Ruby.
Raven caught an image of a lovely, red-haired woman, somewhat older than Blade, and a little rough, perhaps, in demeanor. She doubted if the name and image came to her by accident. Blade had his thoughts and emotions under tight control.
This was meant as another distraction.
She decided to allow it. “Who is Ruby?”
“The woman who helped save my life.”
Raven did not know him well enough to be jealous, although she did feel a twinge of an unpleasant, similar emotion. She wondered if Ruby was still important to him. If so, it made what had happened between them in the demon world more awkward, not less, and she felt guilty for it. “Tell me about her.”
“There is little to tell. We were friends. In the end, friendship wasn’t enough for either one of us, and we saw no hope for anything more than that in what we felt for each other.”
So Blade had left Ruby behind and started across the desert toward his boyhood home in search of…
Peace, just as she had thought.
To Raven, that did not seem as if he had wanted only friendship from Ruby. The unpleasant sensation that was not jealousy spread. She did not want to know any more about this other woman. Not when Raven was the one lying in his arms.
“If she helped save your life, I assume the demon fighting did not go well,” she said.
“No,” he admitted. “It didn’t. As I said, I was arrogant.”
Until three months past, demons had enforced isolation upon the lands of the Godseekers, the place where goddesses had once deigned to walk. It had made the favorites, like Justice, overconfident and secure in their positions. They believed demons would not touch them, especially on goddess land. Many who tried to pass through demon territory had been proven wrong. While the goddess amulets they wore warned of a demon’s presence or approach, it did not give them protection.
Blade was too young to have been a favorite, though. To her his attempt to cross demon territory spoke more of desperation than arrogance, and he had suffered for it.
And Raven knew that while he did not blame her for being half demon, or even seem to hold it against her, he would never forget it. It tangled at the edge of his consciousness with the other memories she knew haunted him. He did not hide any of it from her or try to obstruct the fact that he wanted her in spite of it.
Heat shot through her belly and thighs, and all she could feel was his skin against hers. She wanted him, too.
His hand unclenched. Turning her cheek slightly, she pressed a kiss to his palm.
He froze, his other palm splayed above her breast, and she arched her back so that her shirt gaped open, exposing her skin to the faint moonlight.
He looked at her for a long time. Then, he gathered the edges of the fabric closed and rolled away from her.
She moved with him so that her upper body draped across his chest, her mouth hovering close to his.
“You don’t need to do this,” he said.
“Is it so difficult for you to believe I might want you?” she whispered.
She felt him assessing her words in the darkness. “Considering you just told me you aren’t a whore, then yes.”
“You told me I owe you nothing,” she said. “Therefore, this is something I give freely because it’s something I want, too.” She hesitated, suddenly uncertain, wondering if she had misread him. “Unless this is something you don’t?”
“I want it. I want you.” One hand cupped her chin, the other her hip.
Tendrils of excitement crept through her limbs in response to his touch. She lowered her head, taking his mouth with hers in a hesitant kiss. His fingers tightened, holding her to him as he deepened the exchange. He exerted slight pressure, parting her lips with his, and then his tongue found hers, stroking and caressing until she was shaking with need.
The first time she had been the aggressor. But only because he had permitted it, she now realized. Any tenderness she had sensed in him earlier was gone, replaced by a single-minded desire on his part to possess. Her inner demon stirred with anticipation.
Blade eased her shirt over her head and tossed it aside, its raw-cotton whiteness stark against the blanket of night. Gooseflesh pebbled her arms as the cool air brushed her naked skin, but Blade shifted beneath her, radiating such heat that she instantly warmed. As he trailed his lips from her jaw to the curve of her breast, she did not know what to do for him. Lust was hardly foreign to her, but acting on it was still new.
“Touch me,” he said, his breath chasing chills where his mouth had dampened one taut nipple.
She pressed her hands to his waist, slipping them beneath his clothes. His skin rippled over hard layers of muscle, and he murmured words of quiet encouragement that increased her boldness.
His palms browsed her ribs, his fingers unlacing the string at the waist of her trousers before peeling them from her hips. Eagerness quickened her breath, and she helped him remove his clothing. Soon they were tangled in bare flesh and earthy heat. The length of his arousal against her inner thigh ignited a blazing fire of anticipation in her abdomen.
The first time they had made love, she had sought to confirm to both him and herself that she was no different from any other woman, with the same need for the intimate touch of a man she desired. That it had nothing to do with her demon allure.
Now, she thought blindly of pleasure.
She arched her back when his fingers dipped in her slick heat to stroke her, enjoying his touch. When his mouth caressed the sensitive curve of her neck, she drew a sharp breath as her demon clawed at her in a desperate need to respond.
A niggle of fear nudged at her consciousness. She felt her body tense. She did not want her demon unleashed. Not right now.
Blade did not pull away from her or stop the soft caress of his fingers, although he misunderstood her hesitation. “It won’t hurt this time.” He kissed her with an arrogant assurance that made her smile against his mouth. “Touch me,” he said again. He guided her hand to his erection, thick and hard between them, and she curled her fingers around him. “Like this.” He helped her establish a rhythm, his eyes closing with pleasure.
The feel of him in her hand and the way he moved beneath her touch gave her a soothing sense of power. Having that measure of control took away much of her fear that her demon might somehow escape her.
She slid her hand lower, to the base of him, and cupped the tender rounds of flesh. The backs of her fingers brushed against twisted ridges of skin marring the surface of his upper leg, and she frowned. Thick ropes of scar tissue extended as far as her probing fingertips could reach.
“They’re very old,” he said, dismissing the scars, although she could feel an anxiety building in him over what her reaction to them would be. “They’re nothing.”
She did not need to know any details. A part of her already knew how he had gotten them. Instead, she kissed him, long and deep.
While he allowed her to set the pace, his own explorations of her body did not cease. He shifted her weight so that her knees rested on either side of him. One of his palms slid the length of her torso, coming to rest on the soft swell of her bottom as she rocked against him.
“Tell me what you want.” His voice came out low and strained. “Tell me what you’d like me to do.”
She stroked the heavy length of him as explosive heat built in the lower regions of her stomach and raced to her thighs. “I need you inside me.”
He positioned himself, helping her guide him, raising her hips slightly, then entering slowly. Raven sucked in a breath of sheer bliss when they joined.
He had told her the truth. This time there was only exquisitely mounting ripples of pleasure that she could not contain. Throaty, guttural cries drifted in the night and dimly, Raven realized they came from them both.