Immortals After Dark 06 - Dark Desires After Dusk

for her. A demon would be crazy to stray when he wants nothing more than to pleasure and protect his woman. Marriage is a little redundant.”
    “Have you found yours?” she asked, seeming fascinated with the idea.
    “I…don’t have mine yet.”
    “How do you recognize her?”
    “You just know. A feeling. A connection. But, for my kind, we can’t say for certain if she’s ours or not without having sex with her. As they say, In the throes, you know .”
    “How convenient.”
    “It’s true. Things occur when you’re having sex with her. Things you need in order to claim her.” For the first time, the way would be opened, the dam breached.
    “Like what?” she asked, then immediately added, “Wait—will your response be graphically sexual?”
    To explain how a male rage demon could orgasm but never ejaculate until after the initial claiming of his female…? “Odds are.”
    “Then please don’t answer.”
    She gazed out the window, peering hard at the night, as if she desperately wanted to block him out. “Maybe I’ll just rest for a while.”
    Minutes after she’d closed her eyes, she had nodded off. He kept glancing over at her, wondering what she was dreaming about with her brows drawn.
    As he drove, he decided two things. If they were going to be on the road together for potentially weeks, then he would begin teaching her how to defend herself.
    If I turn her over to Groot, she’s going to have a sporting chance.
    And second, he would be with her sexually. He could never take her completely—she may not be far enough into the transition to immortality to survive it. And if she did, once he’d experienced what it was like to be inside her, he might not ever let her go.
    No, he couldn’t claim her, but before he relinquished her, he would pleasure her. Cade thought she could be seduced—he’d seen a spark of interest in her eyes. She wasn’t immune to him. Which meant he now had to coax her to trust him. Which meant he should be on his best behavior.
    Except he had to admit that he kind of enjoyed baiting her like this. When her cheeks went pink and she grew flustered…
    And Nïx did say she wanted her niece educated.
    Cade wondered what his stalwart brother would think about his plans for Holly. Good money said he’d disapprove. Rydstrom was a fairly stand-up guy, with only a few skeletons in his closet.
    Ah, but they were big ones.
    Cade stilled. What if the Queen of Illusions discovered Rydstrom’s secret weakness? What would she do to him then?
    He also wondered if Rydstrom even now believed that their cause was lost because it rested on Cade’s shoulders.
    Cade wouldn’t dwell on that thought. He was taking action, closing in on their goal.
    Whereas Holly was plagued with unwelcome thoughts, Cade was mentally nimble, skirting disagreeable realizations with ease.
    It was what would allow him to grow more attached to her with each hour—even as each second took him closer to the time he’d be forced to betray her.

13
    H olly was at a ball, standing out on a terrace with Cadeon watching her from the shadows. He wanted her to join him there, but she was afraid to go into the darkness.
    She kept looking over her shoulder back inside, unable to leave behind everything she’d ever known.
    Yet his green eyes glowed from the shadows, and he held out his hand, beckoning her, promising pleasure more wicked than she’d ever imagined….
    “Good morning, beautiful.”
    Holly woke with a start, finding herself in Cadeon’s arms in a dimly-lit room. He was staring down at her—with eyes that glowed.
    “Didn’t realize you had freckles,” he said, his voice rumbling.
    “Put me down.” She squirmed to get free. She didn’t need to be reminded of his deep voice, not when she’d just been dreaming about him—her subconscious telling her things with all the subtlety of a hammer’s whack. “Where are we? What are you doing holding me like this?”
    He set her on the edge of a bed with a soft comforter. “We’re in a hotel for the day in northern Mississippi, and I was going to see if I could get you ready for bed without waking you.”
    “Ready for bed?” She rubbed her eyes and surveyed the suite. It looked like they were in an upscale hotel, not that she’d been in many—or any—hotels in the last decade. The place might be nice, but right away she could see some things that needed to be rearranged to make sense. First, the chairs at the dining table—
    “Yes, ready for