“I didn’t kill him,” Rohan said. “I don’t know why he left and I’m certain it wasn’t because of anything we did because the two of us on our own had no hope against him. We haven’t seen the last of him.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “You used the snitch, didn’t you?”

“To be fair, I figured I’d be safely behind the Demon Club wards before he got the message. Before he got to me.” I shivered. “What if Asmodeus was right, and all I want is to forget any of this ever happened? I thought I’d been dealing, but…” I blew out my cheeks.

Rohan tipped my chin up, forcing me to meet his eyes. “You are dealing. Brilliantly.” He tucked a dripping strand behind my ear.

My chest constricting at this new layer of intensity to an already brain-exploding night, I grasped his hand, intending to brush him off, but found myself leaning into him.

He tilted his head, looking at me oddly. “Your eyes,” he said, in a strangled voice. “I can still see lightning in them.”

Panic clawed at my throat. I opened my mouth to protest the lightning girl label but the sky above lit up with a brilliant flash that let me see the truth of his words in the reflection of his eyes.

And the heat simmering in their depths. Ironically, that calmed me down. Lust didn’t frighten me. Quite the opposite.

Rohan curled his fingers around my waist, ducking his head toward mine.

I slammed my hand over his mouth. “No kissing.”

That activity had been kiboshed over a year ago after a spectacularly disappointing session with one Elvis Persig. His fishy-lipped nibbling of my face had felt too much like the time I’d stuck my feet in one of those tanks for squirming, toothless carp to eat my dead skin. Except without the exfoliating benefit.

I loved kissing. Or rather, loved the idea of it as this precious gesture to be shared between two people in love. I just wasn’t sure that love existed. Case in point, my ex, Cole, who was supposed to be there for me when I’d learned I had to stop dancing. The one who’d fucked off instead, leaving me to break down alone. Relationships had become hook-ups. While I’d kept the kissing–at first–these hook-ups weren’t about tenderness and intimacy.

Easier to let kissing stop being part of the equation.

Rohan shot me a look of disbelief.

I gently cupped his crotch, feeling a cheap thrill at his hard-on. “This isn’t romance, baby. It’s lust, pure and simple.”

“It may be pure but there’s nothing simple about it, Lolita. In fact,” he traced a finger down my cleavage, “it’s rather complicated.” He leaned in toward me again and I put a hand on his chest to stop him.

“I’m not dreaming about happily-ever-afters and I’m not your girl with the lightning eyes.” I practically sneered that last bit at him.

It took a second for him to believe me. Trust me, I saw the moment that he did because a dark savagery crossed his face. I skittered back, my back hitting a wide tree trunk but Rohan didn’t move. He clearly wanted me, so what was the hold up? His eyes were intent on mine, looking for something.

Ah.

“Not backing up because I’m afraid, baby.” I winked, throwing a glance at the tree behind me. Though, okay, I did experience a moment of panic about the possibility of another misfire and Cuntessa once more being reduced to a charred nubbin. I wasn’t sure her and I could get past it happening twice.

But where Rohan was concerned? No, I’d backed up to get some much needed distance at the lust triggered by the look on his face. My need for him had reached supernova levels. The potential big bang worth any risk. I licked my lips, crooking a finger at him. “Do you need an engraved invitation, Snowflake?”

“Fuck,” he ground out, prowling toward me.

My toes curled at the hot look in his eyes that dipped and lingered on the hollow of my neck, only to be replaced by his lips there as he gathered my hair in his fist and tugged it to one side.

His tongue, hot on my cool skin, swirled in tempo with the beats of my heart, now hammering Indy-car fast under the onslaught of his mouth on my collarbone. “Sugar,” he murmured.

“Body scrub.” I tilted my neck to give him better access, but with a sharp jerk, Rohan spun me around, pressing me against the rough bark. He slammed my hands over my head, gripping them lightly but firmly in one hand. I scrabbled for a hold, my eyes falling on the words “Party like it’s 1999” scratched into the trunk, just past the tip of my nose. Rain cascaded down around us like a steamy waterfall, but the leaves made a dry, cozy bubble above us.

Rohan raked his nails up my spine.

I shivered, totally in thrall as he pressed the length of his body against me. Trapped between the tree and him–a near-stranger, and dangerous at that–heat spread like wildfire deep in my core. Flamed high. The unpredictability of it brought out an interesting little kink I had, though it wasn’t a case of any guy would do.

My head fell back against his chest and my breathing deepened. A slow legato. How could it sound so languid when my entire being was coiled tight in a dark smolder?

The traffic quieted. We’d hit a lull at this time of night before the bars emptied out, but in this deserted downtown park with a silent city around us, it was easy to believe we were the only two alive.

I closed my eyes, all the better to lose myself to sensation. The scrape of bark against my cheek, his breath gusting my neck, the rough tip of his finger skimming the thin fabric along my hip. Every nerve ending flared to life under his touch. Sweat pooled between my trembling thighs.

Rohan blew a lock of my hair off my neck, ducking his head to nip at my ear.

I twisted my head around, my breath punched out of me at his eyes sparking darkly with need. I tilted my hips back, pressing into his hard-on to get some form of contact.

He hissed, jerking his body away from me.

I arched back, trying to follow him but he kept me in place with a palm between my shoulder blades. My newly-released hands fell limp at my sides. At least now I could touch him, too.

I reached behind Rohan to curve my hand around his hip as he wormed my skirt up from behind to slide his hand between my legs. He gave a satisfied chuckle at how wet I already was. I didn’t care. Smirk away, just keep stroking. I closed my thighs around his hand, rocking my hips back and forth.

Rohan moaned into my ear and my belly fluttered.

“Tell me what you want.” The rough rasp of his voice scraped over my too-tight skin, kicking my torment up into new stratospheres.

Cuntessa de Spluge swooned. I imagined her screaming like a teenybopper. With my hands still behind me, I roughly caressed his ass. “You. Now.”

“That can be arranged.”

A whisper of wind hit high on my thigh as my bikini briefs floated to the ground in a scrap of lace. Fuck me, he’d cut them off with one of his finger blades. My knees wobbled. Cool air cascaded over my very flushed nether regions.

Rohan knocked his knee between my legs, nudging them wider. Then he crooked a bladeless finger inside me, rotating it as he thrust it in and out.

I rose onto tiptoes, my stilettos not providing enough height on their own to let him hit my sweet spot deep inside. My legs shook and my feet barely touched the ground. Every cell hummed in greedy delight.

“Rohan.” The gasp of his name was almost a plea. I was coming undone in his hands.

“Say my name like that again.” His voice was hard. Not a problem, since his name was the only thing I was capable of saying right now. I complied.

He swore and leaned away from me. I was about to voice a complaint but then a rip of foil cut through the silence.

“What a Boy Scout,” I teased. It came out a bit needier than I’d intended.

“Always prepared,” he agreed.

I wished I was facing him to see him roll the sheath over his cock, to see him touching himself, hard and ready and knowing that at least right now, I was the one who’d inspired that reaction, but Rohan kept me in place.

He pushed into me from behind with a hard thrust that stole the breath from my lungs.

Arching back to rest against the hard planes of his chest, I opened my legs wider.

“Is this what you want?” he growled. “Rough and messy where anyone could see us?”

A bolt of lust ripped through me at the image. I grinned over my shoulder at him.

Rohan pulled out long enough to spin me around to face him. The smirk on his face was at odds with his frosty gaze. He gripped my upper arms, once more slamming inside me. I trailed my finger along the hard plane of his stomach. His abs clenched under my touch, resulting in so many delicious contoured ripples that I did it again.

Every thrust knocked me back into the tree, the pitted bark shredding my poor dress and scratching my skin. “Harder.”

Rohan’s jaw tensed at my command, holding himself in check. He emanated pure, brutal energy, and he was seriously and obviously pissed off.

I caressed his cheek, but he jerked his head to fling my hand off. I shrugged off my unreasonable sting of hurt. I’d set the rules. “No one is forcing you to play with the unclean, Snowflake.”

“No, that’s on me,” he snarled, slowing, teasingly pulling out before thrusting once more inside me. Unleashing himself on me. There was no other way to describe it. He was without an ounce of mercy.

If this was supposed to be some kind of punishment, then I’d happily take double helpings.

Rohan threaded his fingers with mine, using his blades to anchor our two hands to the trunk. An interlacing of dusky brown and pale white skin. He rose up onto his toes, his fucking changing angle and gaining force. The expression on his face was primal.

I clutched at his shirt with my free hand so I didn’t try something stupid like tenderly stroke away his anger. These intense coils rippling inside were a new feeling for me. I hooked a leg around his waist, rocking mindlessly against him. My entire body arched in unfettered pleasure.

My hand snuck down to give some love to Cuntessa but he swatted that away too, replacing it with one very capable finger. Go power plays. I happily let him take charge.

My grip on him tightened. I’d have closed my eyes but there was a dare in the hard line of his jaw and in the glint of his eyes that had me hold his gaze in challenge. This wasn’t slow and it wasn’t gentle. Our fuck was a hard storm. An all-consuming vortex. My hair tangled in sweaty strands; my dress rode higher and higher up my hips. I had to force air into my lungs.

Still I couldn’t get enough.

It had been a while since I’d orgasmed from men I’d slept with. Those college guys with their misguided mood music and fumbling chivalrous “No, you come first” that became an obligation I faked my way out of. Mild levels of happy tingle generally constituted a win for me. But here? In this park, with this arrogant boy and his waves of unbridled hostility?

I bucked violently, coming harder than I ever had. Shattering and uncertain that I’d ever be put back together properly again.

The irony? His stunned look and the fierceness of his convulsion made me think he’d experienced the same thing.

The girl with the lightning eyes and the boy with demons in his soul.

Shivers burst across my skin like a mirror shuddering into a thousand pieces. Everything went dark and silent and then the hum of the city rushed back into stereo surround, snapping the bubble of us. Just as I realized I’d fallen against him, one of his arms holding me up and holding me close like the gentlest band of steel, he pulled out. I almost pitched forward at the lack of contact.

Rohan stepped away to strip off the condom and tuck himself back into his pants. He was mere feet away but might as well have been miles.

I tugged down my dress with a wriggle, stuffing the remnants of my underwear into the trash, and struggling to understand how something so tawdry felt anything but.

Disoriented, fluttery, I didn’t know if my dizziness stemmed from euphoria or something else I couldn’t name. I pinched my cheeks, grateful for the biting pain.

We straightened out our clothes, both so careful not to look at each other. Generally, I was a pro at the après. At bantery fun time that took any weirdness out of the situation and made it clear that I had no expectations. But this? This was awkward beyond all salvaging.

I tried to take a deep breath but I swear my lungs had filled with cold water and it came out as a stuttery hitch. In theory I’d just experienced my dream encounter. So how come I wanted to puke?

“Let’s get you home,” Rohan said in a flat voice.

Mercifully, I flagged down a taxi as soon as we left the park. The driver didn’t even look up when we got into the back seat which was good, since he may have refused us entry had he seen our damp, demon gunkified selves. Apparently reeking of sex didn’t matter.

There was no talking on the ride back. I kept sneaking glances over at Rohan but he stared straight ahead into the darkness of the backseat, the occasional slither of passing streetlight over his face letting me know that he wasn’t any happier.

I gnawed on the inside of my cheek, my dress drying from soaked through to a more-disgusting clamminess.

No sooner had the taxi pulled up to my front curb than I shoved some money at the driver and bolted inside the house. Thankfully, my family was asleep and I was spared questions and more screaming at the sight of me. I pressed a hand to my cheeks, feeling their warm flush. Probably coming down with a fever. I had to get out of my wet clothes but first I made myself some Neo Citran–perfect for cold symptoms and knocking me out so I couldn’t lay there thinking all night.

By the time I got out of my shower, the warm lemony liquid was already kicking in, leaving me groggy. Grateful for the miracles of modern over-the-counter medicine, I crashed. Hard.