Claimed by the Demon

And all of it, all of it, was his to feel. His...and hers. The swell of sensation, the rush of heat. The groan in his throat born of wanting, the wicked hard thump of his heart pounding in his chest and ears. Gwen’s hand reached his belt buckle. He sucked his stomach away, making it easy.

She froze, however briefly, and then tipped her head back and laughed.

“Ha ha?” he said, breathless and bemused.

“Ha,” she said. “Do you see us? Rolling around on the floor a day after we first saw each other, one of us handcuffed to the bed and the other of us about to go down his pants?”

“It works for me,” he said and then cursed softly as her hand slipped in under the belt. “It...totally...uh...”

“Yeah,” she said. “It works for me, too.”

And a moment later, he managed to say, more or less, “Cuffs?”

She left his zipper alone to push back her hair and regard him with regrettably serious eyes. “Ditch the knife-sword thing?”

Two syllables. He could do it. “Pocket.”

“Oh!” she said. “Pocket diving!” And went for it.

He cursed, and crushed her close, and forgot he was supposed to be kissing her—straining against the cuff, straining against her hand, straining against sanity in the very best kind of way.

“Yeah,” she said. “That is an impressive...sword.”

“Cuffs, dammit!”

“Must be the other pocket.”

It was, in fact. By the time she found the blade, working it free and withdrawing it with two very cautious fingers, he’d used his one free arm to roll her on top of him and start in on her neck—tender, silky skin, warm beneath her hair, smelling of her shampoo, tasting faintly of salt and ahh, there, that little earlobe with its three little gold hoops—

She stiffened, making a soft noise in her throat.

“Uh-huh,” he murmured, right into her ear, and nibbled. His hand worked its way down her back, found her waistband, slipped under to cup soft, warm flesh.

“Oh,” she breathed and shifted to offer better access, trembling against him just as he’d been straining moments earlier.

He jerked her a little closer. “Cuffs.”

“Cuffs,” she repeated blankly. “Oh! Cuffs!” And sat up, straddling him, tossing the blade across the room with vigor and moving against him so perfectly that his eyes rolled back and his hips lifted. She froze right where she was, hands at his chest, her gasp the only sound in the room. “Oh,” she said again on the next breath. “You— I—”

Not that he could truly hear her. Not with the blood pounding through every part of him and his body straining and the heat gathering, perfectly normal just-between-two-people heat.

“You!” She pulled off her shirt in one swift motion. No wonder those breasts had felt so perfect in every way, because there they were in that dim light and they so obviously were completely unfettered by a bra. She stood long enough to jerk off her shorts and that dim light shone golden on pale and lightly freckled skin. By then all he could do was whisper, quite hoarsely indeed, “Cuffs...”

She’d already gotten the belt; she bent to his pants, pulling them over his hips with quick efficiency, all the quicker when he lifted to make it easier but only as far as the shoes he still wore. She was more careful with the underwear, cupping him until he growled, reaching for her—

Underwear, gone. Gwen, coming down around him in damp, ready warmth, both of them crying out, clutching—gone mindless with what gathered between them. He grabbed her hip; she clung to his arm, bracing herself against his chest as they fell into one another, their cries building and mingling and panting through the air. They spiraled right through intensity and right past sanity. Gwen stiffened, head falling back; Mac strained, lifting her, every muscle corded tight and reaching—

And she wailed and he cried out, and the whole of it went spilling through him—through all the open places she’d made for him, the purity of what it was to simply be. Giving him back himself...giving him her.

And then they lay collapsed and panting together, boneless unto absurdity, sweat quickly chilling. Mac finally gathered enough wit and enough breath to say, hoarsely and somewhat pathetically, “Cuffs? Now?”

And dammit, sprawled there on his chest, Gwen simply and helplessly began to laugh.

* * *

“I’m sorry,” she said, but then couldn’t help another giggle.

“Convincing.” He looked as disgruntled as a man could look after mind-blowing sex, inspecting her first aid work. If anything, his expression grew more disgruntled yet—not that she didn’t expect it. “Pink,” he said. “Hot pink.”

“You wear it well?” she offered. And then laughed.

Because, yeah. Mind-blowing sex. Decision made, chances taken.

Not physically. She’d seen the healing in action...believed the truth of that, and its effect throughout his body. Safe sex, if her body had been the only thing involved.

Chances with her heart...of that she was less certain. This man and his blade, his history—his life spiraling toward what her father’s had been...and how it had ended. She hadn’t meant to give him quite so much of herself.

But it was only what he had given her.

So maybe she’d pay for it. But she wouldn’t regret it.

She touched the bright pink bandaging, smoothing one of the self-sticking edges. “Honestly,” she said. “It was all they had. That time of night, driving that twitchy Jeep of yours on unfamiliar city streets...I was just glad to stumble onto a big box store that had something besides duct tape.”

His glance was wistful; clearly the duct tape would have worked for him.

“Confident men can wear pink,” she said firmly. She stroked a thumb along the inside of his elbow, there above where she’d secured the pendant—indeed, with duct tape—snugly against his skin. She purred inwardly when his breath caught.

“Trying,” he said, “to think.”

“I’m not sure why.” She ran her nails lightly up his arm to his shoulder; he exhaled in a gust and gave up, tipping his head back against the bed to absorb the touch.

They still sat on the floor, up against the bed, using the bedspread for their picnic blanket. Gwen had folded a corner of the bedspread over her shoulder, not yet interested in searching for her clothes. Mac had divested himself of his shoes and pants, kicking away his briefs—not much of those to begin with, and she almost wished he’d don them just so she could take them off all over again. Now he leaned against the bed, one leg propped up.

Okay, that worked for her. A body like this? Maybe it never needed to be covered.

He touched his arm, frowned. Nothing to do with the pink. “How bad is it?”

That took her mind from the briefs or lack thereof, all right, and she winced. “How bad does it feel?”

He sent her a sharp glance, and she lifted a shoulder. “It’s probably about that bad. That blade has no care for you.”

“No,” he murmured. “For a while...we worked together, as strange as it seems. But now it’s...broken through. I don’t know how much longer I can control it.”

“That man at that warehouse seems to think not very much longer.” Gwen scowled, a look meant for that man. “He talked about the wild road.”

“Right,” Mac said. “When I give over to the blade to become a monster among men.” He shook his head. “You know, I was just your average slacker guy, following work down the road and happy enough to do it. Figuring that one day I’d head back to the family business, but until then, just making my own way.”

Right. The guy who’d stepped into the middle of a scuffle outside a bar because the other fellow looked like he needed help. The guy who’d spent this day following trouble around simply so he could stop it—doing his best to bend the blade’s hedonistic inclinations to good.

“I doubt,” Gwen said, her voice suddenly tight around the world’s biggest lump in her throat, “that you were