Demon Blood

were a stormy green, his face harsh with his arousal. He came up on his elbows again.
    “Scoot back, Rosie.”
    It was a guttural command. She slid down his stomach until the steel weight of his erection bumped up against her backside. His breath hissed in as she lifted her hips and reached back for him, dragging his length through her slick folds.
    “Take me deep now. Until you can’t take any more.”
    Her wings whispered over the grass as she rose up to her knees. He was hard and big in her hand, soft skin over steely flesh, his pulse beating headily against her palm. Positioning the thick head at her entrance, she slowly pressed down. Her body stretched, accepted.
    His teeth clenched. His hands fisted in the grass. “I took you so hard, Rosie.”
    She remembered how hard, the excitement of being caught up in that maelstrom. Her sex responded in a liquid rush, and she moaned. “Yes.”
    “I hurt you.”
    Her eyes flew open. She said fiercely, “No.”
    She pushed down, taking him to the root. His beautiful body arched, muscles straining as his hips lifted. Bracing her hands against his wide chest, she rode him, watching his face, the clamping of his jaw, the way his mouth fell open and he dragged in air before groaning her name. His hands roamed her thighs, her belly, pinching her nipples and then hauling her down to kiss him, hard and deep. His biceps bunched beneath her fingers and he threw his head back, but she followed him, sensing how close he was, wanting to be there with him. She drew his mouth to her neck.
    He reared up to sitting, shoving her down over his thick length even as he sank his fangs in her throat. Rosalia cried out as the orgasm fried her senses, as he pulsed deep inside her.
    Panting, she let her wings fall forward, wrapping around them. Deacon rolled her over so they lay on their sides, tucking her against him, her wings spread out on the grass behind her. Her head still spinning, Rosalia looked up at the stars. She used to dream of flying up there. Using her Gift, and seeing how far the darkness went.
    Now she was just glad to be here.
    “I love you,” she said.
    He didn’t say anything. She lifted her head. His eyes were closed, his mouth in a firm line, bracketed as if fighting off pain.
    “Deacon?”
    “Don’t, Rosie. Just—Don’t.”
    “Don’t what? Don’t love you?”
    Too late for that.
    He rocked to his feet, leaving her on the ground. Stalking over to the pool, he swept up his clothes. Anger heated his psychic scent.
    Anger? If he’d been unsettled, she could understand. She’d said it out of nowhere. They had a lot to deal with. Her timing might be atrocious. But angry ?
    She stood, formed her black shirt and pants. “Deacon?”
    He jerked on his trousers. “Don’t manage me, Rosie.”
    “ Manage you?”
    “Yeah. You’ve got me where you want me, like I said. No knife at my throat. I’m in. You don’t need this to persuade me.”
    She looked at the grass, flattened by the weight of their bodies. “You think I did this so that you’d meet Malkvial?”
    “Not the sex. We’re good together that way. But love , Rosie? You overplayed your hand.”
    “I didn’t play anything.”
    “But I’m supposed to believe you love me?” He turned his back to her again and scooped up his shirt. “I get it, all right? We’re lying there, and you took advantage of an opportunity. You think I have doubts, that I might pull out. So you give me another reason to help you. But I’m telling you I won’t pull out before seeing this all the way through.”
    She never thought he would. “I know. You wouldn’t. But you think the only reason that I love you is because you’re helping me?”
    He whirled on her. “Don’t fuck with me like that. Look, just leave it out.”
    Suddenly, she understood. He didn’t doubt her reason for loving him, but just that she loved him at all.
    “Why is it so hard to believe?”
    “Look at you, Rosie. Fucking look at you! Look at everything you are.” He wadded up his shirt as if trying to control his anger. “So don’t feed me that line of shit. It’s not necessary. I’m in.”
    She had to try again. She couldn’t give up. “That’s not why—”
    “I’m in!”
    She stared at him. Rejection, complete and utter, radiated from his posture, from his mind. A gaping hole opened in her chest. She scrambled to breathe, to think, for anything that would get her through the next few seconds.
    And found what there’d always been: