I surged to my feet, ignoring the sharp pains in my knees and hips at the sudden movement.
“Fuck you, Rans!” I snarled. “I left to try and keep you safe—not just to find out what happened to Dad!”
He was on his feet and in my face so fast I barely registered the movement. “To keep me safe... can you even hear yourself?”
His voice was a cold growl as he loomed over me, using his height to advantage.
I shoved at his chest, suddenly enraged. Of course, I grew even more enraged when my shove failed to move him an inch. Instead, I was the one who stumbled back half a step.
“And how did that grand gesture work out for you?” he continued relentlessly.
I shoved at him again, with exactly the same result.
“I had it under control!” I practically yelled. “Albigard was going to try to get Dad out for me, and you were supposed to stay away!”
His eyes flared with inner light at the mention of Albigard’s name, and he caught my wrist when I pulled my fist back to punch him in the chest.
His tone was low and rough when he said, “I did not rescue you from Caspian in St. Louis just so you could seduce one of my few allies into betraying me, Zorah.”
Guilt and fury warred in my stomach. I hauled off and slapped him as hard as I could with my free hand. An instant later, I grunted as my back impacted the front door with a thump. Rans had swung me around in the blink of an eye and now held me pinned against the worn wood, my wrists held in an unbreakable grip above my head, our bodies pressed together from chest to knee.
“Fucker,” I whispered, right before his mouth crashed into mine.
SEVENTEEN
I GROWLED AND KISSED him back, feeling the sudden uncontrollable desire to... just... burn everything between us to the ground. His body was hard against mine. Unforgiving. I bit his lip with enough force to draw blood, and his dick twitched against my stomach. He wrenched away, pulling me with him, whirling me around to face away from him and pushing me against the back of the couch.
I gasped, my body folding in half at the hips over the back of the sofa—ass in the air, upper body splayed over the cushions so that my hair brushed against the worn fabric. I braced my hands on the seat cushions as fingers grasped the waistband of my loose shorts and yanked them down. The sound of a zipper behind me followed.
Jesus Christ. I was wet... so wet. I keened when Rans’ hard cock slammed into me, clawing at the upholstery beneath my fingers as the gaping pit of my need opened up and threatened to swallow us both whole.
I cursed and cried out at the brutal thrusts pounding into me, wanting to reach out with my succubus nature and rip Rans’ desire out of his body by the roots so I could drag it into mine. I wanted to draw and draw on it, until the pit of emptiness inside me was full of something besides my own fear and failure. His hands gripped my hips with bruising strength, holding me in place as my bare toes scrabbled against the slick hardwood floor.
It was hard to breathe... but I didn’t need to breathe. I just needed him to keep fucking me like this. When his movements slowed, then stopped, I groaned in protest, writhing against him as his upper body leaned forward to drape over mine. He was trembling faintly.
“Damn you, Zorah Bright.” The words were a low rumble against the back of my neck.
But if I was part demon, it meant I was already damned, didn’t it?
One of his arms wrapped around my chest. He used that grip around me as leverage to pull my upper body nearly upright while his lower body continued to pin my hips in place against the back of the couch. The angle of his cock inside me shifted, drawing a hard shudder from me.
He drew my arms backward, looping a forearm through the crook of my left elbow and across my back to grasp my right bicep in an unbreakable hold. My breasts jutted out as the position forced my shoulders back, but I forgot all about the strain when he rolled his hips, thrusting deep. The movement punched a breathless sound from my throat.
I’d wanted something to fight against. I’d needed it. So I struggled and panted against the hold restraining me, and the cock filling me up. The hand that had been wrapped around my chest grabbed one edge of the stolen shirt I was wearing and jerked. Buttons popped, some hitting the couch cushions, others falling to the wood floor with a scattering of tiny noises as they bounced and skittered in every direction.
A cool palm—rough with calluses—ran possessively over my breasts and stomach, claiming my body even as I squirmed and writhed. A hard shaft rocked into me, pressing my pelvis against the lightly padded frame of the sofa back. I could feel my body drawing on his—taking... taking... making me feel drunk with the heady mixture of anger, lust, and pain swirling between us.
Rans continued to run his free hand over my body, squeezing and kneading my tits, then sliding up to encircle my throat—daring me not to trust him with this. I swallowed, my head falling back, feeling the movement push against the cool weight of his palm. My pulse throbbed beneath the light pressure of his fingers and thumb.
Using the grip he had on my arms, he pulled my back flush against his front. Now every
