bedeviled & beyond 05 - bedeviled & besmirched by sam cheever

wanted was some small relief from the pain. A small release to ease the pressure.
    Slayer’s hand covered one breast and his long fingers found the nipple, tweaking it gently so that I groaned with helpless need. “Astra?”
    I closed my eyes. I knew what he was asking and I wanted to say yes. I wanted to throw him to the ground and impale myself on the long, hard shaft I could feel driving against my buttocks and back. I wanted to jump on it...bury it deep...spin myself until I wanted to pass out. I wanted... “No.” The word barely escaped my unwilling throat. It was breathless, tattered from dragging itself forward, and barely audible. “I can’t.” Had I whined? How pathetic.
    I shoved his hands away and almost ran across the food prep area, putting a counter and the food and beverage valets between us. I pushed at my hair with shaking hands and swallowed hard. “I’m sorry. You need to stop touching me like that. My Settling...”
    Slayer’s face was still soft with lust, his pretty eyes lidded. But he looked away and nodded. “I know. That’s why I do it.”
    Anger washed through me, sluicing some of the lust away as it came. “Which is exactly why you and I can’t work together.”
    “And exactly why we must.”
    I twisted a strand of my hair and fought to get my breathing back to normal. My belly was painfully tight with unleashed need. I had to force myself not to think about it. Eventually it would go away.
    I hoped.
    Or I would find myself jumping the next pimple-faced, food-delivery boy I encountered and riding him to the ground.
    “You’re not making any sense.”
    Slayer settled his untouched cube of coffee on the counter and leaned over it, scouring me with a still burning gaze. “You react so strongly to me because we are in tune. We are a natural mating pair.”
    “I react to you because you have a dick and nice eyes. It doesn’t take much these days.”
    He nodded. “I went through my Settling last year. I remember what it was like. But what we create together is more. Much more than just a biological reaction to a natural event.”
    I shook my head, determined to disagree with something that sounded like it would make my life even more difficult moving forward.
    “Don’t misunderstand, Astra. I’m not saying we should mate. I don’t think we are well matched intellectually or emotionally.”
    “You’d better clarify that immediately or you’re gonna have a size-six boot up your ass. And I really don’t want to ruin a fine pair of boots by getting Slayer butt all over them.”
    “I don’t mean you’re not smart enough or I’m not smart enough, just that we have different goals, different motivations. You’re much more tuned in to humans than I am. You give more, care more. I’m basically a selfish creature...”
    “You think?”
    He grinned and I couldn’t help joining him in the smile.
    “But we are tuned into each other on a physical level. And that makes me the perfect person to protect you.”
    “Protect me? From what?”
    He looked at me like I had a boot box for a head. Maybe I did. If I had any brains at all I’d have thrown his ass out of my office several minutes earlier. “You haven’t noticed somebody’s trying to kill you?”
    “Oh.” I shuffled my feet. “That. I can handle it. I don’t need a babysitter.”
    He shook his head and swore. “Yeah, mostly you can. It’s a good thing you are so good at taking care of yourself, Astra. Where the hell is your guardian angel during all this?”
    I blinked. I’d gotten used to doing without a guardian since my aunt Myra got kicked up the celestial ladder and they’d replaced her with a five-hundred-year-old virgin who was minus a sense of humor and had no visible protective skills. “I guess he was busy.”
    “He seems to be busy a lot.”
    I just shrugged. What could I say, he was right?
    “That’s why you need me.”
    I shook my head. “Not happenin’, Slayer.”
    “Why? You afraid the Devil King