Eternal Rider - Larissa Ione [47]
Instead, he’d been curious to see what she’d do. He hadn’t thought she’d kiss him. And when she had… it had been the sweetest kiss he’d experienced in, well, ever. Her mouth had been hungry, her tongue slick and hot, and it had lit a fire inside him he’d thought had been long since doused.
And when her fingers dug into the back of his neck, the fire had flamed out of control. His warrior instincts had demanded that he move in, go on the offensive, and conquer. He had her under him in a heartbeat, his body hard, straining, his mouth tasting willing, sexed-up female.
Now he was covering her, his arousal pressing against her core, his chest tight with uneven breaths. And she was asleep.
Get off her, dumbshit.
The back of his neck prickled with the sensation of being watched, and he whipped his head around to the source. Vulgrim stood in the doorway between the dining area and the great room, his tiny, piggish eyes bright with speculation and curiosity. No doubt. Ares rarely brought females here. And when he did, they didn’t spend time making out in the living room. They weren’t usually drugged to unconsciousness, either.
Yeah, this looked real good.
“What?” he snapped, as he shoved off Cara. He resisted the urge to explain that this wasn’t a roofie-in-the-drink thing. Ares could have any female he wanted. He didn’t need to drug them, and it wasn’t his servant’s business, even if he had done it to have sex with the human.
“I see you’re… busy,” Vulgrim said, his usually flat voice dripping with amusement. “I’ll clean up later.”
“Do that. And tell Torrent to keep a better eye on Rath.” Not that he minded the little furball in the house, but if Pestilence found the baby Ramreel by himself… God, Ares didn’t even want to go there in his thoughts.
He scooped Cara into his arms. Her top splayed open, the ripped-off buttons and torn fabric completing the perverted fuck-her-while-she-sleeps scenario. Excellent.
“I hear Rohypnol is even better than orc-weed, sir,” Vulgrim called out as Ares carried her down the hall.
“I have a torture room in the dungeon,” Ares shot back, and he was only half-kidding. Damned demon.
Problem was, the demon wasn’t half as afraid of Ares as he should be, and as much as Ares wanted to regret allowing Vulgrim and family into Ares’s inner circle, he couldn’t. He didn’t like demons, but Vulgrim was different and had been since the day Ares had rescued him from certain death as a kid.
In his arms, Cara stirred, snuggled against his chest, and wrapped her arms around his neck. A curious warmth filtered through him, something he couldn’t quite identify, but it was… nice.
There is no room for tenderness in our world. Warriors fight. They fuck. They kill. That is all. His father’s voice—the voice of the human male who had raised him—still clanged around in Ares’s skull after all this time. As a toddler, Ares had been beaten for showing too much kindness toward animals and slaves. His gentle side had literally been battered out of him by the time he was ten. He’d gotten the message loud and clear. Don’t get attached to anyone or anything, because possessions were easy to lose, power was fluid, and living things died easily.
No shit. He’d forgotten that lesson eventually, and his family had paid for his failure. In blood.
Cara began to snore, delicate rumblings he tried to find unattractive. Not cute. Nope, not cute at all. He told himself that over and over as he carried her to one of his five bedrooms, choosing the master suite. It had a bathroom, the biggest bed, and in the corner, a chair where he could sit and watch her if he needed to. It also sat at the edge of the cliff and boasted the best view, best sea breeze, a patio, and was nearly inaccessible from the outside.
He laid her on the mattress, had to peel her fingers off his neck, and did his best to avert his gaze from her gaping shirt as he drew a sheet