Demon Fire (Angel Fire #3) - Marie Johnston Page 0,46

you okay?”

The sound of his rough rasp was enough to encourage her to continue. She wasn’t alone in this.

She stroked herself again. Her hips jacked up.

“Millie?”

“Yes,” she gasped. This wasn’t going to take long. She was more sensitive than she’d ever been and she didn’t have the expert touch of her mate. She didn’t know how to draw it out, how to pull back, how to tease like he did.

Pleasure licked through her. The sense of empowerment was unexpected. She’d been doing everything by herself. She’d been used to being alone while he worked long days, but since he’d been hurt, she’d been emotionally and physically alone even though Leo had been here all day long. She’d been helpless, powerless.

Her touch had healed him before. Was it pure hubris to think she could do it again?

Yes, but she was too far gone to care.

Her fingertips were slick and her hips rocked. She let out another moan and made this one louder.

“Are you—” His words choked off.

He couldn’t say it. Was he feeling anything?

Her feelings clogged her throat as lust mounted. Yes, she could get herself off. Quite efficiently, it turned out. But just because she could do that on her own didn’t mean she wanted to.

She wanted to be with Leo, legs or not. She wanted to be intimate with him. She wanted to experience life with him.

Had she told him? He’d been abandoned since he’d been hurt. Treated like an invalid when he was otherwise strong and healthy. It was enough of a blow to realize their realm didn’t need him, but he’d been left unwanted too.

“Leo!” she cried as her climax built.

“Millie, why are—”

Another shout tore from her throat as the muscles of her abs and legs tightened.

“I don’t think . . .”

Pleasure swamped her—nowhere near as strong as what Leo could do to her, but staggering all the same. “Yes. Leo. Yes!”

Her shouts rang off the walls as she rode her hand. The swell died down and she sagged against the bed. Stifling loneliness weighed on her like a lead blanket. She pressed the hand she hadn’t used on herself on the headboard behind her, as if she could touch Leo that way.

“Leo,” she said between heaving breaths, “I’m sleeping in that bed tonight.”

Silence was her only reply.

Chapter 10

A week since they’d arrived and she was less active than she’d been in a one-bedroom cabin in the middle of winter.

The bath water was getting cold, but sitting in the tub staring at the white tiled wall was better than being downstairs while everyone ignored her. Sandeen kept trying to creep by her. There were knives other than butter knives, but Sandeen wanted her blood bad enough to risk staying around a bunch of angels.

She didn’t want to leave the bathroom. It’d become her safe space.

Las Vegas during winter was pleasant. There was a reason people from northern, wintery climates flocked here between the months of November and March. But she wasn’t allowed to sit out under the sun. The background checks on the neighbors weren’t complete.

Boone was allowed to go outside. He’d set up a couple of patio chairs that had been delivered, but they were for looks only. The neighbors would assume they were still settling in.

Boone didn’t talk to her enough to come up with a backstory, so Harlowe had given them one. Jack and Shari Smith from Idaho. He sold health insurance and worked from home but had been transferred to the Las Vegas area. She was taking online courses for her degree. Second marriage for him, first for her. She hadn’t missed how Boone tensed when Harlowe listed that as part of their background. But since Sierra looked like she was in her twenties and he was pushing forty, it would provoke fewer questions.

Alma was Jack’s mother. Sierra thought Boone would resist feigning having a parent, but he didn’t flinch. His own parents had died years ago, and he’d dealt with the grief.

Had Harlowe intentionally given Boone the fictional mother, knowing Sierra hadn’t known hers and that her father was probably still in mourning in Numen?

It’d make up for the box of ugly clothing she’d received. She’d gone through the piles, and at the risk of being ungrateful, they were repellent. She wouldn’t have to worry about maternity wear. The granny panties went to her boobs. The plain white bras lacked all support, and no matter how she adjusted them, they felt twisted. The simple sports bras weren’t better, but they allowed for