The Darkest Pleasure by Gena Showalter Page A

a tight frown. Her gaze dropped and she studied the rest of him. His nipples were hard enough to cut glass; three wounds were healing, one scabbing on his shoulder, one on his sternum and one marring his stomach.
    “Where am I?” she asked, the words a mere whisper.
    “My home.”
    “In Buda?”
    “Yes.”
    Her eyelids narrowed, her mind a black hole that couldn’t provide a single memory of being moved from one location to another. “How did I get here? How did you find me?”
    He looked away, hiding his gaze under his lashes. “You know I am not human. Don’t you?”
    Knowledge she wished she didn’t possess and a conversation it was best not to start. Why, yes, Reyes, I do know you’re a demon. Your greatest enemy gave me the scoop and now I’m here to help him destroy you. “You came for me,” she said, changing the subject. Part of her had hoped for just such a thing; part of her had feared it.
    “Yes,” he repeated.
    “Why?” Without the heat of his gaze holding her captive, she was able to scan her own body. She was still clothed, thank God. Her sweater had been removed, but her white T-shirt was still stained with grease and now blood—hers, the man she’d hurt—her jeans ripped from her struggle with her assailant. She…smelled. How long had she been wearing these clothes?
    Suddenly the bed bounced, and her eyes jerked back to Reyes. He had propped his back against the headboard, widening the distance between them. That should have pleased her. Yes, it should have.
    “I have a feeling I will always come for you.” His angry voice whipped through the silence, his accusing expression laying the blame at her feet.
    Once again her eyelids narrowed to tiny slits. “Let me guess. You’ll always come for me because you like hurting me. Well, why didn’t you just kill me while I slept? I wouldn’t have been able to fight. You could have cut my throat, quick, easy. That is what you ultimately plan to do, isn’t it? Or have you changed your mind?”
    A muscle ticked in his jaw. He remained silent.
    “Have you captured the rest of my family?”
    Again, no reply. Only that increasingly erratic tick.
    “Answer me, damn you!” She slammed her fist into the mattress. The frustrated and panicked action offered no relief from the sudden horror in her chest. “Do you know where they are? If they’re alive?”
    Finally he deigned to speak again. “I have done nothing to them. You have my word.”
    “Liar!” She’d sprung across the bed before she even realized what she was doing, slapping his face, pounding her fists into his wounds to cause maximum pain. “You know something. You have to know something.”
    His eyes closed and a blissful smile lifted the corners of his lips.
    Her fury intensified. “You think this is funny? Well, what about this?” Seething, not knowing where the desire came from, she launched forward and sank her teeth into his neck, incisors digging so deep she immediately tasted blood.
    He moaned. His hands tangled in her hair, not jerking her away but urging her closer. She offered no resistance; she couldn’t. Embers of her anger and helplessness were twisting, breaking apart and realigning into something infinitely sweeter. The heat of him…so good, so damn good. He burned her soul-deep, flames licking at her, consuming her. She liked it, liked hurting him, liked having her mouth on him, and the knowledge shamed her.
    Between her legs, his shaft swelled and hardened. When he moaned a second time, it blended with the sound of hers. He arched into her— yes, like that —and she scraped her nails up his chest, to his nipples.
    A harsh animal growl filled her ears as his hands settled on her waist, squeezing. His hips writhed against her. Again. She wanted him to do it again. But a moment later, he stilled.
    “Stop, Danika. You have to stop.”
    No, she didn’t want to stop. She wanted— what the hell are you doing ? Nibbling on the enemy?
    Her jaw went slack. Gasping