Darkness Devours (Dark Angels 3)

I snorted softly. “Why should I have to tell you? Why don’t you just pluck the answer from my thoughts like you usually do?”

He growled low in his throat and pressed against me, pinning me hard against the cool white tiles. The water that streamed down on us did little to ease the heat and awareness that surged between us.

“Once I might have. Now, that is not so much an option.”

I frowned, my gaze searching his, seeing frustration mingling with growing arousal. He wasn’t lying—not about this. Curiosity mingled with relief. “Why not? You’ve had no trouble before now.”

“I know.” He pressed one knee between my legs. I tried to shove him back again, but with as little success as before.

“Then what’s changed?”

“I suspected the reaper might have had something to do with it, but this has not got his imprint.”

Alarm stirred. Reading my mind was one thing, but if Azriel was also altering the direction of my thoughts… “Meaning you’ve felt him before?”

“I’ve sometimes felt his echo. He reads your mind far more than you think, Risa.”

The alarm abated. I was well aware of just how often he was reading me. It was the thought of him actually doing more that had me worried. But even as that thought crossed my mind, I swiped it away. Azriel wouldn’t do that. He was a man—a being—of more integrity than that. Lucian, on the other hand, was an entirely different matter.

He nudged my knees farther apart, obviously preparing to claim me more intimately. I ducked under his arms and retreated, but I was nowhere near fast enough. He grabbed my hands, pinning them behind my back as he pressed me belly first against the wall.

“Damn it, Lucian, this has gone far enough.”

“Then tell me who Jak is,” he murmured, his words little more than a heated breeze near my left ear.

I shivered, torn between desire and growing anger. “Why do you need to know? It’s not as if you’re jealous or anything.”

“At first, it was nothing more than curiosity.” He shifted his grip so that both of my hands were held in one of his, then he pulled me back just enough to slip his free hand between the wall and me. He cupped my breasts, pinching and rolling my nipples, playing me like a master played his favorite instrument—with ease and assurance. He added, “Now, however, it is something of a challenge.”

“And yet another one you won’t win.”

“Oh, have no doubt that I’ll win this one,” he said softly. He continued to knead and press and tease my flesh, until I was trembling to the tune of his fingers and beginning to hunger for a whole lot more. It was frustrating—truly frustrating—that I just couldn’t seem to say no to this man and actually mean it. It was almost as if he’d become an addiction. “When I mentioned a moment ago that I wasn’t able to read your thoughts as much as I used to, I did leave a little information out of the equation.”

“There’s a surprise,” I muttered, my body still quivering under the delicious assault.

He chuckled softly and once again gently prized my legs apart with his knee. Then he claimed me from behind, his cock thick and hard and oh-so-heated as it thrust up into me. I made a sound that was a confused mix of annoyed growl and moan of pleasure. He chuckled again, his lips brushing my ear before he whispered, “I can read you when I fuck you. And right now, I intend to fuck you so completely that protecting the elusive Jak’s identity will be the very last thing on your mind.”

And that’s exactly what he did. Until the water went cold and the shower automatically shut down, until my body was trembling with exhaustion and the repeated waves of orgasm. Until, I guess, he’d finally mined the information from my mind. Only then did he allow himself to come, and finally end the ordeal.

For several minutes neither of us moved. His hands were still wrapped around mine, and my legs were so wobbly that his grip was the only thing keeping me upright.

He released me, then blew out a breath, the breeze of it whispering past my cheek. “So,” he said, and for the first time there was weariness in his voice. The legendary Aedh stamina had finally hit a wall. “Jak is an ex-lover you met up with yesterday morning.”

If I’d had the energy I would have pushed him away from me. As it was, it was all I could do to turn around and glare at him.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“He’s in town and wanted to catch up. Nothing more, nothing less.”

His gaze swept mine, as if he was trying to work out whether I was telling the truth or not. And that surely meant he hadn’t dragged all the information about Jak out of my mind during the marathon session. Though whether the relief that followed this realization stemmed from Azriel’s distrust or my own lingering sense that something wasn’t quite right, I couldn’t honestly say.

“So you won’t be meeting him again?”>Not only did we have one of the best security systems installed in our converted warehouse home, but Ilianna had finally figured out the magic used in the wards—which were basically stones that could repel magic, spirits, or evil, depending on the spell infused within them—that my father had left behind the last time he’d talked to me, and she’d used that magic to install wards of her own around our home. Which meant no Aedh—or even reaper—could get in. And I knew for sure Azriel couldn’t, because he’d apparently tried more than once—and it was something of a blessing given this morning’s session. The thought of his witnessing such a wanton display had embarrassment stirring in me, although I wasn’t entirely sure why. I was wolf—or part wolf—and lovemaking in full view of others wasn’t exactly a new experience to me.

Lucian nuzzled the side of my neck. “Ilianna let me in as she went out, and I thought it was pretty obvious what I’m doing here.”

“And I thought you said you had several important meetings to attend today and that I wouldn’t see you until later tonight.”