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Tempting the Demon
Elle James
Dead demons keep turning up across the city. And it's up to Katya Danske, member of the NYPD's Paranormal Investigation Team, to stop whoever–or whatever–is behind the killing. But long, hot nights with her personal demon, sexy Blaise Michaels, are leaving her little energy to concentrate on her job.Blaise understands Katya's need for space, but now that he's claimed her, he refuses to let his mate out of his sight. Not when a soul-sucking succubus and a massive storm threathen to throw the city into chaos. Besides, she needs his help to harness her own newly discovered powers. But can he convince her that the passion that binds them makes them stronger together than they are apart?
Dead demons keep turning up across the city. And it’s up to Katya Danske, member of the NYPD’s Paranormal Investigation Team, to stop whoever—or whatever—is behind the killing. But long, hot nights with her personal demon, sexy Blaise Michaels, are leaving her little energy to concentrate on her job.
Blaise understands Katya’s need for space, but now that he’s claimed her, he refuses to let his mate out of his sight. Not when a soul-sucking succubus and a massive storm threathen to throw the city into chaos. Besides, she needs his help to harness her own newly discovered powers. But can he convince her that the passion that binds them makes them stronger together than they are apart?
Tempting the Demon
Elle James
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Dear Reader,
I love writing stories based in New York City. It’s a captivating place full of light and shadows. From the neon bright lights and signs of Times Square to the tall buildings and dark alleys, it’s a great setting for paranormal stories. What better place for the not-so-human to mix and mingle in its cauldron of humanity? Next time you’re walking along Fifth Avenue in New York City, be sure to look into the faces of passersby. Are you sure they are human and not a demon, a werewolf or witch? Embrace the magic of the city!
Happy reading!
Elle James
Dedication
This book is dedicated to the residents of New York and New Jersey who suffered so much during Hurricane Sandy. I’m always amazed at the resilience, determination and outpouring of love and assistance demonstrated during such terrible disasters.
Elle James
Contents
Chapter One (#u970ec810-5015-5965-80c6-f460dcc8df2f)
Chapter Two (#ua36d53aa-7e22-5106-bf2c-e94ab3c3fbb7)
Chapter Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
Heat built low in my body, firing synapses and sending electric currents from where his hand touched my hip all the way to my core. The fog of sleep slipped away as my demon’s fingers glided across my abdomen and down to the apex of my thighs.
I shifted, spreading my legs to allow his finger to slip between my folds and stroke that sensory-packed nubbin of pleasure. From dead sleep to heated passion, I awoke. “Hurry,” I whispered.
Blaise Michaels knew how to build the sensations, to guide my body to a fevered pitch. I want you to come with me.
“I want to sleep more before my alarm goes off.”
He withdrew his hand. Sleep, my sweet.
“Really? You stop now and I’ll kill you.” I grabbed his hand and returned it to that spot that was screaming for more attention, more strokes, more...more...more...
His low chuckle warmed my neck, adding to the heat of his palm cupping my sex, his finger dipping into my channel, swirling around in the slippery liquid coating my entrance. I wanted him, wanted the finger to travel back up to the special place he’d stroked to life, nudging me from sleep to full awareness.
He dragged his thick, wet finger up to my clit and stroked it once.
A shot of extreme pleasure ripped through me. I jerked my knees back, dug my heels into the mattress and arched my back, moaning.
Do you like that?
“Yes!”
He stroked me again and I closed my eyes, concentrating on prolonging the sensations, not catapulting over the top, extending the ecstasy of the moment as long as I could.
He stroked me again and I thought I’d come apart.
Blaise knew exactly what it took to make me scream. The demon exercised his control over my body every chance he could get. We’d made love until midnight and now.... I glanced at the clock on the nightstand. Damn, it was nearly four o’clock in the morning. My alarm was set for five. But I couldn’t just turn off what Blaise had turned on. I had to see it through, ride the wave of hot, molten passion to the end.
My demon rolled over on top of me. My knees dropped to the side. I was ready to take him, to welcome his full thickness into my body.
For a moment, his cock nudged my entrance.
Before I could raise my feet to wrap around his waist and urge him in, he slipped downward, pressing kisses to my breast, sucking my nipple in his mouth, pulling hard. Again I arched my back, pressing the breast deeper.
He rolled the nipple between his teeth, biting gently. I wanted him to hurry, to fill me, to slide his member deep inside me.
Letting go of the nipple, he moved lower, his lips searing a path along my ribs to my belly and below.
“Yes, there. Use that tongue.”
Patience, my dear.
“Fuck patience!” I dug my fingers into his thick black hair and urged him lower.
His tongue took me, lapping at that nubbin of sizzling nerve endings, flicking, teasing and setting me on fire. I felt the tingling begin at my core and quickly spread throughout my body. I shot into the stratosphere, all thoughts of getting up on time wiped from my mind as I rode the tsunami of pure, fiery desire.
Blaise climbed up my body, pressed his cock to my entrance and thrust deep and hard, filling me, driving inside until he was completely sheathed. Then he moved, sliding in and out, slowly at first, then faster and faster, the friction prolonging my orgasm until his final thrust.
Buried all the way inside me, he held me, his member throbbing, pulsing, hot and thick.
When I returned to earth, to the sweat-dampened sheets of my bed, I lay there drained, satiated and amazed at how often we had sex, and how still I couldn’t seem to get enough of this demon.
As the passion cooled, I lay staring at the ceiling, wondering what I’d do with this man who wasn’t a man at all. I worried I might become too dependent on him.
I like taking care of you. Would that be such a bad thing?
“Yes,” I replied. “I do my own thing. I don’t want to answer to anyone.”
“You don’t have to answer to me. All I ask is that you include me in your life.”
“What if I asked you to quit following me around?”
No.
“What if I told you that you’re crowding me?”
“We work well as a team,” he pointed out.
“I’d really like to have some time apart.”
No.
“You don’t control me.”
“You are your own demon.” His hand drifted down my arm and across my breast, setting off a barrage of tingles, zinging from my skin to my core.
“Damn you,” I muttered, sleep slipping further from my grasp.
“I can smell your passion.”
“Why do you do this to me?”
“I do nothing you do not wish for. I only want to protect you from harm. It isn’t often a demon finds his perfect mate.” His gaze captured mine, holding me in the power of those brown-black eyes. He cupped my chin and leaned in to brush his lips across mine. “Your strength, your spirit and your heart enchant me. I would rather die than lose you.”
Though I wanted to fling his words back in his face, warmth stole over me. Sometimes I caught myself enjoying being taken care of and it shook me to the core. Having grown up fending for myself, I had difficulty allowing someone else to take on that responsibility. Especially when that someone was a demon. A very sexy and dangerous demon. “Smooth words. I swear you’re manipulating me,” I grumbled.
He grinned and tweaked my nipple between his thumb and forefinger, setting off a renewed aching desire in my center. “Is it working?”
“Damn you.” I rolled over and straddled him, lowering myself onto his hard length, taking him fully inside me. “What do you think?”
* * *
“Hey, Danske, lookin’ tired today.” A hard wad of paper hit the back of my head, knocking me out of my sleep-deprived doze.
I turned, shooting Rudy a kiss-my-lily-white-butt glance. “Shut up, Cardelli. Can’t you see I’m trying to listen?” I threw the paper wad into the nearby trash bin, eliminating his chances of launching it again.
The man obviously didn’t have a brain. He chuckled. “How’s that partnership with the demon thing goin’? Keeping ya up at night? You two seem joined at the hip. Or should I say joined at the dick?”
Anger spiked inside me, along with adrenalin and something else. Hell yeah, my partner was keeping me up at night. Blood surged low in my belly. Much as I liked my sleep, I couldn’t resist the demon. He was an addiction I couldn’t kick. I wanted to tell Cardelli to mind his own damned business and opened my mouth to do just that.
Let it go. The thought insinuated itself into my head, shooting down the words I would have thrown back at Cardelli before they left my lips. Blaise stood just inside the door of the briefing room, his dark gaze pinning mine, a slow smile curling his oh-so-freakin’ sexy lips. My insides hummed all over again, dispelling my exhaustion with just one look from his deep, dark eyes. I didn’t need my insides turning to mush and liquid fire, or images of his naked body rioting in my head. Not when I was at work in a room full of my male peers.
Don’t worry. They can’t hear our thoughts. They don’t know that you’re thinking of me naked.
Don’t do that! And get the hell out of my head.
Blaise chuckled softly.
The infuriating demon knew what pushed my buttons of anger as well as desire. And it made me nuts when Blaise slipped his thoughts into my mind. I forced myself to focus on Lieutenant Thomas, my boss, the detective in charge of this ragtag group of miscreants we called the Paranormal Investigative Team. Each of us had been hand-selected to handle the strange and unusual calls that came into the Fifth Precinct in Manhattan.
“As I was saying.” Thomas pointed at the computer-generated precinct map on the big white projection screen beside him. “We’ve had three deaths on the Lower East Side in the past few nights. No entry or exit wounds and no fractured skulls. The medical examiner says no poison was used. Nothing but dead bodies that appear to have had the life literally sucked out of them, and all in some state of undress.”
“Why not let homicide handle them?” I asked.
“Right that you should ask.” Thomas nodded in my direction. “Because they weren’t human deaths.” His gaze shifted to the demon leaning against the wall. “They were demons.”
Blaise didn’t blink, but the muscles in his jaw twitched, the only indication of a reaction to the news. “Anyone I might know?”
Thomas wrote the names on the whiteboard beside the screen, filling in dates and locations where their bodies were discovered. When he finished, he pointed at the names with his marker. “Antone Petrova, CJ Monahan and James Lorne. Did you know them?”
Our resident demon’s eyes narrowed. “There are a number of demons in Manhattan, but not so many that I wouldn’t know most.”
Thomas turned, dry-erase marker in his hand. “And?”
“Yes, I knew them.”
“Were they good demons or bad demons?” I asked. I would have considered it a service to the city if someone had offed several bad demons. “Someone save us some work?”
Blaise captured my gaze, his look intense. “I’ve had drinks with Antone and CJ. They weren’t a danger to humans, per se.”
“Define per se,” I prompted.
“They didn’t prey on humans.” Blaise’s lips tightened. “As for James, he was a player with human women, but no killer.”
“Nice. A little demon persuasion to get a woman in his bed.” I snorted. He’s not the only demon pushing thoughts.
Careful, my sweet. Blaise’s mouth twitched at the corners. Seems to me you were the one who initiated our last round.
I pressed my lips together to keep from arguing in front of my boss.
“The point is,” Thomas interrupted, “we have a duty to the city to protect its citizens. Human or paranorm.”
“I thought the only good paranorm was a dead paranorm.” Rudy grinned. “No offense, Michaels.”
“None taken.” Blaise crossed his legs at the ankle. “Remind me of that comment when you need backup.”
I opened my mouth to give Rudy a piece of my mind.
Ignore him. He’s an ass.
Knowing that didn’t make it any easier to clamp down hard on my lip. Paranorms were people too, I knew. Although I hadn’t revealed it to the rest of my team, I was a halfling demon, and still unsure of the extent of my powers. Until I got a better handle on them, I wasn’t ready to go public. Blaise was the only one who knew.
