She’d always been a creature of utter control, and yet he’d taken all that away. Her wild gaze flickered to his face, and she saw it was okay. His upper body was rigid strength, his expression focused as he funneled their combined energy back to her.

But he wasn’t detached. He couldn’t be, because that was why the energy nourished a succubus like nothing else. It was his sexual vitality, a powerful soul force, that made her even greedier. He wanted her, was ready to let go his seed, but he held back, either because it fascinated him to watch a sex demon feed, or because he wanted her to savor her meal as long as possible. She didn’t know, didn’t care, beyond such an internal debate. As she rose and fell with powerful strokes, she gripped him tight. His pupils expanded; then his irises took over the white sclera so his gaze went completely dark. His wings erupted from his back, knocking over things on the side table. She reveled in his passion.

She hadn’t thought about the kinds of powers he might unleash during such an intimate connection, too absorbed with her own. It was incredibly reckless, because she knew the lethal magics that could be raised during sex. But it was a marvel to behold. Her magic was a female dragon spreading her wings, baring her fangs to swoop in for the strike, countered by a male power, a dark dragon willing to take that strike and turn it into something more.

It wound around her power, wound around her, such that she was captured on his loins. It constricted around her like silken ribbon and barbed wire, absorbing her verve as she built to the final surge, craving the dessert, the sexual energy of his climax.

“You first,” he growled. “Your pleasure…first.”

It was all pleasure. She would have told him that if she could speak. He reared up, tormenting her nipples with his mouth in a fast, unpredictable rhythm as he pistoned between her legs. A guttural cry came from her lips. “Come for me,” he muttered. “Give me that climax, Raina. Do it now.”

Her body simply detonated. Blue sparks coming off her skin, landing on his. She threw back her head, and his hands caught in her hair, holding that extreme arch as he used the position to bite down.

She screamed, the climax taking her over. She formed a wordless plea, “No…,” but it meant something else, because she didn’t ever want to stop. He gripped her buttocks in bruising hands, pushing her into a deeper rhythm that shot her onto another wave.

She sent animal cries out into the night, though the spinning sky was in here, shooting stars, the moon exploding into pearls. She felt the iron restraint he held on his own body, making sure he took her to completion.

Goddess, it was a good thing they both knew this was temporal, because in this moment, she would have done anything for him, died for him…loved him until the end of his days.

She was on the final hill of the wild coaster when he released, sending her up with him again. It was an infusion of undiluted power, his climax total nourishment for her. Despite what she’d already had, it was like drinking after a long, long thirst in the desert. More, more, more…

It was the ultimate sexual experience of her life. Even with no emotion involved.

AS SHE STARTED TO COME DOWN, SOME ANXIETY CAME with it, but he had an answer for that as well. He began to lift her free, then, with a gleam in his eye, brought her back down on him deep and hard. A moan broke from her lips as the unexpected move set off aftershocks, more of those blue sparks glittering off her skin. One of them landed on his chest and she watched it burn there against his skin, turn to ash.

She put her hand on his face, his hair. She wanted to wrap her arms around his head, hold him to her heart. Which meant she needed to pull it together, be what she was expected to be. Good thing she had a lot of practice in that respect.

Her fingers curved into his chest as she gave him a feline smile. “That last bit was…diabolical,” she said breathlessly.

“Want me to do it again?” He was gazing at her with those eyes that saw too much. She wet her lips, cocked her head, her hair brushing his thighs.

“Do you want to do it again?” she asked.

She could see the whites of his eyes again, but the pupils were still large, unfathomable. “No courtesan games, Raina.”

“No games,” she returned. “I want to know.” I want to hear that you want me. She’d had hundreds of men say it, but what they wanted had nothing to do with her, not really. If he said it, she knew it would mean something different with him.

Putting his hand on the side of her neck, he slid her off his cock, eyes darkening further at her murmur of response. He laid her down on his body, cradling her inside the sprawl of his thighs. When he brought her face up from under his jaw, there was a painfully honest distance between their eyes. “I do. And I will.”

But instead of proceeding with that sensual threat, backed by the still substantially firm organ against her hip, he put his mouth on hers. It was a long, lazy trip, and just when she thought she was floating away on the residual energy lingering in the room, he shifted her off him, but only to turn them both.

His body pressed into the angles and curves of hers. She let out a soft sigh as a wash of power swept across her skin, and his wing curved over her. Mikhael was okay with postcoital spooning. Who knew?

The wing was like a bat’s, just as she’d suspected, but as he brought it down around her, along with his arm, it provided a warm and safe cocoon.

“Sleep,” he murmured against her ear. “Just sleep.”

She did, some. But she also remembered what they’d shared, such that as she drifted in and out of a doze, she rubbed her bare bottom against his groin, his hard cock pressed against her cheeks as she teased him in her half-drowsy state. When he stilled her with a hand against her stomach, his fingers trailed the top of her smooth mound, then lower, to play in the residual stickiness, the remains of their release. His seed still marked her. She hadn’t considered birth control, since succubi conceived only with humans, and only on blue moons…literally. But Mikhael was extraordinary in many ways. She wondered if she should be worried about conceiving ruthless little bats with solid dark eyes. She pressed a smile against his muscular biceps, caressed his forearm. The man was built like a brick house. No wonder Ruby had been intoxicated by him.

For some reason, she wasn’t pleased with that thought, so she pushed it away to notice he was looking at her TV table. He dropped his head to the pillow behind her, puffed a breath on her neck that sent a shiver down her spine. Almost…playful.

“Titanic,” he said. “Is there any female who doesn’t like that movie?”

She tilted her head to look at him. She had a desire to caress his jaw, but she quelled it. “Only the ones without estrogen. Is there any male who doesn’t hate it? And why is that, by the way?”

“It’s a chick flick on steroids.” He made a pained expression. “A male watches a ninety-minute romance with a woman because he anticipates sex as payment for his attention. Ninety minutes is a fair exchange. A three-hour movie, with a tragic ending that leaves the woman sobbing, needing consolation, not sexual pleasure? That’s above and beyond the call of duty. He has to be flat-on-his-ass in love with her to put up with that shit.”

She elbowed him in the gut, wasn’t at all surprised when he caught it before it could make contact. Wrapping his arms closer around her, he nuzzled her neck. It was all so intimate and familiar…so pleasurable, and it was starting to make her uneasy, now that the sex was done. Cuddling was something she’d provide, if the client paid for it. But there was a big difference between sex with a client and this.

“You’re thinking too much, Raina,” he said. “You can give yourself this, the pleasure with the emotions. It doesn’t have to be dissected.”

“I don’t understand what you want.”

“Just this. No more, no less. Go to sleep, or I’ll give you a spanking.”

Amusement unfurled among all the other less settling emotions. “That’s supposed to inspire me to sleep?”

His arms tightened. “My mistake. If you go to sleep now, I promise you a spanking later.”

She shut her eyes right away, smiling at his snort against her neck. And gave a yelp as he turned her over and gave her a smack right then and there.

Apparently, sleep was going to wait.

5

RAINA WOKE LATE. APPARENTLY HER PARANORMALLY sentient house had decided she needed to sleep in. It had adjusted her bed so the early sunlight that normally served as her alarm clock couldn’t reach her until midmorning.

The intensity of the previous night seemed surreal. She’d surrendered blatantly to him, to a seductive stranger from the Underworld who’d given her an incredible, over-the-top night. However, today, she might have to kick his ass to keep him from gutting Isaac. Reality could be an energy-sucking bitch. The house was right—she’d need the extra rest to face whatever challenges came her way today.

However, as she struggled free of the tangled sheets, it brought back memories of how creatively he’d tied her up in them. He’d left her the illusion that she could get free, playing at the edge of her darkest fears just as he had with the silver chains, but she’d never had a chance to test either restraint, had she? She could still smell Mikhael on those sheets, had woken up burrowed in them, nesting in that scent.

During one half-drowsy moment, she’d stroked her fingers along his wing. There was a bonelike protrusion, a sharp hook at the widest part. He’d closed his hand over hers, helping her feel the shape of it, protecting her until she figured out it was sharp enough to draw blood, rip flesh.

It gave her an odd feeling, the way he’d prevented her from coming to harm. “I don’t want to mark that soft skin,” he’d murmured. “Not unless it’s intentional.”

Apparently she was going to have to lobotomize herself. Or get moving to get past this. So she got dressed. Did her usual quick meditation to make sure all of her usual protections were in place, a thorough perimeter check she did every day, reaching out to the corners of the property. Cathair arrived on cue, flitting through the window to land on her shoulder, lending his energy and focus as he always did, his body pressed against her.