Revealing the Monster (Playing with Monsters #4) by Amelia Hutchins

I had been around him enough to know when he shielded me from something deadly or something he thought would hurt me. He was the proverbial alpha male, assuming he knew what was best for me. Some days I craved it, and other times it drove me nuts. I also hated that since returning from Faery, Spyder refused to be alone with me, or even get near me.

Spyder and the bonding situation presented an entirely new problem for us. He wasn’t the only one fighting the magnetic attraction. Every day since the night that he and Lucian had claimed me to protect me from Lucifer, it became harder to ignore the need I felt for him.

I knew it was the bond demanding that we finish what was expected of us. I wasn’t in love with Spyder, no matter what the magic thrumming through our veins told us. I knew that I only craved Lucian and had fallen in love with him. That much was a given. Had I told him? No.

Did Lucian even know what genuine love was, or what it meant? He’d felt something for Katarina, or so he’d told me after I’d died, ending their twisted game. My stomach somersaulted at the memory, hating that it had been the last thing echoing through my mind as death claimed me.

How did you tell the man you loved he was your world? And what if he didn’t love me as I loved him? Lucian was endless and primordial. He had watched the world form and evolve during his lifetime. Shit, he’d probably helped shape it into what it was today. I was the idiot that had fallen deeply in love with him and couldn’t figure out how to tell him or express it out loud.

Turning onto my side, I screamed at finding him beside me, still dressed in his suit. He smirked, leaning down to brush his lips against mine. Heat enveloped me, and I laughed softly against his kiss at my response to his sudden appearance.

“What were you just thinking about, Little Witch?” The deep, soothing baritone of his voice drifting through me was calming. Peering into his midnight gaze, watching the galaxies swirling within them, I exhaled and nipped at his plump bottom lip.

“Changes, and how you stole my cat, asshole. She’s absolutely spoiled and impossible to please anymore.” I held his fiery stare as his lips jerked up into a smile and he growled deep in his chest, allowing the sound to slip through his parted lips. I struggled to pull my gaze from his, certain he’d let me drown within the beauty of the world’s burning in his eyes.

“Little liar.” Lucian rolled on top of me, gazing down as he captured my hands, pinning them above my head. “She isn’t spoiled at all. Luna is a good girl, just like her mistress. Do you want to be my good girl, Lena?” he inquired, lust dripping from each word he uttered. “Can I make your pussy purr as loudly as Luna does for me when I pet her?”

“Do you really need to ask?” I lifted my head, claiming his mouth softly, enjoying the flavor of scotch and the hint of citrus that I always tasted when kissing Lucian.

His grip on my hands tightened as he lowered his head and pressed his lips to my neck, kissing against the rapidly pulsing heartbeat at the hollow column of my throat. He rocked his hips, and I wrapped my legs around them, shivering as I felt him growing hard. His other hand pushed into my panties, running his fingers through the arousal his presence created.

Lucian turned his head, cocking it to the side as if listening to something beyond the door. He pulled away from me a moment before a knock sounded, and Hades strolled into the room without waiting for permission to enter.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing, Hades?” Lucian snapped, his question part threat and part pissed-off at being interrupted. “This is our home, and you’re not invited into my bedroom, asshole.” Lucian’s voice was tense, crisp, and clearly held a warning.

Hades’s violet eyes heated as they roamed down my body. I hadn’t changed from the dress Lucifer had placed on me, which allowed Hades a view of the rounded curves of my breasts and the valley between them. “We’ve got problems. Nyx knows her daughter is missing, and she’s on her way here now.”

I snorted at his words. Eris, the Goddess of Discord and Strife, had intervened in Faery, creating a shit-storm of problems for Ryder and Syn. It had looked like it would end with the couple separating, but they had been on to Eris’s presence and had been trying to settle the issue on their own, separately. It was more difficult on them by not working together, and the Golden Apple of Discord that Eris had hidden in the palace didn’t make the situation any easier. Ryder called Lucian and Spyder to handle Eris, who was now in permanent residence at the lowest level of the club.

“Bloody hell,” Lucian muttered, scrubbing his hand over his face. Hades’s gaze lingered on the curve of my breasts, showcased by my dress as a cocky smile flittering onto his mouth. “Get your eyes off my girl, prick. Go keep the bitch busy. We’ll be out momentarily.”

Hades nodded, smirking before vanishing into a cloud of dark smoke that reeked of wicked darkness, smothered in desire. Lucian stood, fixing his jacket and redoing the cuffs. He smiled as I groaned with the need he’d left unsatisfied, burning in my core. I started to sit up, but he pushed me onto the bed with his magic, sending a pulsing sensation between my legs. I gasped loudly, purring as I rocked my body against the powerful feeling of his magic sliding through my lower lips.

“Can’t you just send Nyx away? I need you right now, Blackstone.”

“I will soothe that ache in your tight pussy soon enough,” he growled, letting the darkness of his magic slide into my core. I was soaking wet, the desire to be taken hard and fast, which was becoming a visceral need that drenched my panties.