Demon Moon

a rise out of me.”
    Embarrassment flushed her cheeks. She should have realized she couldn’t hide her arousal from him whether she humped his leg or refrained. “I need to get up and clean, anyway.”
    “All of your clutter?” A teasing note entered his voice, and her embarrassment deepened.
    His left palm slid up to rest flat over her stomach. His thumb dipped into the indentation of her navel.
    “Yes.” It came out as a squeak.
    “Surely you can’t need all of it.” His hand moved lower, his fingers working beneath the waistband of her jeans. The buttons of her fly popped open, one by one.
    Oh god. “Probably not. But I hate to throw anything away.” She couldn’t help herself; she rocked against his leg, trying to ease the throbbing, liquid tension.
    “Ah, sweet—that’s so good. Use me. Take what you need.”
    She needed more than this.
    “What of your lovers?” he said. He softly nipped at her nape, and she had to concentrate to recall herself to their conversation. “You’ve had several, but they do not clutter your bed now. You must’ve thrown them away.”
    “No.” His hand rested at the elastic of her panties now, as if he was waiting. She didn’t want to do this herself. She gripped his wrist, urging him on. Not an invitation; a request, a plea. “They let me go.”
    Colin dragged his fingers through her soft curls, then tugged. Fire streaked through her, and a gasping moan fell from her lips. He circled her clit, then delved deeper.
    He stilled, groaned. “Good God, Savi—I could bathe in this. They were all blithering, sodding idiots. How could they let you go?”
    “I’m not attentive to them. I’m just there for the sex.” She ground desperately against him, trying to get him inside her—and then cried out when he complied, his long fingers pushing and parting. Truth spilled from her as easily as her moisture into his hand. “And I’m too impatient in bed. I only want to get to the good part—the fucking.”
    “That’s absurd, sweet.” He lifted his thigh, widening her legs. His hand moved leisurely, each stroke torturously slow, in and out. “No man would object to that.”
    “It’s the pain thing,” she breathed, watching. Unbearably erotic, though there wasn’t much to see—just the V of her fly, his hand disappearing into her black satin panties, a strip of skin across her abdomen. “It either freaks them out after the first couple of times or if there’s blood, or they want to take it further, into S&M, and that’s not what I need.”
    She had to look away from the picture they made—it was too much. Her hands rose to her breasts, and she lifted their light weight through her shirt. God, but she wished she didn’t have to do this…
    “What pain thing? What do you need?” Then, as if he’d just glanced down over her shoulder, he rasped, “Oh, Christ—let me see you touch yourself, love.”
    The shoulder straps snapped as he tore the silk bodice away from her skin.
    She gave another startled laugh and cupped her breasts again, this time to cover them. “Are you sure you’re too tired?”
    “It’s a bloody miracle I can do this much. What pain thing?” His hand ceased its luscious motion through her wet folds.
    She turned her face into the pillow. “I told you in Caelum. At the fountain, during…”
    He was suddenly so silent, so still, she realized, “You don’t remember.”
    “Did I hurt you?” It ripped from him in that gritty voice.
    “No! I just wasn’t ready because the water had been so cold, and I’d bitten you and you were inside me so fast and I was…surprised at how big you were, and you asked if I was hurt, so I told you.” And now she recalled the dazed expression in his eyes, as if he hadn’t been completely aware of what was taking place. She’d thought it was part of the enthrallment, but—“You were hallucinating then ?”
    She tried to turn to look at him, but he didn’t let her move.
    “What did you tell me?”
    Her eyes squeezed shut. “That I can’t come without a little bit of pain, anyway.” He didn’t immediately respond, and she explained, “I have to use it to get my head into my body, get past my shields, to really feel what’s going on. Like closing a circuit; it jolts me in there.”
    His thumb took up a lazy rhythm over her clit. “And that is what took place in the gym, when you dropped your shields in response to Castleford’s strike?”
    Yes , she thought, but couldn’t say it. Her