Demon Night

whispered.
    “Now, you’ve got another choice to make, Charlie.”
    “What choice?” She’d stopped in the middle of the bed, but Ethan kept coming.
    “Whether it’ll be my hands first, or my mouth,” he said.
    Oh, Lord. She dropped back on her elbows as he moved over her and planted his hands beside her shoulders, his knees outside hers.
    But Ethan didn’t lower his weight; he just held himself braced above her. The desert air was cold, arid; she drew it in hard and fast, her excitement closing her throat, leaving her unable to speak.
    His head bent toward hers. “My mouth,” he repeated softly and caught her lips in a fiery kiss. Her fingers clenched in the soft mattress padding, and her feet slid across its smooth surface. “Or my hands?”
    He pushed his thumb past her lips, ran the rough pad beneath the tip of her left fang.
    It might as well have been a brush over her clitoris, a lick to her nipples. Her hips lifted; a needy moan rasped from her throat.
    But any sound louder than that was beyond her. Frustration only made it worse. She lifted her hands to cup his face, her brows drawing together with her anxiety. “Both,” she forced out, and it wasn’t much more than a husky vibration of air.
    He studied her for a long second, and his thumb traced a warm, wet trail over her scar. “Why don’t you show me what you want, Miss Charlie? I’ll give it to you, slow and easy. But you’ve got to think it hard.”
    What she wanted…? Oh, Jesus. Familiar images flipped through her mind: her legs wrapping around his big body. His gentle touch on her skin. Her panties ripping. Her soft sighs of pleasure. Her hands bound with leather, with metal. Her nipples abraded by his teeth, the rough hair of his chest. Her nails digging into his back. A nightgown pushed up over her hip, her sex exposed. Panting and crying as he took his time, took too much time. Against a wall. A table. Tied to a bed. Bent over on her apartment balcony. His tongue on her clit, his fingers sliding—
    “Charlie,” he groaned, his eyes closing. “Slow and easy.”
    Ethan kissing her.
    His need flared between them, and he lowered his head again to murmur against her lips, “Just like that, Miss Charlie.”
    And it was hotter, wetter than she’d imagined, and she matched each erotic stroke of his tongue.
    His hands on her breasts.
    But the pale image shattered against the reality of his palms cupping their soft weight. Her nipples puckered beneath his fingers. Tight and aching—not from cold, but heat.
    She wanted his mouth.
    Ethan leisurely made his way down, tasting and licking her chin, her throat. Her hands smoothed over his shoulders.
    He caught her wrists, pushed them over her head at the same moment his lips captured her nipple. His tongue seared her flesh. She cried out, a thin, ragged exhalation. His teeth scraped gently, and he began suckling the taut peak.
    She needed more.
    Needed Ethan, finding her slick and ready with his fingers, his mouth.
    His groan rumbled across her skin, and he raised his head, shifted up until his face was just above hers again. “All right, Miss Charlie,” he said hoarsely. His fingers tightened around her wrists; his opposite palm slid down the sensitive curve of her belly. “I figure you’ll want to come once or twice before I’m done. You can do that with a couple drops of your blood. It’ll be when you choose, and how you choose it.”
    She nodded and squirmed, tried to lift her hips, to force his touch where she wanted it to go. Desire held her tight, but his easy heat had softened her frustration…and her throat.
    Not much, but enough to whisper his name.
    “That’s awful good to hear,” he said, and dropped a rough kiss to her lips. Then another, deeper, before tearing his mouth from hers. “I’m on the edge, about to ride you hard, and that’s from barely touching you. So if I’m going to keep my britches on a bit longer, we got to do something about you forgetting your hands.”
    His mention made her realize her fingers were rubbing against each other; she stilled them, but they immediately itched to be moving again. “They like to be busy.”
    And they liked touching him even more.
    “I know it, Charlie. I reckon you just need a little reminder, and after those images you sent me, I have one in mind.” His amber gaze searched hers. Metal clinked beside her. “But not if the reality of it spooks you. I want to make this real good for you.”
    She turned her head,