Page 27 of Ravenous
“No. Unlike you, I came when you were balls deep.” And he trulyhadn’t. “So hats off to you for your control.” That control had haunted her. How had she nearly lost it with a male who viewed her as a mere mark? She was the con—not the conned. “At least you got a meal out of it.”
“I am an incubus. I do feed from a partner’s pleasure during intercourse.”
So how many meals had he harvested since she’d last seen him? Had other females sustained him, their cries in his ear? “Do you never come when working?”
“Incubi are demons. Demon males can’t spill seed with any but a mate.”
“But you can orgasm though.”
He shrugged and that gold band glinted again. “I prefer not to.”
“Ah. Fucking someone for pleasure while fucking them over is a bridge too far?”
“Something like that.” Could this spy possess a tinge of morality?
Beyond the door, footsteps sounded, boots returning. A pause right outside. A faint jingle of keys.
Nadje froze.
Another beat. The sentries shifted.Listening?
Footsteps again, receding. Nadje relaxed a fraction, not relief, just borrowed time. She hissed to Inkletter, “You have to go.”
He crossed to her bed and reclined with his arms behind his head, brazen, as if this ward belonged to him. “Not without my cut or an explanation for that gold. I don’t like unsolved mysteries.” He plumped her threadbare pillow. “Otherwise I shall get very comfortable.”
He looked deliciously demonic in her bed. Her mind turned to the passion they’d shared there. And on the floor. And against the wall.
Well, passion on her side; he’d been unaffected except for a brief time when she’d been sobbing with the need for release. In that moment, he’d seemed about to lose himself as well.
She’d repeatedly imagined him succumbing to his lust. His hips jerking as he came, his claws digging into her flesh, his pointed demon tongue twining against hers as he groaned…
Gods, that thought got her going. She’d masturbated so much in the last couple of days her fingers were sore.
She gazed up warily, commanding herself not to replay her fantasy. He’d be able to scent her arousal! She needed to put him off the scent, literally. And she needed him gone before the guards returned. “If you’re so keen on coin, incubus, I could help you make more. Instead of blackmail, consider smuggling. You wanted to know about my chest. That’s how I’ve earned it.”
Figuring he’d turn her down, she’d led with this offer. Yet having uttered the words, she warmed to the idea. His ability to trace would be invaluable. And it would help her control him better. Right now, this loose end could get her executed. “I have a job, but I need someone who can teleport.”
“You can’t at all?” When she shook her head, he said, “Back in Gaia, vampires often spontaneously developed that talent when they needed it most.”
“Not here then,” Nadje murmured noncommittally. Countless dicey situations should have triggered her ability.
She stifled a shiver, recalling the morning the strigoi had taken out an entire encampment of her fellow vampires. The sun had risen in the desert, but the strigoi’s fur and raised wings had protected them as they’d slashed at the tent shading eight-year-old Nadje and her mother.
Mama became my shade. Her last embrace turned to ash.
Nadje could still taste it.
“To where do you smuggle?” Inkletter asked, drawing her from memory.
Inner shake.“All over the Skein.” Sensing his genuine interest, she decided to divulge more. “I move everything from witch sigils to fey poisons.”
He frowned. “Witches trade? Their coven disdains selling magic. They conjure their own gold now and loathe their Gaian commerce past.”
Inkletter would know all about the history. But Nadje knew about the present. “Yours truly cultivated a nice relationship with rogue witches. With my connections and your tracing, we could clean up.”
Would partnering with a cold and calculating male like this be a risk? Absolutely. Yet the seed, now planted, grew.
“Why hasn’t anyone else established these trade routes?”
