Demon Moon

lungs lost their air when he pinched the slick bundle of nerves. Her back arched, thrusting her taut nipples against her palms.
    “What did I do after you told me, Savi?”
    “You told me to bite you again and then—ah, God… please .” His fingers slipped into her, then withdrew to circle wetly around her clitoris, teasing, teasing.
    “And then…? What did I do?”
    Another thrust inside, and she began shaking, her foot sliding back and forth over the sheets in an uncontrollable need to move .
    “You fucked me.” She gasped. “So hard. And I came so hard.” Desperate, she twisted her nipples between her thumbs and forefingers, but he caught her hands in his right and drew them forward and up, holding her wrists in front of her forehead.
    He pushed another finger deep, stretching the delicate flesh, rubbing thickly against smooth inner muscle. “Are you thinking of it now? How I felt inside you?”
    His cock, pounding into her with a force that bordered on painful but was too good to hurt. His skin firm against her tongue, trapped between her teeth. “Yes. Please , Colin. Don’t make me do it myself.”
    “How would you do it, sweet? I’ve got your hands.”
    She twisted forward at her waist and bit the skin just below her elbow; not hard, just to demonstrate. And she had no time to process his reaction—a sharply drawn breath, a whispered “bloody hell”—before he let go of her wrists and used his thigh and both hands to thrust and pinch and send her hurtling into orgasm.
    She cried out against her arm, shuddered as the world broke into pieces, breathed his name as she tried to reorder it again. Dimly, she felt a tug at her waistband as he refastened her jeans, then his strong, soothing touch across her chest as he wrapped his forearm around her again, but his other hand was at her back, tracing a line between…
    Her scars. She tried to remember if he’d seen them before, and realized he hadn’t. Better to have prepared him.
    “I should kiss Castleford for saving you.” The exhaustion and roughness had returned to his voice. “Then kill him for allowing it to happen.”
    She smiled, too satisfied to move anything but her lips. “They just look terrible because they’re exit wounds,” she said, and glanced down at the puckered scar over her breast, its mate high on her abdomen. “Not so bad in front. And the marks from the surgeries have almost completely faded.” Only thin, silvery lines remained.
    “You should have run.”
    “From a gun?”
    “From the wyrmwolf. Locked yourself in here. You have the symbols ready on the door.”
    A precaution used in almost every room. “If I had, it might have gone after a neighbor. Or taken Hugh and Lilith by surprise when they came home.”
    “They can’t be taken by surprise. And you’re too fragile to be fighting.” She felt him shake his head, as if to keep himself awake. “A gun wouldn’t have protected you if there had been two. You have to run.”
    He was right; she’d been lucky. But it wasn’t that simple. “It’s difficult for me to run.”
    “Why?” The question was heavy with fatigue. He laid his cheek against her neck, and his breathing slowed. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll give you the protection you need. I’ll give you everything you need.”
    Her heart constricted. “You will?”
    Why did those two words make her sound like such a needy little girl?
    He made a sound of assent, a hum against her throat. “The sod you plan to marry won’t be able, if he’s like the others. When you find he can’t, come back to me.”
    She stared down at his arm crossed over her naked chest, her throat tight. That’s what he’d meant?
    “For sex? After I’ve married him?” The hollow ache opened up again, worse for having been filled for a brief, stupid moment. She’d had sex. She’d always had sex—often good sex. “I don’t need an orgasm, Colin; I need something that will last. I won’t cheat on him. Even with the others, even if it was of short duration, I was faithful. Could you be?”
    She immediately regretted asking, hated the pain that it exposed and the wish behind it…and he was silent for so long that she began to think— hope —he’d fallen asleep.
    And when his softly spoken answer finally came, it was the sharp blow she’d needed. But it was hardly merciful.
    “If I could, Savi, it would be with you.”
    A simple “no” would have been easier to take.



CHAPTER 15

    You may be correct; he was