However, I couldn’t put a Band-Aid on a broken heart. Not to mention the kick in the nuts my pride would take when he turned to another soon after. That would always make for a great first time experience—me wanting more of him, and him sleeping with another woman the next day.
I sliced the head off the straw man and kicked it across the ground. Humans jumped out of the way and glared at me. I glared back at them. I wasn’t in the mood for their shit today, or anyone else’s, especially not the giant mountain of a douche canoe who stepped forward to stand across from me. He glowered at me as intensely as I glowered at him.
The straw man’s head settled against his feet, appropriate as far as I was concerned. If he told me one more time I wasn’t concentrating enough during our special training time, I was going to make it impossible for him to even dream about having a hard-on.
“All right, everyone, let’s get back to work on some hand-to-hand combat!” Mac shouted from the top of the hill.
I smiled at Kobal as I drove the katana into the straw man’s groin. A few of the closest humans winced and scurried to get away from me. He simply lifted an eyebrow and maintained a bored expression that made my fingers curve with the urge to claw his eyes out of his head. That seemed like a more demonic instinct to me, or perhaps it was entirelyhuman.
Kobal stepped forward to be my sparring partner, again. My skin came alive; I wanted to touch him, but at the same time, I dreaded having to touch him. The confusing impulses only made it all worse.
He feigned a punch at my head; I ducked back and blocked at the same time. Something went through his eyes when he launched another jab at me that I dodged. As he moved closer against me, I could feel the heat of his body as his jabs and swats came at me faster than they normally did, but I still fended him off, barely.
“Dick,” I hissed through my teeth when his speed picked up more.
“From what I’ve seen, you crave mine,” he said so low I knew no one else heard him.
I certainly hadn’t been expectingthatfrom him. Excitement and resentment shot through me in equal measure. We’d never mentioned the dreams to each other; they’d remained this unspoken thing festering between us. We were both acutely aware of them, but neither of us knew how to deal with them.
Now, I felt an unraveling, a push and shove against the imaginary line we’d divided between us. He was looking to cross that line, to see how far he could push me before the line broke, and I was more than ready to push back. I’d had enough of this hideous standstill myself.
The only problem was, I didn’t know how I wanted it to end. My pride continued to war with my body. He was a demon, and I’d never be enough for him, never satisfy him, and I couldneverallow myself to be one of the many.
My mother had always been one of the many. I’d sworn my entire life I’d never be like her. I’d never let a man use me and toss me aside as she had over and over again through the years. She’d never stood up for herself. It would have been one thing if she’d been the one to decide the course of her relationships, but she’d always been the doormat for the new guy passing through our lives.
I wouldn’t be anyone’s doormat, not even a fifteen-hundred-year-old demon with the body of a Greek god and the personality of a crocodile. My hands moved faster as his jabs and swipes sped up. My breathing and his filled my ears as the world slid away and my vision became centered on him.
My body jerked as once again his moves unfolded in my mind before they came. This time, I didn’t block and dodge, but jabbed and punched myself. He jumped back, his stomach sucking in as he barely managed to avoid a roundhouse kick I swung at him. I leapt off the ground, knowing what was coming next before he released a kick that would have otherwise taken me off my feet.
I landed again and went at him in a one-two combo that had him dodging back before coming at me again. Knowing what was coming was barely enough to keep me ahead of him as exhaustion beat at me, but I refused to throw in the towel as he relentlessly pushed me backward.
My footing remained sure as we moved, not because I knew where I was going, but because I could see the path behind me throughhiseyes. All I saw was him and his punches before they came at me. All I heard were his breaths and grunts of exertion. His flesh was smooth beneath my hands, the muscles etched as they flexed and bunched.
I stepped to the side to avoid the large maple he’d been intentionally steering me toward in the hope of trapping me. The slap of our flesh against each other filled the air as we continued steadily across the field. I lost ground to him, but he didn’t take me down.
The battle didn’t relent as we headed toward the burnt out homes of the abandoned town beyond the training fields near where we practiced in the morning. We’d traveled almost two miles.
My legs wobbled and sweat stuck my clothes to me and slid down my face. He showed no sign of exhaustion or slowing as he continued to come at me. Down over the hill, we moved across the blackened grass and into the burnt out village of the damned as I’d come to think of it. My back stayed to the few houses that remained standing in the way, but through his eyes I was able to avoid walking into one of them.
He leapt to the side when I kicked out at him, my foot grazing his testicles. His head snapped toward me, his nostrils flared, but something had changed in him when he came at me again. Before he’d been trying to prove a point, to exert his dominance and bend me to his will. Now, I felt something sexual in the hands brushing over my flesh, sensed excitement building in his thrumming body.
I’d assumed nearly kicking him in the nuts would have incensed him; instead, it had brought everything to a whole new level. My own body reacted to it, and I edged closer even as I threw more punches and kicks his way. I thrilled in the feel of his hands against mine and relished the fiery scent of him filling my nostrils as my hands brushed over his sweat-slickened body.
He grunted when I finally managed to land a solid punch into his stomach. I dodged the sweeping kick he threw at me next. However, exhaustion made it almost impossible for me to avoid his following jab. I twisted to the side, but it still landed on my shoulder, knocking me back.
I’d anticipated darting to the side in order to avoid the wall of a charred house behind me. I managed to turn awkwardly in an attempt to do so, but before I could get completely out of his way, his hands crashed against the wall beside my head. The wall trembled behind me; dust and soot fell on my shoulders from the holes he’d punched through it.
He pinned me between his body and the crumbling remains of the building. His shoulders blocked out the sun behind him as he towered over me. My breath heaved in and out as I tried to catch it; every inhalation caused my breasts to brush against his solid chest. I half expected him to move away from me, yet he stepped closer.
My fingers curved into the wall behind me as I fought against grabbing him. There was a savage look on his face that had me desperate to feel more of him. His knee bent forward so it brushed against the outside of my right thigh in another move to keep me against the wall, but I found I didn’t care as long as he stayed there with me. The black of his eyes faded away to become molten gold once more. The beauty and wildness within those eyes caused my breath to catch when they blazed down at me.
The change of color was more a sign of his passion than the rigid evidence of his arousal against my thigh. His own chest heaved with his breaths, rubbing enticingly over my taut nipples as they strained against my shirt. A small sound, partially of desire and partially a plea to put me out of my misery either by kissing me again or walking away, slipped past my lips.
Please don’t walk away.
He didn’t do either of those things. His head bowed closer until I could feel his breath tickling over my face. Goose bumps erupted over my flesh when his lips brushed my ear while he spoke.
“Real life will befarbetter than any dream, River. I promise you, I’ll make you come harder than you ever have before.”
