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Versus

Page 10

by Nick Freo


  The cold began to sink in. I watched my hands as the globes of light began to rise from between my fingers and from the back of my hand. I could see the inside of my leg—the bones, the muscles, the veins, the cartilage, and the nerves—and the dark, rotting magic that had seeped into them. I let out a slow breath and the globes of light floated down into my leg and joined my flesh. The lights spread out over the rotting magic like snow before the image of the inside of my leg vanished. I began to feel the floor underneath my feet once again.

  I raised my hands. I twitched a toe. I swung my leg.

  “Amazing!” Cara gushed. She hugged me tightly, kissed my cheek, and hugged me again. “You’re a natural! This is the path you always should have taken.”

  “I’m sure the Dead Man’s magic was already fading,” Lilah sulked. “I’m going to get some food. I still haven’t had any with this human soul.”

  She opened the front door. Her stride seemed a little less assertive as she left.

  “I have to go as well,” Mr. Gray said. “Congratulations, Mr. Bishop. You’re a phenomenon.”

  He left through the door. Cara closed the doors and turned back around to face me. There was a faint blush in her cheeks.

  “I guess…we should find a room,” she said. “I don’t…I’m not like Lilah. A bedroom is preferable, but if you like unusual spots to consummate, I’m okay with that too.”

  “I don’t have a preference either,” I said, standing up. God, how I missed standing up. My legs felt better than ever, though that could have been lust urging me forward.

  “There’s a master bedroom on the first floor,” she said, walking over to me. Her hand lingered on my chest for a second. She smiled up at me, sweet and unsure. Without Lilah here as competition, the bravado had been replaced by something more vulnerable. “I think it’s nice. It has this huge comforter that looks cozy and everything is white except the pillows. They’re red.”

  The words rushed out of her mouth like she thought I was going to interrupt her, but she was so excited about the idea of this room, I would have let her go on for another minute. And her desire for my approval was alluring after I had no control over the last few hours.

  “I’d love to see the room,” I said.

  “Are you sure?” she asked. “It’s just down the hall, three rooms to the left, but if you want to check out the other rooms, there might be a better one.”

  I swooped down, scooping her into my arms. Maybe being an angel made her lighter, or maybe she was just smaller than I thought, but she felt perfect in my arms. She wrapped her arms around my neck and kissed my cheek. I carried her down the hallway and found the room she had been talking about.

  The room reminded me of a white piece of paper with an outline of the furniture drawn in. The red pillows created such a stark contrast that they could have been flames burning through the paper room.

  I laid her on the bed. Her fingertips brushing against the inside of my elbow before she grabbed onto my forearm. She looked up at me, her blue eyes brighter in this white room. She gave me a shy smile. I leaned down again, kissing her. Her mouth was receptive, her lips brushing against mine with the frustration that was leaking out of me.

  My hands avoided the burn mark that Lilah had left on her ribs as they snuck down to her hips. I pulled her to the edge of the bed before I prodded her knees apart and pushed my body in between them. When I kissed her again, it wasn’t a battle like it was with Lilah. She kissed me, but every kiss was a question that I answered, insistent and firm.

  I slipped my hands under her dress, but it was tight on her and barely budged. She puts her hand on my shoulder before turning around and getting onto her hands and knees. With her ass right in front of me—not quite as big as Lilah’s, but toned—I ran my hands over it, admiring perfection for existing. My hand bumped up against something sharp. I ran my finger over the material, finding a zipper hidden under the fabric.

  I kissed above the zipper. I tugged on it slowly. As it reached the end, I watched the dress slide away from her. I dragged my hand down her spine again and felt her shiver under me. All she had left was a pair of boy shorts with pink hearts all over the fabric. She spun back around, looking up at me. Her breasts were smaller than Lilah’s too, but they were perfect—hand-size. In the same way that Lilah was overwhelming in her attitude and her breasts, Cara was contained, bordering on cute.

  I slid off my jacket, dropping it beside the bed. She grabbed onto the front of my shirt, pulling me closer. As she kissed me, her hand slipped under my shirt, her fingers sliding up my abdomen and chest. The sound of our breath, sharp but shallow, filled the room. I pulled away from her, taking off my shirt and throwing it near my feet. When I reached toward her, she met me halfway, her cheek soft against my hand. I slid my hand down to her collarbone, tracing the edge of it before letting it fall to her breasts. Her breathing quickened, her chest rising and falling underneath my hand, and it was impossible to think she was any more or any less than human.

  I moved up onto the bed with her, my knees straddling her right thigh. She held onto my arm as she lowered herself onto the bed. Her delicate face surrounded by the thick material of the comforter made her seem smaller than she already was. I felt like a god above her, capable of annihilation or resurrection.

  I slid her underwear down, rolling it off her legs and tossing it on the floor. I fell over her again, our lips nudging and grazing against each other. I lifted my hips as her hands fumbled with the button on my jeans. My erection strained right under where her fingers were working, but her persistence was adorable. As she began to get flustered, her chin tucked down to check what she was doing wrong, I caressed her cheek. She looked up at me, her face so full of adoration that my hand reached down and I unbuttoned my own jeans. I helped her tug them down and yanked them off my ankles. I dropped them on the edge of the bed.

  Her hands reached for the waistband of my boxer briefs. She tugged them down slowly as if she was afraid of hurting me. As her hand brushed against my cock to get the waistband past my erection, it sent a shock through me. It was also the first time her hands felt warm.

  I stood back up so she could finish taking my jeans off. Her cheek brushed against my cock as she pulled the boxer briefs to my knees. My need for her switched from craving to famished desperation. I jerked the boxer briefs off. I threw myself on her like a soldier falling on a grenade. My cock rubbed against her entrance, her wetness coating it. I pressed my mouth against the curve of her neck, leaving my mark. As my cock pressed near her entrance, her thighs spread wider and her hips swayed up towards me.

  She was so soft and supple, I couldn’t imagine her being tight or giving any friction, but as I pushed into her, I found that I could be blissfully wrong. Easing my way in was a test of self-restraint. When I was fully buried inside her, I gyrated against her, our hips bumping against each other. I knew I’d hit the right spot when her body jolted. When I began thrusting again, she was still tight, but it wasn’t as constricting.

  Her back arched every time I was fully inside her and I brushed against her clit. Every movement we made was a moment of worship. Her hands crept up onto my back, her nails sinking in and her mouth forming my name. I rose up, still thrusting inside her, so I could cup her breasts, squeezing them before bending down to kiss the soft skin between her breasts. It was a slow paradise.

  As the pressure swelled inside me, I began driving straight into her, her body sliding up toward the front of the bed. She was making small, helpless noises, her back arched enough that I could slide my arms underneath her back. I pressed her tightly against me and began kissing her, harsh and urgent. Her head was tipped back against the bed, her breasts held up toward my face like an offering. I took it, my mouth enveloping her small nipple. My tongue slid around them, tasting the sweetness of her skin.

  Her body tensed against mine, her nails cutting into my skin. Her pussy rapidly squeezed against my cock as she let out a cry that would have been compatible in a h
allelujah chorus. It was enough to send me over the edge, rapture sending every part of my body to heaven.

  I expected the pleasure to quickly fade and for exhaustion to settle in, but I found myself lingering over Cara as her delirium slowly faded into a smile. Sweat glistened on her face.

  “Aren’t you something else?” she murmured. And, I supposed, we both knew that I was.

  Chapter 15

  Waking up in a pure white room was temporarily blinding. I blinked several times, staring up at a chandelier that had stained glass hanging from it. I had never turned the lights on.

  Cara’s head rested on my arm and her hand was on my ribs. Her hair entangled around us and in between us. Her lips were slightly parted, her breath coming out in slight hitches.

  I watched her for a few seconds longer before my stomach began to rumble. Her eyes flickered open. She smiled at me, stretching so far that her hands touched the red pillows.

  “Good morning,” she said. Her arms slid back down the bed and her hands rested on my abdomen. “Did you sleep well?”

  “I slept great,” I said. “We should add our time together to my nightly regimen.”

  She grinned. “I was good?”

  “You were great. Divine.”

  I kissed the tip of her nose. She grinned. I brushed my fingertips against her cheek. Her skin was softer than anything I’d ever felt. She closed her eyes, still smiling.

  When I dropped my hand to the space between us, she raised herself up onto her elbow.

  “Was your stomach growling before?” she asked.

  “Yeah. It’s been a while since we ate. Are you hungry?”

  She nodded. I started gathering our clothes. I tossed her clothes to her. As I zipped up my jeans, my ring caught against the button. When I looked down at it, it wasn’t that old asphalt gray anymore—it had faded into the same neutral gray it had been when my father had given it to me.

  Cara placed her hand over the skin that Lilah had burned on her ribs. I watch the pale blue globes float before sinking into her skin. When she removed her hand, her skin was perfectly clear. She pulled on her boy shorts and slid her arms through her dress.

  “Could you zip this up?” she asked. I bent down, fumbling with the zipper. I pulled it tight to get the zipper to close around her ass. Once it reached past her hips, the zipper came up smoothly, and I was ready to tear it off her again.

  Food. I had to focus on food.

  “Mr. Gray said there’s only MREs,” I said. “We’ll have to find somewhere nearby for food. He said the grocery store was east of here.”

  “I’d love cantaloupe,” she said, grabbing me and kissing me. “Mmm. You don’t smell so bad anymore.”

  “What?”

  She laughed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. You had this stink of demonflesh before. It wasn’t overpowering—it was just like…an aftertaste.”

  “Demonflesh? I smelled like a demon? What does a demon even smell like?”

  “I’m not sure how to explain it. It’s…it smells like demonflesh. Your normal musk mixed with the demonflesh was still pretty nice, but demonflesh by itself is usually gross.”

  I thought of Lilah’s body heat and the way her scent rippled over me, sweet with that sharp spice that seemed impossible to replicate with any perfume or lotion.

  “Does it smell like spicy cinnamon?”

  “What? No. Why would it smell like spicy cinnamon?”

  I shrugged. I could imagine Lilah laughing her ass off about the conversation, taunting Cara about how pervasive her presence could be.

  Cara smoothed her dress. “I don’t compete, Kyle.”

  “I know. There’s nothing—”

  “I don’t compete,” she repeated, looking up at me. “I win.”

  She offered her hand, the conceit washing away as she smiled. “Let’s go”

  “Wait,” I said. I flicked the light switch on. The chandelier lit up, the lightbulb casting the stained-glass colors all over the walls.

  “Oh my god.” Cara hugged me. “It’s just like the northern lights. Can you imagine if it was like this last night? Last night was amazing, but it would have been so surreal falling asleep to this.”

  She stared up at the lights, the colors gliding over her face. Her sense of wonder was such a breath of fresh air, I could have existed in this moment forever and been satisfied.

  My stomach growled again.

  She laughed. “Alright, let’s go get some food.”

  She tugged me to the hallway. The faint scent of smoke rattled through me. I pushed back the memories of my apartment, burning away into ash, as I ran down the stairs. I followed the smell and the cloudy wisps of smoke that trailed along the ceiling until I reached the kitchen.

  The kitchen must have been remodeled in recent years because it had stainless steel appliances, recessed lighting over a kitchen island, mahogany cabinets that stretched up to the ceiling, porcelain tile flooring, and granite countertops. It was worthy of a magazine—excluding the smoke—but the design of the kitchen wasn’t what Cara or I focused on.

  Lilah stood in front of the stove, waving away billows of smoke with an antique cookbook and wearing nothing but an apron. Her ass cheeks shimmied with her every movement.

  Cara’s eyes burned into the side of my head. I sidled up closer to the stove, staring straight ahead to avoid a Biblical war from igniting in my father’s kitchen. The pan on the stove had four charred rectangles on it.

  “Making bacon?” I asked. Lilah spun around, nearly dropping the cookbook.

  “I thought adding some hellfire would make it cook faster. I’m nearly never wrong, so when I am wrong, it tends to be a whole burn-your-house-down affair.” She smiled at me, tugging on the apron. “Have you had bacon before? I’ve had it before, but as a human—there’s something illicit about it. It tastes delicious, but it also tastes like I’m doing something very, very wrong. It’s like having sex in the church bathroom.”

  I grabbed the pan handle and tossed the burned bacon into the sink. I ran water over them until they stopped smoldering. “Yeah, that illicit feeling is the cholesterol clogging up your arteries.”

  As I returned the pan to the stove, I nearly bumped into Lilah. Her hand snaked up to my shoulder and down my arm, guiding my hand toward her ass. My fingertips brushed against the smooth skin. My hand traveled farther down, embracing the way flesh indented under any pressure.

  Lilah jerked away from me. Heat rose up into my face before I saw Cara with a tight grip on the apron’s tied knot, keeping Lilah an inch away from me. Lilah whipped her arm at Cara, but Cara easily dodged it.

  “What’d you do, Lilah?” Cara asked, taking a few steps back like nothing had happened. “Did you buy the whole grocery store?”

  I shifted my gaze away from Lilah’s ass, noticing for the first time a line of groceries bags on the counter.

  “I went a little insane,” Lilah confessed, following my gaze. “I went to this old diner and tried all these foods, so I had to get them again, but when I was picking them, I saw all these other things. Did you know they sell donuts at the grocery store?”

  “Yeah, they’ve done that for a while. Did you buy any?”

  “I didn’t buy anything. I just snatched some plastic bags, put the food inside them, and nobody questioned me.” She shrugged. “Winner, winner, chicken dinner—which I also grabbed. But, yeah, there are donuts here somewhere. The bakery gave it to me in a paper bag, so if you can find a paper bag, there are donuts in it.”

  I searched through the bags until I found one with a paper bag. I opened it to find it crammed full of donuts—chocolate-frosted, glazed, powdered sugar, cruller, Boston cream, jelly, an eclair, and a bear claw. As Lilah scraped the burned remains of her bacon, I offered the bag to Cara. She shook her head, sitting on a stool that had been tucked under the kitchen island. She ran her fingers through her hair.

  “Everything is so different with a human soul,” she remarked. “I thought humans were
miserable because your experiences weren’t good enough to compensate for missing our powers and knowledge. But human experience is stunning. All these deep emotions add texture to everything. Even colors seem brighter and more gorgeous. Weren’t the pillows in the bedroom strangely bright? Didn’t they make you feel sensuous?”

  She turned to me as I took a bite out of the bear claw. I chewed for several seconds. Lilah played with the straps on the apron, but I could feel her waiting for my answer.

  “They seemed a normal red to me,” I managed to get out. “I could be used to, uh, human experiences, though.”

  “The comforter was magical too. It was softer, but there was another quality to it—I felt like I was weightless. Well, I did until you were on top of me and you were grinding—”

  “Okay,” Lilah cut in. “We get it. The soul-marriage was consummated. Honestly, it couldn’t have been that great if you’re busy chatting about the pillows and the comforter.”

  “Oh, it was the best,” Cara said. She looked over at me, smiling. Regretfully, I had finished my donut. “Wasn’t it the best, Kyle?”

  “It was good,” I said, rubbing the sugar coating off of my fingertips. The air kept switching between Death Valley and Antarctica.

  “You don’t need to lie because she’s thin-skinned, Kyle,” Lilah said.

  Cara laughed. “That’s funny because I was going to say the same thing about you.”

  “Hey.” I fumbled with my ring. I lifted it to show them, nearly flipping everyone off, which seemed like a decent option too. “So, I have a theory.”

  “If it’s about gravity, they already invented that one,” Lilah sniped.

  “No, about the ring.”

  They both looked over at me, the hot and freezing tension in the room diminishing into less of an apocalypse-level extreme and more into a broken-thermostat level.

  “The first time it changed, it was when I married my soul to Lilah. It became darker,” I said. “The second time that I noticed it was when I decided to go with Lilah and Donnie to meet Stephos, right after the fight with the angels, and I told Cara to go back home. It became darker again.”

 

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