DemonWithin Read online

  “Not ready for that yet.”

  “What?” Brady had never thought of pleasure as torture before. But he was rapidly learning that pleasure had an edge, and skimming the edge of it could mean crossing over into something that felt so painful he wasn’t certain he could endure it. Foreplay with Dakota Daniels had taught him that lesson.

  Her mouth came down on his cock.

  “Fuck, Dakota. No. It feels so damn good, but I seriously won’t make it.”

  She raised her head to look at him. “You’ve been singing that same tune this whole time. Once again, you can make it. I promise you’ll come in my pussy. In a few moments.”

  The woman wanted to torture him. There could be no other explanation.

  Chapter Three

  Dakota had never been as assertive a lover before in her life. But there was something about Brady that made her want to fulfill both their needs in a dominant fashion. Maybe she could blame his aura for the shift in her behavior. He’d been so suddenly downtrodden. She’d been consumed with the desire to give him what his soul called out for, whether he knew he needed a strong lover or not.

  He tasted salty and masculine, a combination that made her moan as she sucked on his erect cock. Giving Brady head filled her with power, something she had never experienced before. Danger was always after her and Brady’s arrival had proved she would never escape her destiny.

  If she was going to die at the hands of a demon out for her blood, she was going to have a damn good time before she did. Her core wept, begging for another mind-blowing orgasm like the one he’d just given her.

  The man could do things with his tongue she’d never imagined possible. Opening her throat, she sucked as she took him farther down her throat. He groaned and she had to struggle not to grin. He’d wanted to seduce her, to use sex to get what he wanted from her, and she’d turned it around on him. Brady hadn’t expected to be this turned-on. His aura pulsed with happiness and relief. Greens, yellows, gold with touches of white glimmered around him. It didn’t even bother her that she couldn’t turn off her second sight when she looked at him. The universe had granted her the ability to know what he wanted and at the moment she didn’t object to having that knowledge.

  She deep-throated him again and his knees surged off the couch. He was close.

  “No. Damn it.” Brady pulled out of her mouth. “I want to come inside you.”

  “Fair enough. But I’d be happy to take your sweet cum in my mouth anytime.”

  “Wow. You have a dirty mouth. I love it.” He tweaked her nose. “This time inside you.”

  She leaned over the couch and retrieved the condom from his wallet. He’d come prepared, which either meant he always carried them or he’d really thought she’d succumb to his seduction plot. She kind of had, but not the way he’d anticipated.

  He took the wrapper from her hands, opened it and slid the condom on with practiced hands. Dakota forcibly removed the question about how much practice he had doing that from her mind. His skilled tongue and fingers had told her just how much experience he had giving pleasure to women. She couldn’t make this more meaningful than it actually was. Somehow, even though she trembled from just the steamy look in his eyes, she had to stay aloof.

  With an “oomph”, he slid her beneath him. “This time I’m on top.”

  She had pushed him to the border where he felt willing to give up control. “However you want it.”

  Dakota might have had him close to losing it for a while, but now she joined him in her desperation to have him inside her.

  He lined himself up, centering his body until he positioned his cock right against her entrance. The excitement that built up inside her felt explosive. Her heart pounded hard against her ribs, and her hands shook as they gripped his shoulders.

  He pushed himself deep inside her, pausing about halfway to give her muscles room to accommodate him. She could see what that patience cost him, as his brow lined with strain and he cursed softly.

  “Don’t hold back.” She stroked her hand down the side of his face, letting her fingernails gently scrape his skin. His shudder told her he liked it. “I want you.”

  As if her words were all the fuel he needed, he surged forward. Her muscles clenched to meet him, to milk his hard cock and bring about pleasure for both of them.

  “Wow.” He shook his head. “Never like this.”

  Dakota closed her eyes. She couldn’t believe him—people said things during sex. It didn’t mean anything.

  “Look at me, beautiful.”

  She opened her lids. His eyes were heated, his vulnerability shining out to match hers.

  “I want us to do this together.”

  She nodded—words had left her. Pleasure cycled through her veins as colors danced before her eyes. She kept her eyes focused on his dark ones. His face—why hadn’t she realized it was so sweet before?—drove her forward to completion. Dakota needed to come—the pressure in her body threatened to consume her if she didn’t—but she also didn’t want the moment to end.

  “Come for me. Come with me. You’re so beautiful.”

  Her world shifted as her body exploded. She came and came, her pussy weeping in a way she’d never experienced before. Dakota hadn’t known she could be so out of control and still feel like everything was entirely correct. Yes—this was what she needed, what she wanted, what she wished she could always have.

  Brady followed her, shouting her name as his body pushed in and out of hers, laying claim to her with every thrust of his hard, long cock. She knew that for the rest of her life she wouldn’t forget him or the fantastic sex they’d had on the couch.

  She breathed heavily beneath him, closing her eyes as a desperate ploy to hold on to the intimacy of the moment. His cock twitched inside her, still hard. She kissed his chest and he ran his hands through her hair.

  The buzz of the fridge in the other room was the only sound besides their rapidly slowing breaths.

  “Wow.” Brady pulled himself out of her and she immediately missed the warmth of him. Her body felt less full, as if she’d been complete when he’d been in her and now part of her soul had gone missing. She opened her eyes wide. She couldn’t think like that. Not about Brady, who only wanted her for her exorcism skills. It wasn’t as if he were what her mother would have called a “suitor” who had come “calling”.

  She had to get up. Now. Flinging her legs over the edge of the couch, she managed, with wobbly knees, to make her way out from under Brady’s heavy weight.

  “Where are you going?” He sounded sleepy and sated. She refused to turn around and look at him. If he appeared cute or cuddly, she’d be lost. Focus. She needed to remember she wasn’t the type of girl to lose her mind after sex. No dreams of romance for her future, no walk down the aisle.

  “Where are my clothes?” She looked around and found them spread out all over the place. They’d been flung here, there and everywhere. In the heat of the moment, she hadn’t thought of the naked embarrassment that would come afterward.

  “Who cares?” He sighed loudly. “Come back here.”

  “I can’t.” She grabbed her pants and managed to get them back on without falling over on her face. Bra. Bra. She needed her bra. Oh yes, she hadn’t worn one. Shirt. Yes. That would help things.

  “Why not?”

  “We have to go and check on your sister.” And spare my heart the pain of getting attached to you only to lose you when this ends.

  Brady gave a loud yawn. “I can’t possibly do the trip tonight. Sleep. We both need to. Here, or possibly in a bed, if you have one.”

  She pulled her shirt over her head. “How far away do you live?”

  “California.”

  That stopped her short. “California? Across the country? It’s a Tuesday. I’d have to call in sick to work.”

  Finally she turned to view him. Her second eye turned on as it always seemed to with Brady. So much for the so-called control she’d thought she’d gained with age. His aura
pulsed gold and green. He felt great…and also uncertain.

  “I’ll compensate you, of course.” Brady sat up, bending over to grab his briefs. He, of course, looked suave getting dressed, while she felt like a clumsy fool.

  “Yeah. Because that won’t make me feel too much like a whore.”

  He sucked in his breath. “God damn it, you have to know that one thing doesn’t have anything to do with the other—”

  She cut him off, waving her hand in the air. “Fine. Yes. I get it. Not related. Fucking me has nothing to do with wanting me to take care of Sydney.”

  “I came in here to seduce you. Yes, I admit it. You knew it. You stopped it and then seduced me. So don’t act like this had anything to do with my sister.”

  “I wanted you. I fully admit it.” Still wanted him. “And now I’m freaked out because I don’t do this. I don’t have one-night stands. I don’t jump people.”

  He walked over to her, placing his hands on her shoulders. “Relax. Let’s go to sleep. We’ll get up, have breakfast, and then we’ll go on my plane to California. Let’s take it easy for tonight.”

  His words made sense. They needed to sleep. Maybe they could even have another round of hot, steamy fucking sometime before they went to bed.

  “The bedroom is right down the hall.”

  “Come on. Sleep.” He took her hand, leading her down the hall. She let him, knowing that if she curled up against him on the bed, she’d be hooked. Even though she knew it meant she’d be setting herself up for heartache, she didn’t tell him to leave, didn’t send him back to his hotel. Because she liked the way he looked her in the eye even when he said things that might make her upset. She liked the way he touched her gently and she liked the way he knew who she was, so she didn’t have to pretend to be something she was not.

  They entered her bedroom together. He lay down on the bed, taking her with him until he was spooned behind her. The darkness of the room felt snug with his arms around her, instead of oppressive and lonely.

  “I usually sleep with a light on.”

  He kissed her shoulder. “I can’t sleep if there’s any light in the room. I’ve got you. Nothing will happen to you.”

  She smiled at his words even though she knew them to be ridiculous. He could no more control that than he could make the sun come up.

  “I didn’t expect this, beautiful. Even when I thought we could sleep together, I didn’t anticipate…this.”

  She didn’t want to analyze why she felt grateful for his words. The moment felt too comfortable, too special to start to ask questions she wouldn’t like the answers to. Tomorrow, or when this was all over, she could figure out why part of her wondered if she’d just defined the word “slut” or, maybe worse, “pathetic”.

  After a few minutes of silence, she heard Brady start to snore softly. Amazing. She was lying in his arms trying not to obsess…and he fell asleep. After a time she felt tired, her eyes heavy, lulled into a sense of security she knew wouldn’t last but couldn’t ignore.

  * * * * *

  The roar filled the room seconds before a loud boom exploded around her. Brady jumped up in the bed, cursing even as Dakota picked up her glasses from the nightstand, where she must have placed them before she fell asleep. She had no memory of taking them off but that was where she shoved them every night, which meant she must have done so without thinking about it.

  “What the fuck was that?”

  Brady’s eyes were huge, his pupils dilated. He was breathing as if he’d just run a race. She patted him on the arm. It was hard to be awoken like that, particularly if one happened to have been in REM sleep.

  “That was a demon messing with us.” She yawned and looked at the clock, unsurprised that it read three in the morning.

  “What?” He looked around as if he’d be able to see the thing. She wished that were possible. It would make her feel less alone. “I’ve lived with Sydney raving in the upstairs of my house for twenty-five years and that has never happened.”

  “Interesting.” She stood up. It had been eight years since she’d had an episode like this, but when she’d been growing up it hadn’t been unusual for things like this to happen. Her mother had called it sad parlor tricks and had been unimpressed.

  He grabbed her arm, pulling her against him. “How so?”

  “Well, it either means that you’re dealing with plain old psychosis that has nothing to do with any of this, or you have a very powerful demon on your hands, one who doesn’t need to play games like this.”

  Brady rubbed at his eyes. “Does this happen to you often?”

  “Not since I took the one out of Nanette.”

  He got out of bed and moved to the window. “It can’t be a coincidence that it started back up tonight.”

  “No.” There wouldn’t be any more sleep for them that evening. Brady wouldn’t get over the shock of what had happened until morning and she couldn’t blame him. For normal people, even ones with possibly possessed sisters, this was too much to deal with. “It’s all about energy. We talked about demons and we drew this to us.”

  “Tell me about Nanette.” Brady turned, his eyes boring into hers.

  Goose bumps broke out on her arms. She didn’t like the way he was regarding her, although she couldn’t have said why. His aura still showed purple concern and green nerves but nothing dire. So why had she suddenly gotten nervous?

  “Um.” She scratched her head, needing something to do with her hands. “Her mother contacted us. My mama never advertised her services but we were always busy. Word of mouth. Although my mom used to think that we were divinely led to those who needed us.”

  “Go on.”

  “Why the interest in this?” She got out of bed, heading for her closet. If she had to have this conversation, she’d rather be wearing her bathrobe. Or at least something that would make her feel less vulnerable.

  “I’ll explain. Please bear with me. You were surprised Nanette didn’t keep your secret. Why?”

  “Because I didn’t think she’d want people to know that she summoned a demon and got in over her head.”

  Brady fell silent. She could see his mind working in the way his dark eyes darted around in their sockets, as if he were watching a scene unfolding somewhere other than here.

  Putting her pink fuzzy bathrobe on, she walked toward Brady. “What did she tell you happened? My mother died getting it out of her and then I couldn’t get it out of my mom before it killed her. Which is why I told you that I wasn’t certain I could even get the demon out of Sydney.”

  Brady took her shoulders in his hands and pulled her to him then he kissed the top of her head. “I haven’t been entirely honest with you. But I’m going to fix that.”

  Dakota felt a weight settle on her shoulders. She might never be able to move again under the pressure. Still, she managed to stumble backward from his embrace. If he had something to tell her that would cause her pain, she wasn’t going to be coddled like a baby while he did so.

  “Go on.”

  “I found Nanette through an online group I was monitoring. My business allows me the technology to ghost in and out of internet groups, to observe conversations with no one noticing.”

  “Sounds invasive.”

  “Well, it’s not really—”

  She touched his arm. “Much as I might like to hear about your expertise, at the moment I really don’t care.”

  “Fair enough.” He shook his head. “Anyway, Nanette participates in this support group for people who were possessed. Her experience seemed more legitimate to me than some of the others who participate in the group. She had real memories, concrete things to say. After a while, I sought out her information and tracked her down.”

  “Seven years ago she was gorgeous. Brown hair, blue eyes, perfect body.” Her mother had always told her that demons weren’t concerned with the outside of the person, just what they could destroy on the inside.

  “She’s not really my type. I kind of prefer blondes wi
th big brown eyes who stand up to me.”

  His words appealed to the teenager inside her heart who had never grown up and still believed in happily-ever-afters. But Dakota didn’t have time for that version of herself at the moment.

  “She told you about me.”

  “Yes, after she told me she could get the demon out of Sydney. She said she needed you, that you had to be taken to her, and the demon would then be gotten out of my sister.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I’m seeing that now.” He rubbed at his face. “I thought she just needed you to help her with the ceremony, but now I’m wondering if there’s something else going on.”

  Dakota’s heart raced. “How did I not see this in your aura? Your intention to deceive me?”

  “I don’t know. I really never meant you any harm, just to take you to Nanette. Now that I know she asked for the demon, I’m starting to wonder if she had more nefarious intentions that I realized. I mean, why would she want to be possessed?”

  Brady sounded desperate, but Dakota couldn’t make this okay for him—not with the niggling feeling in the back of her mind telling her that there was more going on here than she understood.

  “I have no idea. I didn’t know then, I don’t know now.” She chewed on her fingernail. “Even if she wanted the demon inside your sister to be inside her, bringing me in makes little sense since all I can do is remove them—I can’t put them in.”

  A boom sounded in the room again and Brady jumped, grabbing her as if he could shove her behind him. She shook out of his arms. He couldn’t protect her from the supernatural, and his gallantry didn’t negate what he’d done to bring trouble into her life.

  A red hue filled the room.

  “Dakota, what’s going to happen here?”

  “Nothing. It’s just fucking with us.” She stepped away from him. “I have a natural barrier to possession. Unless I’ve opened up all my powers to perform an exorcism, and then I’m vulnerable. My guess would be so do you, or all the time you’ve spent around Sydney would have landed you possessed a long time ago.”