The Cursed Read online

  “I have to warn you that I can’t think when you do that,” he growled. “Any nobility I might’ve had is very close to going out the window. All I can think of is driving into your hot, wet body while you wrap your legs around my waist and beg me to go harder and deeper.”

  She gasped, feeling heat and a rush of creamy readiness pool between her legs. The man was every primal, forbidden fantasy she’d ever had, wrapped up in the scents of spice and leather and magic. She wanted to rub her body all over his, push her breasts into his mouth, and beg him to suck on them until she exploded. She wanted him on her, around her, inside her—and her nipples peaked to hard, swollen buds at the mere thought of it.

  She didn’t know how to say any of that, though—it would’ve embarrassed her to death if she tried. Maybe she could work her way up to talking dirty another time. Instead, she grabbed him with both hands and pulled him closer.

  “I need you to touch me right now,” she demanded from between gritted teeth. “I don’t know how to say this—I don’t know how to feel this. My entire body is aching for you, and I’m going to explode if you don’t do something right now.”

  A blazingly seductive grin spread across his gorgeous face, and within five seconds flat she found herself stripped naked. He stood up to tear off his own clothes, and she got her first glimpse of the Dark Wizard of Bordertown in all his hard-bodied, erect, masculine glory.

  A trail of silky dark hair arrowed down from his navel to where his erection jutted proudly out in front of him. It was long and thick and so hard that she couldn’t take her eyes off it.

  She finally tore her gaze away and stared up at him, suddenly feeling a little apprehensive.

  “I think we have a problem.” She had to stop to clear her throat and lick her lips, and she noticed that he watched the stroke of her tongue with fiery and avid interest.

  Suddenly, she felt every bit of her own nudity, and she yanked the quilts on his bed up and around her body.

  “Don’t even think of hiding those luscious breasts from me,” he said, stalking forward.

  The movement put his straining erection at eye level with her fascinated gaze, and she swallowed. Evidently this was not the right thing to do, because he groaned really loudly.

  “I don’t think so,” she tried again, crossing her legs. “There is no way that’s going to fit.”

  He threw back his head and laughed, and she could tell he was honestly amused.

  “That’s the wonderful thing about this, Rio,” he said. “I’m going to make you so hot and so wet for me that we’ll fit together just perfectly.”

  While that promise was still ringing in her ears, he pulled the quilts away from her body and took her breasts in his big hands. She drew in a shaky breath and blushed a hot pink when her nipples visibly got harder just from the touch of his gaze. When he bent down and licked a delicate path around one, she thought she might explode into a million sparkling pieces.

  “It’s so—why is it—is it a wizard thing?”

  He grinned and then licked her nipple into his mouth and sucked on it, and she cried out from the intensity. She’d never felt anything like it, not even back before her nascent mind-reading skills drove her away from boys and then men for what she had feared was forever.

  Luke switched his attention to her other breast, leaving his fingers to lightly pinch the one he’d abandoned, and she felt any attempt at rational thought vanish.

  “These are so incredibly beautiful,” he murmured, when he finally lifted his head, leaving her gasping and writhing beneath him.

  He took her mouth again, and she met his attack with one of her own. This was no surrender. She gave no quarter and took none. She wanted him fiercely, desperately, and without reservation.

  He rolled onto his side and pulled her closer to him, and suddenly she felt his hand trail down her hip and then his clever fingers stroked into the center of her heat and she cried out.

  “Oh, you like that, hmm?” He rubbed and stroked, first delving into her and then retreating to rub, at first lightly and then more insistently, on the little bud that smashed tidal waves of sensation and electricity through her body.

  “What are you—I can’t—” She couldn’t talk; couldn’t think; could only feel as wave after wave of pure, electric-blue flame rolled through her and left her powerless to the sensation.

  He bent and captured a breast again with his lips as she exploded, and the stars fractured around her. She cried out again, and he drove his fingers inside her. Her body clenched around him, pulsing and coming, again and again, and the slight edge of his teeth against her nipple made her scream until her throat was raspy.

  When she finally floated back down to earth from whatever precipice she’d plunged over, he was smiling at her with such smug male satisfaction that she very nearly laughed.

  “I think we’ll fit now,” he said, and he was on top of her and driving his thick, heavy hardness inside her before she could catch her breath enough to debate questions of length or width.

  He pulled her thighs up and around his hips with his hands and worked his way into her, slowly and carefully, his face showing the strain of his massive amount of self-control.

  “It’s—oh, my—it’s so good,” she said, dizzy with the feel of him taking her. Claiming her. Stretching her to plant the hard evidence of his desire inside the core of her being. Once he’d pushed inside her all the way to the hilt, until she felt his pelvic bone resting on hers, he started to pull out, and the slick tugging sensation nearly made her cry out again.

  “I’m going to move a little faster now because I’m really close to losing control if I don’t,” he said hoarsely. “Is that okay?”

  In answer, she frantically nodded and bucked her hips under him, wanting and needing something she instinctively knew that only he could provide. She wanted to explode again, but this time with him inside her. She could feel the delicious buildup of sexual tension as his hips sped up, and he thrust into her harder and faster, until she could feel the heavy weight of his testicles against her every time he drove himself all the way home.

  “I’m going to come again, Luke,” she whispered, clinging to his shoulders so she wouldn’t spin off into space. “I’m sorry I’m doing it twice before you’ve even done it once, but it doesn’t seem to be anything I can help.”

  “Never apologize to me for that,” he said, breathing hard. “I want to make you come a dozen different times, in a dozen different ways, before dawn.”

  She didn’t argue with him; she simply let the explosion take her. Light and magic and sound rushed around her and into her and through her in a symphony of passion and fulfillment, and all she could do was cling to Luke as her body and her heart both went cartwheeling into the stars together.

  An inescapable truth flashed into her mind just before Luke’s orgasm slammed into her with the power and force of a raging thunderstorm on a hot summer night. Her eyes flew open, and she stared blindly at the space over his shoulder, feeling the impact of the revelation every bit as much as she could feel his body, still wrapped around her and buried deep inside her.

  She was falling in love with the Dark Wizard of Bordertown.

  CHAPTER 16

  Luke had finally discovered what the expression “died and gone to heaven” meant. Rio’s body clenched and exploded around his cock, and suddenly it was as if someone had lit a rocket inside his brain. His tightly leashed control shattered, and he pinned her to the bed and fucked her harder and faster, driving into her body with all the power he’d been holding back, until she screamed again, clenching around him again, and this time he went over the edge with her.

  His hips bucked against her as he came, and he could feel the jets of hot semen jetting out of the head of his cock, on and on, until he wondered if a man’s body could somehow be drained completely by the unstoppable force and undeniable nature of simply coming. He wrapped his arms around Rio and rolled over, pulling her on top of him while he was still lock
ed inside her. She was gasping for breath, her entire body shaking with passion and aftershocks, so he covered her face with kisses, drinking her in and soaking up the feel of her warmth on his icy heart.

  She stripped him bare, this woman. Not just his body, and his hunger and need for her, but his heart and the darkness inside him, all the way to his soul. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he never wanted to let her go. He’d fallen. He’d fallen in love with her, and were he a good man—a better man—he would be planning a way to keep her away from him, rather than futilely plotting how to try to defeat the curse and keep her forever.

  Selfishness was no longer an option. Rio deserved more than he could ever give, because the curse hung over his head like the sword of Damocles and threatened not only his future but the happiness of anyone who was personally involved with him.

  He could already feel his body hardening again, wanting her again, craving the fulfillment that he’d never felt before with anyone else. He tried to tame his unbridled reaction to her nearness. He didn’t want to cause her any pain from his lack of restraint.

  She folded her arms on his chest, propped her chin on her arms, and looked into his eyes, completely unaware of the epiphany that had changed his life forever.

  “I have never felt this good in my entire life,” she said dreamily. “Not even the time I broke into the convent kitchen and stole the five-gallon containers of ice cream, and we kids stayed up all night eating every bit of it.”

  Luke flexed his ass a little, pushing himself farther inside her, just for the pleasure of hearing her gasp and seeing her eyes go wide and unfocused.

  “Can you do it again? Already?”

  He loved the greedy touch of longing in her voice. “I can do it again, but I don’t think we should. I don’t want you to be sore tomorrow. I don’t want you to have any reason for regrets, not now and not ever.”

  He twined his fingers in her hair, stroking it back from her face and enjoying the silky feel of it. She wiggled a little, and he closed his eyes from the pleasure of her body pressed against his.

  “Luke. I don’t care about that. I don’t even know how many tomorrows I’ll have. Right now, I want to make love to you in every way possible, all night long.”

  He started to protest again, but she cut him off by kissing him until he couldn’t form a coherent thought.

  “I was kind of wondering if you’d fit inside my mouth,” she said, running her tongue across her lips.

  After that, thinking of any kind was impossible for Luke for quite a long time.

  Rio woke up sprawled diagonally on Luke’s bed, with a muscular male arm wrapped firmly around her waist and a long, hard body snug against her back. His hand was loosely cupping her breast, as if even after he’d done everything and anything possible to do, sexually, to another human being he still couldn’t bear to lose contact with her.

  She blushed fire-hot as she recalled some of the more exotic positions he’d enticed her into and some of the more erotic words he’d urged her on with. He’d claimed her in every possible way and made good on his word; there was no inch of her body that he hadn’t touched or tasted, and she doubted there was an inch of his big body on which she hadn’t done the same. She’d made up for years of celibacy in one night, and she wondered if she’d be able to walk.

  Then she blushed again.

  His arm tightened, and he stretched, moving her body with his, and then his fingers began to toy idly with her nipple. She caught her breath and then smacked his hand.

  “Oh, no you don’t,” she said firmly, pulling away from him and sitting up. “I need to brush my teeth and take a shower, and then I need to go find my poor fox, who is probably traumatized, and feed her some breakfast.”

  As if on cue, Luke’s stomach rumbled and then hers started up to match it. She glanced back at him over her shoulder and immediately regretted it, because the satisfied grin on his face made her blush even harder.

  “I guess we worked up quite an appetite,” he said, putting his hands behind his head and stretching some more.

  He was utterly unconcerned about his own nudity, she’d learned the night before, and absolutely fascinated with hers. With that in mind, she yanked the tangled sheet free of the end of the bed and wrapped it around herself before she fled to the bathroom, and his laughter followed her all the way there.

  After Rio brushed her teeth and took care of the necessities, she stepped into the shower, almost moaning with pleasure as the hot spray pounded into her shoulders, relaxing her muscles. She turned and leaned against the glass tile of the shower wall, wondering if tough private-eye types could take a day off to lounge around and watch trashy TV.

  She didn’t hear Luke enter the shower, and she made a little squeaking noise when he unexpectedly put his arms around her from behind.

  “Now that’s a noise I didn’t hear you make last night,” he said, pouring shampoo into his hand.

  For once, her automatic blushing instinct didn’t kick in, so she had the hopeful thought that maybe she was becoming desensitized to embarrassment. But then he bent down and sucked one of her nipples into his mouth, right there in the shower, and she proved that theory wrong.

  “Stop it,” she snapped, but then she moaned as sizzling sensation traveled through her body and straight to her most sensitive places.

  “I’m sorry, you’re right,” he said, stepping back a little but still grinning like a fiend. A sexually insatiable fiend. “We have a lot to do today. Turn around.”

  He gathered her hair in his hands and began to wash it, massaging shampoo into her scalp with firm pressure, and she almost moaned again. Her secret vice had always been how much she enjoyed a good head rub. Sometimes she went to get a haircut even when she didn’t need one, just for the terrific massage her stylist delivered with the shampoo.

  And Luke was a master at it.

  “If you ever need a fallback job, I’m sure you could get a job at my hair salon.”

  He chuckled, a contented sound that sent tendrils of warmth running through her. It occurred to her that there were people whose lives were just like this—they went to work, out to dinner, and came home to enjoy each other. Nobody was trying to kill them, recruit them, or torture them with mysterious snippets about their pasts.

  She could even almost imagine her own life with Luke, if it could ever fall along that path. It would never be dull, and she’d never be alone again. She thought about the events of the past few days and added another item to the list.

  She’d probably spend a lot of time buying people new cars.

  Rio started laughing but then sputtered when water got in her mouth. Luke had switched to rinse mode.

  By the time they were clean, dry, and dressed, Kit was waiting impatiently in the kitchen for them. She was seated on a bar stool, her bushy, white-tipped tail wrapped around her haunches and her chin resting mournfully on the counter, as if to ask where her breakfast was.

  “Are you ever going to talk to me again?” Rio asked the fox. “Was your voice in my head just a fluke? You could talk telepathically because you were under extreme duress or something?”

  Kit tilted her head and flicked her ears, as if listening intently.

  “Maybe it was a onetime thing,” Luke suggested, heading for the coffee maker. “You just never know with magic. Trust me, the weirder explanation is usually the right one with magical creatures.”

  Kit turned her head toward Luke and flattened her ears, like she was disagreeing with his comment.

  “Hey, it was just a guess,” Luke told her. “If you have something different to say, spit it out, little one.”

  Kit didn’t move, but she perked up when Rio began to wash her bowls and refill them with fresh food and water. Rio placed the bowls back down on the floor, but when Kit didn’t immediately jump down to eat, Rio turned to find the little fox watching her.

  It is not easy to communicate this way. I am Yokai; we meddle, we intervene and interfere, and sometimes w
e help. But my mind does not comprehend what you call morality in the same way that you do. I am here to help you with a specific task, but I cannot tell you what or why, because I do not know it yet.

  “But you’re good?” Rio felt like an idiot, but she had to ask. “You’re on my side?”

  Yes. And no. It is complicated.

  With that, Kitsune leapt lightly down and began to eat her breakfast.

  Rio blew out a frustrated sigh. Luke handed her a cup of coffee and held up the butterscotch creamer in his other hand.

  “I think I’ll try caramel today,” she decided. “It seems to be my week for trying new things.”

  Luke grinned, and she ordered herself not to blush.

  “I especially liked that new thing where your tongue—”

  “Stop!”

  Luke laughed, but he stopped.

  “What did she say?” He nodded at Kit.

  “It’s hard for her to talk to me. She verified that she is Yokai. Something about her morality is different from ours, and she’s here to help me but she doesn’t know with what,” Rio summarized.

  “Did she say whether she’s on your side? Because I gotta tell you, if she’s not, we can save money on fresh chicken,” he said, joking.

  Kit raised her head and delicately lifted her upper lip away from her front teeth in a silent snarl. Evidently she didn’t find him funny.

  “Lighten up, fur-face,” Luke advised. “I’m a whole lot bigger than you are, and I like to blow things up.”

  Kit vanished. One moment she was eating her breakfast, and the next, she had completely disappeared. Rio dropped the spoon she’d been using to stir coffee and looked frantically around.

  “You might want to be careful what you say,” she slowly told Luke, her eyes widening.

  “Why is that, exactly?”

  Rio pointed to where Kit was sitting, washing one paw, on the top of Luke’s refrigerator.

  “Well, this makes things interesting,” Luke said calmly. “Now might be a good time for you to tell me if she said she’s on your side.”