“This is kind of something I deserved to know. Especially if we had gone any further.”
Though she could just imagine her shock if he were to have dropped his disguise while they’d been in the moment. To have looked up and suddenly find a demon-like man over her…
I would’ve shrieked loud enough to make the walls collapse.
“I didn’t like hiding it from you,” he said, closing the distance between them. He reached up and lightly brushed the backs of his claws over her cheek. “Does it change anything?”
Gabriela stared up into his eyes, searching them. They were so strange, so unearthly, so beautiful. His body was tense, his expression tight, and his apparent uncertainty and vulnerability was wholly human, even if he was not.
“No,” she finally said.
The tension fled him as he released a soft breath. His shoulders relaxed, and his lips parted slightly, giving her a glimpse of his fangs.
“Can I…touch you?” she asked.
He dipped his chin in a nod.
Gabriela started with his hand, taking it in hers and trailing her fingers along his, all the way to the tips of his long, sharp, black claws. She’d felt their points on numerous occasions, but it had never registered as anything abnormal. She thought he’d simply had long fingernails, not…claws. But now that she was seeing them, she couldn’t help remembering when she’d felt them this morning when he’d clutched her thigh as he thrust against her.
She looked up at him, released his hand, and reached for his face. He bent down into her touch, letting her cup his jaw. Slowly, she moved her palms up and traced his long, pointed ears with her fingertips. Broxen closed his eyes and let out a quiet groan.
“Is this why you never let me touch you here before?” she asked. “Why you always drew my hands away?”
“Yes. Even if you couldn’t see them, they were always there.”
Gabby moved her hands up. Her fingers delved into his hair until she grasped the bases of his horns. He shuddered, and his hands settled on her hips. His fingers flexed slightly, and again she felt the pricks of those claws through her clothing. It sent a thrill through her, making her core ache and her nipples bud.
“I take it that felt good?” she asked with a knowing smile.
“Mmm.” Broxen’s eyelids rose, and he looked down at her with gleaming, half-lidded eyes.
She explored the roots of his horns, stroking the skin around the hard, dark bone that protruded from above his temples. His lips drew back in a hiss, baring those sexy fangs.
“Gabriela…” he growled low. “Do not tease me.”
She chuckled. “Okay, okay. I’ll stop.” Her features grew more serious as she smoothed her palms over his horns. “That night, during the fire, with the window… You broke it with these, didn’t you?”
“I did. It was…instinct. But I would’ve thrown myself through that glass if that was what I had to do to get to her.”
Tears stung Gabby’s eyes. She still felt the fear and desperation of that night, like echoes of a nightmare. She knew, in time, it would fade, but it was still too new, too raw. “You saved her.”
Broxen cradled the back of her head with his hand, slipping his fingers into her hair. “Thought I was going to lose both of you that night.”
“But you didn’t, and here we are.” Gabriela smiled and dropped her palms to his chest. “Is…there anything else I’m not seeing?” Her cheeks flushed, but she didn’t look away from him. “Is your…um…”
He withdrew his hands from her, moving them both to his waist to unbuckle his belt.
Gabriela’s wide eyes fixed upon them. “I…I didn’t mean… You don’t…” Except she couldn’t deny her anticipation of what he was going to show her. What did it look like?
“I see that hunger in your eyes,” he said with a bit of gravel in his voice. He unbuttoned the top of his jeans, but didn’t lower the zipper; instead, he reached around behind himself…and pulled out a tail.
She gasped, her gaze flicking between that long, red appendage and his eyes. “You…have a tail? All this time? Stuck in there?”
“Yes. Haven’t had much of a chance to stretch it out lately. As for the other thing…” He grinned and chuckled, briefly catching his bottom lip with a fang as his eyes roved over her slowly, ravenously. “It…looks a bit different but works the same way. You’ll find out for yourself soon enough.”
Gabby found that she really couldn’t wait for that. Her curiosity was positively eating at her, and desire blazed through her veins. She squeezed her thighs together as her pussy clenched.
Broxen caught her chin and tilted her face up. “I will please you, my mate. When you’re ready, I’ll learn every way to make you scream with pleasure. With my fingers, my tongue, my cock, and my tail.” He punctuated that last bit by winding his tail around her leg, sliding its tip down her calf.
The air fled her lungs in a rush.
I’m not going to survive him.
To go from no sex to sexed-to-death?
What a way to die.
But this wasn’t all she’d pulled him into the room for. She wanted answers. Well, more answers.
“Hold up a minute,” Gabriela said, her voice thick. She cleared her throat, but it was impossible to ignore his tail, still wrapped around her leg.
A freaking tail!
Oh, my God, the possibilities…
Gabby! Head in the game!
She patted his chest. Such big…solid…muscles… “Okay, question time. What are you?”
“An omnyrian. My kind originally came from a planet called Ketarn, I think, but I was born on a world called Turata.”
“Oh. Wow. So aliens do exist.”
Not a demon but an alien.
Wait until Ana finds out…
I hope she knows how to keep a secret.
“Are there others like you here?” Gabriela asked.
“Other nonhumans, yes. Don’t know about other omnyrians. Earth is supposed to be off limits. I think most are like me, and came here to disappear.”
She frowned. “Why did you need to come here to disappear?”
Broxen smoothed his hand down her hair. “Everything I told you before is true. I left out details, but I didn’t lie to you. My friend, Astius…he was assassinated by members of his own family. They tried to implicate me for his death, and I…I avenged him. It was all I knew how to do. Another family member took power in the aftermath. They were grateful for what I had done, but there was still a faction of traitors left behind who had insulated themselves within a rival organization. They put a bounty on my head.
“So, the new leadership helped me escape. Set me up to go somewhere else. Astius always talked about a different kind of life, an honest life, without all the illicit activity and whatever. Thought about that a lot after he was gone. Was still thinking about it when I found my way here.”
Broxen combed his claws through her hair and stroked the back of his finger along her jaw. “And when I saw you…for the first time, a different life really seemed possible.”
Gabriela’s fingers curled slightly into his shirt. His touch was so soothing, so calming, but it didn’t quell her spark of unease. “But you’re safe now, right? No one will come here looking for you to get the bounty? No one will find…us?”