by Viola Grace
Chapter Four
Serene had to wait for him to recover strength and get to his feet. “So, since you are the puppet master. Where do I go next?”
He cocked his head. “You could have done me in there.”
She snorted. “Why would I do that? Really, it isn’t logical that I would smash your adorable face in, just because I want to scream and be home watching a movie right now.”
He smiled. “Adorable?”
She put her hand up. “Zip whatever you were going to say. Last ring. Where is it, and how do I get out of here?”
“You will have to have me accompany you on this quest, I am afraid. It isn’t too difficult, but the landscape is still developing.”
“Ah, so not stable.”
“No. You will need me for this. There are a few cryptic hints, like quenching the unquenchable fire.” He shrugged. It was strange how he had gone from menacing to just being Boss.
She sighed. “Which way do we go, and where is my horse?”
He grinned, closed his helmet, and then her horse was standing there.
“Aw, fuck.” She pulled herself astride him again and then groused, “To think I spent an entire day with my thighs wrapped around you, and you never said a word.”
The horse shuddered, and he tried to change shapes, but she was riding him, and he couldn’t shift. She really had read the story. He took off at a full gallop; she leaned down and held on. It seemed he had something he wanted to get out of his system.
She was sore and exhausted five hours later. She swayed on his back, but she was too tired to keep fighting. This body didn’t have a lot of stamina, and now that she thought about it, outlasting the demon queen was the best recommendation for battling her in the final levels.
Serene felt the world go grey and her grip relax. She slid off the horse and tried to aim for an area with minimal rocks.
She held up her hands when she approached the ground, and her face was an inch from a large and jagged stone. She was simply too tired to do more than keep herself from impact.
The Boss caught her, turned her over into his arms, and kissed her softly, murmuring his apologies over and over.
She focused on reclaiming some energy, and then, she slapped him, hard.
Serene pushed at him, but he held her tight. “You need to rest. I forgot that we programmed that into the game.”
“Why the hell would you do that to someone?”
He shrugged. “We had to give folks a chance to beat her. She is too strong when fully armed and powered up.”
“Jackass.” She fought to sit up, but he didn’t let her go.
He walked to the side of the road, and he waved his hand. A campsite emerged, but it was very Arabian Nights. A huge tent with billowing silk panels glowed from within.
She now understood why the demon queen was always depicted eating something—critical low blood sugar.
“This is a particularly mean thing to do to a woman, mid-battle.”
He smiled. “We will extend her activity period, but a lot of gamers are going to die.”
She shrugged. “They mess with the queen... if they die, they die.”
He settled her on a wide bed with plush pillows, and he removed his helmet.
She leaned back on her elbows. “Isn’t that thing hot?”
He grinned. “I don’t feel it. In here, it is a part of me.”
She winced. “That must be awkward.”
“Hah. Can I offer you some food?”
She looked over at the array of treats and snacks, all with what promised to have a calorie load that her body would appreciate.
“Um, yes, please.”
He picked up something that looked like a marshmallow stuffed with fruit. “Open up.”
“I can feed myself.” She reached for it and blinked at how hard her hand was shaking.
“Open up.” He held the marshmallow to her lips.
She leaned forward and took it daintily between her teeth. She groaned happily and finished the sweet, tangy, and slightly salty bite.
He picked up another and held it out to her. She leaned forward and nearly bit his fingers before she sat back.
She covered her mouth with her hand. “Why are you being nice to me?”
He stared at her in surprise. “Because you are mine.”
“What?” She tried to get up, but her legs wouldn’t hold her, so she thudded back onto her butt.
He chuckled. “There never seemed a good time to bring it up.”
“So, you are actually my Boss, like my Boss, Boss.”
He nodded slowly.
“Ohmygod.” She clapped her hands over her face. Her face was hot, and she felt the blush moving across her skin.
He slowly pulled her hands down. “You do that a lot at your desk. Usually right after I leave.”
She fought him and tried to cover her face. He pulled her hands down and held them.
“It’s fine. I was very flattered and extremely pleased.” He kept his face straight.
“When I wake from this hallucination, I am going to be mortified.” She paused. “I wonder if someone hit me in the head with one of those foam weapons?”
He chuckled. “You will not remember much of this when you return.”
She stared at him. “What?”
“Time compression will put you back five minutes after you were pulled in. Your mind will not remember any details of your time here. As soon as you have the second ring, you are back at the conference.”
Serene blinked. “What do I have to do?”
“You have to find the ring. That’s all.”
She growled. “But where is it? Is there a clue?”
“Eat.” He let go of her hands, and he picked up another fruit and sugar treat.
She pressed her lips together and shook her head. The Boss held it there and slid his free hand up her inner thigh.
Her lips parted in shock, and in went the treat. She closed her mouth and studiously didn’t look him in the eyes while she chewed. She may have had the dessert in her mouth, but his hand was an inch from the edge of her armored panties.
He took one of the items and ate it himself. It looked like some kind of candied apricot.
She swallowed and glanced at him. “So, why the sweets?”
He chuckled. “I have seen the boxes of candy that disappear in your office, never to be seen again. They will help you recover.”
She blushed again. “I just like sweets when I forget to go out for lunch.”
“You almost never go out for lunch.” He picked another one and held it in front of her. His fingers tightened on her thigh.
She opened obediently and ate something made of pastry, nuts, and filled with melted chocolate. She stifled the moan but couldn’t hide the shiver.
He smiled. “So, chocolate is the winner.”
She blushed hotly. She didn’t want to tell him that it was the butter and honey. Baklava. That piece had been baklava. She loved baklava.
She swallowed and sighed. She licked her lips to catch every bit of the honey.
“So, not chocolate.” He made a low growl and flexed his fingers on her skin.
She was wary. “I like chocolate.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I think I need to investigate.”
She barely had time to process the warning before his lips were firmly on hers. She could taste the item he had eaten, and it was honeyed apricot. She leaned up and tangled her tongue with his.
Her small response lit a fire in him. He leaned over her and held her head carefully as his tongue dueled with hers.
She wrapped her arms around his neck; the armor on him was a deterrent to getting a good grip on him. Serene rocked against him, trying to pull him into better contact, but he held back.
He lifted his head and smiled. “You like honey. You really like kissing.”
She covered her face with her hands.
; He chuckled. Her reaction was proof enough.
He sat her up and pulled her hands down, finally releasing her inner thigh.
Her hands were lowered, and she was sitting like a sulking child. It wasn’t a great look, but she got nervous when he moved the tray closer and broke one of the items in half. He put it between his teeth, and she knew what he was going to request before she even opened her mouth to take the honey and pastry from him. He kept his head close to hers, and when she finished her snack, she licked his lips for every trace. That led to a kiss, and that led to another sweet. It was not the worst cycle to be caught in.
Serene looked at the Boss, and she sighed. “How can I get a clue out of you?”
He looked back at her from the doorway. “Ask me anything. Not related to your quest.”
She got off the bed and walked toward the doorway, and she sat next to him. “Do you have a girlfriend?”
“In the real world? Not yet. I am hopeful, though.”
She blushed but nodded. “So why are we in here?”
“Ah. Good question. We are in an interdimensional space. We are in the place between where those with skills can reshape our reality. This is where I test my games.”
“Oh. Right. What are you?”
He chuckled. “I am part of an old group of males who gradually dwindled in power. Some societies called us gods, some called us demons, but we survived through careful cultivation of the humans in our vicinity. Even slight worship keeps us alive.”
“So, you are really in favour of being popular.”
“It does help, yes.”
“Right. I am a very bad choice for that kind of thing. I don’t have a lot of friends, and folks don’t like me much. The friends I do have are few and far between. You need someone with people skills. I wish you luck in your search.” She smiled. It was a neat solution.
He chuckled. “I don’t need you to have people skills. I have more than enough for both of us.”
She looked up and watched the stars. “Why are you pursuing me?”
The Boss looked at her in surprise. “You are smart, caring, stunning, and I don’t get a back spasm leaning in to kiss you.”
“So, I am situated at a convenient height. Right.” She sighed and wrapped her arms around her knees.
He didn’t comment.
She threw out another question. “Could you just give me the ring?”
He smiled slightly. “Yes.”
“What?”
“I answered your question. I could give you the ring.”
She closed her shocked mouth with a snap. “Will you give me the ring?”
The Boss looked at her, and he smiled slowly. “Convince me that you want it.”
“What?”
He leaned back on his hands and stretched out his legs. “Convince me.”
“Oh, fuck.”
Chapter Five
Serene looked at his benign expression and the heavily armored body. He wasn’t going to feel much, so she looked at him, and then, she moved swiftly so she wouldn’t change her mind.
When she was kneeling on his thighs, she was face to face with him. “I really want that ring.”
She wrapped her hands around his head and kissed him slowly and carefully at first, getting more enthusiastic as he participated.
His hands cupped the back of her thighs, and one of them slid up to cup her butt. The armored underwear peeled away at his touch.
She focused on the kiss, but he was focused on the slick welcome that her body was projecting. He touched her carefully and groaned when two fingers were able to slide into her with very little resistance.
She whimpered against his mouth, and her body locked up as his attentions became too intense for her. She squeaked as her body gripped his fingers and held them with slow palpations.
His kiss slowed, and he withdrew his fingers, tugging her panties back into place. She blinked, slightly dazed. She tried to sit up and pretend that nothing had happened.
He murmured. “Check your finger.”
She looked to her left hand, and the gold band was in place. She had it. There was a strange energy in her body, and it wasn’t from aftershocks. The energy was coming from the ring and reverberating with the right one.
“What is going on?”
He chuckled. “You have completed your quest. If you would like, I can show you how to return to where I snagged you.”
She braced her hands on his shoulders and slowly climbed off him. When she was standing, he was still taller than in real life. She was very near his own height.
She shivered and stepped back. “Um, please show me how to get back.”
He smiled and nodded, putting his helmet on with the visor closed. The demonic face that looked out at her had surprisingly friendly eyes. He walked her outside the tent and into a clearing under the starlit sky.
He wrapped an arm around her waist and said, “Just focus on creating a portal.”
She thought of the conference, the booth, and even the crowd that had formed around it. The focus was split. She was also thinking of being on the Boss’s lap again.
To her horror, there were two portals that wavered into being, and both contained images. She heard the man behind her laugh, and with her mortification, she narrowed the choice to the conference.
“Now what?”
She barely finished her sentence when he folded her left hand against her belly, carried her toward the portal, and unfurled her in a dance move so that the end of the spin took her through the doorway. The light of the convention area made her squint, but it was the demonic visage of his visor coming out behind her that made folk truly gasp. He kissed her left hand and retreated back into the rift before it closed.
Serene caught her reflection in one of the screens. Her hair was up, and her makeup was back.
She looked at the crowd and cleared her throat, fanning herself with her right hand. “Pardon. Embor-al just had a few things he needed to... discuss.”
The crowd laughed, and several of the crew were looking at her curiously. The move had not been planned, and no one knew how it had been pulled off.
She scowled and gave one-word answers for the rest of the night.
One of the paladins gave her a ride home at the end of the night. He had a van that could accommodate her artfully arranged hair. “Thanks, Greg.”
“How did you manage this morning?”
“I took a bus and got there two hours early. Now it is going to take me just as long to pry the makeup off.”
He grinned. “I could help.”
She froze and looked at his golden good looks and startling blue eyes. “Um, no. I have got this. Thanks for the offer.”
He inclined his head. “Perhaps if you need me again, we could go out for drinks after the con.”
She nodded. “Perhaps.” She got out of the van and was grabbing her things when a low and sleek sports car pulled up. When the driver started to get out of the car, she whispered, “No fucking way.”
The butterflies in her stomach started humming with excitement.
Greg got out and came around as she got everything into her hands. “Who is that?”
She inhaled and exhaled sharply. “That is the Boss. Thanks again for the ride, Greg.”
She turned and headed toward her home, and the Boss reached around and took the bags from her hands. He was so careful to not tangle her fingers that part of her ached at the sweetness.
When he had her bags in hand, he walked to her door and waited. She held the cloak around her and scurried to the door, unlocking it. It was a good thing that she had pulled her keys out while in the van.
“You didn’t drive?”
She shook her head. “Too nervous. I took public transport early this morning.”
“I hear that you did very well. But that there was a disturbance of some kind.”
His amused voice was sparking a memory, but she couldn’t q
uite grasp it. She turned to him and asked. “Why are you here, Boss?”
He raised his brows. “Well, I hemmed you into this event, so I thought I should check on you.”
She scowled. “Right. It has nothing to do with hauling me into an interdimensional space.”
He froze. “What do you mean?”
In front of him, she pulled her rings off, but the two on her ring fingers refused her fingers. “These. These little buggers. They are grafted onto my hands now. How is that possible?”
He paused. “You weren’t supposed to notice them.”
She scowled. “Right. Of course. More of that interdimensional magic.” She clenched her fist, and a light halo of blue-white energy surrounded her hand. “Oh. That’s new.”
The Boss appeared stunned. “That shouldn’t have happened.”
She opened her hand, and the energy disappeared. “Huh. That was neat.”
He looked around and sat on her couch. He looked shocked.
“Um, I am going to go and change. You look like you need to think about something. I will be out after I peel my skin off.”
Serene left him alone to his thoughts and went to the bedroom, closing the frosted glass doors that led to her living room. The first thing was to remove the rest of the jewellery. After that, she carefully removed the costume and got into a set of pyjamas and her favourite robe. She used facial wipes for the outer layer and then got her remover cream and started to work in circles, loosening up all of the pigment and congratulating herself on remembering a base layer. It took ten minutes to scrub the pigment off, and she was still missing bits around her hairline. The braiding on her hair would come out while she watched a movie. There was nothing tricky about it.
She opened the door to her living room, and he was still there, but his focus was completely on her.
“You look...” He looked surprised.
“Super pink. I know. I scrubbed a little hard.” She flopped to the couch and then went groping for her phone in one of the bags.
“What are you doing?” He frowned and leaned forward.
“Summoning my phone and then summoning dinner. I like the modern age. So close to magic that you can’t tell the difference.”
