Brimstone Seduction

“He won’t find you here. You’re safe with Severne,” she said.

Their host heard the exchange. He stood straighter as if she’d surprised him. His whole hard body stiffened. Eric let her go after a fierce squeeze that made her eyes burn. He went happily with “Matron,” his pockets bulging with pilfered food.

And then they were alone.

Severne didn’t reclaim his seat, so she remained standing, as well. She forgot her pastry—in fact, she forgot everything—as he suddenly moved. He came toward her in a slow, steady approach very like a stalk, as if quicker movements might scare her away. Did he consider her strong? How soft she must seem to him. How mortal and easily broken.

She tried to convince herself she was stronger.

Her heart beat faster in her chest, an urgent pulse she could feel in her whole body. The heat in her cheeks flushed hotter and spread until she was sure the low neck of her silk blouse revealed her consternation.

She was frightened. But she didn’t run.

He was a daemon.

Dangerous.

And so inhumanly hard. He was dressed in a modern, fitted button-down shirt that hugged his chest. Its white fabric was only slightly paler than his skin, but the candlelight caressed his skin to a golden glow, whereas his shirt was left stark in shadow. Or maybe Brimstone caused the color, a more subtle tan than sunlight? He also wore straight-legged black pants that were tight against muscular thighs. Suddenly the idea of feeling his form like perfectly sculpted marble beneath her hand invaded her thoughts.

Could he be made to blush? Or sigh? Could his heartbeat be quickened? Would his breath catch as hers did when he stopped millimeters from where she stood?

With Grim, she’d mastered a calm that Severne shattered.

“You can see I’ve helped Eric. Just as I intend to help you find your sister,” he said.

His voice was a vibration on her skin. His face tilted toward her. There was the green she’d wanted to seek, but it glittered. Dangerous, not soft. Getting close enough to see the colored striations in his dark irises was a compulsion she should have been sure always to deny.

There was bold and there was crazy. Severne inspired mad impulses she should have resisted.

She imagined it for only a second—her hand fluttering softly over the plane of his chest, his stomach and his thighs—but the vision was undoubtedly braver than one she would previously have had. The flush her vision inspired spread more intimately until her knees grew weak.

Again, she could feel his heat. Maybe he would blame Brimstone for the blush he could see in the candlelight? The candles’ glow was cruel, causing more warmth and intimacy in the room than she was prepared to handle.

She drew in a quick breath when he reached out toward her, but his hand went past her to the table. She held the sudden gasp in her lungs because to exhale might cause her body to brush his reaching arm. And one touch might betray her. The air filled her chest, tight and unexpressed, as he lifted a tiny pastry from her plate and brought it to her lips. When it was so close to her mouth that the scent of vanilla cream teased her nose, she exhaled softly, meeting his eyes over the proffered treat.

It was a confession, that exhalation. And his eyelids drooped over his eyes in response.

“You didn’t enjoy your own pastry,” she said.

His gaze dropped from her eyes to her lips and back again.

“I’ve eaten them a thousand times a thousand. But you chew as if nothing so perfect has ever touched your lips and tongue. They’re dust to me. Watching you enjoy them is delicious.”

Katherine’s head grew light as blood rushed to her lips and the tips of her breasts. He knew. He must. His jaw relaxed, and he brought the pastry to her mouth. He touched the pursed bow of her lips with a light, teasing tickle of sugary cream.

She licked out, instinctively dipping into the residue of icing with her tongue. He watched as she tasted it once more. It was even more decadent when combined with the intensity of his attention.

“I’ve tasted cream a thousand times a thousand, but I’ve never tasted it on you,” he said.

Had she known? Had her head gone light because she knew her nibbles of delicate pastry had overwhelmed any decision on his part to keep his distance? Or on her part to stay calm and controlled?

Earlier in the evening, he’d given her a calla lily instead of a kiss. The lovely flower had been no substitute at all. Its soft petals were nothing compared to...

He sucked the sweetness of cream from her lips. He sought its remnants on her tongue. He pressed into her until her bottom was on the table and his impossibly muscular body was between her legs. The pastry was forgotten as his mouth took its place, a much more decadent treat. Forbidden. Bad for her. Crazy. She tasted sweet cream and pastry and fire and a wicked hint of wood smoke that must be the never-before-tasted burn of Brimstone heat on her tongue.

She opened to him. She didn’t resist. Their tongues twined. Their bodies melded as closely as clothes would allow. He tasted her completely, plundering every gasp, every sugar-sweetened sigh.

And when he finally pulled back, as she clung to him so she wouldn’t fall, she finally saw the flush of pleasure on his face and neck that the pastry alone had failed to give him. Heaven help her, but she instantly ached to give him more. It wasn’t his marbled perfection she wanted to caress; it was his vulnerability. She wanted to explore the chink in his armor that had allowed him to taste her.

“Good night, Katherine. You heard Sybil. It’s time for bed,” Severne said.

He backed away. She straightened. In his deep, smoky voice, the suggestion of bedtime was much less utilitarian.

It had been only a kiss.

Only.

She walked by him on quaking legs. He let her go. But between them was so much more heat than could be blamed on hell’s fire.

Her whole life she’d hidden in music. Perhaps being excellent at hiding made her also long to seek. Severne hid many things behind his mystery and his muscle. His hardness was his armor. But he was capable of softening. He’d softened tonight. For one stolen moment, his mouth had softened on hers. She couldn’t risk losing herself in the search for the softness he hid from her and from the world.

Victoria was missing, and she couldn’t afford to lose herself in John Severne before her sister was found.

Chapter 5 (#ulink_35dad1cd-54cb-5536-a41c-9b248b73a8f2)

The next day John left the opera house as much to escape the memory of Katherine’s taste as to fulfill his duties. The house he visited was small, but neat, in a row of older bungalow homes in Roseland Terrace, a part of Baton Rouge’s Garden District that had been carefully maintained. The elderly man inside the historic Craftsman was happiest in a home with few rooms and big windows to let in the sun. The navigable home kept him from being confused as he moved from room to room with poor eyesight, failing legs and a cane in a stoop-shouldered shuffle.

And the big windows kept the shadows at bay.

He didn’t like shadows.

He didn’t remember why.

At first John Severne had tried to correct his father’s failing memory. He’d consulted the best doctors. He’d experimented with homeopathy and modern medicines. But then he’d seen the grace in Levi Severne’s forgetfulness. The relief.

His grandfather had been killed by one of the daemons he’d been charged to hunt. He’d died a doomed man. He’d known hell had come for him. Though only a young teen, John had seen him consumed by Brimstone’s fire until nothing was left but dust. His father had seen it, too. He’d taken John’s hand, helpless to prevent for them both the same fate unless they were successful in their task.

Down to the last name on hell’s most-wanted list.

John Severne had visited with the father who hadn’t known him for decades. Every time he came, they met for the first time. A nearly immortal man with Alzheimer’s was a pitiful sight. But it was also a respite. They spoke of other things. The hydrangeas were blooming. Levi Severne liked blue. The big clusters of blooms made him smile.

Severne had left his father on a chair in the backyard, where the flowers swayed in the breeze. The nurse would collect him in time for an afternoon siesta. No more killing. No more strife. He had no memory of the damnation that had once plagued him with nightmares.

“We’ll beat it, John. We’ll beat it. I promised your mother before she died I would see you saved. I promised her my father’s terrible contract wouldn’t damn you.”

How many times had his father repeated that pledge to him?

How many times had he stood watching the frail old man he loved and quietly vowing the same pledge back to him?