To End the Rapture

by Parker,Lori

When I come back out of the bathroom, Todd is waiting for me in my usual spot behind the bar.

  “Want to tell me what that was about?” He nods at me. I know he’s talking about the note his dad left me. I flushed it after I read it.

  “Your dad was giving me advice on my demons.” The way I say it is casual, but we both know it’s very serious.

  “I’m sorry,” he says as he puts a hand on my shoulder for comfort. My chest heaves as I suck in a deep breath.

  “It’s ok. I’ll get through this.”

  Todd just gives my shoulder a squeeze.

  Kade must have demon hunter sixth sense or something, because before the witching hour, he shows up with his group of friends. He doesn’t even look at me. Instead he goes to Lindsay to get his drink order.

  I wish I could say that this didn’t hurt my feelings, but it does. He’s doing like I asked, and leaving me alone. It’s only been a few hours, but the fact that he has pointedly not even glanced in my direction lets me know that he got my message loud and clear.

  Somewhere deep where I shoved it, I’m disappointed. I thought that Kade would fight me on this one, but he’s being resolute. Still, I watch him.

  It becomes obvious Kade is working tonight and working hard, when I watch two guys go into the bathroom, followed by the demon. His eyes clash with mine and he gives me a wicked, sexy smile.

  I don’t know why that spurs me into action, but it does. Rage pumps through my blood in sudden hot spurts, and I throw my towel back onto the rack under the bar before I take off after them.

  The two guys are deep into each other’s throats when I push through the men’s bathroom door. It’s not even locked. Kade watches with a smug smile on his face.

  “Jesus!” I almost scream at him. I grab his arm and turn him to face me. “What the actual fuck?”

  I recognize the two guys. They’re both college students that come into the bar all the time. From what I can tell they’re friends and that’s all.

  “Working right now, love.” Kade gestures at the two. They pay us no attention.

  “I can see that.” I cross my arms across my chest and glare at Kade.

  He lifts an eyebrow at me. “What?”

  “You know you’re probably ruining their friendship right now?”

  A twinge flicks my heart. It’s loneliness and sympathy. I’ve lost every single friend I’ve ever made.

  “I’m not just a lust demon. I’m THE Lust Demon. I have to work. So either join us, or get out.”

  The make out scene in front of us has progressed to a hotter and heavier stage, and to my surprise, Kade moves next to the guys. I gulp back my desire as I watch Kade join them.

  I can’t watch this. I can’t stop it either, not without hurting someone physically, not without risking my job. And like every other encounter I’ve had with Kade, I turn to leave.

  “Tyler,” Kade’s voice is throaty, heady with lust. I turn back and look at him, fully in the embrace of the two men. “You know that I couldn’t do this if the feelings and desires weren’t already there. They’ll be fine.”

  I think I detect a hint of pleading in his voice.

  “No. They won’t.”

  I’ve seen enough of the two boys to know that they won’t ever be the same after this, and I’m almost positive that their encounter with the demon won’t have a good outcome. My stomach churns, as I think about the fallout of this encounter, as I think about every encounter Kade has probably ever had with a person.

  Sympathy for a demon is something I thought I would never have, but I do.

  When I look at Kade one last time before walking out, it’s with sadness in my eyes. He’s ruined so many lives. As far as I know he’s never directly killed anyone, but his actions have caused pain, and destruction and sometimes even death for his entire existence.

  It’s not unlike my own life.

  ****

  My eyes are open before the lock on my door even slides back.

  I know it’s Kade without even having to see him. He’s the only person in this godforsaken town that I’ve let into my world. The only one to see my hiding spot.

  He’s in my room now, standing over my bed. Watching me. I have my back to him, and I don’t turn to him. This is us. Fighting ourselves for each other. The bed shifts as he sits down next to me. His fingertips stroke the bare skin of my arm, and I still don’t turn.

  It takes a minute before I feel it, but when I do, I turn and face him.

  Joy. Pure joy radiates off of the demon in waves.

  “What the fuck are you doing in my home?” I punch his arm, and he jumps up from the bed. The smile that had been plastered on his face falls away.

  “I’m sorry, I just couldn’t wait to tell you.” He’s pacing my room now.

  I sigh. “Don’t sneak into girl’s rooms at night, this isn’t a teenage romance. It’s fucking creepy.”

  “I know, I know. I’m seriously sorry.”

  “What are you so worked up about? What’s the news?”

  “I think I found something that can help us.”

  “Really?” I squeal and shoot out of bed. I hug him.

  I’m so fucking excited. It’s been months since the first night we met, and I was at a dead end.

  “Yeah, thing is, it’s not here.”

  “Okay, well let’s go get it.”

  “It’s in Mexico.”

  “Oh.” I can’t afford to just skip down to Mexico, but pride stops me from coming out and saying that.

  “Yeah.”

  “Any way you can bring it back here?” I ask him.

  “Not without breaking a bunch of laws and probably getting arrested. Kidnapping isn’t really my strong suit.”

  “So it’s a person?” I ask, curious. Why doesn’t he just go to this person and have them take care of his problem.

  “Yeah, and there is no way she’s going to help a demon. We’re going to visit a witch named Maria Isabela.”

  “So it’s not really a help to us at all,” I say, defeat coating my soul.

  “She’ll help you.”

  He approaches me and takes my shoulders. I’m staring into the eyes of a demon and I almost convince myself that, for a moment, I can see his soul. But that’s just the desire pooling in my stomach at his proximity.

  “She’ll help you” he repeats, “because you’re human.”

  His voice cracks and he turns away. I grab his chin and turn his face toward mine again. I look into his eyes deeply. Searching for humanity, and I see it.

  I think.

  “She’ll help us,” he reiterates.

  And I kiss him.

  I kiss him with everything I have, and everything I want. I kiss him because I want to, not because he’s manipulating me. And not because I’m haunted by the ghost of my dead lover. I kiss him, because I’m a girl, and at that moment, he was just a boy.

  Kade’s hold on me tightens and he deepens our kiss. His lips are soft, and hard. His kisses alternate between feather-light and crushing, and I fall into him. Like any girl would. We fall into my bed. And then we fall into each other.

  The bed breaks our fall, and Kade takes his time. His long fingers slide over the skin of my arms, and neck. He scatters kisses down to my collarbone. I gasp when he lightly bites my nipple through my tank top. Pleasure-coated pain almost overloads my senses and my hands begin to shake as I pull Kade up to meet my mouth. I kiss him deeply.

  I need him to be all over me, I need him to be Lust, not an attentive lover right now. The care that he’s pouring on me, that’s coming out his eyes, is undoing me. More than his kisses, more than his fingers trailing the line of my leg. Reaching, stroking, higher, and higher, and higher.

  A sharp breath slips out of my throat when his fingers brush my sex. I’ve been with more than my fair share of guys, but no one other than Jake has ever taken the time to love me. Not the way that Kade is right now.

  His fingers slide up my boy shorts. Then they’re in me, and I stop. I ju
st freeze, because the fire in his eyes when he flexes his fingers is so intense that I’m getting burned alive. My toes curl as he curves his fingers, and I break contact with him as my eyes roll back from pleasure.

  “Jesus,” I breathe into his shoulder, when he finally lets up. I bite his shoulder to keep from crying out when he moves his fingers to my clit. His answering groan is so fucking hot and my desire kicks up a notch.

  “I’m not Jesus, babe. You’re going to be screaming my name, or you need to be quiet.”

  He’s begun his decadent descent down my body again. His hands slip under my shirt and pull it up. My back arches with him, and he kisses my nipples. His cool breath on the wet skin pimples my flesh. His fingers are still working me into a frenzy, and when he bites my nipple again, I cry out. It’s not his name though, and he squeezes my nipple in his teeth tighter. The pain is so intense in contrast to the pleasure, I can’t tell the difference between the two. And I don’t want to.

  “Kade…”

  His name is a leaf drifting on the wind. It’s soft, and beautiful. It’s need.

  He continues to caress my body with his lips and, when he reaches my shorts, he pulls his fingers out of me. The loss is sudden, and I can’t help the whimper that leaves my lips.

  Kade glides both hands up my hips, rolling my underwear down my legs. I quickly kick them off my feet. Our eyes meet. The look he gives me before he moves down between my legs is hungry, greedy.

  He’s Lust. It makes me feel beautiful.

  He kisses the lips of my sex lightly, and I buck my hips into his mouth.

  “Uh, uh, uh, stop being impatient.”

  He completely removes his body from mine, and strips naked I throw my head back onto the bed in frustration. He’s so close to fulfilling my nightly fantasies, that I could cry. Actual tears roll out of my eyes from the overwhelming urge to come, it’s taken over my body.

  I don’t even realize that I’m rubbing my own thighs, until my own fingers meet my sex, and part it.

  “Jesus,” Kade echoes.

  “Uh, uh, uh. The only name you’ll be saying tonight is ‘Tyler’,” I say as I wrap my feet around his body and try to draw him back over me.

  He obliges, his teeth meet my eager fingers, and then replace them. Then it’s his tongue, and he begins stroking me again. My hands grip his hair for dear life as he brings me to the brink, and beyond. And then again.

  His head is in the cradle of my thighs, and they are shaking from the intense waves of pleasure rolling through my body. Kade just laughs into my pussy at the shaking.

  My hearing is the first thing to return when I start to come back down from coming, and I instantly hear two things. My neighbor beating around his apartment, very upset at all the noise. The second I thing I hear is Bear beating at my bedroom door.

  It’s not until a third sound overcomes those two that I feel at peace. Kade’s got me wrapped in his arms now, and I can hear his heart thundering. It matches mine. It matches mine. And I think, for maybe a minute, that he’s not so bad, not so different than me.

  It's my turn to make Kade say my name. I’m still wired surprisingly. My kisses start off light, soft, a mirror of his own teasing. I don’t have it in me to tease him as long as he teased me though.

  I make my way down the hard planes of his body, and admire the smoothness of his skin. It’s so unlike mine. I’ve never been with another person who didn’t have at least some scars.

  He’s still heavily aroused. There was never any doubt in my mind that a lust demon would be anything less than perfection in the penis department, and Kade doesn’t disappoint. His dick is perfect. Long, but not too long. Thick, but not too thick.

  I’ve never thought about the male anatomy in depth before, but now, looking at Kade, I see the beauty in the male form. Anyone who says men don’t have clean lines and smoothness, have never seen Kade naked. And that’s a damn shame for them.

  “You keep looking at me like that, and I’m gonna come all over your beautiful face before you even touch me again,” Kade whispers at me.

  I blush all over. I’d completely forgotten he was here as I studied his body. Which is weird. His skin is soft and smooth. Salt and Kade flood my mouth as I take him into my mouth. When he gasps out my name, I lose it.

  “I can’t wait any longer.” I breathe.

  I glide back over his body, and position myself over him. When we finally meet for the first time, it’s amazing. A little too much, a slice of pain, that makes it all the more perfect. This is pain I want to feel. This is pain I’ve earned. This is pleasure that I need. And I’m taking it. All of it.

  My rhythm is slow, and steady. A heartbeat. I want this to last. I lay my head down on his chest and just move. Every breath we take sends more sensations into my body. Our hands are all over each other. My hands are in his hair, my fingernails are carving his skin, my teeth are on his chest.

  “Tyler,” Kade whispers, “I need more.” His voice is urgent, like he’s losing oxygen.

  I recognize the feeling, because I feel it too. He flips me over to my back and drives into me, lifting up at the end of the stroke. My hands grab his ass and keep him there for a minute. Time fades away as we find each other. My body, so keyed up from before, is quick to fall over the edge again. Kade’s fingers on me don’t hurt either.

  It’s not the Lord’s name I’m yelling when I come for the third time.

  ****

  We spend the next week preparing for Mexico. Kade has no real ties here, just a fake college education. I’ve laid down roots here, so I need to take care of things just in case I don’t survive this trip into Mexico. I tried putting the trip off longer, so that I could pay for it myself, but Kade insisted on paying. Finally pointing out that his money isn’t any good in Hell anyway.

  Maria Isabela De Los Angeles is a bruja, and she’s powerful. Kade says she’s not entirely on the side of light, but not entirely on the side of dark either. She’s a gray witch. Like Kade is a gray demon. And I’m a gray human. That’s what I tell myself as I continue to share my bed with a demon. If all goes to plan, I’ll never see him again. If all goes to plan with the help of Maria, Kade will go home.

  And I will too.

  Chapter Five

  Mexico City is hot, and crowded. Our plane touches down, and within hours, we’re in a car heading back out of the city, traveling to parts of the world that civilization forgot.

  It takes two days to get to the village that Maria lives in, and when we get there, darkness has fallen. Cruising at night into a village ruled by a powerful witch, with a demon behind the wheel, is not the best idea.

  Kade and I head to a cheap motel, the only one in town. The heat of the road has gotten to me, and I can’t wait to take a shower. We’ve alternated driving, so that we wouldn’t have to stop on the way. Now we’re both sweaty and dusty from driving down dirt roads with the windows down and I can’t wait to check in.

  I peel myself from the passenger seat of the rental and groan.

  “I think I left like six layers of skin on the seat.” I turn around and look at the back of my legs to see the red spots from where skin met vinyl.

  “Nah, it’s just sweat and dirt.” Kade’s looking at my backside too, but he doesn’t look remotely disgusted by my dirty and sweaty legs. Heat burns in his eyes, and soon enough I feel it coursing over me, and into me.

  “I need fourteen showers.” I swallow. Cold showers. But I don’t say that part out loud.

  “I’ll take care of you. You won’t need any cold showers,” Kade practically purrs in my ear. And I guess I did say that out loud.

  “I definitely need at least one shower, before you ‘take care’ of anything,” I laugh as I shove him off of me.

  “Last night.” Kade leans his forehead against mine.

  “Last night,” I whisper as his mouth meets mine.

  We barely keep our hands off each other as we check in, and then make our way to the shower quickly. Kade devours my body.r />
  By the time we’re done, the water is freezing, and I’m clean. But still burning. Kade does that, and I don’t think he even uses his powers on me. I’m just that fucking smitten. It’s stupid, and I know it will get my heart broken, but it’s happened and there is nothing I can or will do to change it.

  The morning light filters into the room much too soon. I groan when it hits my face, and burrow back into the bed. Back into Kade’s arms.

  “Time to get up and face the day, love.”

  This is how he wakes me up. Every morning.

  I don’t want to face the day though.

  “One more day.”

  I can’t believe the words leave my mouth. But they do, and for some insane reason, Jake’s face flashes in my mind. It’s because those were the words I’d said to him before we went on our last hunt. I’d asked him for one more day. The vision of his final moments grip my brain, and I’m hurtling to the bathroom. Puking makes me exhausted, and I lay on the bathroom floor for a minute to catch my breath.

  When I look up, Kade is watching me cautiously, a curious look on his face.

  “Are you okay?” he asks.

  “Yeah.”

  I shakily get to my feet and splash my face with water. I don’t know why, but I feel like telling Kade about Jake. I haven’t told anyone about him. Not even Todd. So I start talking.

  “About nine months ago, I almost got killed by a demon.”

  I rinse my mouth out with water, and spit it back into the sink. I turn to Kade then, his face a cool mask. He’s back at the bed, getting dressed. I know he’s seen the scars, but I lift my shirt to show them to him anyway.

  “We didn’t know it then, but after meeting you, I suspect he was an Arch. Really difficult hunt.” I swallow hard. “My partner…my boyfriend…”

  I pause. Kade’s back is to me. He doesn’t turn or even react to my confession so far. I don’t even know when he turned around, I was too busy baring my scars to him.

  “He died,” I say finally.

  I sit down on the bed, tears pool freely in my eyes. “He was murdered by a demon, and at first, as I was healing, I thought of nothing but killing every single demon on earth for revenge. Then afterwards, I just sort of decided not to do it anymore.” I shrugged. “Demon hunting hadn’t done me any favors. When I was little, my aunt had me committed for a few months after she found my first demon journal. And when Jake died, I realized that the cost was too high.”