“Me, too.” Smiling, she flipped open the button of his jeans, eased the zipper down barely an inch. Watching him, she grazed her nails over his belly, up to his chest. “Nice definition, for a cardplayer,” she added as she pulled his shirt up and off.
She was a killer, he thought. “Thanks.”
Both of them, he knew, understood the steps of the dance, had practiced its variations, its changing rhythms. But for this dance, their first together, he intended to take the lead.
He took her mouth again, a playful meeting of lips and tongues while he unhooked her pants. Then he lifted her off her feet in a sudden and casual show of strength that had her breath snagging even as the cotton slid down her legs to the floor. Gotcha, he thought, and lowered her just enough to bring her mouth to his. And when her sound of pleasure warmed his lips, when the hands on his shoulders tensed, he released her with just enough force to have her falling onto the bed.
She lay on her back, hair tumbled. Dusky skin and frothy black lace.
“You didn’t get that muscle shuffling cards.”
“You’d be surprised.” He eased down, planted his hands on either side of her head. “Fast or slow?”
“Let’s try some of both.” Fisting her hands in his hair, she pulled him to her. The kiss spun out, rolls of white satin, then darkened and fired with the first hungry nips of teeth. Her hands stroked down his back, slid under his loosened jeans to ride over taught muscles. And like lightning her legs hooked around him, her body bowed up pressing them urgently center to center in a move that yanked furiously at his chain of control.
A killer, he thought again, and ravished her neck.
He had a fantastic mouth, an amazing mouth. She let her head fall back so it could sample her wherever it chose. Her skin hummed under it, and under her skin her blood began to beat. His body-long, hard, with the ripple of muscle, pressed down on hers in exactly the right way so that need gathered into tight knots that set pulses drumming.
Heat. Hunger. Hurry.
She shoved the jeans down his hips, pushing them clear as she rolled over to straddle him. He countered by levering up, fixing his mouth on hers as he flicked open the clasp of her bra.
Even as the kiss spoke of speed, of urgency, his hands skimmed, stroked, in a kind of lazy torture that kindled low fires in her belly. When his mouth lowered to taste, to possess what his hands had aroused, she bowed back to offer more.
She flowed, was all he could think, agile and eager. The beautiful lines of her, the lovely curves all in pale gold, an exotic feast for the taking. And she took, grasping her own pleasure, gliding on it. Nothing could have been more provocative to him than Cybil steeped in that inevitable rise of passion.
Had he wanted her this much? Had this clenched fist of desire been inside him all along-waiting, just waiting, to punch through caution and control? It pounded in him now, beating down all reason so he wanted to feel her tremble, to see her writhe. To hear her scream. Pinning her beneath his weight he used his hands to plunder, to loose that slow rise into a hot, fast flood.
She came, quaking under him, her skin sheened from the heat glowing in the sunlight. Those dark eyes, those gypsy eyes seemed to hold a world of secrets when they locked on his.
“All of you,” she said and closed her hand around him. “All of you now.” Wrapping her legs around him, she took him into her.
A flash, a wire sparking in the blood. She let it burn through her, crying out when it brought release, moaning as it whipped her into need again, wildly. She yielded when he shoved her legs back to go deeper, and her nails bit into his hips like spurs to urge him on. Even as the pleasure, dark and intense, battered her breathless, she rushed toward that next swamping wave.
She erupted under him, and dragged him with her into the fire.
They lay flat on their backs, side by side on the bed. He felt as if he’d been kicked off a cliff, doing the tumble down through screaming air to land in a hot river. He’d barely had the strength or the brainpower to roll off her so they could both try to get their breath back.
That hadn’t been sex, he thought. Sex was anything from an enjoyable pastime to a good, sweaty bout. That had been a revelation of near-biblical proportions.
“Well, okay,” he managed. “The surprises just keep coming.”
“I think I saw God.” Cybil’s breath streamed out in something between sigh and moan. “She was pleased.”
He laughed, closed his eyes. “You’re like a live, female version of Gumby. Without the green.”
She was silent a moment. “Since I believe that was a compliment, thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“And since we’re handing them out, you-” She broke off, and her hand clamped on his. “Gage.”
He opened his eyes. The walls bled. Long rivers of red gushed down the walls, swam over the floor. “If that were real, Cal would be sincerely pissed off. Blood’s a bitch to clean.”
“It doesn’t like what went on here.” She took a breath, rolled to nudge him back when he started to rise. Eyes hard, face pale, she spoke in a steady voice. “Peeping Toms are so disgusting. But, we might as well give this one something to write home about. Tell me, is it true what I hear from my housemates?”
“What would that be?”
“That your healing powers include impressively fast recovery?”
He grinned at her. “Are you up for a demonstration?”
“More to the point, are you?” She tossed a leg over him, mounted him. Her head fell back, her breath shuddered out. “It’s comforting to know my friends are honest. Oh God. Wait.” Her hands gripped his as sensation clawed through her.
“Take your time.”
“Brace yourself,” she warned. “This is going to be a wild ride.”
Later, though the walls and floor showed no signs of demon tantrums, he took her again in the shower. Hair damp, eyes sleepy, she dressed.
“Well, what an interesting day. Now I’ve got to get back to work and swing by and get Q from the bowling center.”
“Maybe I’ll ride in with you.”
“Oh?”
“You want input, and I figure I’ll cop lunch out of the deal.”
“That might be arranged.” When she started to walk by him, out of the room, he took her arm.
“Cybil. I’m not nearly done with you.”
“Cutie.” She gave his cheek a very deliberate pat. “They never are.”
When she kept on going, he shook his head. He’d walked into that one, he admitted. By the time he got downstairs she’d dug a lipstick out of her cavernous bag and was sliding it, with perfect accuracy, over her lips. “How do you do that without looking?”
“Oddly, my lips remain in exactly the same place day after day, year after year. Are you going to want your laptop?”
“Yeah.” He’d never considered a woman applying lipstick particularly sexy. Before. “If it gets too irritating working with you and the blonde, I’ll set up somewhere.”
“Gather it up then. The train’s about to pull out.” While he did she took out blusher, stroked a bit over her cheeks. In seconds, she’d done something with a minute mirror and a pencil to soot up her eyes. As they walked toward the door she spritzed something from a silver tube about the size of his thumb onto her throat. And that scent, that autumn woods scent reached out and grabbed him by his.
So he grabbed her, rubbed his lips over hers. “We could blow off the day.” And had the satisfaction of feeling her heart kick against his.
“Tempting. Seriously tempting, but no. I’d have to call Quinn and explain I’m not picking her up because I’ve decided spending the day naked in bed with you is more important than trying to find the way to destroy a demon who wants us all dead. Not that she wouldn’t understand, but still.”
She opened the door, stepped out on the deck.
The boy crouched on the roof of her car, a grinning gargoyle. As it flashed its teeth, Gage pushed Cybil behind him. “Get back in the house.”