His gaze snapped up, caught hers. His temperature spiked and his thoughts hemorrhaged, bleeding out until there was only primal instinct to guide his actions.
He licked his lips. The knowledge of what he was about to do made her jaw drop as he dipped his head and slanted his mouth over hers. For a moment she stiffened, and then, oh, yeah, she caught his waist in one hand and melted against him.
Sticky, marshmallow sweetness coated his tongue as it sparred with hers. The soft recess of her mouth drew him deep, made him want to spend all day enjoying the wet, hot kiss. But his body wanted more, and he could find better uses for his tongue.
He tangled his hand in her thick hair, holding her firmly as he dropped his other hand to her ass to press her against his aching sex.
The subtle tightening of her body was his only warning.
A flash of silver arced near the extreme border of his vision, and the sting of metal bit into his throat. Hissing, he wrenched Tayla’s wrist and grabbed the knife.
“Son of a—” She bit off the curse and spun out of his grip.
There was nothing wrong with her reflexes, and she proved there was nothing wrong with her speed either, as she bolted toward a closed door. He dived, hit her as she reached for the handle, and they both tumbled through the bedroom doorway. She landed awkwardly, half on, half off the bed, and he came down on top of her.
“Remind me not to save your life again, if that’s how you repay small favors,” he growled.
“I don’t need you to save my life.” She clocked him in the jaw hard enough to make his teeth crack together. “And FYI? I wasn’t going to kill you.”
In one smooth move, he pinned both of her wrists with one hand, forcing her to buck beneath his weight. Which, of course, gave him a hard-on. He could blame the s’genesis, could blame the fact that he was an incubus. Could blame those things, and would, because the idea that Tayla herself could jumpstart him like a defibrillator was unacceptable.
“No? Was this your idea of foreplay?” He held the knife in front of her face, and though her eyes flared wide, she looked more curious than afraid as he brought it down to the collar of the scrub top. “Because I’m into this kind of sex toy. It’s a demon thing.”
“I know what you are,” she ground out, and he might have believed she was as pissed as she sounded, if it weren’t for the way she’d angled her pelvis to meet his erection.
“What were you going to do with the knife, little killer?” He drew the dull reverse edge along the skin just above her collar, leaving a trailing white line. Still, she didn’t look afraid, didn’t smell of fear. That turned him on as much as the fact that if she wanted to, if she really wanted to, she could kill him. Any doubt about that had been squashed during the battle with the Nightlashes.
“I was going to cut off your clothes.”
“You’re a terrible liar.” He slid the blade beneath the fabric.
A flick of his wrist sliced the scrub top down to her breasts, and her breath hitched, but she didn’t protest. He didn’t have Shade’s powers, couldn’t measure her internal systemic responses. But he could see the rapid rise and fall of her chest, the dilating pupils, the flushed skin. He could feel the pounding thud of her pulse in her wrist and could hear the thump of her heart as it raced. She could deny her arousal all she wanted, but her body spoke the truth.
Clenching the knife hilt between his teeth, he hauled her onto her bed, which was nothing more than a twin-sized mattress and twisted sheets on a metal frame. Using his weight, he imprisoned her beneath him, his long legs trapping hers between them.
“Bastard.”
Lightning fast, she escaped his grip and landed a blow to his cheek, but her strike lacked the strength and conviction he knew she was capable of. Adrenaline surged in his veins, hot, potent, the line between battle lust and sexual lust blurred. A cry escaped her as he flipped her onto her belly and straddled her thighs. He held her down with one hand pressed between her shoulder blades and took the knife from between his teeth with the other.
“What’s the matter, Tayla?” He slashed through the length of the top. “Are you going to tell me you don’t want this?”
“I hate you,” she snarled into her pillow.
He moved his hips in a slow, circular grind against her buttocks. “We’ve established that.”
She bucked angrily, and he pressed her even more firmly into the mattress. “Be still, slayer, or you’ll have a knife through your kidney.” He could fix it, of course, but a punctured organ would ruin the mood.
“Fuck. You.”
“Yeah, that’s the plan.”