Pushing Rope (The Q Collection) Read online

  This is Heaven.

  The world melts away under her expert touch, my eyes close and my heart soars and— did my dick just get harder? Her whimpering would suggest so. I stub out my cigar.

  Nadia slips her hands around my head, roughly grips the short strands of my hair, and drags herself closer. Our lips touch for the first time in three months, and it’s as if I’m tasting brandy for the first time in my life. A sudden burst of heat that warms my body from the inside out, a sweetness that tempts, a richness that emboldens. Then my hands are on her, touching her, exploring, probing, grabbing the fleshy globes of her ass and pulling her tighter against my throbbing cock, rubbing her clit with my dick.

  Her back arches and a cry escapes her lips. “Mo! By the gods, I love you.”

  She slams her mouth against mine once more, and our tongues tangle together. I have missed this woman. My woman. Mine. Only she’s not mine and she never can be. Not truly. I won’t allow it. I won’t break her heart just to satisfy my own selfish desires.

  I won’t.

  I can’t.

  Whatever tiny part of me that’s still good, still the angel my father wanted me to be, will never allow this precious creature to waste her heart on a monster like me. I will love her body, but I will never lay claim to her heart. She deserves better than that. Better than me.

  A disappointed groan reverberates through my mouth, and Nadia pulls away. “Well that was fun while it lasted.”

  My head feels light. I look down and watch my cock slowly wilt, watch it list to the side like a sinking ship.

  What. The. Fuck?

  “Where did my erection go?”

  Frustrated and angry, my gaze flicks to the woman in my lap, zeroes in on those big blue eyes of hers. Eyes that watch the world more shrewdly than she ever admits. I sigh darkly and wonder what she sees when she looks at me. I know she’s mad at me. I know she’s punishing me.

  But I still don’t know why.

  “What’s going on, pet?”

  She glares at me for a moment, then says, “Sterises tin kardia, sterises to poutso.”

  I recognise her native Greek instantly and mull the words over in my mind. “Deny the heart, deny the cock? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “Exactly what it says on the label, my love. The more you deny your heart’s desire, the more your magnificent cock, and in turn you, will suffer.”

  I stare at her, dumbfounded. “But why?”

  She cups my face in her gentle hands, staring deep into my eyes, my soul. “Because I look at you and I see myself. I see the longing in your eyes, the loneliness in your heart.”

  I pause for a moment, feeling awkward and raw, hating how easily she sees through me. “What makes you think I have a heart?”

  “What makes you think you don’t?”

  “I’m a demon. A prince of Hell. I’m a Grade-A bastard double-dipped in selfishness and arrogance. Nadia, why would you love me? I’m a dick.”

  Her laughter is warm, her grin sly. “You know girls always go for the bad boy, especially the bad boy with a heart of gold.”

  “Ah, now I see where your confusion lies,” I say with a weary sigh. “My heart is made of lead. Looks like gold on paper, but much more toxic in reality.”

  Crossing her arms over her chest, she narrows her eyes and frowns at me. “Just say it, you stubborn jackass.”

  I feign ignorance. “Say what?”

  “Okay, if that’s how you want to play it, fine. Let me put this to you in terms you’ll understand. My curse is a chastity belt. Truth is the key. But hey, if you’re content going crazy as you slowly starve to death, be my guest. Or you can grow a pair, admit how you feel about me and get back to the task of filling my deliciously wet pussy with your monster-sized cock. So, are these balls I’m bouncing on just for show, or do you have something to say?”

  I stare at her, my eyes wide, my jaw dropped. Of all the manipulative…. Using my truth curse against me? Oh, she is clever. Evil genius clever.

  And I fucking adore her for it!

  “You little minx!” I pull her to me and claim her mouth, but I barely have time to taste her before she pushes me back.

  “No!” She points a finger in my face. I suck it into my mouth and watch her eyes darken with lust. Her breasts heave with every intake of breath and she squirms in my lap. Her gaze never leaves my lips, she swallows hard, “No more kisses until you fix this.”

  I slide her finger out of my mouth with a wet pop. “Until I fix this? You cast the stupid curse. You fix it.”

  “I can’t fix it, Mo. That’s the whole point. Only you can break the curse, and to do that you’ll have to tell the truth.”

  “I always tell the truth. Truth curse, remember?”

  “Oh puh-lease.” She rolls her eyes. “You lie all the time. I’ve known you long enough to know how Lucifer’s curse works, and I know you only have to tell the truth if someone asks you a pertinent question. I also know how much you hate the curse which is why I always try to be as ambiguous as possible.”

  I open my mouth to refute her claims when I realise, she’s right. Not just about Lucifer’s curse—I worked that trick out less than five minutes after he slapped me with it—but about her ambiguity. I can’t remember the last time she asked me something pertinent, well, besides the occasional, “Does my bum look big in these ass-less chaps?”

  And all because she knows how much I hate my curse?

  Wow. I’m… humbled? What does humble even feel like?

  All I know is I want to please my woman, and the urge to do just that is pushing me hard. But without a stiff dick for her to ride, I have to explore other options.

  Lifting her up and turning her around, I seat her back in my lap and tug her against my chest. Her skin is warm and soft, and she moans as she moulds herself to my large body. Her hair smells like a fresh water spring, the soft strands tickling my chest. Reaching for her breast with one hand and her pussy with the other, I slip two fingers inside her dripping cunt. Her small hand covers mine, encouraging me to delve deeper, thrust harder. Nuzzling my face into the crook of her neck, I kiss her hammering pulse, suck hard on her flesh and mark her as mine.

  “I’m sorry. I can’t give you what you want.”

  She seems to know I’m not talking about her pussy. Her voice is breathless, “What have you got to lose?”

  “You, Nadia. I can’t lose you.”

  Her hand reaches back for me, strokes my face. “You won’t lose me, Mo.”

  She sounds so certain, but I know better. There’s a reason I gave up trying to maintain long-term relationships with lovers. They always want what I can’t give them—monogamy, fidelity, to be my one and only.

  It never ends well.

  “You know who I am. You know what I am. I need sex to live, more sex than one lover can deliver. I can’t be faithful to you, not without sacrificing what little soul I have left.”

  She’s grinding down on my hand, moaning, so close to coming I can smell it in the air, feel it in the way her muscles quiver and clench. “I would never ask you to do that.”

  I whisper by her ear, “Then it’s settled. Lift the curse, Nadia.”

  “Lift it yourself,” she says, and then she screams in ecstasy as her pussy clamps down on my fingers and her whole body shakes in completion. Slumping against my chest, she pants as she tries to catch her breath, then slips from my lap and kneels between my legs. Taking my hand in hers, she lifts my pussy-soaked fingers to her mouth and sucks them one at a time between those pretty pink lips. “Three little words, Asmodeus,” she says between fingers. “That’s all it takes to lift your curse.”

  Watching her suck on my fingers, knowing she’s licking her own flavour from them, is driving me crazy. I want her. I want to bury my cock deep in her pussy and thrust my tongue deep down her throat. I want to shake off my human façade and take her as the demon she knows I am, big and bad and beautiful. I want to give her everything she wants, everything I am
, everything I can never be. My heart, that blackguard, skips a beat at the thought of having her at my side for all eternity.

  “Nadia.”

  My cock twitches.

  Her eyes flare wide and zero in on the action. “I saw that. Whatever you were just thinking, think it again,” she says and leans farther into the space between my thighs, inspecting my cock as it dangles freely.

  I swallow hard, excited, scared, aroused… but not enough.

  Would it really kill me to tell her I love her?

  Twitch.

  I know she deserves better, but what if I could make her happy?

  Twitch, twitch.

  I mean, it’s been over four hundred years and she hasn’t left me yet, right? Hasn’t demanded my fidelity, hasn’t asked me to be faithful. I’m not even sure she knows the meaning of the word “monogamy.” And even after all these years, she still surprises me, still excites me… still loves me.

  Me!

  The archdemon of lust, a prince of Hell, Asmodeus. I am sex and sin, lechery and desire. I am selfishness and wanton disregard for everyone’s feelings but my own.

  And hers.

  She is my constant, my northern star, my little slice of Heaven on Earth. She is home. She is my heart.

  Houston, we have lift-off.

  After three months of little more than a good-for-nothing wet noodle in my pants, it feels good to fist my hand around an iron-hard cock. Nadia wastes no time in leaning forward to take me into her mouth, and as I fist a hand in her hair, I groan my pleasure. Her tongue is so soft, her teeth sharp and her mouth wet and warm, but it’s not what I want.

  Not what I need.

  Easing her mouth off my cock, I bid her to stand and straddle me once more.

  She stands before me, hands on hips, defiant to the end. “Not until you say it.” When I look down at my erection and then back at her, my brow raised, my grin cocky and my hint obvious, she hugs her arms around her waist and drops her gaze. “Please don’t make me ask you.”

  So that’s what this stupid curse has all been about. She wasn’t jealous at all. She just wanted me to admit my love for her, and didn’t want to use my curse in a way she knows I despise, so she devised a way she knew I’d applaud.

  And it only took me three months to figure it out.

  I throw back my head and laugh at the absurdity of it all—me, the archdemon of lust, in love—then stand and throw off my robe, my façade and the last of my objections. If this crazy chick wants to shackle herself to me for all time and all that entails, who am I to say no?

  Standing before her in all my demonic glory, I brush a lock of hair from her face, stroke my fingers down her cheek, taste the truth on the tip of my tongue. “Nadia, my little minx, I love you.”

  No sooner do the words leave my mouth than I feel something shift inside me, as if the shackles imprisoning my schlong have fallen away, released the beast. And three long months of sexual frustration claw at me, desperate for satisfaction. Nadia throws her arms around my neck, her legs around my waist. “I love you, too.”

  I carry her to the bed, lay her down, and pin her hands above her head. She grins up at me and wiggles her enticing little body against mine. My balls draw up tight and my cock swells, ready to burst.

  “Three months, my love. That’s how long I’ve gone without sex. If you think you’re getting out of this bed anytime soon, you have another thing coming.”

  She parts her legs and tilts her pelvis, cradles my cock. “Bring it, big boy.”

  Fisting the base of my hard length, I tickle her clit with the rounded end of my dick, dip it down to her dripping cleft and then back to her clit again. Over and over until she’s begging me to fill her up, begging me to fuck her, begging me to show her with my body what I’ve already told her in words.

  I love her.

  “You’re killing me, Mo,” she says with a throaty groan. “You’re not the only one who’s gone three months without sex, you know?”

  She abstained while I suffered?

  “You really do love me, don’t you?”

  Before she can answer, I take her mouth, slide my tongue inside that moist heat and taste her, make her so dizzy with lust that I won’t be denied, and then I slide my cock inside her cunt in one smooth thrust. She’s hot and wet and tight, and I’m amazed I didn’t blow my load the moment I entered her, but somehow I withstand the blinding, vice-like pressure of her pussy.

  She mewls as I move inside her, as I slowly sink all the way into her. Too long my body has been denied the luxury of her silken heat, and I intend to take my time, savour every moment I’m inside her. Letting go of her wrists, I trail my fingertips down her arms, around the curve of her breast and down her side to lift her leg around my waist. I rock my hips and push deeper inside her, her back arches and she moans her pleasure. Her fingernails score my back and I revel in the pain, in her passion.

  I lock my gaze to hers and she doesn’t shy away. The fathomless black depths of my eyes make lesser beings weep, but not her. Not my lover. Not only does she stare boldly back at me, but she pulls me down for another kiss, zealous and possessive. Then with a strength someone her size should not possess, she has me on my back and is riding me hard, my cock hitting so deep inside her pussy she screams her release like a demon horde riding into battle.

  Barely does her orgasm subside before I lift her higher to sit on my face, urging her to ride my tongue as she rode my cock. She does. And it’s glorious. Her scent, her flavour, her juices coat her thighs, my lips, my chin. Her hands tunnel through my hair and hold me to her as she rides out another climax, as her sweet liquor runs over my tongue and down my throat.

  She tastes like fine wine, ambrosia. She’s better than fucking brandy.

  And I want more.

  I turn her around and thrust my hips toward her face.

  She grabs my cock in one hand, my balls in the other. “Wine, dine, and sixty-nine. And here, I forgot to bring snacks.”

  I smack her ass and grin. Cheeky bitch. “Shut up and suck.” And then I shove my face back in her snatch and go to town on her clit.

  It takes her a moment to find her rhythm but once she does… oh fuck! She’s an artist, her tongue the brush, my cock the canvas. But two can play at that game. Over and over I lave her pussy with my tongue, fuck her with my fingers, and probe that curvy ass. Again and again she screams her pleasure, again and again she comes and she comes.

  Flipping her over, I take her from behind, hard and fast. Then I curl her in my arms and make love to her, slowly, thoroughly, and with a depth of feeling I never knew I owned. And then I’m on top of her again, her legs over my shoulders, hands pinned above her head and I’m slamming my cock deep inside her. She feels so good, so hot and soft, so tight. My balls draw taut and I can’t hold back. I feel her body quiver, hear her quickness of breath, see the flush in her cheeks, the glaze of lust in her eyes. She’s screaming. She’s coming. And so am I.

  The room vibrates with my roar of completion.

  The smell of sex clings to our sweat slicked skin, surrounds us like fine perfume. I gather her close and stroke her hair, press a kiss to her forehead, and I know I made the right decision. This woman is mine. She’s been mine from the day I pulled her out of that stinking well, and she will be mine until the end of time.

  My little naiad.

  But….

  “I’m still hungry.”

  She rubs her face against the hard plane of my chest and yawns. “Then it’s a good thing I called ahead and asked Jonathon to prepare you a snack,” she said sleepily. “And by snack, of course, I mean orgy.”

  She sits up long enough to clap her hands loudly, the sound followed immediately by the doors being thrown open and a group of women, men and… is that a satyr? following my valet into the room.

  I’m about to open my mouth and give the sneaky bastard a piece of my mind when he has the audacity to wink at me. When Nadia drapes herself over me and snuggles against my side, her warm
breath brushing over my heated flesh and her contented sighs filling my heart with a long-forgotten joy, I cannot summon the will to punish him. I settle for shooting him a sour glare, then turn my attention to my meal.

  Clothes are quickly discarded and the wondrous sounds of fucking, of breathy moans and balls slapping supple thighs fills the air around me, permeates my very being until I am replete with sexual energy, until I’m bristling with power. Then I turn back to the goddess in my arms and watch as she dozes, hold her close and kiss her soft mouth.

  After endless millennia alone, a life filled with lust and obsession, I never thought I’d fall in love. But now I have, I know I will never let her go. Nadia is my heart. My clever, bold, unpredictable heart. My woman. Mine. And I am hers.

  Always.

  The End.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  A FEW YEARS AGO I scribbled down an idea for a number of quick and quirky erotic stories. It was nothing particularly grand or important, just something that tickled my fancy at the time. That idea sat on the shelf until it was rediscovered and turned into The Q Collection.

  A huge thanks to all the people who helped me make this project come to life. To the team at Hot Tree Editing for their help tidying up my weird writing style, and to Shea at Addendum Designs for the lickable cover!

  A special thank you to my beta-readers, to Bec McMaster for saying, “You had me at erectile dysfunction.” And to Kylie Griffin whom I’m fairly certain spends most of her time rolling her eyes at my strange ideas. I really couldn’t do this without you. An extra special thank you goes out to Efthalia Pegios for the Greek translation of Nadia’s curse. And to my family for all their encouragement, their love and understanding, thank you for being you and for putting up with me being me, especially my husband, Dan, who supplies me with writing fuel (Tim Tams), and when needed, resets my equilibrium by making me laugh (usually at him, not with him).