Demon Bound

fulfill your bargain?”
    Shock rendered her speechless. How could he be so blasé when the very thought of his death tore her apart?
    He smiled a little and shook his head. “Come on, Alice. Don’t tell me you’re going to believe it.”
    “Believe—? You think she lied?” Khavi had been truthful about everything else.
    “Nah, not really. But, think about it. She’d give us answers to questions that she saw us ask, right?”
    “Yes,” she said, wondering how on Earth that would make her less inclined to believe Khavi’s predictions.
    “But we never asked the questions. She saw something that we would have asked, no doubt about it. Each time, the question was right there. But because she’d already seen it, we didn’t have to say it. And hot damn, you’re sexy when you’re confused. How about you just tap my shoulder when you’ve figured it out.”
    With only that much warning, he braced his hands on the arms of her chair and lifted himself to her mouth. Oh, she thought, when his tongue slid past her lips. He tasted of chocolate and something light and sweet that she couldn’t identify.
    And he would have a very long wait if a functioning brain was her requisite for stopping him.
    Especially now that his hands moved down to her waist, tugging until she half reclined in the chair. He pushed up her skirts, pushed himself between her legs, and then he was rubbing, rubbing.
    His lips left hers and for an instant she decided to kill him. Until his mouth covered her breast, his teeth scraped over steel-strong silk, and his wet tongue circled her hardened nipple.
    “Oh!” Dear heavens, how that lick made her ache. She pushed at his head, then pulled him back, loving the rasp of his hair against her palms. He suckled, and her body melted—except, it seemed, for the very tips of her breasts, which stood like buttons beneath her bodice.
    He lightly pinched the nipple he wasn’t licking, and her legs tightened around him, rubbing faster, faster.
    His hands were traveling up her outer thighs when he froze.
    Oh, no. He could not stop. “If you jump, I will feed you to Nefertari,” Alice said, but her threat was ruined by her breathlessness.
    “No. I just . . . Oh, God,” he groaned as he withdrew from between her legs. “No way.”
    She could not see a problem. His penis rose thick and tall behind blue denim, her drawers were damp at the juncture of her thighs. Everything was as it should be, except that neither of them was yet bare, and there was empty space between them.
    “Bloomers,” he said in awe. “You have bloomers.”
    “Oh,” she exclaimed, laughing, delighted. In truth, they were not precisely bloomers. Her simple black drawers were not gathered at the knee, but fell loose like a long pair of shorts. Only a small bit of lace decorated the hem.
    However plain they were, Jake seemed quite taken with them. Her hips jerked when he dragged his finger up her wet center.
    His voice was guttural. “Do you have any with an opening? Like a slit here?”
    Her lips formed an O before she cackled merrily. “I shall make a pair.” They wouldn’t be of spider silk, but she didn’t need armor with him.
    “Get them on.” He leaned over, his mouth just above her left nipple. “And I’ll get you naked next time.”

    How depraved they were.
    Alice lay on her stomach beneath her worktable, the marble floor cool beneath her cheek. It was odd to be thankful for a slit in her drawers, but she supposed that if the opening had not been there, her bottom would now be exposed, and she simply did not have the strength to cover it.
    Who could have anticipated that animal positions would be so draining? It was not as if she’d had to do much more than brace herself. Yet here she was.
    “I have figured it out,” she said with the little energy she had left. “What Khavi sees has a high probability of occurring, but is not inevitable.”
    Jake made a noise that sounded like assent. He, at least, had refastened his jeans after he’d rolled off her. His right hand rested on his taut abdomen, just above the bunched hem of his T-shirt, and his left forearm covered his eyes.
    Depraved and satisfied, though they were both fully dressed.
    She and Henry had always been clothed, as well, and some part of her had named that as the primary reason their lovemaking had been such a failure. But it had only been a symptom of the passion missing between them, not the cause.
    And the cause was not that she had lacked