Desire Unchained

She narrowed her gaze at him as though trying to figure out if this was a trick, but she moved aside. Her sweet, citrusy scent came to him as he walked past, and he damned near swayed. It’s the alcohol.

Maybe, but it wasn’t the damned alcohol that was making his dick stand at attention. He entered her small living room and turned to her.

“Were you getting ready to go out?”

“Out?” She looked down at her clothes. “Oh, no. Nowhere special, anyway. I was going to raid the grocery store later. Exciting, huh?”

His dick jerked, because yep, it was excited. Little bastard.

He cleared his throat. Rubbed the back of his neck. Grew some balls to say what he needed to say.

“Yeah, look, Gem. I think we need to talk.”

“I think so, too.” She propped one hip on the back of her sofa, black leather like all her furniture. Even her lampshade was black. In fact, everything in her living room was either black or stark white. No shades of gray for Gem, but that was no surprise.

“Maybe we could start with why you’re still torturing yourself,” she said bluntly. “Lori’s been dead a year.”

He hadn’t expected that, and surprise veered quickly to defensive anger. “There’s a time limit on grief?” he snapped. “Is that a demon thing?”

“Why does it always come back to that? I could say I think clouds are pretty, and you’d say they’re only pretty to demons.”

The fact that she was right only pissed him off more. “What do you expect? I’ve been fighting them for years. Losing friends to them. Losing my wife to them.”

“And yet, here you are in a demon’s apartment.”

“I’m not here to stay.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Why are you here?”

“To apologize. I was an ass the other night. I shouldn’t have led you on like that. I used you, and it wasn’t fair. I won’t do it again.”

“You didn’t use me. I needed you, you needed me … there’s nothing wrong with that.”

“We walk in different worlds, Gem.”

“Oh, really? Because I see you walking down the same hospital halls I do. I see you wearing the same hospital scrubs bearing the demon caduceus.”

Cursing, he jammed his fingers through his hair. “You think I don’t know how messed up that is?”

“I think you’re immersing yourself in a world you hate so you can hang on to your anger. You don’t want to forget your wife’s betrayal, do you?”

“You don’t know anything,” he ground out.

“You think I don’t see that it’s not demons you hate, but yourself? That you hate the fact that you’re starting to like some of us?” She walked up to him, got right up in his face so her breasts brushed his chest. “You hate the fact that you want me. It’s driving you nuts, isn’t it? Screwing with your head.”

“You know what’s screwing with my head?” He fisted the hem of her skirt, and his voice plummeted to a low growl. “These skimpy little fuck-me outfits. Do you get off on teasing men? Is it human men you’re after? You like to fuck them and then laugh at how you got the unsuspecting, stupid human to screw a demon?”

They were unfair questions born of anger, frustration, and plain old lust. He wasn’t sure what he’d hoped to accomplish by asking them, but the pinch to his biceps wasn’t it.

“Dumbass.”

He blinked. “What?”

“Talking down to someone isn’t you, Kynan.” Her voice was soft but strong, and surprisingly free of anger. After what he’d said, she should be furious. “I know you’re hurting and you’re lost, but underneath it all, you’re still a decent person.”

“Stop saying that! Would a decent person abandon the people he worked with for years? Would he hang out with demons? Would he want to take a demon to b—” He broke off before he could say more, but she knew.

“I would never have taken you for a coward,” she said, which got the steam blasting through his veins. “But you are, aren’t you? You’re so afraid of your own weaknesses that you can’t allow yourself to feel anything. To do anything that might go against the mountain of moral superiority you stand on to look down at everyone else.”

Coward? He was still stuck on that word, one that took him back to his military days, where even the scent of cowardice in someone was a brand he couldn’t shake for his entire career. Ky could admit fear—who the hell wouldn’t while facing a thirty-foot-tall Gerunti demon with T-Rex jaws and claws as long as a man. But he wasn’t a coward.

Except he’d pretty much just proven her point when he’d failed to admit, even to himself, that he wanted her. He wanted to be all over her. Inside her. Making her scream. God help him, he wanted to sink into a demon’s body and scour away the rest of his troubles. Just take that last step to cross the line that separated good and bad. Naughty and nice. Pleasure and pain.