly broader and more solid than Ash’s leaner
frame. She loved the feel of the massive size of Asmodeus beneath her hands,
within her arms. Ash was just that little bit leaner.

And, of course, Asmodeus was hers.

“I’m working on it,” Ashtoreth said complacently, grinned
and folded his arms to lean back against the door.

He just liked to tweak Asmodeus’ chain now and then. Gabriel
knew because he’d told her.

Getting out into this world was quite an experiment for all
the Daemonae. Like the others, Ash hadn’t yet found anyone he felt safe enough
to reveal himself to or to feed from much, but as long as he didn’t use magic
often he didn’t need to, yet.

In fact most of the brothers were enjoying themselves and
their return to this plane quite thoroughly as far as Gabriel could tell. Most
were rarely home on Friday nights, changing to human form to visit the local
bars.

There had been a few adjustments all the way around.

Coming to terms with the idea that she was Asmodeus’ fated
mate hadn’t been that difficult. For years she had longed for someone who could
understand her as Asmodeus did.

Finding his fated mate though, had elevated Asmodeus from
prince to king.

Finding out that by making love to Asmodeus she’d suddenly
become queen of the Daemonae had been a bit more of a shock.

Finding that she could read the minds of all of the Daemonae
because of it?

That
had been a revelation.

Not all the Daemonae could read minds, and of them all, only
two could read all their minds—Asmodeus as their king, and now Gabriel. That
was how she had been able to summon Ash. No other than Asmodeus’
mishea
,
his beloved, could call them as she could.

Wrapping her arms around Asmodeus’ waist as he set her back
down, Gabriel looked up into his beautiful long-lashed dark eyes and saw the
hidden glints of red and gold that sparked whenever he looked at her.