Demon Angel

jump into the Pit.
    He reared up, unfastened her vest but didn't take the time with her shirt. Buttons flew.
    She groaned, half-laughing. "I told you my salary—"
    "I've been domesticated." He stared at her bare skin, her taut nipples. "I'll sew them back on." And then his tongue was hot and wet against her.
    Her laughter was lost as he began thrusting his hips in time to the pull of his mouth. His arms, braced on either side of her head, trembled as if it took all his strength to keep it slow. The rhythmic friction against her sex was nearly unbearable. For Hugh, too—his shields fell, and she was slapped by a wave of desperate arousal that equaled hers, tinged by surprise and fear. Too much, too fast, too good .
    He'd expected to be in control. Her eyes blazed.
    His teeth scraped her breast as she tugged his head up. A growl of protest sounded from his throat, silenced when she said, "You still think to resist me? ' Temptation the demon was; an angelic face and false impotency my only defense .'" Her voice mocked him, though she would have done as well to make fun of herself. "You no longer have that defense, yet you cling to it."
    "I'm no longer impotent, either." He rocked forward, and smiled wryly when she bit her bottom lip to keep her moan from escaping.
    She was so wet; the scent of her arousal should have embarrassed her. Her fingers still threaded through his dark hair. Why did she not let him go? It was a human response, a weakness—
    "Lilith," he said hoarsely, and he was staring at her chest again. "Where are the others? There are but half the symbols here."
    Oh, fuck.
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CHAPTER 18
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    "Get off," she said tightly. "Now."
    Her glamour had failed. How could his touch make her lose her control—her sense—so quickly? Re-forming it over her skin took barely a thought, but it was too late. His eyes found hers, and she shoved away the shame of his seeing the proof of her Punishment.
    He nodded, began to ease away from her. "I didn't—"
    A rasp of metal as the doorknob turned. Lilith's eyes widened, and Hugh barely had time to pull the edges of her shirt together before a woman—forty, plump, smiling—opened the door and shuffled in, carrying a tall cup of coffee and weighed down by several bags. Her mouth fell open when she saw them.
    She recovered quickly. "New student?"
    Hugh grinned. "A particularly slow one. Sue Fletcher, Lily Milton." He introduced them without a trace of embarrassment, though he was still between her legs and she was lying atop his desk. Despite herself, Lilith began shaking with laughter. "You don't have to go, Sue; we were just finishing."
    "You look as if you've just begun," the other woman said, cheeks pink. "I'll drop off this stuff and go grab something to eat. But I have an appointment here in half an hour," she added apologetically.
    Hugh lifted his brows. "That's more than enough time."
    Sue chuckled and turned toward her desk to unload her bags; Hugh pulled Lilith to her feet. The door closed again a few moments later, and Lilith tried to summon the shame and anger she'd felt before the woman's entrance, but couldn't. She glanced down at her shirt. "Can you really sew?"
    His heated gaze lingered on the vertical slice of exposed skin. "No."
    "Shit," she said, and busied herself tucking and buttoning. The vest would hold it all together—mostly. She didn't look at him. "You have friends."
    "A few."
    "Have you told them?"
    "No."
    She nodded, then slanted a glance at him. Not much space here behind his desk. Less than two feet away, he leaned against his bookcase, the heels of his hands resting on the shelf behind his hips. Despite his easy posture, she knew he was calculating, weighing, considering.
    "It must be lonely," she said before he could draw any conclusions about the symbols. Distract him by delving into the personal. Once, she would have used sex; but, as touching him had unsettled her so much she had lost her glamours and been unaware of Sue's approach, she was too susceptible to it to try now.
    His half-lidded stare never wavered. "Better than the alternative: did I tell them the truth, they would be forced to decide whether to believe me. It is a measure of trust that I'm not willing to ask from them."
    "You fear rejection?" She snorted. Tried not to remember the regret she'd felt when she'd pushed Taylor and Preston too far. "Fine friends these."
    "Don't, Lilith," he said softly. "Don't twist it."
    And she saw the quiet pain in his