Demon Bound

longer. He put his lips against Pete’s neck, the deep-down reptile memory expecting the taste of sweat and sex and woad from his vision.
    She tasted cool instead, a few raindrop still clinging to her skin, her pulse fluttering under his mouth as he frantically drank down as much of her as he could. It was his last chance, his only chance, and Jack breathed her in instead of air as his hands searched out the hem of her shirt and tugged.
    Abruptly, Pete pulled back, away from him, and Jack came back to himself with a vertiginous jolt. He was too warm, the air was too cold, and his hard-on scraped painfully against his jeans.
    Of course she’d stop him. This was Pete he was with, not some coke-addled Bastards groupie or blissed-out junkie girl fucking him for a bed in a squat.
    Pete put her finger under his chin, drew his gaze up. Every touch sent waves of the Black echoing through him, their magics twining even now, as Jack struggled to keep himself from simply grabbing her and doing what every fiber in his body demanded.
    “Jack, what are we doing?” she whispered. Her voice was rough and her breaths were heavy, in time with Jack’s own throbbing heart. Pete was spinning out as badly as he was, and for some reason the knowledge filled Jack with a giddy joy. He might as well have chased a handful of downers with a shot of espresso.
    “I don’t know anymore,” he whispered back, pressing his forehead against hers, their lips close enough to share any secret.
    Except one.
    Pete swallowed hard, the enticing alabaster length of her throat flexing. “Fuck it,” she said roughly. “I don’t care.”
    Jack stroked down her neck, over her clavicle, feeling the rise and fall of bone and skin beneath his fingers. His sight made everything silver tinged as the power gathered around him and made him fly, made him float, the only high he’d felt that was better than the needle could ever be.
    Still, the small bit of him that whispered when he couldn’t sleep, when he saw things a man tried to bury with fags and booze and easy companionship, made him speak. “I do. I don’t want to be your mistake, Pete.”
    “Too late for that,” she murmured. “I told you you’re in my blood, Jack.” She shut her eyes, and Jack saw silvery tears shimmer at the corners. “You’re in my blood like poison.”
    Jack took her face in his hands, stroked the tears away with his thumbs. “Petunia, no. Don’t cry, luv.”
    Pete opened her eyes, and her hands crawled around his neck, her body insistent against the bulge in his trousers, hip bone on hip bone. “You’re in my blood like poison,” she repeated, her voice scraped. “And I’d die because of you.”
    Jack saw it in her eyes, that reckless feral desperation he recognized. He’d seen it on his own face, in cracked bathroom mirrors and shards of glass for cutting lines, too many times.
    He grabbed Pete by her hair, pulled her mouth down to his, answered that he felt the same as she.
    Pete moaned, and Jack slid his other hand down to her arse, lifting them both from the bed, swaying with her added weight and going down hard on his knees on the threadbare Persian carpet in front of the fire.
    He let go of Pete, barely gave her time to catch her breath before he pushed her to the floor, nudging her knees open with his own, capturing the sweet expanse of skin just above her collarbone in his mouth.
    “Jack,” Pete whimpered. “Jack, I need . . .”
    “I know,” he said into her skin. “Me, too.” He moved, though he could have stayed in the spot forever, and fumbled with her undershirt, trapped as it was against the floor. Pete’s hands found his belt buckle, tugged it loose with far more skill. The pyramid studs made a dull
thunk
as they hit the floor and Jack muttered, “Fuck it.” He grabbed the neckline of Pete’s top and yanked. The lacy fabric gave way and Jack tossed it aside, pausing to appreciate the sight of Pete’s small but impressive tits encased only in a black lace bra. The blush of her nipples was visible in the fire-light, and Jack grinned.
    “Petunia, you wicked, wicked girl.”
    She reached behind her and unhooked the strap in response. “I told you, didn’t I.”
    The bra joined the undershirt, and Jack dropped hismouth to Pete’s nipple, skating over her breast and taking the nub between his teeth. Pete cried out, her hips swaying under him, and Jack decided to hell with taking it slowly or softly. Slow and soft was for ponces and