Demon Night

whole lot of choices, and maybe we’ll come up with something to fill the time.” His lips brushed a feather-light kiss across hers. “Do you like the desert?”
    “I don’t know,” she whispered, and added quickly when his head lifted, “I’ve never been.”
    His mouth crooked into a smile. “A damn shame, Charlie. We’ll have to rectify that.” The warmth of his fingers settled on her waist. “You want to take a trip? Because this warehouse has a few too many folk living in it, and I’ve got a big bed that’ll fit nicely out in the middle of nowhere.”
    She had to swallow to moisten her tongue. “That sounds really, really good.”
    He lifted her against his chest, strode immediately for the door. “It sure as hell does. And I reckon we can play poker on it or I can teach you to hog-tie a calf—”
    Her laugh almost choked her; he was moving so quickly the hallway was passing in a blur. “Fuck you, Drifter.”
    “You just keep calling me that until we’re on that bed, and don’t lay your hands on me, or else we’ll be falling out of the sky.”
    Her head swam as he launched them into the air, and she held on tight, her fingers linking together around his neck. The wind burned past her cheeks, whipped her hair. “Have you ever…while flying?”
    “Sure I have, Charlie. And damn near broke in half when we hit a tower.” His heated gaze dropped to hers for an instant before he looked ahead again. “Any man who attends to air currents more than he attends to his woman ought to just tuck it in and fly on home.”
    She smiled and nipped softly at his throat. “I’ll attend to you, too. And I should probably practice, so that my fangs won’t poke anything sensitive.”
    “My sensitive bits wouldn’t last long enough for you to get any learning in. So you can do that after I’ve been inside you ten, maybe fifty times.”
    He was going too fast to keep chatting, and she watched the landscape beneath them change as the minutes rolled by: the houses farther apart, then only sparse vegetation, scrub, and flat, jutting stones.
    His voice was as rough as the terrain. “Will you give me your clothes, Charlie? I’d sure hate to rip anything while getting you out of them.”
    A tremor shook through her. This apparently wasn’t going to be a gentle undressing, a leisurely exploration. “Yes.”
    Her clothing vanished. He wasn’t flying so quickly now, and they were losing altitude; the wind caressed her skin, brushing and teasing.
    And despite his arms beneath her legs and back, her body against his chest, Ethan still wasn’t touching her.
    The bed appeared below them, huge and white. Her stomach dropped as Ethan swooped, then pulled up to land beside it. He set her on the edge, and his jacket disappeared.
    “Wait!” She scrambled up to her knees, her hands moving to his collar. He froze. “I want to take them off.”
    Except for his slow nod, Ethan was absolutely still. “I’ll be happy to oblige.”
    She pushed the suspenders over his shoulders, let them fall alongside his thighs. After another second, his shirt fluttered to the ground, and she paused, sat back to look.
    “Jesus, Ethan,” she breathed. “You should just walk around like this all the time.”
    Ethan cleared his throat. “I was thinking something along the same lines about you, Miss Charlie.”
    She glanced up in disbelief, but his face confirmed what his voice had suggested: a light flush stained his cheekbones.
    “I’m awful modest,” he said softly. “But I sure am grateful that the look of me pleases you so much.”
    “Pleases me?” She shook her head. “I’ve imagined you naked a million times since I saw you in the kitchen without your shirt. But you still knock me loopy.” A tug on his suspenders had his hips swaying toward her. “And I’ve never thought these looked good on anyone, but on you, they are the sexiest things I have ever seen.”
    “Then I reckon I’ll keep them on a bit longer.” He placed his hands on the bed, his gaze holding hers. She slid back, and he followed her, stalking slowly across the mattress on his hands and knees—his suspenders dangling and his trousers on, but his feet bare now. “And I’d be mighty appreciative if you wouldn’t put your hands on me until I’m in you deep, and you just can’t stand me working at you anymore. Because once you touch me, I figure it’ll be over.”
    Desire licked beneath her womb, heavy and moist. “Okay,” she