“Yes. More. I want more of that. Touch me.”
Her words didn’t help his patience. Nor did her hands as they crept over his body, lifting his shirt and smoothing over the bare expanse of his stomach and chest, claiming him in ways that defied explanation. Even with mud clinging to her skin and hair, she was beautiful, his angel with the devil inside. He arched up and pulled her down to him, needing the touch of her lips against his, the smoky fire that churned inside him whenever they connected mouth to mouth.
He pushed at her shorts, wanting her naked, no barriers between them. She wriggled out of them, stretching flat over his body as she kicked them off, then set to work unsnapping his pants and pulling them down his legs while he drew his shirt off. When she spread her body over his again, he hissed at the heated contact of skin to skin. Her body was always hot, as if she had a fever.
“You’re nothing like a demon. Demons are cold to the touch. You’re like fire.”
Her eyes glazed with a golden shimmer as she took a deep breath, her breasts pillowed against his chest. She pushed against him, sliding her sex along his shaft. “You make me melt inside. Feel me.”
She grasped him with her hand, guiding his cock inside her wet sheath, surrounding him with that molten heat that threatened to make him explode all too soon. He fought the sensation, gritting his teeth as she gripped him in a tight vise of pleasure, then began to rock against him.
His world narrowed to just this woman. It didn’t matter where they were. They could be in a lush bed, sunlight streaming in on their bodies, or this dark marsh, covered in mud, and he still would see only Isabelle, her body over him, her breasts moving as she rode him, her thighs clamped tightly to his, her head tilted back as she sought her own pleasure and gave him the greatest he’d ever experienced.
And as she tilted her head forward and her gaze met his, he realized that with Isabelle it was different because it was much more than physical. He felt her in so many more ways than just being inside her. He was with her, feeling her; he knew her like he’d never known another woman. With her it was easy like it had never been easy before, as if he’d been created to be with this one woman. Where she was dark, he was light. Where he was midnight, she was his dawn.
She smiled down at him, smoothed her hand over his face and hair. “You’re doing it again.”
“What?”
“Glowing.”
He stilled, frowned, not knowing how to stop it. Not when he had all these feelings pouring out of him.
“Don’t.” She caressed his bottom lip with her fingers, then bent down to slide her lips across his. She whispered against his mouth. “Don’t make it stop.” She clenched her fingers against his shoulders and lifted, then slid down his shaft in a way that made him forget about the light pouring from him, made him forget everything but making love to her, taking her to that place where she’d forget, too. He gripped her hips and lifted her, set the rhythm as madness took over.
Isabelle gasped as he held her tight against him and lifted into her with a hard thrust. She rocked back and forth, clutched his arms, and whimpered, her sheath tightening around him. He watched as she came apart and then he couldn’t hold back, going with her. And then he saw it, too: light bursting all around them as he poured forth everything he had. He lifted up to wrap his arms around Isabelle, taking her mouth in a kiss that spoke of everything he wanted to say, but couldn’t.
He held her like that for a long time, both of them sitting up, wrapped around each other. It seemed like neither of them wanted to let go, but he knew they had to.
“We need to get back,” he said, murmuring against her neck, kissing the soft column of her throat. He was still inside her, still throbbing with the aftereffects, and more than ready for round two.
“I don’t want to go back.”
“You going to live out here as a marsh rat?”
She giggled. “Maybe. I do know how to fish.”
“So do the alligators.”
She shuddered. “Dirty trick. Now we’ll have to get dressed and leave.”
“Hot shower. Food. Warm bed,” he said.
“Oh, now you’re upping the ante. That’s not fair.”
“Just stating the facts, babe.”
She sighed. “Okay. I guess we have to.”
They untangled themselves and dressed, then walked back to the cabin where the hot shower felt pretty damn good, especially since this time they took it together. And it took a long time to finish that shower, since washing each other led to touching, and touching led to tasting.
By the time they fell into bed, the sun had started to peek up over the horizon. Dalton growled, rose from the bed, and yanked down the shades. They needed at least a little bit of sleep.
“Dalton,” Isabelle said, snuggling against him.
“Yeah.”
“We need to talk. About you.”
He inhaled. “Okay. We’ll sleep for a while. Then we’ll talk first thing tomorrow.”
“Okay,” she said with a yawn. “I’m holding you to that. Tomorrow.”
He had to think. What was he going to tell her? Or rather, not tell her?
Things were changing between Isabelle and him. He wasn’t sure all those changes were for the better.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Mandy looked through the glass at James-the demon. He-it-looked so human, so normal, lying on the table like that. Who knew that inside lurked a demon? No one would know if they hadn’t seen what Mandy and Michael had seen.
“Why wouldn’t freezing have worked to save Lou?” she asked, turning to Michael who had walked up beside her.
“Huh?”
“That demon can’t do a thing in the cold room. Couldn’t we have done the same thing to Lou? And to Isabelle? Frozen them until we figured out what to do to … fix them?”
Michael shook his head. “This demon is a unique species, Mandy. It would be like trying to treat a human and a shark the same way. Even demons can be biologically distinct from one another. This demon is nothing like the demon that was inside Lou, or Isabelle. Just like half demons and hybrid demons are different from one another. And like the Sons of Darkness are different from every other demon.”
She scratched her nose and frowned. “Genetics and evolution?”
“Yes. They’re constantly changing the demons, mixing up genetics and producing something new. And we have to keep up with them so we know how to fight them. Because every demon species is unique. How we treat them, how we fight them, is unique.”
“So freezing Lou like we freeze this demon would have done no good.”
She saw the sadness in his eyes. “No. It wouldn’t. I’m sorry.”
She had to ask. She had to know if there was some way that Lou could have been saved. She should have known there wasn’t.
She followed Michael into the weapons room. “So do we really get to battle it?”
The Realm scientists had run tests on the demon for two days now, while Mandy had paced and waited, biding her time, keeping watch over James to see how it reacted, what it did. It did nothing but stare at the walls, at the glass, as if it knew she was on the other side, watching.
Maybe it was waiting for its opportunity to do battle with her. She hoped so.
“We’re going to test it, see what it reacts to,” Michael said. “We know from Ryder battling the disappearing-in-the-mist type of demon that anything silver makes it dematerialize. Assuming that this is the same type of demon, we don’t want it heading back to the Sons of Darkness to report on where it’s been. And we don’t know if the silver just weakens it enough to make it disappear with its tail between its legs, or if the silver can kill it.”