She didn’t want to think, didn’t want time to process what her fate might be. She wanted him. Wanted Cadan. He would make her forget.
He must have heard the desperation in her voice. While she struggled out of her clothes, he reared up and jerked the shirt over his head. His jeans were gone, then hers, and she stared up at the magnificent form rising above her on the bed. She reached up toward him and ran her hands along the rigid beauty of his abs. Then she yanked him down to her.
“Now,” she demanded, running her arms over his sculpted back. She sank her nails into his ass and jerked him toward her. “I need you now.”
She wanted him pounding into her so hard that she could only feel him. Could only think of him.
“Hang on,” he grated, his breath harsh at her ear. He wanted her as much as she wanted him, she knew it. She jerked at his hips again.
He resisted, pulling back enough to slip a hand between them. “I want to make sure you’re ready.”
He stroked his thumb over her clitoris. Yes. She squirmed beneath him.
“More.” She moaned when he pushed a finger inside her.
“A demanding one, aren’t you?” He grinned down at her, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. They were still haunted.
She closed her eyes and focused on the feel of him.
When his fingertips pressed against the pad of flesh that was so sensitive, her hips arched off the bed.
“Yes.” She moaned as he began to thrust inside her while circling her clitoris with his thumb.
His breath was hot on her neck as he worked her toward orgasm. He thrust his erection against her thigh, mirroring the rhythm of his fingers inside her. She reveled in the hard heat of him against her.
A tingling suffused her as the pleasure built toward its peak. Just as the tension began to coil at her core, he withdrew his hand.
“No, please, I’m—”
He thrust his cock into her, stretching her. Filling her almost unbearably. Light burst in front of her eyes as the orgasm crashed over her in waves.
“Fuck.” He groaned. “I can feel you clenching around me.”
He shuddered atop her as he rocked into her. His strong hands grasped her legs and pushed them up, spreading them wider and thrusting harder.
Her back arched as a second orgasm seared through her. She opened her eyes in time to see him throw back his head, tendons at his neck straining and his eyes squeezed shut as he poured himself into her.
Chapter 31
It was near dusk when they rolled apart and lay side by side staring at the ceiling. Only the sound of their breathing broke the silence.
I might love him.
She swallowed. He made her...belong. After so many years of trying to find a place in her small family that would never fit, and then trying to make one on her own, she’d found it with him. He accepted her for what she was. He cared for her, knowing everything about her. Even the worst of her past. As she knew his. Maybe he even...loved her?
She shook the thought away. It wouldn’t matter, if she couldn’t get herself out of this mess. As much as part of her wanted him to take over and save her, a far larger part, a far more important part, needed to see this through herself. Paulinus was the man who’d killed her daughters, burned her lands, abducted her friend. Now he threatened her again?
This, she would deal with. Then, maybe, she could make things work with Cadan.
“This is awful,” Diana said. All the risks she thought she would face had just doubled.
Cadan squeezed her close to his side. “There’s got to be another way for you to get to Erebus. Or leave him. The biggest threat to you right now is the demons he keeps sending out. We’ll keep killing them as they come and you’ll stay on earth.”
Sounds good to me. She had to kill herself to gain access to the Roman underworld in order to have her vengeance? Seriously?
“You know it’s not that simple. Vi is there. I can’t leave her.”
He nodded and heaved out a great sigh.
“Something has been bothering me about what Esha said.” It had been tickling her mind and she only now realized what it was. She reached out to lace his fingers in hers, wanting to feel his skin against hers as much as she could. The contact warmed something cold inside her.
“Aye?”
“She said the soul was a one-for-one deal. If he kills me, it will only give life to one soul, presumably his.”
“That’s right.”
“Well, what about his son? He said in the forest that he wants to avenge his son. But he would leave him there in Erebus?” Just thinking about the misty gloom of Erebus made her shiver.
“He’s a right bastard, Diana.”
She thought about her daughters. “Yes. But not about his son. There’s no way he’d leave Maximus there.”
She wouldn’t have left her daughters in the misty gloom and misery of Erebus. She’d have done anything to get them out. Cadan squeezed her hand as though he knew her dark musings.
“So what do you think he’s planning, then?”