Although maybe it was a perfectly reasonable response to the pressure he was under. It was his first solo assignment, and if he didn’t get this thing right, he could lose everything he’d worked for. He supposed the inclination to let off a little steam before he got down to business was to be expected. Or maybe he was just letting Kur get to him.
It was the name he’d given the thing that coiled at the base of his brain—or more likely the base of his cock.
Simply put, Kur was a demon. It had been part of Dev since his first disastrous attempt at conjuring. The demon had been caged by Dev’s mentor, the first witch he’d been apprenticed to. Though, Simon, it turned out, had been something more than a witch. By all appearances a kindly white-haired elder, Simon had indulged in arcane arts that would have horrified most conventional practitioners. He’d trusted Dev with his secrets and Dev, in turn, had trusted him implicitly. But dabbling with the dark arcane and believing one could control such forces was a fool’s errand. Simon had lost his life trying to tame Kur—and Dev had lost his soul.
Dev had only been nineteen when the demon had fused with him because of his foolish attempt to call it as Simon lay bleeding from the wounds Kur had inflicted on him. He’d tried to put it back in its cage—and had woken in hospital three days later, his back shredded and his memory of that morning gone. It was only months later that he realized the marks on his back were where the demon had clawed its way in to take up permanent residence inside him.
Dev set down the glass with a decisive thump against the bar. Kur wasn’t in control of him.
He headed out to his rental car, keys in hand. He would politely decline if Kylie was actually out there waiting for him. Which he sincerely doubted she would be. She’d probably just been having a laugh at his expense. Either way, he’d have to take a chance on driving back to the hotel with a couple of drinks under his belt. It was a straight shot down the highway, which had been mostly empty when he’d come this way. And he was fairly certain that if he lingered at the bar any longer to make sure his blood alcohol level was sufficiently lowered, it would end up becoming much higher instead. Kur never let him off that easy.
Outside in the parking lot under the solenoid lamps, the red-leather-clad blonde was leaning against the passenger door—no, the driver’s door—of his rental, arms folded across her chest. She’d unzipped the red coat. Bollocks.
“I’m afraid I need to make an early night of it” was what he’d intended to say as he approached the car. Instead he leaned one shoulder against the door beside her and said, “Hey.”
Kylie gave him a sly smile. “Thought you’d changed your mind.”
“Well, I haven’t really made up my mind—about anything in particular.”
“Haven’t you?” She wasn’t giving an inch, this one.
Dev tried to talk himself out of it. This really was the worst idea. Instead he found he’d leaned closer to her. He contemplated the cherry-bomb red of her lips for a moment before they both moved together in unison, his palm sliding behind her neck and her fingers slipping around his and into the hair at his nape. And then a blazing spark of desire shot up from the base of his spine and skittered along his skin like fire as their lips came together.
Dev rolled across her, his body pressing her into the cold metal, and Kylie moaned into his mouth, making his cock granite, her hands sending shivers through him as they roamed over his back beneath the suit jacket. Those hands were coming dangerously close to the ugly knot of scar tissue above his sacrum, and Dev reached behind his back and grabbed her wrists, pinning them beside her against the car. The aquamarine eyes almost seemed to flash green with warning, and Dev let go as Kylie stiffened against him.
He thought he’d blown it, and he drew back, but her hands had gone to the buckle of his belt, yanking it open, and she’d unzipped his pants before he could recover himself and grab for her hands once more. “We can’t do this here.”
Kylie was breathing hard, her rising chest drawing his gaze to the tight peaks of her nipples beneath the cotton vest. “Then open the door.”
Dev let out a soft groan as she reached into his pocket and pulled out the keys, dangling them in front of him. He hadn’t done it in a car since he was a teenager.
Kylie raised a questioning eyebrow and, when he didn’t object, hit the unlock button on the fob and climbed into the backseat.
Some small part of him was still trying to be rational, but the leather hugging that perfect arse smothered the last of his rational thought. Kylie turned and pulled him inside, and Dev felt light-headed and intoxicated as he fell against her, but it had nothing to do with the alcohol he’d drunk. There was something about her skin against his that seemed to send little electric shocks along the surface, further incensing his baser impulses. Her hands were at his fly once more, and Dev groaned more loudly as she slipped in her hand and took hold of him, wrapping her fingers around the almost painful heat of his shaft.
He lowered his mouth to her breast, sucking the hard nipple right through the fabric, and Kylie breathed in sharply, her hand tightening on his cock, letting her breath out in a soft, plaintive moan. After sliding the strap of the shirt down her arm until he’d drawn the collar below her breast, Dev closed his mouth once more over the black lace of the bra and sucked her in, thrusting involuntarily into her hand at the taste of her skin through the rough lace. Kylie’s legs wrapped around his hips as she moaned and squirmed, pressing herself up into his mouth, her tight grip sliding against the head of his cock.
Dev groaned, rocking into her hand. The damn bra had to go. He prodded at the lace, higher brain function completely gone, and tore it open, freeing the sodden nipple so he could get his mouth around it without interference. The high-pitched noise Kylie made, along with the rapid motions of her hand, brought him dangerously close to the edge.
He put a hand on her wrist, pulling his mouth from her breast with a slick pop. “You have to stop,” he gasped. “I’m going to come.”
Kylie’s fingers unclenched. “Have you got a condom?”
“Condom?” Dev tried to make his brain work. “I don’t think so.” He needed his mouth on her skin.
Kylie made a growling noise of frustration in her throat. Tightening her legs around his hips, she swiveled suddenly, flipping him onto his back on the seat cushion.
Dev reached for her damp nipple, but she shoved him back and shimmied downward, swallowing his cock before he could do more than groan in surprise. Surprise was quickly supplanted by even deeper groans of pleasure as he rocked into her mouth, feeling the slippery heat of her lips and tongue sliding over him, and he came swiftly, gripping the seatback beside him with a shout as she swallowed it all.
As he lay back, his entire body going limp with release, Kylie zipped up her jacket, swinging her feet through the door he realized he hadn’t even latched, and climbed out.
Dev struggled to sit up, hampered by his state of undress and the fuzzy post-ejaculatory brain cloud. “Kylie?” The door swung shut. Dev scrambled to put himself together and crawled across the seat to open it just in time to see her fasten her helmet and swing her leg over the Nighthawk, kick-start the engine and drive away.
* * *
Halfway down Highway 89A, Ione realized she hadn’t taken the sobriety elixir. She pulled off to the side of the road and took the little vial out of her pocket, popping the cork and downing it swiftly. As soon as she had, the postmagical hangover kicked in, along with a dose of mortifying reality. Mother of God. Ione groaned into her gloved hands. What had she been thinking? At least he was only passing through and there was no chance she’d run into him again around town. Not that he’d know her if she did, but it would be awkward enough even if she was the only one aware of what they’d done together.
Mortification aside, she was no closer to exposing Carter’s sick friends. If Dev was