The Trouble with Twelfth Grave
Page 18Instead, I lifted my chin and dared him to do his worst.
The grin that slid across his painfully handsome face caused a pang of both sympathy and longing in my chest.
He practically scowled in response, clearly disgusted with me. “You’re still in love with him,” he said, his gaze boring into mine. “You believe that somewhere inside me is your Reyes. Your Rey’aziel.” He pulled me closer. “But what you don’t understand is that I was always lurking.” He clamped his free hand around my other arm. “I am not Reyes.” He pulled me close enough to see the sparkling flecks of green and gold in his coffee-colored eyes. “I am not Rey’aziel.” He walked forward, pushing me until he’d backed me into a wall of some kind. A rock, its sharp edges cutting into my skin. “I am Rey’azikeen.” He tightened the viselike grip he had on my arms. “A god, even stronger now, thanks to you.”
His dark gaze shimmered from underneath his lashes, cold and unforgiving. At least that’s what he’d have me believe. But I felt a turbulence beneath his cool exterior.
“Why stronger?” I asked, my mind racing to find a way to get him back to the earthly plane. To bind him to it. To strip him of his powers until we could locate the human part of him.
“I learned from the best.” His sensual mouth tipped up at one corner. A corner I’d tasted so many times. My mouth salivated to do it again. “Like you, I ate the flesh of my enemies. I devoured the criminal god Mae’eldeesahn and the demon assassin Kuur.”
I stilled in surprise. That meant the killer, the being that had mutilated and murdered three people back on Earth, could be neither of them.
But it meant something more. It meant that he’d had to go to battle with a malevolent god. He’d had to not only survive a hell dimension but fight just to stay alive.
My throat constricted at the thought. I trained my expression to stay neutral. Empathy was not something Reyes appreciated. I imagined Rey’azikeen liked it even less.
“But you are still the best, are you not?” he asked.
“The best at what?”
“At devouring your enemies.”
I had to keep him talking. Perhaps I could do the same thing to him he’d done to me. If I concentrated, could I shift and take him with me to the earthly plane? “Why did you level Rocket’s building?”
He brushed a finger along my neckline. “Why do you care?”
“Because I love him.”
“I love him, and you scared him and left him homeless for no reason.”
“I had a reason,” he insisted, his heated gaze back on mine. “And you know it.”
I was going about this all wrong. Honey attracted, not vinegar. “I know what?” I asked, softening my voice.
“I know you should never have sent me in there.”
“I am well aware of that, too. But it was your idea.”
He frowned. For a split second, he slipped and showed his hand. He didn’t remember. He thought I sent him in there. I sent him to hell.
“I would never do that to you.”
“You can’t help it,” he said as though finally understanding me. “You lie even when I know the truth. That was the second time you sent me into a hell dimension and the second time I escaped.” He wrapped his hand around my throat and lifted my chin with his thumb. “Whatever will you do next?”
I’d forgotten. According to Garrett’s research, I had indeed sent him to hell, but it was in lieu of the one his Brother had created for him. It was a hell from my home world. My home dimension. It was not as harsh as the one Jehovah had wanted to send him into. The one I’d eventually send him into.
“I didn’t mean for you to have to escape. I tried to get you out.”
He tightened his grip. “You failed.”
The resentment he harbored stung. It was as though I was talking to a stranger. A powerful, unpredictable, volatile stranger, and yet one I knew so deeply. Loved so deeply.
“Is that why you’re angry? You think I tricked you into going into the god glass? Is that why you’re killing people?”
His brows slid together, completely taken off guard before he recovered again. “Yes,” he said, lying through his perfect teeth.
Elation soared out of me, a caged bird set free. Reyes didn’t kill anyone. Neither did Mae’eldeesahn or Kuur. Then who? Two of the murders were in broad daylight, a place no demon could go. What else could do such a thing?
“Where is it?” Reyes asked, growing impatient.
I blinked back to him. “Where is what? What are you searching for?”
His gaze dropped to my mouth. Lingered there. “This does not have to go badly for you. Just tell me where it is.”
“No,” I said, frustrated.
His laugh held no humor whatsoever. “You can hide it, but know this: I’ll find it eventually.” He pressed into me. “And when I do, I’ll not be kind.”
“Then I won’t be, either.”
He lifted a brow. “What are you going to do? Are you going to devour me, god eater? Are you going to swallow me up as though I never existed?” He leaned closer and put his mouth at my ear again. “Perhaps I’ll eat you first.”
Every time he pressed into me, my body betrayed me, and a rush of heat flooded my abdomen. A Pavlovian response to his nearness. His scent. The fullness of his sculpted mouth. The width of his shoulders.
It was my turn to lean closer. To put my mouth at his ear. To flood him with warmth. I rose onto my toes and whispered, “You could eat me now.”
Surprised, he jerked back, his gaze wary. Disbelieving. “You forget,” he said, his deep voice softening, “I am not Rey’aziel. I am not Reyes.”
Molding my body to his, I said simply, “Close enough.”
Without warning, I crushed my mouth to his.
He stiffened for all of three seconds before surrendering. He kissed me back, long and hard and sensuously. Then he stopped. Just like that. And stepped back. He wrapped a hand around my throat again and pushed me against the boulder, pinning me to it.
At first, I had no idea what he was doing. I only felt a tremendous heat in my abdomen. But his efforts were of the more visually motivated variety. I looked down to see him singe my clothes, set them on fire, and watch them burn.
Flames licked up my skin, caressing it. Ashes that were once my sweater floated away in the acrid environment, leaving only flesh in its wake. He knelt and explored every inch of my exposed stomach with his mouth, his tongue tracing exquisite lines. My skin was still so hot that the wetness from his mouth evaporated, causing trails of smoke to rise off me.
I dove my fingers into his hair and laid my head back, reveling in the feel of his ministrations. Scorching. Blistering. Decadent.
The flames continued upward, baring more and more flesh, and with each newly freed centimeter came a rush of pain, a slight sting when my skin met the abrasiveness of this plane. And then his mouth was there. Cooling. Soothing. Bathing me in desire.
Before I knew it, Danger and Will Robinson lay bare. He locked his mouth onto Will’s nipple, his tongue feathering over her sensitive peak, as Danger spilled heavily into his palm.
His thumb brushed her nipple, and a jolt of arousal shot straight to my core, as though a string pulled taut connected the two. Its tug and release vibrated inside me every time he suckled the dark pink crest. Then he switched, his teeth grazing deliciously, hardening Danger’s nipple to a small, tight peak.
He moved one hand to the front of my jeans and began burning them away as well. The heat scorched my abdomen, both inside and out, as molten lava pooled between my legs.
I parted them. Just a little. Just enough to give him access as my jeans were slowly incinerated. He slid his fingers between the cleft, fondling, massaging, caressing before sliding them inside, deep enough for the promise of orgasm that lurked on the horizon to rush forward, growing closer with every thrust.
I gasped, taking in tiny sips of air as the sensual pressure rose higher and higher.
He lifted one of my knees over his shoulder, urging my legs farther apart, and pressed his mouth to my center. He parted the folds with his tongue, sliding it between them and feathering it over my clit. My body jerked involuntarily, the titillation exquisite.
The air in my lungs thickened in anticipation. I curled my fingers tighter into his hair, and he growled, the sound spiking my pleasure even further.
Every cell in my body sizzled with the searing heat swallowing me whole. Every molecule of blood boiled, expanding inside me, swelling until my skin was too tight for my body.
His own clothes burned away, the ashes floating on the wind. He locked his arms under my knees and rose, his torso sliding up mine, his forearms parting my legs even farther as my feet left the ground. Anchored against the boulder, he held me suspended in midair, his muscles contracted to a marble-like hardness, his erection pressing into the crevice between my legs.