Hierarchy (5 page)

“It was either that or deposit you in the foyer to crawl up,” he muttered.

Bronwyn managed an inelegant snorting laugh that made amusement well up in him despite his near desperate state. “I’m not that drunk,” she murmured as he set her on her feet beside the bed.

“No?” he asked sardonically.

She blinked at him, surveyed the room and turned away, trying to crawl into the bed. He snapped his fingers to dispose of his own clothing and followed her, wrestling with her briefly before he managed to rid her of the damned dress she’d managed, somehow, to twist around her as she climbed in. She fell back against the pillows when he released her to toss the dress aside, her arms thrown upward in a gesture of surrender.

“Don’t you
dare
go to sleep on me, Bronwyn,” Constantine growled as he dove for her throat, his patience stretched the limit.

She uttered a drunken giggle that hitched in her throat and became a moan as he nibbled a path up her throat and over to the side of her neck. His throat went dry as he felt the pulse of her nectar against his lips. It would be sweet, he thought, as sweet and pure as she was.

Despite the burning hunger in his belly, however, his fangs didn’t elongate.

You cannot use your powers against her.

Bloody hell!

The temptation burned him to tear at her fragile skin with his teeth anyway to reach the warm, pulsing nectar so temptingly close. He struggled with the knowledge that he would only cause her pain to do so, the certainty that he had no way to inject the soothing drug to sooth the sting and make her malleable to his will.

No way to stem the tide once he’d torn the membrane to feast on her.

She would die, taking her gift with her.

It still took every ounce of self-control he could muster to lift his head. He studied her face, felt his body throb with other needs, felt a wave of fury and frustration as it dawned on him to wonder if he could even assuage those needs.

He found he couldn’t resist the attempt. She was open to him, already warm and willing. He settled his mouth over hers, kissing her with all the pent up frustration inside of him. She twined her arms around his neck despite his roughness, kissed him back and an odd sense of protectiveness stole over him.

He gentled his kiss, stroked the slick inner surfaces of her mouth caressingly with his tongue, gathering what he could of her essence to himself to feed his hunger.

“Con!” She groaned his name pleadingly when he broke the kiss.

He would’ve slain anyone else that had dared to utter a diminutive of his name and yet, oddly, it seemed to set his blood on fire. He stroked hands that shook with eagerness over her full breasts, cupped each in a palm and served their cherry ripe tips to
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himself to suckle.

“Sweet baby,” he murmured huskily when she spread her thighs willingly, nay eagerly, at the touch of his hand as he glided it over her belly and found her honey pot, allowing him to stroke her nether lips and collect her honey on the tip of his finger.

He found he couldn’t wait longer once he’d stroked her inner passage and felt her moist heat, the tightness of her body. He had to feel it around him, needed it to assuage the ache that begun to throb so hard it felt as if his temples would explode. He slid his hips into the cradle of her thighs, pierced her with the head of his cock.

The sweet agony of it made him lightheaded. He lowered his weight onto her, burrowed his face into the pillow beside her head while he struggled for control. “
Ma
sucré mignon
! Sweet little morsel! Your heat scalds me so deliciously I think I will spill my seed and give neither of us the satisfaction we crave.”

She uttered a grunting gasp, lifting her legs to curl them around his hips. “Don’t leave me! I think I’m going to come!”

A shudder traveled through him. Gritting his teeth, he plowed deeper, sawing back and forth along her channel until he could go no deeper—and still he felt the urge to try, had to fight it. He took a moment to find his bearings when he felt Bronwyn stir against him—and discovered the limitations of the physical world.

She was a good foot shorter than him and her face was buried against his pecs.

He tried twisting, sliding his body down hers to seek her lips and felt his cock sliding from her. He tried summoning his powers to satisfy his need to feel her mouth around his tongue as he plowed into her and discovered he couldn’t command even that much of his powers.

Bloody fucking hell! It didn’t occur to you, you evil old hag, that
I
might want it
for myself!
He raged inwardly, but he had no true connection to the old woman beyond the protection charm she’d enveloped Bronwyn in. He couldn’t even argue his bloody side of it!

Giving up in frustration after a moment, he curled his arms around her, holding her tightly against him as he drove fiercely into her in search of the pleasure he’d begun to doubt he would find. Bronwyn bucked and shuddered against him abruptly, crying out his name. His heart, which rarely made its presence known, abruptly surged almost painfully in his chest. Everything inside of him went taut and then he felt his body convulse, felt his seed scald him as it rushed from his body in nearly painful bursts that knocked the breath from him.

He was so wrung out when his body finally ceased to seize that it was many moments before he realized the experience was like nothing that he’d ever felt before.

He’d felt heat, well warmth—in
his
body, not just hers—in his balls and his cock.

He felt warm all over, he realized in shock when he managed to regain enough strength to roll off of her. For some time afterward, he lay staring at the ceiling, trying to convince himself that the warmth he felt was hers, that he’d merely absorbed it as he so often did when he fucked a mortal woman.

It didn’t
feel
the same, however, and that was what disturbed him. After grappling with it for a time, he realized he’d lain next to her until he could feel the first feeble rays of the morning sun. In too much turmoil and confusion to register the passing time till then, he flung himself from the bed, gathered his powers to him with a good deal of relief, and rushed to his lair.

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He was still in turmoil when he’d closed himself off from the mortal world and composed himself for sleep. Was it a change in him, he wondered? Or was it only a fleeting thing the old woman’s magic had wrought?

He didn’t know and he found it seriously disturbing that he didn’t, almost as disturbing as the possibility itself.

He’d spilled his seed into Bronwyn, he realized as he finally began to drift toward slumber, warm, life giving seed. A gift from his mortal mother? Or more magic?

The thoughts sent a thread of excitement through him that roused him upward again. Perhaps he’d already fulfilled his destiny? Maybe he wouldn’t have to go through that disturbing experience again?

You must win her heart by giving her yours—if you’ve one to give. Only then will
you
earn
her gift.

The old witch’s words tumbled through his mind, taunting him.

Bloody fucking hell!

34

Chapter
Five

Bronwyn’s
eye
balls hurt! Groaning, she rolled over and buried her face in her pillow to block out the light stabbing into her brain. With her first deep breath, though, she inhaled the tantalizing scent of Constantine that lingered on her pillow and memories of the night before flooded through her, bringing warmth with them.

Despite the misery of a hangover, she felt a surge of pleasure. She’d had no inkling sex could be so wonderful! Just remembering how Constantine had made her feel sent delicious, warming tingles through her and a sense of anticipation and excitement to face the day that she couldn’t ever recall feeling before.

Her headed throbbed worst, though, when she finally decided she’d lain abed long enough and sat up. Wincing, she hovered on the edge, holding her head and trying to remember just what she’d drunk the night before.

Wine with the dinner. She couldn’t recall for certain, but she thought she’d had more than one glass while they’d sat talking. He’d taken her to his club afterwards and had coaxed her out onto the dance floor for a slow dance that had sent her mind reeling and her temperature soaring.

She frowned. Maybe she shouldn’t be putting it all down to Constantine’s prowess? She knew she’d had at least one mixed drink after she’d arrived at the club and considering she never drank she must have been trashed. Would the alcohol have heightened the experience or dulled her senses, though?

Maybe she should’ve tried mixing sex with alcohol before and she wouldn’t have had so many god-awful experiences before?

Dismissing the thought, she headed into the bathroom to pull herself together. It wasn’t until she got out that she felt a fleeting sense of panic about the time and her job.

Luckily, she remembered the boss had taken her off the schedule—reluctantly—after she’d pulled a double the day before. She had the entire day to herself.

What was left of it. She was pretty horrified when she discovered she’d slept most of the day. Granted, it must have really, really late when she’d finally gotten home.

She hadn’t gotten off work until eight. Then she’d bathed and dressed … dinner …

dancing.

She finally faced the one thought she’d been trying to avoid while she brewed coffee.

Constantine hadn’t spent the night with her—or what was left of it. He’d brought her up to her place, fucked her brains out—and done a bang-up job of it!—and then left.

She sighed. At least he hadn’t tossed bills on the bed when he’d left, she thought glumly.

Try though she might to invent a plausible excuse for why he’d played and run, she couldn’t come up with anything except that he’d gotten what he’d come for and was in a rush to leave.

She hadn’t enjoyed that particular experience before. She hadn’t dated enough, she supposed, but she’d overheard enough complaints from other women to know it was standard practice with the hit-and-run kind of guy. She hadn’t expected that sort of
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behavior out of Constantine, but then she was obliged to admit that she hadn’t expected him to show up at all and she didn’t really know what to expect. It wasn’t bad enough that she didn’t have that many experiences to go by. He was a foreigner to boot and they probably had a whole different way of looking at such things, especially since she’d put out on their first official date.

She probably
was
lucky he hadn’t tossed out a few bills!

What
had she been thinking?

She’d been too boozy to think—with anything but her pussy, that is!

Not that that was an excuse. She’d been hot for Constantine since she’d laid eyes on him. The booze had just hastened her downfall. If she’d been stone cold sober and he’d tried to get her in bed, she probably would’ve raced him there!

She decided after a while that the real reason she felt so blue was because she was afraid she’d run him off. Too easy! And Nanna had given her plenty of lectures on
that
subject!

She should’ve known better! She wasn’t a kid anymore. She was a grown woman. She couldn’t excuse her bad behavior on rampant hormones even if she did have raging hots for the guy. She should’ve been using her brain!

Well, she supposed it was too late to worry about it now. She’d blown it!

And maybe she hadn’t really had a chance with him to start with? She’d accepted that he was way out of her league. Most likely the only thing that had convinced him to take her on
one
date was the possibility that he’d get laid.

After wrestling with a hangover, her depression, and her conscience for hours, she finally decided that what she needed was to take a walk to clear her head. She didn’t want to OD on aspirin and what she’d taken had only dulled the pain for a while. She still felt like hell.

The sun was setting as she left her building and that gave her pause, particularly when she saw that there didn’t seem to be nearly as many people in the streets as there usually were. Dismissing it after a moment with the reflection that it was Sunday—

which no doubt accounted for the thinness of people on the streets—she decided to take a short walk and maybe get a bite to eat since she hadn’t eaten since the night before.

She hadn’t actually set out to stroll past the club—not consciously—but she found herself standing on the curb staring at it before she realized she’d headed there on autopilot. After considering simply strolling by for a few moments, she finally decided against it. She didn’t want Constantine to get the idea that she was a stalker if he just happened to be there and happened to look out and see her.

A man stepped out of the entrance to the club even as she turned away. Cutting her eyes to catch a glimpse of him, she began walking more briskly when she realized it was Marco, hoping to hell he hadn’t spotted her.

* * * *