“I’m not a human man, Hostess—”
Her arousal dampened. “Ugh. Autumn, please.”
“Autumn,” he corrected himself hurriedly. “I’m sorry—Autumn. Autumn.” Each iteration of her name was more intense, bordering on desperate.
“I like when you say my name,” she told him.
“I know. I can feel it. I was trying to tell you, I’m not a human man. Your touches don’t inflame me the way human men feel desire. I draw my pleasure from yours. Whatever gives you the greatest pleasure will give me the greatest pleasure.”
“Really?” Feeling bold, Autumn reached out so that she was holding both his horns. “So, if I used your horns to steer you while you—” Her words died on a surge of arousal.
“Yes,” Irdu said hoarsely. “Yes, Autumn. Please, use me, take what you need.”
Her grip tightened on his horns as she rocked her sensitized sex against his torso. Each press sent a lovely bolt of pleasure through her. And with each bolt of pleasure, Irdu groaned and writhed beneath her, his fingers and claws digging harder into her hips.
“Come here,” Irdu urged, pulling her hips towards his face. “Let me taste you.”
“How do you know exactly what I want?” Autumn gasped, sliding forward.
“I can’t read your mind, if that’s what you’re asking.” Irdu took one hand from her hips, reaching over to hook a claw in her panties. “But I can feel what arouses you, and I can guess what would make it even better.” He slid her panties to the side, and his obsidian gaze fixed on her bared flesh with undisguised hunger. “Come here, Autumn,” he growled.
Still gripping his horns, she inched forward until she was kneeling on either side of his head, her shins pressed against his shoulders. Irdu lifted his head and traced his tongue along the seam of her sex. Fierce pleasure lanced through her, nearly debilitating in its intensity. They both groaned, curling towards each other like matching bookends.
“Good?” Irdu asked, panting.
She grinned unsteadily at him. “You know it is.”
“Then come back here.” With one hand, he hoisted her forward until she was seated fully on his face. His mouth opened and his tongue stroked into her, plunging into her core.
“Ah! Irdu!” She pulled on his horns, rolling her hips to ride his mouth. She felt the press of his fangs, and instead of alarming her, it only made her hotter, needier. His liquid black eyes watched her intently as he devoured her. He growled his pleasure against her wet, swollen flesh. His claws bit into her skin, a delicious pain.
She gasped and sobbed with each devouring stroke of his tongue, gripping his horns to steer his head exactly where she wanted him, mercilessly riding his hungry, pleasing mouth. Her thighs clamped tight on his head as the pleasure sharpened and accelerated, coursing through her body, pulling every muscle tight. She met his gaze, black and inhuman, but stark with the same desperate need that she felt—and she exploded.
Unaware of anything but the mindless pleasure wracking her body, she arched and bucked, rocked by wave after wave of obliterating ecstasy. It went on forever, a helpless, electric dance. She heard drumbeats and saw firelight flickering on cave walls. She felt the pull of the moon, heard the hum of the stars. She turned into wind and whispered away into the night. Endless darkness surrounded her.
In slow degrees, she slipped back into her body. First she felt her heart pounding, her blood pulsing. Then her lungs, gusting like bellows. Then her skin, damp with sweat, tingling with pleasured aftershocks. Then the warm mass of the body beneath hers, all hard flesh and hot skin.
Irdu, she mouthed on a voiceless breath. She realized she was still sitting on his face and crawled clumsily off of him, dropping beside him on the bed.
“Sorry,” she said breathlessly. “I hope I didn’t suffocate you.”
Irdu said nothing. She turned to look at him, and found him staring dazedly at the ceiling, his hands still frozen into the positions they’d been in—holding her hips with one and her panties aside with the other. His eyes were no longer solid black, but dancing with electric blue. It was like watching the aurora borealis through two small windows.
“Irdu?”
“Give me a second,” he said hoarsely, hands dropping limply to his chest.
Autumn grinned and huddled against him, stroking a hand over the downy fur on his chest. She glanced down his body. Despite his apparent gratification, he was soft.
“Do you get hard?” she asked.
“Only if you need me to,” he said, breathing a little more steadily now.
“Do you ejaculate?”
“No. In a dream state, I can give the illusion of it, if you enjoy that feeling.”
She shook her head and laid her head on his shoulder, still stroking his chest. “I don’t want an illusion.”
“I can’t believe you—” he hauled in an unsteady breath. “I’ve never—” He dragged a hand over his face, still breathing jaggedly.
She hid her smile by pressing her face against him. “I was your first, huh?”
“Yes,” he said, sounding stunned. “You’re the first hostess who’s ever come because of me—the real me.”
It occurred to Autumn that, while she was cuddled up against Irdu, he was simply laying passively beside her. He was an incubus, she reminded herself, a sex demon. Not a romance demon—not a cuddle demon. Self-conscious, she eased away from him.
“So, now what? Do you usually just leave once you get what you need?” she asked.
“Oh.” Irdu sat up. The lovely aurora effect faded from his eyes until they were back to being electric-blue snake eyes. He looked away from her. “Yes, of course. I can—”
“No, wait.” Autumn lunged, catching his arm before he could teleport back to Hell or whatever he was planning. “I didn’t mean I wanted you to leave. I just didn’t—” she floundered for words. “I don’t know. This is kind of a strange situation for me.”
“And for me,” Irdu assured her. “Would you like me to stay?”
“If you don’t want to, I don’t want to make you.”
“Would you like me to stay until you fall asleep?”
Autumn looked down at her hands. Yes. When she looked up, Irdu had closed the distance between them, peering intently at her.
“Tell me what you want, Hostess.”
“Autumn!” she growled.
“Autumn. Autumn. Autumn,” he repeated to himself. He looked back at her. “Tell me what you want, Autumn. I exist for your pleasure.”
“That’s—wow. That’s a lot of pressure.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah.”
He regarded her for a moment. “Most would see it as having a lot of power. You can use me however you wish.”
Autumn grimaced. “I don’t want power over you. I want you to feel as good as you make me feel.”
Irdu’s smile began small, incredulous. He gazed at her, his eyes softening. His smile grew slowly, revealing those monstrous fangs in all their glory. She remembered the press of them against her most intimate flesh and flushed with delicious heat. But after the orgasm she’d just had, she was as wrung out as an old rag. She still hadn’t totally gotten her breath back.
“I do feel as good as you, Autumn. Tell me what would please you best. Should I stay, or go?”
“Stay, please? Just until I fall asleep?”
His smile turned gentle. “I can do that. In the chair?” He nodded at the chair in which he’d waited for her to fall asleep.
“No, stay in bed. Would you hold me?” she asked, her entire face going crimson. She’d never had to ask a man to cuddle with her after sex.
“You want to be held by me?” He glanced down at his demon body.
“Is that okay?”
“Of course.” Irdu slid closer to her, easing onto his side. Autumn curled against him, pulling the blanket over them both. His arm curved around her back, holding her snugly against him. “Is this alright?” he asked.
“That’s good,”
she murmured, feeling the drugging pull of overdue sleep.
“You know, I’ve never done this before, either.”
“Cuddled?”
“That. And I’ve never stayed the night with a hostess.”
Autumn slid an arm across his broad torso, holding tight to him. “Do you like it?” she asked.
“It’s…very nice.” He sounded uncertain, a little bemused.
“Good,” she murmured, slipping inexorably into unconsciousness.
3
Saturday morning dawned gray and cold, but Autumn woke feeling golden and warm. She stretched lazily, blinking and yawning and looking around her dingy, spider-infested studio with a less critical eye. She sat up, snugging herself in her blankets, feeling happy and sated, but with no idea why.
As her brain booted up into full wakefulness, last night returned to her in a surge. With a gasp, she threw her blankets off and leaped out of the bed. Last night could not have been real. But it felt real. It felt like a memory, not a dream. She stared at the bed, as if she could divine meaning from the rumpled sheets and smushed pillows.
Demons aren’t real. Awkward, generous sex demons are definitely not real. And yet…
Autumn went to the bathroom, intending to wash her face and brush her teeth, hoping the cleansing might clear her mind a bit. But as she passed the mirror above her sink, a flash of color caught her eye. She froze, staring at her reflection. High on her hip, livid red claw marks scored her skin. Deep red points where they’d punctured her, and long sweeping lines where they’d dragged over her skin
Awed, she touched them gingerly, and was reward with a pulse of tenderness. Rough, wounded skin abraded her fingertips.
Real.
Last night was real.
He was real.
Did that mean he was coming back tonight? He’d said he needed to get an orgasm from her every night. But he’d also told her that once he fulfilled her needs, he’d move on to someone else. Autumn’s heart dropped into her stomach. Last night hadn’t just met her needs—he’d exceeded them.
No! she thought plaintively. She wanted to see him again. Not just because of the mind-blowing orgasm he’d given her—the likes of which she’d never experienced before—but also because he was kind of funny, and sweet, and she wanted to know more about his weird life.
She usually spent Saturday running errands, cleaning her tiny apartment, and then vegetating in front of her television. Sometimes she went out with the two of the remaining friends she had—the ones who hadn’t decided that a relationship with Dylan was more profitable than pesky things like having principles. But those two friends, Marcus and Liz, happened to be married to each other, and had recently had a baby. They had more important things to do than entertain a miserable shut-in.
Three times, Autumn checked the time of the sunset, then glanced impatiently at the clock. Would Irdu appear as soon as the sun went down? Would he appear at all? What if, after delivering an orgasm that still had her questioning reality, he’d served out his term with her, and had moved on?
The sun set at precisely 4:24 p.m. Autumn sat at the end of her bed. She’d been trying to distract herself by watching TV, but couldn’t focus on the screen. Eventually, she’d given up, turning the TV off and sitting in nervous silence as the sun dipped lower towards the horizon. When the last few rays of sunlight faded from the sky, Autumn turned away from her window, breathlessly waiting.
But he didn’t show.
Autumn waited. An hour passed, and still no Irdu. Another hour passed, and another, and another. When midnight rolled around, Autumn had to accept that she wasn’t going to see him again.
It wasn’t fair to feel abandoned—after all, he had no choice in the matter. But regardless, she felt an ache in her chest not terribly unlike the ache she felt when she’d discovered Dylan’s infidelity. She crawled into bed, pulled the covers over her head, and closed her eyes against the self-pitying tears.
“Do you accept the covenant of fornication?”
Autumn blinked. “What’s this?”
The handsome Arab street thief frowned, puzzled. Behind him, the gold-capped domes of the palace gleamed in the moonlight. The two of them were alone, high above the city in an empty minaret. Autumn was still wearing the shackles from the slave-auction he’d rescued her from. This was the part where she was meant to demonstrate her gratitude, but she found herself feeling more angry than anything.
“What do you mean?” he asked. “You built this fantasy yourself. It’s evolved quite a bit over the last twenty years, but I believe it started when you were young, and you saw—”
“I thought you weren’t coming back!” To her mortification, she felt hot tears welling in her eyes.
“You—what?” The street thief’s features flickered, warm brown skin giving way to sigil-marked blue. “Why would you think that?”
“Because, you said—” Her throat was impossibly tight. She couldn’t speak at all. She pulled her legs to her chest and buried her face against her knees. A moment later, she felt a light touch on her back.
She looked up, and they were back in her room, on her bed. Irdu looked like he was supposed to, his electric blue eyes peering fretfully into hers.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what I did wrong.” His touch on her back was hesitant, his elbow crooked awkwardly, as if he weren’t certain how to comfort someone. “I didn’t detect any emotional negativity attached to that fantasy. I can try something else. What would you like?”
Autumn wiped her cheeks. “I told you yesterday, I don’t want an illusion.”
Irdu frowned at her. “I don’t understand. Yesterday was unusual, but surely you don’t want—”
“Yes,” she cut him off. “That’s what I want. I told you—I already know what you look like. The illusions feel wrong.”
“You want…this?” He gestured to himself skeptically.
Clearly words weren’t getting through to him. Autumn threw her arms around his neck. He stiffened in surprise, pulling back from her, but she held on and pressed a kiss to his lips. She felt his fangs against her mouth. Warmth kindled low in her belly.
Irdu pulled back from her, wide-eyed. Those narrow, snake-like pupils searched her face. “Really?” he asked
Autumn nodded. She eased against him until she was in his lap, every inch of her body pressed against his. She could feel his muscular heat through her thin cotton nightshirt, feel the hard press of his chest against the soft weight of her sensitive breasts. Arousal simmered gently through her. Irdu shuddered, and his pupils dilated until the whole of his eyes were black. Those fathomless black depths fixed on her mouth. He leaned into her—
“Where were you?” she asked softly.
“What?”
“The sun went down a little before four-thirty. Why didn’t you come to me?”
Irdu stared at her. The black receded from his eyes until the blue irises were back. Narrow elliptical pupils looked into hers. “I was waiting for you to fall asleep.”
“Tomorrow, you can come here right away. I mean, if you want to.”
“You would want me here that soon?”
“Yes.”
Irdu was quiet, thinking. After a moment’s consideration, he nodded. “You’d prefer to get it out the way, I suppose. That’s reasonable. I should have asked. But I never would have been able to guess that you’d want to do this outside of the dream state again. Perhaps if I’d known that—”
“We don’t have to ‘get it out of the way.’ You could just... hang out.”
“Hang out?” he repeated incredulously.
Autumn felt heat crawling up the back of her neck. “Sorry. You don’t have to. I just thought maybe you’d—”
Irdu leaned forward, silencing her with the softest of kisses. There was no heat, no sensuality behind it. It was a gentle touch of innocent affection. “You are the most unusual hostess I’ve ever had.”
“Well, you’re the most unusual lover I’ve ever had.”
“Um, so, are you… ‘hungry,’ or whatever you call it? I don’t want you to be uncomfortable. We can—”
“Don’t worry yourself over that. I don’t feel hunger. I won’t feel any lack until I’m recalled to the Underworld. Passing through the portal will disincorporate me if I haven’t harvested enough energy.”
“Why go back, then?”
“I have no choice.”
“Are you a prisoner?”
He didn’t answer.
Autumn pulled back from their embrace to look at him. “Are you?”
He wouldn’t meet her eyes. “In a manner of speaking.”
“Is it possible to escape?”
His gaze flicked to hers. “No,” he said. But Autumn hadn’t missed the briefest hesitation before he answered. He was lying to her for some reason.
For now, she decided not to press it. “Well, if you want to just relax for a little bit instead of being my on-demand sex dispenser, we could watch TV. I’m sort of addicted to this really bad sci-fi show. It’s terrible, but I can’t stop watching it. I need somebody else to watch it so they can agree with me about how terrible it is.”
Irdu had an odd look on his face. “I’ve seen quite a lot of television in my time, but I never intentionally watched something I didn’t enjoy.”
“Oh, well, we can do something else.” She tried to think of an alternative that would appeal to him. “We could play cards?” Autumn was acutely aware that her own pathetic loneliness was driving her to force Irdu into a friendship that he may not actually want. But she was too needy to stop herself. And Irdu had told her that he didn’t have anything to do after he was done with her, so maybe he wouldn’t mind so much.
He was watching her now, that odd expression still on his face. She couldn’t read him—that expression could be anything from pity, to amusement, to disdain.
“…or not. If you just want to—”
Irdu pulled away from her, and her heart sank into her stomach. “Go on then,” he said, gesturing towards the TV. “Show me your terrible television program.”
Demon Lover Page 3
