ever-growing demand for release.
The silk of her skin burned under his fingers, the heat swelling to fill and surround him, burying him in a blaze of lust and greed. He wanted to hold out, to tease and pleasure this woman until she screamed for him. But she’d undone him, and he could stand it no more.
“Nick.” Her voice, low and strangled, rasped over him as he pressed the tip of his cock to her core. “Oh, yes.”
Nick groaned a response, then slid inside her with one strong thrust. She cried out, her back arching with pleasure and her fingernails digging deep into his shoulders. She was as warm and soft as he’d imagined, and he thrust again and again.
Their bodies sang together, an infinite wash of pleasure as they moved as one. Time seemed to stand still and to expand, and he was aware only of the velvety sensation of her body around him, counterbalanced by the sharp sting of her nails in his skin and her desperate moans in his ears.
The friction between their bodies sparked and sizzled, lighting a fuse that wouldn’t be extinguished until the violence of an explosion ripped through him. More and more and more until he cried out, his body yanked apart, then coming back together as he sagged against her.
She curled against him, her body as slick with sweat as his. Her cheek rested against his chest, and one finger lazily stroked his chest. “Wow,” she whispered.
Yes, he thought. Wow.
And not just from the intensity of his reaction when their bodies had been high on hormones and lust, sex and need. But from the pulse in him even now. A steady thrum that drew him to her, made him want to touch her. To keep a hand on her, possessive yet gentle.
To stay. To sleep.
And—for the first time in over a century—Nick felt absolutely no urge to slip out of bed and paint.
A burst of light yanked Nick back to consciousness, and he sat up, irritated and mildly surprised that Delilah hadn’t moved at all. His confusion faded almost instantaneously, however, as his fuzzy mind took stock of the situation.
Nick’s father had arrived.
Slowly, Nick slid out of from under the covers, the cool air soothing his heated skin. “One of these days,” he said as he slipped on a robe, “you really need to learn to knock.”
His father actually laughed at that, his usually flat black eyes now flashing with glee. He waved a hand, indicating the image that was just starting to emerge from the canvas. “I’m pleased,” he said, running a hand over his goatee. “A single day and the woman is already in your bed. But it is not your pleasure I’m interested in, Nicholas. I want the woman’s soul.”
“You made that perfectly clear, Father.”
“Did I?” His father lifted an already-angled brow. “Good. Because your elder brother seemed incapable of following even the clearest of instructions. I trust I won’t find the same disappointment with you?”
“You won’t,” Nick said firmly.
Lucifer traced a finger over the lines of Delilah’s face, the form barely emerging from the canvas. “You’ve begun then? With this touch I’m caressing the soul that I covet?”
Nick hesitated, unsure of the best way to answer his father. With Lucifer, the question of temper was always at the forefront. Lying, however, was not an option. If his father ever learned the truth, the punishment would be exponentially increased. And Nick was many things, but a glutton for punishment was not one of them.
“There is no soul in that canvas,” he said, still not entirely sure what demon had stilled his hand, keeping him from infusing the canvas with her soul even from the first moment the bristles had stroked the canvas.
His father stiffened, his hand still resting on the soft brushlines that would soon be transformed into Delilah’s flowing hair. He turned slowly, his eyes full of an anger so hot it seemed icy. “Do not tell me that you have already started down the path to failure, son. After Jack, I don’t think I could
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