The Walls of Jericho

Hopeful

Channing’s POV

Jericho’s words process, but through a soupy fog of the big time surreals. 

Hazy. 

Kind of lightheaded. 

Frankly, stupid except for the sudden ruthless focus on hunting up some dinner for her. That leaves me with a brain still wholly committed to savoring the waning seconds of this unbelievable afterglow and not much else.

Despite her resistance, I stroke the hot satiny flesh between her thighs with one finger, gliding through our gorgeously glistening mingled slickness coating it. Attempting to will away my stirring arousal, I study her face, devouring the expression of pure bliss that suffuses it.

I have to confess, the first time with her, even blundering into it like a mindless beast and brutally tearing into her virgin body, had still been hot and intoxicatingly enjoyable. At least it was once I got her past that whole causing-her-extreme-pain-and-nearly-making-her-pass-out thing, i***t that I am.

She’s always turned me on—something about the way she moves, nimble and fast yet still sinewy and flexible—stirs the hunter’s blood coursing through my veins. There’s a perfect simplicity and directness to her. No makeup, or very little. Her straight silken hair worn in an easy braid or a ponytail, and with that freckle-studded velvet complexion, setting off the most incredible amber eyes probably in all existence. She’s the addictive equivalent of heroin to my wolf DNA.

And seeing her naked is icing on the cake. The mouthwatering spicy-sweet scent of her when she's fully exposed buries its unrelenting barbs so deeply that I can taste her and can’t get enough of tasting her at the same time. Those perfect perky little breasts that fit just right in the cup of my palm with their berry-topped crests so I can stimulate and dominate her simultaneously are absolutely riveting. So improbable beneath that ratty red sweatshirt she loves to wear.

So hot.

And the sounds she makes—those ear-candy moans and whimpers—make me feel like a Wile E. Coyote super-genius colossus with a Midas touch. I dip my head and suck the dusty rose tip of her breast in my mouth, just because I can and it gives me another shot of high. I revel in the glorious sensation of s****l prowess and mastery.

With Jericho, I’m a literal f*****g boss.

A boss with a mate whose delectable little body that I want to ravage until neither of us can move craves sustenance, my worthless brain reminds, re-exerting its control over the brainless head between my legs.

Nourishment. Fuel. Food.

My own stomach gives a hungry rumble as if to reinforce the command. Jericho elbows me in the ribs to second it.

“Okay, okay,” I grouse. “I’m going. I should make you eat it off my body.”

“Then don’t forget the knife and fork,” she retorts. There’s no disguising that, right now, she relishes the thought of poking me with sharp objects.

I can’t help my laugh at her spiny remark but resist the urge to ravish her again as punishment. Rolling out of bed, I kick around in the scattered ruins of our clothes, looking for my jeans. As I pull them on commando, I plant a hard kiss on her lips.

‘If you’re alpha, I’m alpha’, she’d said. A matched pair. An equal to an Alpha.

Jesus, she’s sexy as hell.

Less than a minute and a pad across the cold ugly tile floor in the hallway, and I’m in the kitchen preparing two heaping plates of tender spaghetti and meatballs drenched in spicy marinara and topped with a generous sprinkling of hand-grated actual parmesan cheese, not that cellulose based trash Jericho buys at Mrs. Yun’s market.

It’s as I’m pouring a too-large portion of the wine for Jericho and I to share—the final step on my road to boudoir greatness—that's when Damien makes his appearance at the kitchen island.

When I turn around, he’s snaked the liberal plate I’d fixed for myself and started eating.

“What the hell, Damien? That was mine.”

With an insolent jerk of his chin towards the other slightly smaller portion I’d prepared for Jericho, he says around his swallowing. “There’s another one right there.”

“For Jericho.”

He rolls his eyes, then mocks, “For Jericho,” in an uncomfortably high falsetto. “Seriously, do some thinking with the head on your shoulders instead of the one in your pants, Chan. And whatever you’re doing to her, you best figure out how to moderate it because she’s creating power ebbs and surges through the electrical grid. From the air, that has to look like a neon sign flashing: ‘Hey dragon! Technomage right here’.”

There’s a narcissistic part of me that would like to chalk that up to my Casanova love-making skills.

The tingling sting still smarting just under my ribs from where she zapped the crap out of me a few minutes ago in combination with the background laugh track from I Love Lucy in the other room just isn’t having any of it. Humbled, I stare at him across the kitchen island as I fix another plate. “Exactly how do you propose I manage that?”

“Not my problem,” he says sourly, then shovels another bite of food into his mouth.

A musical minor fall— ‘wah-wah-wah’— from the living room and both Ferdi and Mr. Adriani’s booming laughter coupled with Damien’s pensive defiance remind me that sometimes being Alpha takes a metric crapton of patience. “Really? Because I’m pretty sure being Surveillance and Security Chief of Avernus makes it one-hundred percent your problem.”

“Then find someone else to do it.” He shoves the half-eaten plate away and slides off the barstool, headed towards the magnetic door.

His spine stiffens in stuttering jerks, but he freezes in place. For a couple seconds, he tries to resist the alpha compulsion, then he returns to his seat. He fixes me with a bitter angry glare across the island. “Pulling the alpha card is a jerk move, Channing,” he bites out through a clenched jaw.

Well, he’s not wrong. It’s an exceptionally rotten thing to do to a friend too. So is walking off to sulk when you're ticked at someone and leaving them to wonder what they've done I slide his unfinished plate back towards him. Still, sometimes being in charge means treading the high road. “Eat. You look like a pool noodle. And tell me what this is, Damien. Why are you so upset?”

“I’m not upset.”

The way he toys with a meatball on his fork, pushing it around in the pool of thick marinara at the center of his plate says otherwise. I light the burner under the marinara sauce to warm it up again and prepare to wait him out.

It doesn’t take long. It never does.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do, Channing.” Damien drops the fork on his plate with a clatter. “Ferdi’s sitting on his butt with his new best bud and demanding that I build him a flame retardant tracker that can survive thermite level heat inside a damn dragon. You want me to come up with some new stealth technology to conceal your girlfriend’s wildly out-of-control superpowers while you’re banging her brains out of her pretty ears. I don’t know how to do either. I’m over my head and I feel like a fool.”

He’s not the only one.

I’m not prepared for the savage possessive rage that sweeps over me at the way he calls Jericho ‘pretty’. He and Ferdi are my best friends—have been for years and long before I landed my incompetent ass in charge of Avernus—but, of the two, Damien’s been in the picture way longer. Since we were kids. The thought of him coveting what I’ve claimed as mine now absolutely infuriates the alpha wolf in me. It’s only by supreme effort of the rational side of my brain that I gain some empathy for him.

I wasn’t the only one of our trio who was crushing on Jericho.

The selfish fire in my belly sears like the surface of the sun remembering all the garbage heap meals at Esteban’s over the years when I could barely get her to meet my eyes. All the times she’d bent to his eye level to meet his or rested a hand on Damien’s shoulder and smiled at him while she took our orders. Intelligent as she is and with all the things they have in common, he seems like the natural choice.

Instead, she’s bedding down with the brainless beefcake. Shacking up with the wolf with the power.

I genuinely hope there's more to it for her.

If it had been me in his shoes, right now, I’d be curled on the floor in a blubbering ball. Shows you how tough some wolves are.

“You’re not a fool, Damien.” Turning off the burner under the marinara, I grab a couple thick slices of buttered garlic bread from the pan on the stove and dump them on the edge of his plate. “You’re hungry and you’re tired and you’ve been expected to do a lot. Too much.”

The mousy-brown eyes that meet mine from behind his spectacles are filled with all of the above—exhaustion, hunger and frustration. They’re also tinged heavily with sudden relief.

“Pick your team. The best you can get, from anywhere in Avernus. I’ll give the orders to get them here to help you immediately.” I smile, seeing him relax. “In the meantime, I’ll deal with Jericho. I’ll figure out how to rein her in. You eat. Get some rest. If you’re in need of a few laughs, it sounds like Mr. Adriani’s binging I Love Lucy. You’ve done good, Damien. Half the dragon’s furnaces are out. That bought us time to prepare for the next round.”

It sort of pains me, but I slide the over-generous glass of red wine to him. What the hell. Jericho said she didn’t care for it anyway, right? Obviously, he can use it. “Go on.”

He takes a huge draught out of the glass first, then grabs it and his plate and oozes off the barstool. As I’m pouring the remainder of the wine into another glass, I hear Ferdi address him from the other room.

“Hey Damien. Here. Take a seat. This episode's hysterical."

I finish dishing a hot plate of food for Jericho, adding an extra scoop of marinara onto mine to warm it up, then top both with a slab of garlic bread and tuck forks on the side of the plates. Balancing both plates and the glass of wine on one arm, I make my way back to the bedroom. 

As I’m turning the doorknob with my free hand, I realize that Channing the Alpha s***h i***t has just committed to something I have absolutely no idea how to do.

“I thought you weren’t coming back,” Jericho scolds from the bed.

Closing the door behind me, I turn and nearly drop everything all over the floor. She’s still laying on the bed, stretched out on her back horizontally along the pillows with her head half hanging off the side in the perfect position for giving oral. Recognizing I’m in danger of making a whopping mess, I grab the more precariously balanced plate with my free hand and try to keep the unadulterated lust out of my eyes as I ease my way to the bed.

There’s no resisting though. When I unburden my hands by setting the food and wine on the bedside table, I position my crotch at her head and palm the collar of my t-shirt she’s now wearing at the rounded neck. I have to admit, I like the way it feels holding her delectable little body down. 

I let my hand slide, down down down, between those deliciously concealed breasts, over the flat of her belly and the slippery roughness of her pubic hair, then curl my fingers under the t-shirt’s hem. Her long slim legs stretch out, bare and smooth, the rest of the way across the big bed and she parts them voluntarily to let me tease the warm wet petals between.

“Mmmm.”

It’s a breathy groan and my member strains painfully against the button fly of my jeans hearing it. Rapidly growing hard, I focus myself on her, coddling and teasing, as the electric hum of her magic burns through me. First one, then a second finger slicks inside her without the slightest resistance. My body lurches, tensing fiercely, feeling how ready she is, and there’s no stopping the anguished groan as my fingers pump more briskly.

“Channing.” Boldly, as if she’s the mightiest, most fearless person in the world, her slender fingers close around my wrist, stopping my determined and eager rubbing. “Food first.”

Forcing myself back from the brink of savagery, I scissor a few more deep exploratory strokes, frustrated when I’m unable to find her sensitive little override button inside her warm channel. 

Damn. 

I ease my fingers out of her, ferally sucking the stimulating heady taste of us off them in my mouth. Bending over her, I press a hard kiss through the t-shirt into the soft thatch of hair just above her honeypot. “I’ll be right back,” I promise.

I dearly hope I'm right.

When I straighten, Jericho rolls to her belly. Seeing the rounded chub of her cheeks at the bottom peeking out from under the t-shirt’s hem enticingly, I almost maul her that instant. Then, as if she’s out to push the limits of my fraying self-control, she pulls her knees under her, arching that bubble bottom up into the air, and then back-crawls with her hands until she’s kneeling.

“Jesus, Jericho.” Light-headed, I take a seat bedside and pass her plate to her. “You’re going to give me an aneurysm.”

“What a way to go though, right?” Her wicked little giggle isn’t lost on me. In fact, if it’s possible, I adore her more. There will never be enough minutes with her to satisfy me.

“You got me there.” I grab the wine glass and take a sip of liquid life support. “Damien says you’re causing spikes and surges in the city’s energy grid.”

She twirls her fork in her pasta, spooling a delicate bite. “Uh-huh. So?”

Setting the wine aside, I shift on the bed so I can watch her eat. Like everything else about her, I love her unaffected enjoyment and appreciation of a good meal, especially one I’ve fixed. A blissful expression spreads over her face as she delicately halves a bite-sized meatball skewered on her fork with her teeth and I almost forget what I was doing as she sets the rest down on her plate before her. My organ gives another interested kick in my jeans, imagining my head occupying the space between her knees.

Focus.

No, dipshit. Somewhere besides that alluring face-sized gap in her thighs. Definitely revisiting this thought later though.

I reach for my plate. “It’s a beacon to the dragon. Isn’t there some way you can make it more subtle? Or mask it entirely?”

She rolls onto one hip, considering as she chews, then points to the wine glass and brushes a couple soft impatient snaps with her fingers, asking for it. I pass it to her.

“Um, thanks. In case you missed it, I’ve never really used my ability that way before. Never really used it at all. At least not—.” She drops that thought and takes a sip from the glass. Her brows quirk up in approval, then she hands the glass back to me. “Goes down better with the food.”

“I think I told you before you were doing it wrong.” 

My eyes narrow, watching her closely. There’s something she’s mentally debating, something she’s not committed to revealing. It doesn’t sit well with my alpha side, especially not when I’ve got both her and Avernus’ location to safeguard. I lift my chin her direction. “What are you thinking?” I demand.

“Shouldn’t be hard to draw more smoothly,” she replies. “Assuming I need to at all. That last thing was for your benefit more than anything.”

I flash her a droll grin. “You wanted me to see it coming? That’s harsh. You're terrible on my poor fragile ego.”

She gives the cutest little one-shouldered shrug and flick of one brow combo that makes me want to eat her up.

“Wicked woman.”

“Seems like—,” Jericho turns so she can see both bedside tables, then points a finger at one, “—I ought to be able to control it.”

The lamp nearest me dims slowly and smoothly to the point of going out while the glow from the one on the opposite side never wavers. A second later, both lamps burn brightly and she repeats the process, dimming the opposite lamp the second try.

“Pretty good. Not sure how to tell if it’s visible elsewhere in the grid.” As soon as my attention turns to her again, I can tell there’s more in her head. “What is it?”

“Just—that’s the electrical.” Her graceful brows draw together as she looks for the way to explain. “There are other sources of energy.”

“What sources?”

When Jericho lifts her hands, parallel like she did when she zapped Damien's brain in the kitchen, I can feel the color drain out of my face. “Your eyes are glowing. What do you intend to do?”

Immediately, she closes them, placing a barrier between us. “Well, there’s that source for starters.”

Even though her eyes are closed, she points unerringly towards my heart. I confess, it’s seriously unnerving. “Jericho?” It’s half-question, half-warning.

Her eyes open and she looks a little hurt. Positioning her hands parallel again, she says, “Just let me show you,” and crawls closer on her knees. “I’m not going to hurt you. Close your eyes,” she directs, lightly resting her delicate hands over my ears.

No sooner than I do, there’s light on the backs of my eyelids, yellow-white and pulsing in lacy interconnected rivulets. It takes a few seconds for me to realize what I’m seeing are electrical signals leaping around inside Jericho’s brain.

“Holy crap,” I breathe. 

As I tip my head, moving my temporary Jericho-vision lower along her body, I realize how root-like or river-like we’re designed. Pinprick nerves on the surface of her skin feed to tiny nerves that feed to slightly larger and larger ones until they reach her spine, which looks like an electrical superhighway leading to and from her bright, busily processing brain.

Guess now I know how the word ‘bright’ became synonymous with intelligent.

Seen as a whole this way, she glows like an angel. “Jesus. You’re beautiful inside and out.”

My brows flick up instantly when the yellow nerve impulses tinge faintly pink at my words. The rhythmic electrical discharge of the muscles comprising her heart kicks up a noticeable notch, and between her hips, a bunch of spindly delicate nerves that weren’t really firing before light up an appealing rosy color.

I know without opening my eyes that she’s aroused, both upstairs, where her brain is firing at twice the rate it was before, and downstairs, where the maddeningly delectable scent of female desire stirs.

As soon as my hand connects with her thigh, everything is on—inside her, inside me—just all the way on. The electrical surge kicks up even higher when she leans forward and plants a kiss on my lips. I devour her soft moan when her mouth opens to me.

Jesus. Like she needed anything else to make her addictive. Yeah, this is happening.

Stepwise, the process is slow, especially with Jericho’s hands attached to either side of my head. Moving half-eaten plates aside. Situating my body on the bed and hers straddling overtop of me. Inching her up my chest until that sweet cleft between her legs is right where I can kiss it.

That whole system of nerves inside her becomes shockingly pink when my tongue darts out in search of that delicate hooded bud, pulsing and throbbing as I lick and tease the tender petals. It flashes brightly as I wiggle my tongue into the sweet crevices and lap at the sensitive peaks, relentlessly pursuing her supreme pleasure.

All of my energies concentrate when my lips close around the plumped rosy nub. Obediently, she’s kept her hands on my head and it further excites me having those visual signals that assure me of her enjoyment. My ego soars triumphantly when her fingers tangle in my hair and she shudders feeling the suction of my mouth.

Even eyes closed, I can see when the pleasure rushes towards her and the pressure mounts, then tips into a tingling release, enveloping her in a bright red flare. The most powerful sensations fade much more quickly than I’d hope, but a milder pleasure lingers coursing through her body.

When she slips to my side, I can’t wait to cuddle her. To kiss and hold her soft pliable body. 

There’s only one way I want her to source that energy. Any other parasitic consideration is unconscionable. 

I wonder exactly how far she could take it if she can see and feel the chemielectric energy in a body. Could she stop a heart? Could she cause a brain to die? Could she take on too much and overwhelm her own body?

A cold clear voice inside my head assures me that I don’t really want to know, I just want to keep her safely with me.

“You’re pretty intense, Jericho,” I whisper.

I feel the faint shake of her head on my chest and she snuggles closer. “What I am is kind of scared.”

Exhaling a soft sigh, I summon up the alpha side. “It’s going to be okay.”

“How can you possibly know that?”

“I just do.”

At least I hope I do.