Reaver

Nine

Tavin was used to being chin-deep in trouble. Hell, he was in trouble more often than he wasn’t.

But as he and Calder stood behind a wall of stone and thorny bushes and scanned the massive army that seemed to stretch for miles on the cliffs above them, he was aware that this was a special kind of trouble.

“Stupid bitch,” Calder hissed. “Her scream brought them right to us.”

Reaver came from out of nowhere and clamped his hand around Calder’s throat. When he spoke, his voice was low but dripping with menace. “Say that again, and I’ll feed you to that army.”

Calder nodded, his already pale skin going even paler.

“I don’t think they see us,” Harvester whispered from behind them. “If they did, they’d be here already.”

Point made, Reaver released Calder and gazed up at the two-story-tall horned goat-man who appeared to be the leader. “I think you’re right. But we can’t get out of here while they’re surrounding the valley.”

Tavin nodded. The army was in their direct path to one of the few small zones where Reaver could flash out of Sheoul. The demon’s goatlike eyes took in the immediate area, but he didn’t focus on any one thing, including where Tavin, Calder, Reaver, and Harvester were concealed between bushes.

“They’re going to search the valley. We have to make a break for it.” He gestured behind them, where massive fissures left deep clawlike marks in the sheer cliff faces. “They’ll never find us in those.”

“And we might never find our way out,” Harvester said. “There are thousands of tunnels that extend for hundreds of thousands of miles beneath the mountains.”

Tavin let his homing senses do a quick sweep of the area, and he got a faint hit to the northwest. “There’s a Boregate inside one. Not too far.”

Reaver frowned. “What’s a Boregate?”

“They’re like Harrowgates,” Harvester said. “Except you can’t control where they go. And some of them can only go back and forth between two places.”

“And they’re all different sizes,” Tavin said. “They’re unpredictable as hell, and a pain in the ass, but I don’t think we have a choice.”

“Damn,” Reaver breathed. He looked over at Harvester, who gave a nearly imperceptible nod. For a few, tense heartbeats, Reaver seemed to consider their predicament, and then he gave Tav the go-ahead with a thumbs-up gesture.

Fucking awesome. Assuming they didn’t get slaughtered by Satan’s forces, Tavin would be out of here in a few hours. Gesturing for everyone to follow, he ducked low and darted between a row of stone pillars. The army rumbled above them, and Tavin’s heart nearly stopped when he looked over his shoulder to see hundreds of demons starting down the hill into the valley.

“Hurry,” Harvester barked, as if Tavin wasn’t already moving as fast as he could without drawing attention to their movement.

A sudden blast of heat came in a massive wave from ahead, scorching his skin and making the snake on his neck wriggle. He scratched at it viciously. The thing bit him. Fucker.

“Which way?” Reaver asked.

Tavin gestured to the crevice glowing red in the distance. They ducked around a stony outcrop, and the heat became a blistering, nonstop wind. As they rounded a bend, the path opened up into a broad expanse of mountainside that dripped with lava.

“There.” Squinting against the hot blasts of air, he pointed to a passage between lava flows. “The gate should be a few miles in.”

The passage turned out to be a maze of tunnels and bridges over muddy rivers and molten streams, and twice they had to leap over collapsed sections of pathway. Finally, as the stench of brimstone and sulphur swallowed them in a cloud of steam, Tavin sensed the Boregate within a few yards.

“We’re here—”

Reaver’s shout cut him off. “Watch out!”

Instinctively, Tavin ducked. Something whistled past his head. Shouts rose up over the sound of Calder’s curses.

Tavin spun around and threw out some curses of his own as the hot mist cleared, revealing a dozen eyeless Silas demons spilling out of a Y junction and onto the path in front of them.

Calder dropped one with his crossbow before Tavin’s blades cleared their sheathes. Several demons broke away from the pack and charged them, their mouths gaping wide with tiny, sharp teeth.

Reaver, eyes on the leader, coolly tucked Harvester behind him and fired off some sort of icy weapon shard at the lead Silas.

The demon went down, a hole in his chest from the ice shard. The demon behind him met the same fate from the same shard and so did the third and fourth. By the time the shard reached the fifth Silas, it had melted to the size of a pencil, and it shattered on the demon’s sternum.

The Silas cackled. It cackled until Tavin slit its pasty white throat. Blood splashed onto his hand, and at the same moment, the snake bit deep into Tavin’s neck.

What the—

Suddenly, everything became a blur he saw only through a haze of red. It was as if Tavin was dancing on air, striking out at whatever came within reach of his blades. He felt no pain, but neither did he feel the need to protect himself.

There was only the insane, driving desire to kill. And not just kill, but cause pain. He heard himself laughing maniacally as he toyed with one of the demons, cruelly carving out two holes in its face where its eyes should have been.

Tavin.

Tavin!

Someone was calling his name. He didn’t recognize the voice. He turned toward it. A male he thought he should know was staring at him. All around the blond male—an angel?—were dozens of Silas bodies, some of them boiling in pools of liquid fire. A black-haired female stood nearby, her body swaying as if she could barely hold herself up.

The desire to kill revved up again, and he launched a blade at the female. The angelic male dove in front of her, knocking aside the blade. He hit the ground and rolled, hissing when his shoulder hit a stream of lava.

Tavin was going to make him drink the lava. And then he was going to fuck the female. The Nightlash demon grinning with bloodlust as he hacked off a Silas’s head could watch until Tav finished. Then the Nightlash would die.

The snake kept chewing on his neck, filling him with hot, stinging juice. It made him strong. Fearless. This was fucking awesome.

“I’m going to make you scream, female.” His voice rumbled with savagery. “You’re mine.” Drooling in anticipation, Tavin leaped at her, but the blond male hit him with a full-body slam. They both grunted and crashed down on the burning stone.

Tavin. Stop it!

He felt a buzz of energy enter his body, and then a sting in his throat, and for a moment, everything went dark.

“Tavin?”

Tavin lifted his lids. Reaver was sitting on him, a knife in his hand and a concerned look on his face.

“W-what… happened?”

“Shit.” Reaver disappeared the dagger. “I don’t know. But you need to get to Underworld General. Fast.”

Tavin struggled into a sitting position, aided by Harvester, and looked down at himself. Blood poured out of dozens of gashes. Bone was visible in places where flesh had been stripped by the Silas’s blades, and his right knee was crushed so badly his lower leg bent at an awkward angle.

“Oh… fuck.”

“Yeah.” Reaver yanked him into his arms as Harvester led them to the shimmering curtain of light ahead. The Boregate. “You went berserk when the serpent glyph bit you. You tried to attack Harvester. I had to stab it to make it let go.” He cursed. “Hold still.”

Nausea bubbled up in Tavin’s throat as Reaver’s power sifted through him. The snake writhed, and Tav joined it, pain screaming along all his nerve pathways.

Calder’s voice cracked over the sound of Tavin’s pulse pounding in his ears. “Let him die. He’s a danger to all of us if he goes ape-shit again.”

The asshole was right, and Tavin was mercenary enough to know he’d have said the same thing. But fuck… Tav wanted to live. Hand trembling, dripping with blood, he extended his middle finger at the Nightlash male.

Reaver’s breath became labored, and Tav felt the angel’s power become a trickle. “Dammit,” Reaver rasped. “I can’t.”

“You’re out of power?” Or maybe it was corrupted. At this point, Tav figured corrupted healing would be better than none at all.

“No,” Reaver said, his voice thick with regret. “But I will be if I heal you any more than I just did. Calder’s got a point. You’re a danger to us all, and I can’t afford to drain my power.”

Loss of blood made Tavin lightheaded as he grabbed his belly, which was slit open and threatening to spill his organs.

“Damn you, Reaver,” he rasped. “You cursed me with this fucking snake with an attitude problem, and now you’re going to let me die?”

“No,” Reaver swore. “We’ll take the Boregate and get you help.”

“Ah, Reaver?” Harvester stared at the Boregate. “We won’t be taking the gate anywhere. It goes to the Deathsands region. I’m pretty sure it’s a one-way trip to a wargrun gambling casino.”

“That’s good, isn’t it?” Reaver asked. “They should have a nearby Harrowgate.”

“Yes,” she said. “But this Boregate fits only one passenger. And it won’t come back until someone uses it from the other side.”

Since they’d come to rescue Harvester, Tavin figured she’d be the one to take the Boregate. But shockingly, Reaver heaved Tavin into his arms and shoved him inside the coffin-sized gate, propping him against the pitch-black walls.

“Go,” Reaver said. “Someone at the casino should help you to Underworld General. Hurry.”

“But—”

“Go, you fool,” Harvester snapped. “We’ll find another way.”

Weakly, and with a shaking hand, Tavin tapped the squiggly Sheoulic GO symbol carved into the smooth ebony wall. As the gate closed and the two angels disappeared from view, the snake hissed.

Gods, Tavin hated snakes.

As the gate carrying Tavin away closed, Reaver said a silent prayer that the demon made it to safety. Then he said another for himself, Harvester, and Calder. They were going to need every prayer Reaver could come up with. They’d just lost a damned good fighter, and now they’d have to rely on Calder to locate a Harrowgate. If they lost Calder, they were fucked.

“He’ll be okay, Reaver,” Harvester murmured, and he slid her a surprised glance. Was she actually… comforting him? “Now quit moping and get us out of here.”

That was more like it. “You’re all heart, Harvester.” But hey, the fact that she’d been nice, even for only a moment, was progress.

Scowling, she crossed her arms over her chest. Under the surface of her skin, bruises lingered, and he realized that without Tavin, they were down to Calder for her to feed from. Reaver was going to make sure he was breathing down the bastard’s neck as Harvester bit into it.

“I have no heart,” Harvester said, but it was a lie. He’d seen glimpses of it over the last few years, though at the time he hadn’t recognized it for what it was.

Although the tenderness in her eyes when she’d asked to hold Thanatos’s son, Logan, for the first time had been crystal clear and, perhaps, the first true hint that she wasn’t what she’d seemed.

Reaver cursed under his breath as Calder slipped away to scope out the route ahead, leaving Reaver and Harvester to catch up.

They found Calder standing motionless on the trail a few hundred yards ahead, and Reaver’s heart leaped into his throat. The path continued across a rickety wooden bridge, but the dilapidated state of the bridge was the least of Reaver’s worries.

Above them, far up on the sheer rock faces that surround them, demons perched on ledges and narrow trails. One, a horned demon with a goatlike snout, looked down, and Reaver swore the beast smiled as he caught Reaver’s eye.

Reaver’s gut clenched. They’d been spotted.

The demon raised his hand in a sharp command. Three demons holding the leashes of creatures that resembled scaly skinned bears snapped into action, vaulting from ledge to ledge in a rush toward them.

“We are so fucked.” Calder leaped onto the suspension bridge, and the way it groaned with age and fatigue made Reaver’s clenched gut drop to his feet.

Harvester’s hair swirled around her softly rounded shoulders, caught in a balmy breeze that billowed up from the chasm in front of them. “Aren’t you King of the Obvious.”

“Be nice,” Reaver said. “We need Calder to find a Harrowgate.” He scanned the surroundings, looking for any way out of here that didn’t involve crossing a highly questionable bridge. “Unless you can sense them now.”

“Fuck off.”

So that was a no. Harvester would never admit that there was something she couldn’t do.

“Fuck both of you,” Calder said with a flash of razor-sharp teeth. “I’m going.”

The bridge creaked under his weight and swayed perilously over the gaping canyon, but he continued across, his feet sometimes knocking boards loose or punching right through them. Far below, in the blackness of the pit the bridge spanned, something shrieked.

Reaver held his breath until the Nightlash was across. The approaching demons were halfway down the cliff face now.

“Hold my hand,” he said to Harvester. “We have to run. If the bridge collapses, I’ll fly us across.”

He just hoped it didn’t come to that. Flying in Sheoul was like trying to fly in water. The effort involved in even short flights would drain an angel in mere minutes.

Taking her hand, he darted across the bridge. As they stepped on firm ground, a bear-toad howled.

The demons were on the other side of the bridge, where Harvester and Reaver had been standing just moments before.

“Run!” Harvester yelled, as if Reaver needed the prompt.

They hauled ass through the mountain tunnels with Calder in the lead. Vines dripping with acid grabbed at them like octopus tentacles, and their feet crunched on demon remains littering the ground. The obstacles didn’t slow the bear-toads, and the sounds of their pursuit grew louder with every passing moment.

“We’ve got to take a stand,” he said, as they leaped across a wide stream flowing with a brown gelatinous substance that smelled like rotting flesh.

“I can feel a Harrowgate nearby,” Calder yelled back. “I’ll find it.” Before Reaver could protest, the demon put on a burst of speed and dashed off, disappearing in the murky darkness ahead.

“Shit.” A vine grabbed at Harvester, and she yanked it out of the wall by its roots. Blood dripped from her palm where the acid had eaten her skin away, but she didn’t seem to notice. “The demons are close.”

Too close. Reaver could practically hear the bear-toads’ growls. They were in for a battle, and they had to find a place to fight that would give Reaver’s team every advantage they could get.

They ran hard, finally slowing when the passage widened into a cavern, its ceiling extending so far into the darkness that Reaver couldn’t see it. Massive, sharp stalactites jutted like fangs from above, and spiky stalagmites erupted from the floor.

Exit tunnels on the far wall sat just beyond a pool of oily black stuff that Harvester eyed like it was poison. When she actually said, “It’s poison,” he wasn’t shocked.

“I guessed that.”

“You guessed,” she said. “I knew.”

“Why is everything a competition to you?” Calder had better have located the Harrowgate, because if they had to spend another day down here, Reaver was going to kill her. Or himself. “We need to work on our—” He broke off at the low-pitched drone of a howl.

Harvester wheeled toward the opening they’d come through. “Here they come.”

Dammit. He had no idea which of the tunnels Calder had taken, and even if he did, he couldn’t risk getting caught by the demons in a narrow space where he couldn’t fight.

They had to make their stand here.

The battle angel in Reaver leaped into action, rapidly taking a tactical measure of their surroundings, escape routes, and potential weapons. He and Harvester had the advantage if they struck first, hitting the enemy as they filed out of the crevice that opened up into the cavern.

Calder, where the fuck are you?

He glanced over at Harvester, and for a brief moment he drank in the sight of her facing in the direction of the enemy, her expression feral, her lithe body squared for battle. The clothes he’d chosen for her left little to the imagination, clinging to every curve, every muscle. And to every bone that lay too close to the surface of her skin. He hated that her hips and ribs stood out so starkly.

But she wasn’t afraid. After all she’d been through at the hands of demons, the only vibe she was giving off right now was the electric tingle of anticipation.

She wanted revenge.

Good girl. Hold onto that. “Do you have enough power to summon a weapon?” he asked.

When she shook her head with obvious reluctance, he held out a dagger. “It’s a—”

“Dragon Biter,” she finished. “I know. Goes through thick hide and scales like butter. I used to have one before it was stolen by a Bathag I let get a little too close to me.”

“Why?”

She looked at him like he was an idiot. “Why do you think? I wanted something from him.”

“Sex?”

She snatched the dagger from him. “Why does sex automatically come to mind?”

The bear-toads howled, their bloodthirst carrying through the tunnels like a banshee’s wail and sending a chill up Reaver’s spine. “Maybe because you blackmailed me into having sex with you for twenty-four hours at some random time of your choosing?”

A thick shock of hair fell over her eyes, and she thrust it back with an impatient shove. “You know, most males wouldn’t whine about having to have sex.”

“Most males wouldn’t be having sex with you,” he pointed out, and were they really doing this when demons were almost on them?

“Most males should be so lucky.” She reached into her boot and fished out a stone. “But does it really matter if I wanted sex from a Bathag?”

No, it didn’t. But for some reason, he didn’t like the image that was now searing itself into his brain, of her rolling around with some pale-skinned, silver-haired mine-dweller.

“I don’t care who you sleep with.” Another howl rang out, chillingly close, and he summoned his power, what little there was, readying it for battle.

“You sound a little grumpy for someone who doesn’t care.”

Her tone was singsongy, meant to goad him into a fight, but they’d have one of those soon enough. The steady pounding of running footsteps came from only a few yards away, and he put himself in front of Harvester.

Who, naturally, moved into the path of the enemy.

A bear-toad burst into the cavern a split second ahead of its master, its gaping maw exposing several rows of sharp teeth. Reaver hit it with a blast of balefire as it leaped at Harvester. The thing screeched and went off course, crashing through a stalactite before crumpling into a steaming pile of goo.

The bear-toad’s handler, a fifteen-foot-tall demon from a species Reaver couldn’t identify roared with fury. Harvester hurled her blade, catching the creature in its throat. The Dragon Biter sprouted claws from the handle and sank them into the demon’s elephant-like hide. The dagger would now use its claws as leverage to push deeper and deeper, until either it came out the other side or the demon died.

The demon didn’t seem inclined to die anytime soon. It came at Reaver with a weapon that looked like a crude cross between a sword and an ax, and with the first swing, it nearly caught Reaver in the chest. He leaped back, shoving Harvester out of the way as he fired off another round of balefire.

The demon swung his blade, deflecting the cylinder of balefire and sending it into a stalactite hanging low from the cave ceiling. The other demons and their bear-toads charged into the cave, and suddenly the battle turned violent, bloody, and desperate. A blade came out of nowhere, spinning wildly through the air at Harvester’s head. Reaver flew upward in a flare of wings and knocked the sword away, but a crushing pain and tug on his leg brought him crashing down on top of the bear-toad clamped down on his calf.

He kicked the bastard in the head, then jackknifed up and slammed his fist into its jaws to deliver a one-two punch of physical strength and angelic power. The animal released Reaver’s leg, its skull crumpling like an eggshell.

Reaver didn’t have a chance to bask in victory. Across the poison pond, the demon Harvester had impaled with the Dragon Biter finally went down, but that still left her battling the remaining two demons with nothing but her fists and feet, which under normal circumstances wouldn’t be easy. Harvester’s weakened condition left her on the defense. The remaining bear-toad was in a full-out charge, her throat in its sights. She was holding her own, but barely, her graceful spins and leaps slowing with every move.

One of the demons got in a lucky strike, nailing Harvester in the sternum. With a grunt, she crashed to the ground, only to be stomped on by the second demon.

“Harvester!” Reaver bolted to his feet, ignoring the pain in his leg, and flicked a shower of drill sparks at the demons even as he took flight. He went for the closest target, the bear-toad, reversing course at the last second to drive both boots into its hindquarters. The creature flipped head over paws and splashed down in the poison pond.

Reaver didn’t give the thing a glance. He went after the demons, who were now swatting at the sparks, but wait… why weren’t the fiery pinpricks drilling into their flesh?

He got his answer when one of the sparks came at him. No longer pure spark, it had warped into a winged insect with a needlelike spike protruding from its eyeless face. Son of a bitch. Now he and Harvester had to battle not only the demons but whatever new hell had been bastardized by his magic.

Extending his wings, he shot upward into the stalactites, drawing off a swarm of the sparks. The massive effort of flight down here slowed him as he flew toward the ceiling and at the last second, he banked hard and dove. The sparks spattered all over the rock like paintballs, leaving behind tiny wisps of sizzling smoke.

He used his downward momentum to skim the ground and scoop up Harvester a millisecond before one of the demons brought a sledgehammer down on her head. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on tight, her fiery skin burning against his.

“Thank you.”

Her barely audible words of gratitude astonished him so completely that he pitched forward and nearly did a header into the poison pool. He recovered just before he hit the dissolving body of the bear-toad, and in one seamless swoop, he dropped Harvester on her feet and slammed into a demon. They both tumbled like bowling pins into a pile of boulders.

Reaver, panting with exhaustion, still managed to recover first and swipe the male’s sword. Spinning, he brought the blade down on the demon’s thick throat, severing its ugly head. He pivoted, ready to make a matching set of headless hellspawn, but midturn, a searing, biting agony ripped through his back.

Muscles locked, he went down, catching a glimpse of a shiny black rope in the demon’s giant fist. What the hell? A whip that could paralyze an angel? Not good.

In his frozen position he couldn’t see Harvester. The demon with the whip took off, leaving Reaver to stare at the ground, helpless to do anything but blink his eyelids.

The sound of fighting rang out, the clang of metal on metal, grunts of pain, thuds of dull objects striking flesh. And finally, a splash and a scream.

Harvester? He thought his pulse was racing and his heart was pounding, but he couldn’t feel anything. All he knew was a breath-strangling anxiety he couldn’t quell no matter how many times he told himself that it must have been the demon that went into the pool.

Footsteps approached. Reaver swallowed. The paralytic agent was wearing off, but it was taking its sweet time.

“Reaver?” Harvester kneeled next to him, and he would have breathed a sigh of relief if he could. She rolled him so he was on his back, looking up into the blackness. “You were hit with an anti-angel weapon my father invented. He’s creative that way. You’ll be okay. It wears off quickly.”

She put her hand on his chest and leaned in so he could see her face. Her cheeks were smudged with dirt and her bottom lip was split open, but she appeared to be unharmed. And yet, as she looked him over, her eyes grew haunted.

“It sucks to be helpless.” Her voice was so quiet he barely heard her. She stroked his face with her fingertips, and his heart lurched in his chest at her gentle touch. He felt her thumb swipe his jaw, and it came away with blood.

Suddenly, her gaze, which had been full of tormented shadows, became… hungry… as she looked down at the pad of her thumb. Her lips parted to reveal rapidly lengthening fangs.

Don’t do it… don’t do it…

She did it. She moaned as she slid her thumb into her mouth. She sucked greedily, eyes closed, and shit, he was torn between watching her fellate her thumb and worrying that the taste of his blood was going to lead to her wanting more. If she fed from him while he was paralyzed and unable to stop her, she could be swept away by bloodlust and drain him. He wouldn’t die, but he’d be comatose for days. Weeks, maybe. They’d never get out of here.

And where the ever-living fuck was Calder? Not that Reaver wanted that bastard to come back while Reaver was helpless. The assassin might be a professional, but he was also a demon with powerful, cruel instincts, and a vulnerable angel might be too much of a temptation.

“You taste… incredible. Like sex.” She swirled her tongue around the tip of her thumb as if giving him a visual to go along with her words. Damn, that was hot.

Her eyes popped open, and anxiety spiked. They were still green, but flecks of the deepest, darkest black were spreading, swallowing the whites.

Her evil was starting to show. Had his blood done that to her?

Her lips curved into a sinister smile. “We were in a similar situation not long ago. You were helpless. At my mercy.”

No shit. She’d cut off his wings and kept him immobilized and miserable, then she’d tried to get him addicted to marrow wine. At the time, he’d believed she’d enjoyed herself. But now he knew she’d been playing for Team Heaven… so had her enjoyment been an act? Or had all that time in Sheoul corrupted her enough that she truly had loved every minute she’d spent hurting him?

Harvester slid her hand up to his throat and lightly stroked his skin. Or maybe it felt light only because he was so numb.

“I didn’t want to do it, but orders are orders, aren’t they?” There was actually a thread of remorse woven into the dense malevolence in her voice. Or maybe that was wishful thinking on his part. “You know what’s funny?” He loved how she asked questions when he couldn’t answer them. Harvester had really never needed physical implements of torture. Talking alone was adequate. “I liked having you at my place. I didn’t like for you to be in pain…” She licked her lips, catching a smudge of his blood that lingered in the corner of her mouth. “Well, not much pain.”

Her fingers trailed up and down his jugular, and both alarm and his hackles rose. Would she do more than talk him to death? She could wreck him with the Dragon Biter if she wanted to.

Or drink him into a coma.

“I was supposed to hurt you more than I did. I was supposed to blind you.” She brought her palm to his cheek and smoothed her thumb over the sensitive skin under his eye. “But don’t make the mistake of thinking I held back out of compassion. I have none.”

Maybe not right this minute, but he was still going to call bullshit. He’d been on the receiving end of her care after Pestilence had beaten him half to death. He wondered if she was even aware that she was lying.

“I held back because I dislike being told what to do.”

Well, they had that in common. But he still didn’t buy that she’d spared him pain out of an unwillingness to follow orders. But why the hell was she yammering on like this? Although he supposed there was nothing else to do while they waited for his paralysis to wear off.

“So,” she said, as if she hadn’t just rehashed one of the weirdest and worst times of his life. That he knew of, anyway. Anything could have happened during the thousands of years that were a black hole in his memory. “What shall we do to pass the time?” She grinned, a real wicked I’m-a-naughty-girl special. “I wonder if every part of you is as hard as your limbs.” Her gaze traveled down the length of his body, and if he hadn’t been stone-cold frozen, he’d have hyperventilated.

She wouldn’t.

Would she?

“Oh, chill out, you uptight pile of feathers. I’m not going to take advantage of your… stiff… condition. We have a little pact that will address that, don’t we?”

Yes, they did, but why she’d made him agree to pleasure her was still a mystery. He’d nearly vomited at the time he’d sworn to uphold the deal, but now that he knew the truth about her… okay, he still wasn’t thrilled. But the more she stroked his skin, the more she watched him with those half-lidded eyes, the more he wanted her to keep doing it.

And when she leaned even closer, until her lips were a mere feather’s width away from his, the more he wanted. Period.