Demon Marked

in the opposite corner to the bed. She knew Nicholas hated it, that he preferred a shower that washed away the grime and sweat rather than sitting in a shallow, diluted pool of it, but he’d been making do. He’d lain back against the sloped, rounded end of the tub, elbows hooked over the sides, his head resting against the upper edge as if he were exhausted, knees bent and his feet braced beneath the spigot. She’d hoped he would seem crunched up in there, his long body in that short space, but no—and the narrowness of the tub only emphasized the broadness of his shoulders, the long muscles of his thighs.
    His eyes opened when she crossed the room toward the bed, and although he seemed tired, burdened, he immediately sat up, his expression alert.
    “Ash? Are you all right?”
    “Fine.” She gripped the iron rail that served as a footboard, began dragging the bed to the tub. “I’m just coming in to see you naked.”
    “Ah.” He smiled a little, but there wasn’t amusement in it. Regret, maybe. Sitting back again, he said, “You deserve that much from me.”
    “Yes, I do.”
    The feet of the bed frame were scraping up a trail of splinters from the floorboards. She didn’t care. She dragged it to the side of the bath, sat on the mattress, and leaned forward to rest her elbows on the edge of the tub.
    “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Ash.”
    She met his eyes. He appeared sincere. And since he’d never had any compunction against telling her how much he didn’t want to care about her, he probably had no reason to lie now.
    His lying had never been the problem, however. She finished the rest for him. “But also, you’re not even really sure whether you did hurt me, or whether I just want you to think you did. Am I right?”
    His silence was confirmation enough. And if that confirmation made her chest ache, it didn’t matter. It would eventually fade.
    And she was here to see him naked, so she looked. A thin trail of silken dark hair ran down the defined line of his lower stomach. His penis lay against his thigh, thickening even as she watched. Her presence, arousing him—and he didn’t attempt to conceal his reaction to her.
    That might have mattered, if he’d attempted to conceal his reaction to her earlier.
    “The red skin, the horns. That’s what you’ve always seen when you look at me. Isn’t it?”
    “No,” he said softly. “But I always remind myself that it’s under there.”
    “And you have to remind yourself, because I’ve never done anything to remind you. Except for this one time, when I came around your fingers.” She met his eyes, challenged him to say differently. When he didn’t, she asked, “Do you think I faked that, too?”
    He didn’t. He didn’t. She could see that he didn’t. But he didn’t know what else to think. He didn’t have another explanation.
    She had an explanation. She didn’t know why, she didn’t know how, but she knew: “You were wrong about me.”
    “I want to be,” he said simply.
    The constriction around her heart eased. I want to be. Before, he’d wanted to believe she was a liar. It was so much better that he wanted to believe she wasn’t.
    She looked into the tub again. His cock now stood fully engorged, rising up out of the water, though she wasn’t even undressed. Though they hadn’t been talking about sex.
    He wanted to be wrong, and he wanted her.
    And he was just shy of monstrous. The familiar ache started between her legs—something that she hadn’t planned on feeling when she’d come here. She’d been plotting something else.
    “I’ve been thinking about the Rules,” she said. “And I’ve realized that it can’t just be that I break them whenever I touch someone without their permission. I accidentally bumped into people in London all the time—especially in the Tube. But I didn’t have any Guardians coming after me.”
    “Yes,” he said, his gaze watchful. Maybe wary. She hoped it was wary. “In a situation like that, you’re not impeding anyone’s free will.”
    “Unless they’ve already said, ‘Hands off.’ Like you’ve made certain I know very clearly: Hands off, Ash.”
    His jaw tightened for a second. Then, “Yes. I did.”
    “But I want hands on. Right now, I want to stroke your cock. I want to take you into my mouth, suck on you until you come, drink you all down. I could do it now. I wouldn’t even have to come up for air.”
    Nicholas didn’t respond, but his heart began to pound, a flush