Underworld Queen Read online

  “What is this, Audray?” he brushed away her tears as he tilted his head and scanned her thoughts. “Is this about your mother or about Claire?” She could feel him tense up.

  “My mother is gone, Jonas. There was a fire.” Audray buried her head in his bare chest.

  “Oh, baby, so sorry. Why didn’t you call me? I should have been there.” he asked.

  She untangled enough so that their faces could meet. Their lips touched and some of the burdens of the day were lifted from her.

  “When did this happen, Audray?”

  “Today. When I came back—” She concentrated on the gravesite so she wouldn’t have to reveal her visit with Burt. She hoped he didn’t pick up her ruse. “I saw her grave, Jonas. Hers and my father’s graves. I visited them.”

  “I’m glad. I’m glad you know about Claire now.”

  Audray wasn’t sure “The world is coming unraveled. The more I search into my past, the more I wish I’d never known these things. I almost destroyed my own sister who had saved my life. What kind of a despicable person does that make me?”

  “You didn’t know.”

  “But I should have known. I should have felt it.”

  He hugged her again, his powerful fingers massaging her scalp again. “You are way too hard on yourself, Audray. These special powers didn’t come until you’d turned. You’ve been a pawn in a dangerous game.”

  “We still are pawns, Jonas. I don’t want to lose you. Whatever I have done, I don’t want to lose what we have together.”

  God, I hope this never ends. Let me stay here forever.

  “Yes, my Queen.” Do not think of these things. The past is the past. Live here with me now, in our future. Bring your mind back to me and be with me here, what we have today.

  She felt her powerful need eclipse her pain and remorse. Their tongues played through the long kissing as he drew her into the white marble bathroom and, without slowing the sucking and pressing of their lips, began to peel off her clothes, some pieces coming easily and some needing to be shredded. At last, she stood before him naked, and he took her to the shower, turning on the double heads and the steam. He dropped his towel and joined her.

  “I don’t ever want to be gone from you that long again,” she said.

  “Me neither.” His erection touched her, teasing and bobbing, full and expectant. Jonas put her head under the water and kissed her eyes, under her chin and then on her lips as the warm water cascaded over both of them. It was a safe place to cry, the warm liquid carrying away all the grief along with the tears.

  He lathered her hair with his probing fingers, pushing up from the bottom of her skull, his thumbs pressing with strong deliberate strokes. He rubbed her temples and kissed her neck. She melted with the sound of his deep breathing in her ear, as he slipped soapy fingers behind and rubbed the back of her neck. His hands moved lower as he put her head under the water spray and turned her around. He swirled the lemon shower gel into her back and down to the crack between her butt cheeks. She put her palms on the snow-white wall and pressed her forehead into the cool wetness as he went to his knees to rub between her legs from behind, kissing her soapy cheeks. He formed a ring with his massive hands and worked the soap down her thighs, over her knees and down and over her ankles.

  She turned to look into the face of the only man she had ever loved, kneeling before her.

  “I have so much to say…” she started.

  “Shhh. Not tonight, my love. Not tonight. Tonight we don’t talk.”

  “Yes.”

  His eyes smiled but his full lips only parted in a half smile. He slipped his index finger between the lips of her pink peach, rubbing back and forth. Audray began to feel her body come alive again. She felt like she’d been buried in a shallow, dusty grave. Blood rushed to fill the delicate parts of her anatomy. She reveled in the pleasure of his ministrations, and let him tickle her soul.

  She arched up, placing her face in the warm spray. The feel of his tongue on her sex was beautiful and perfect and exactly what she needed, but there were tears anyway. She looked down on him, his mouth savoring her juices, then laying his cheek flat against her lower belly to gently part her thighs and feed from her again. Audray played with the wet curls of his head and caressed the undersides of his ears. Her sex quivered and he swept his eyes up the full length of her body, slowly.

  He loves pleasuring me more than taking the pleasure himself. She saw the man, the hero, the warrior, the protector.

  The keeper of my flame.

  Jonas rose and their bodies pressed against one another in the warm sluicing rain. She made room for his hardness, but pressed her mound against him, rubbing up and down. They both sighed, sending erotic steamy air over each other, inhaling the other’s passion. Jonas turned her body and lightly bit the side of her neck, claiming her. Her shoulder needed his touch. He kissed the violated skin and gently grazed his teeth over her flesh.

  He pulled back, Audray feeling the airspace between them for a second before he placed his cock at her backside and bent her gently at the waist. He let her wait there, his readiness primed, encroaching just barely on her wet opening. She pushed back to lean into him and he held her but kept his cock only part way inside, teasing.

  She turned her head around to him and he covered her mouth from the side, lips sucking hers, tasting her with his tongue. One of his hands was firmly placed on her lower belly as his other migrated up over her breasts and splayed out at her chest and lower neck, holding her in position. She knew if she melted, and she was in danger of doing so, he would hold her up, and it would be no effort at all. Her thighs enjoyed the feel of the length of his against them. She swayed her lower body from side to side to feel him at her pink rim.

  And then he held her tight and plunged in. She exploded. She saw the vision of every happy moment of her life play out before her, like her soul had released the dark holds and black smoky rags that had encapsulated it so it could run free. He ground into her and then pulled back, and then plunged in, each time deeper. Each time her eyes saw the tiny particles of light like stars in the midnight sky, little lanterns flashing underneath her eyelids.

  I am rescued at last.

  Chapter 16

  Audray awoke the next morning to the chirping of her sat phone. All calls were blocked except for Underworld emergencies and other pre-programmed numbers, so it was important. She looked at Jonas over her shoulder as she reached for the phone but he pushed it away. She could tell he’d been awake, just letting her sleep or perhaps eavesdropping on her dreams. He raised his eyebrows as if he’d been caught doing something naughty.

  Audray fell back into the down pillow and the thousand thread per inch buttery Egyptian cotton sheets, staring up at the ceiling, pulling the hair back off her forehead. The phone continued to chirp. Jonas had propped himself up on his elbow looking down at her. She rubbed his forearm with the backs of her fingers.

  “I should get that.”

  “Later,” he whispered. He smiled without parting his lips. With a forefinger, she traced the curved half circles framing his mouth, then let her palm rub flat against the sandpaper of his cheek. She was still fascinated that growing hair was something they could do as dark angels.

  Jonas started kissing her neck. One large hand smoothed over her left breast and began to move down the center of her torso so slowly it was making it difficult for her to concentrate.

  “Jonas,” she whispered.

  Jonas nodded silently as he stuck his tongue into the little cave of her belly button and sucked it. With a swishing motion he moved his tongue lower. He had reached the area just to the top of her slit and was snaking a tongue, barely breeching her lips. Jonas’ large paw reached for the phone on the bedside table and threw it under the bed.

  “Jonas! You are positively wicked. You’ll get me into trouble.”

  Jonas licked the length of her quivering peach in response. Without looking at her, he did it again. “I intend to get you into real tr
ouble, my Queen.”

  She sighed and then allowed herself to melt as Jonas continued laving her, and doing quite an expert job of it. His singleness of focus in his lovemaking was something that drove her wild. His tongue took all the cares and the aches of her heart away.

  She had only been a dark angel for less than a year. Jonas had a few centuries to perfect the art of ignoring the human world. She envied that in him.

  He had separated her lips, lapping, sucking, inserting two fingers inside her. She watched his forehead with the vein that coursed right down the middle, the rough stubbled surface under his nose where his thin clipped line of hair and the skin around it was shiny with her juices. When he put his lips on her sex that damn crease at the side of his mouth showed up and she was lost.

  Audray arched back, raising her arms above her head and floated away. She gave into to him, a slave to his tongue.

  I’d give up my kingdom for an afternoon with your tongue!

  This made Jonas chuckle. His tanned face beamed as he looked into her eyes.

  Yes, my love. It is that good this morning, and I never want it to end. But I also need to feel your cock inside me.

  It was too perfect that he could read her mind. Just too perfect.

  Later, she was wrapped in a velvet soft white robe with matching slippers adorned with the distinctive St. Francis logo on them. When she was human, her last lover had taken her here, and she stole a pair of the slippers, wearing them around his house afterwards. But today she had enough wealth and power to buy the whole hotel, so the slippers were viewed from a different perspective.

  Jonas had ordered them breakfast, and the room service cart clattered with the tinkle of silver and glasses of ice water. She was looking forward to the cappuccino she could smell. She tiptoed to the bathroom, brushing her hair and applying just a little lipstick. It still surprised her to see her dark eyes, not the emerald green she had grown up with. Her turning had been easy, surrounded by people who cared for her. Jonas was even there that day, but he stood in the back as one of Josh’s lesser helpers. He watched her, always watched her, and said not a word until at last they were alone together the afternoon the former Director was eliminated.

  Opening the door from the bedroom suite, she walked barefoot on the cool marble floor, standing in front of the huge gentleman she knew was naked under his white robe, who offered her the frothing coffee with a heart pattern drawn into it.

  The foam covered her upper lip and Jonas immediately tipped his head down to clean it off for her, ending with a deep penetrating kiss. His handsome face in the morning light was such a source of joy to her, made her almost feel like everything was perfect just the way it was, and they would have forever and forever without a disruption in their joy.

  But the pain of losing her sister and her mother came back, and she knew this was not the case.

  Jonas must have read her thoughts, for he put his finger to his lips and bade her be silent.

  “Not now, Audray. I have no answers for you. We’ll find the answers in time. But not now. Now you are mine. Focus here, with me. The rest will take care of itself.”

  She nodded her agreement.

  He lifted the silver covers on the black and gold-rimmed china to reveal a brilliant yellow vegetable omelet made with fresh eggs, new potatoes and slices of bacon he would eat for her. An iced compote held an enormous silver bowl of strawberries next to a pitcher of cream.

  They ate silently, basking in the morning sunlight. When she tasted her first strawberry for dessert she remembered something.

  “Just a minute,” she said as she stood up. She tried not to think about it so it would be a surprise. She jogged to the bedroom and drew out the can of whipped cream she’d packed in her overnight bag.

  Jonas nodded to her and arched his eyebrows.

  “I like it. I like this very much.”

  Audray shook the can and squirted a three inch high mound of the white cream over the bowl of strawberries. Audray dipped her finger in it and presented it to Jonas, who sucked it and licked it in long strokes. She dipped a strawberry in the topping and fed him. He did the same for her. She fed him another one. He fed her again. Then he washed the residue of cream from the corner of her mouth with a long lingering kiss.

  He pushed her back onto the loveseat, allowing their robes to fall open and there he covered her flesh with the warm strong muscles of his body. He kissed her nipples, first one and then the other. With a wolfish grin he grabbed the can of whipped cream and covered her pink areolas and then licked them clean again with the sandpaper of his tongue.

  Audray’s arousal came on strong. She felt the muscles in her sex tickle, hungry with anticipation, feeling the need in her passage to be filled with the maleness of him, ached to feel whole and complete.

  She grabbed the can from his hands and placed a trail along his penis. She bent over and licked and sucked his dick. He repositioned them so she was on top of him as he brought his head under her sex and squirted the cream along the slit of her peach, extending beyond past her anus. She opened her legs to him and he took his time nibbling and sucking until she was sparkling clean. She massaged his balls with both hands and had him deep into her mouth, rolling her tongue over the velvet surface of his cock. She nibbled the large vein that zigzagged down the length of him as he sucked her folds and lapped her juices.

  He moved to sitting position and brought her body back against him to sit on his lap with her back pressed to his chest. There he raised her body and impaled her on his shaft. Audray felt the dull delicious splitting of her insides and drew him up with her muscles clenched, squeezing as hard as she could until she got a satisfying growl from Jonas behind her. She repeated the movements again, full of the need of his hot thick cock buried deep within her. He would squeeze her breasts, then remove his hands and let the joining of their sex be their only point of contact. Her feet found traction on the floor so she stood, leaning over as he rose pummeling her from behind, pulling her into his groin.

  One more pulse from her sex and her orgasm came in gentle waves, forcing her back onto him deeply as she felt his shudder and explosion of seed inside.

  He was going to get up and get her a warm towel, but she put a hand to his ass and asked him to stay inside her. They fell asleep on the loveseat, Jonas cradling her back, the can of whipped cream rolling free on the floor, remnants of a breakfast only half eaten, their bodies still connected.

  Chapter 17

  Carl chastised himself all the way home for bringing Molly, getting her involved with his dangerous client. He was sure he was dealing with an insane individual, someone who believed in curses and people living for hundreds of years after they were “dead,” whatever that meant. Reason and logic were replaced with fear. The strange woman had an emotional fixation on this Jonas Starling unlike anything he’d heard of before. He wasn’t an expert in psychology. He was just a history professor. But he knew what depths this obsession could take. He was going to have to make a choice, and soon.

  Molly had picked up on it too. She sat beside him during the short car ride to his cottage, without saying a thing. Carl had tried not to let Molly see his alarm from her perch across the café as Glenda said those fateful words:

  “I know you won’t give two thoughts for yourself. But I believe there are those you would protect. You cannot deny me without suffering the consequences.”

  Consequences? I’m being blackmailed. He replayed those words over and over again as he drove toward his home. Though it was disgusting, he knew he would do whatever it took to keep Molly safe.

  “Carl…” she began, taking his right hand off the steering wheel and placing it in her lap between her palms, “I don’t like that woman. Something off about her.”

  “I agree.” He bit his lower lip and scanned the road.

  “So, tell me what she said about your research.” Molly’s eyes swept up to his and he saw the bigger question there.

  She’s already involved. He w
as weighing her innocence versus arming her with knowledge. He chose to trust her.

  “I think the woman is unstable. She has an unhealthy fixation on this Starling character.”

  “And?”

  How do I say this?

  “She believes he is still living…” Carl stole a quick glance at Molly’s face. She was staring down at his hand, nestled between hers. He continued, “And she wants me to find him, or, rather, verify that it’s him. She gave me an address and asked that I do a kind of stakeout, take pictures and such. I’m to deliver him a message.” He sighed as he aimed the car down the driveway to his cottage. At the front door, he stopped, and then turned off the ignition. The leather seats creaked as he turned toward her in the cramped space, his knees tightly jammed together.

  She was nodding slowly. He could see moisture in her eyes.

  “Please,” he said as he leaned over and smoothed the tear away with his thumb. “I’m begging for your forgiveness, but I have to work with her. I don’t want to, but I have to. She threatened me.”

  Molly looked up at him, her green eyes full, about to burst. He expected to see something more than sadness there. He expected to be mocked, or worse, that she would be angry with his crazy suspicions. She placed her delicate pink palms on either side of his face. The heat radiating from her hands sent an erotic tingle down his spine and awakened his groin. He cursed himself for the inappropriateness of his reaction to her touch. But there was no way around it.

  I am enchanted.

  They made their way into the cottage, and suddenly Molly turned to him.

  “Promise me you’ll tell me everything later on. Right now, Carl, I need you to wash away the blackness. Bring me the heat and the glow I crave. I want to feel our fire together.”

  He studied her flawless skin with the red aura like a halo surrounding her. Carl found the worries of the morning did melt away. All his favorite places were waiting for him as he kissed her skin over the tiny blue veins in her neck, her upper chest and the insides of her thighs. He buried his head in her femaleness and let her scent cover him. Her young, supple body gave itself so freely, it was difficult to control himself. She would do one little thing, and it would eliminate the many minutes of control he tried to exert over himself and his cock. His member would march to the band of her passion, a willing participant, despite the fact that he was trying to prolong the session, the feel of her insides sheathed over him.