“Ari,” Ryke whispers, his fingers sliding slowly from my hair to cradle my neck, my jaw, my lips.
I’m sitting on his lap with every hard part of him pressed against every needy part of me. His touch burns across my lower lip, and he watches intently as my breath catches.
My teeth lash out before I can think better of it. I clamp down on his index finger at the same time as my fist jars forward into his ribs.
The grunt he smothers is a rumbling tone of surprise.
I’m striding away from him before he can even curse my name.
“Let’s just stay out of each other’s way, and we’ll both be happy, demon.” I slam the door shut behind me, and then I’m rushing down the hall to find a quiet room. Any room.
Exposed wood surrounds me on all sides. The carved hall seems like it’s a tunnel out of the middle of the largest tree known to man. Those wooden walls press in on me.
My chest hurts, but it’s not from my tears anymore. It’s from her. She is pain and she is wrath.
I push open the first door I come to. And it’s the wrong random room.
It’s so damn wrong, it’s right.
Wet golden hair hangs into confused dark eyes. Damien stands at the side of a white porcelain bathtub in nothing but a towel clinging to his slick narrow hips. Hard lines etch a path down his chest and I can’t even focus on how perfect his body is right now.
“No, no, no, no,” I whisper on a trembling plea.
Only with Catherine the Cunt would I reject the sexy sight of wet abs.
“You can have the bathroom. I’m done. It’s not a big deal,” he says, his eyebrows lowering with more and more confusion as I shake my head back and forth so fast that my hair whips across my lips.
A scream tears out of me with lashing strength, and I see Catherine’s face shudder out of my own with wisps of white smoke, shrieking spasms, and ghostly rage.
“Oh, shit. Not again,” Damien whispers, stepping back from me with a worried expression.
“I just . . . I need to relax. I need a distraction. I need—I need fucking something.” With trembling hands, I shove down my borrowed black jeans that I stole from Corva and kick them aside. My underwear is discarded as well. I don’t even give Damien’s confusion a second glance as I tear my shirt from over my wings and stumble into the lukewarm bath water that’s draining slowly.
With one weak breath, I hold the pressing feeling in my lungs and dip my head under the water.
Calm. Calm. Calm.
This is calming. This . . . it’s nice. This is . . . not fucking working.
Her flickering face surfaces seconds before my own, and I can’t catch my breath. It’s like I’m choking on her spirit. I can’t feel my own palm as I sink my nails in so hard that blood slides through my fingers.
“I’m in charge. This is my body. Mine!”
My wet lashes fly open and Damien’s hands are half-lifted. He looks like he wants to help but has no fucking idea how to.
He can actually. And what I need from him is so damn simple.
I slide just slightly when I kneel in the bathtub, and when I’m close enough, I push my wet fingers through his hair and pull his face down to mine. As his lips part to ask another unimportant question, I slam my mouth to his.
Every hard muscle in his body tenses, but it only takes half a second for him to respond to the warmth of my kiss. He melds his lips to mine over and over again like he’s hesitant but just as wanting as I am.
A tiny breath hits my lungs.
Finally.
“This is you, right?” he asks between languid kisses. “This isn’t,” kiss, “that freaky thing,” kiss, “inside you, right?”
A smile breaks through the anguish across my face, and I can’t help but taunt him. “If it were that freaky thing, would you stop kissing me right now?”
My tongue flicks against his, and his big hands slide down my bare hips.
“I—fuck. No, I probably wouldn’t,” he whispers before parting my lips and fucking my tongue in such a sensual caress I almost forget about the thing inside me, too.
Almost.
She claws up my chest, and I feel her grow with power. She’ll make another appearance if I’m not careful.
“Touch me. Please,” I gasp as I pull harder against his hair.
His touch is a blazing path along my cold skin as his slick fingers glide over my curves, my ribs, my breasts. The slickness of his big palms sliding over my breasts is enough to tremble weakness right down to my core.
A quiet sound of pent-up lust whimpers from my lips. He devours the sound with a dominate kiss, bending my back as he fights for control over his own spiraling desires.
I pull at his hair. He takes an unsteady step and stumbles into the half an inch of water lining the nearly empty tub.
He bends when I lower. His hard body settles over mine.
The restless spirit inside me is wrecking chaos on my heart, but Damien is doing more than that to my sex drive.
I’ve almost won.
My thighs part, and the heat of his body melds to mine so fucking perfectly I can only ask for more. And more. And more. He’s close. But not close enough. My hips thrust against the towel still separating his perfect body from mine.
But then . . . he pulls back just slightly, allowing too much cool air between his chest and mine. The scrunch of my brow is nothing compared to how easily that moment allows Catherine to rear her head inside my own.
My eyes clench shut hard to keep her contained.
“Fuck me.” I barely whisper the words before my fingers are pushing at the wet towel clinging messily to his hips.
And then he shoves back from me entirely.
“Fuck!” His hands thrust through his messy hair, and he looks like it’s impossible for him to catch his breath right now.
I follow him up as he kneels over me. I’m confused, but the turmoil of emotions colliding through my chest barely lets that baffled notion register.
“What—what’s wrong?” I force out while fighting my pounding heart as well as Catherine’s slamming need to be seen.
You know what’s not attractive? Letting your poltergeist out during sex.
It’s a real mood killer.
Just calm down. You’re in control. You’re going to fuck Damien. Not the centuries-old ghost living inside you . . .
I hope.
Maybe let’s not tell him that…
“I can’t.” He moves to stand, but when I pull on his arm, he slides back down next to me, both of us waiting in a puddle of cold water for him to explain why he isn’t fucking me so hard that he literally exorcises me right now.
“I’m sorry, what?” My eyes scrunch closed, and I breathe through the pain that’s quivering through every inch of my veins.
“I—I can’t . . . fuck you. I . . . in exchange for Corva’s runes, she cursed me so I had to give up ssseehhh.” He whispers those words out. Every one of them gets quieter and quieter until I can’t hear the last word he mumbled.
“What?”
“Sex! I gave up sex in exchange for not becoming a demon.”
My mouth falls open so hard, I think he just scared the ghost right out of me.
The length of my hair waves as my head jerks back and forth involuntarily.
Nope. She’s still there.
I glance down at Damien’s towel, and I refuse to note that there’s not a hint of a hard outline below his hips.