by Jill Myles
The Itch had me in its grasp, and all I could think about was the erection inside Noah’s pants and getting its wonderful, delicious length into my body.
Our mouths locked in a deep, thrusting kiss, and fireworks began to dance behind my eyes. I kissed him back, my tongue sliding into his mouth to taste him. His hands flexed on my ass and then I felt him hike up my skirt, my overheated skin tingling with excitement as I felt the brush of his fingers higher and higher up on my body.
He gave a loud groan as his hands encountered my bare ass. “Where are your panties?”
“At home,” I said, nipping at his mouth. “Didn’t want panty lines.” I arched, wiggling against his hand suggestively.
That brought my cool, in-control Noah over the edge. He gave a fierce growl against my mouth and picked me up by the hips, and I wrapped my legs around his waist eagerly. Within two seconds it was my ass plastered to the desk, and Noah’s hardness pressing me down against the surface in the most amazing way. A stack of paperwork jabbed me on one side, but I didn’t care. My fingers reached for his shirt and began to undo the tiny white buttons. I needed to feel his warm, hot flesh pressed against mine. I ripped the shirt out of his waistband and slid my hands underneath, trying to pull his body tighter against mine.
“I’m flattered that you waited for me for your needing,” he said, his breath warm against my skin.
Oh, uh oh. He thought I’d waited two days to see him again, just so I could have sex with him? Nice thought . . . except I hadn’t. Not the time to bring that up, though. My fingers slid to Noah’s nipples and I brushed across them to distract him, but Noah wouldn’t let it go. He pulled off of me slightly, a serious look on his face. “Are you and Zane having problems?”
I would have taken that as concern, except for the hint of smugness in his voice. Noah hated my vampire lover. Most of all, he hated sharing me.
Vampires and fallen angels got along about as well as . . . actually, they didn’t get along at all. Both were forced onto the mortal plane when they fell from Heaven. But while the Serim strove to eventually work their way back to the good graces of Heaven, vampires had pretty much given up on that. Instead, they sold their loyalty to demons in exchange for wings and lived a life of selfish debauchery.
The vampire I was sleeping with was great at debauchery.
So, yeah. Serim and vampires did not get along. Add in the fact that there was some sort of weird, tense undercurrent between Noah and Zane—some old rivalry that neither would discuss with me—and that left me stuck in the middle. Both wanted me to pick sides, but I refused.
Like right now. I lifted my chin, trying to angle my face so Noah would kiss me again. “Do we have to talk about Zane right now?”
Noah just gave me a long look. “Tell me the last time you saw Zane.”
That was low of him. Noah had just given me a direct command, so I had to obey it. I sighed, sensing where this was going. “A few hours ago, asleep in bed.”
That killed the conversation fast. Anger tightened Noah’s face. “I see.” He began to pull away.
“No, you don’t. You never see. Why did you ask that, unless you wanted to know the truth?” Honestly, this silly tug of war between the two of them just ticked me off. They hated each other passionately, and sometimes it made me think that they didn’t like me nearly as much as they liked fighting over me.
“I thought perhaps we were ready to commit to each other.”
Yikes, the “C” word? I stared up at him in shock. “Noah, I’m a succubus—”
“And I’m a Serim,” he interrupted. “It is in my nature to want you only for myself, that is who I am. And vampires are my enemies. So to think of you rushing from my bed straight to his . . .”
He didn’t finish the sentence, and I didn’t rush in to do so, either.
After all, what could I say? Noah’s kind went into a deep sleep at the sight of the rising moon and didn’t awaken for the next twelve hours or so. Vampires were the opposite; they slept through the daylight hours and prowled through the night.
I didn’t sleep at all, being a creature of both worlds. So it seemed ideal to me to have one Serim lover and one vampire lover. Judging by the scowl on Noah’s face, I was the only one thinking that way.
“I can’t do this, Jackie,” he said, shaking his golden head like an angry lion. “We are not going to keep playing these mind games. I’m not going to play along.”
So I wouldn’t be having sex with Noah unless there was some sort of commitment involved, like I won’t sleep with Zane ever again? I couldn’t keep that sort of vow.
Rats. I leaned up on my elbows as he pulled away from me, straightening his shirt. He wouldn’t look at me, but he didn’t move away. He was waiting for me to say something to make him change his mind. But I wasn’t going to.
I sighed and gave Noah a gentle push on the shoulder. “If we’re not going to do this, let me up. I think I’m lying on a stapler.”
He moved back with a frustrated glance at me, and we fixed our clothing in silence. My body still throbbed with need, but Noah’s movements were angry and jerky. Easy for him to forget about sex—Serim only needed it monthly.
I tried to slide my hand into his once he had shrugged his jacket back on. “Noah, are we good?”
Normally Noah was my solid one, my rock. Normally he’d give me a faint smile, apologize for hurting my feelings, and we’d be friends again. Friends and lovers, the best kind of friends. He was always there for me.
He shrugged my hand off and shook his head. “I need time to think about all of this, Jackie. Maybe it’s best if we keep things at a more professional level.”
Professional—like master and succubus. Not lovers. Not friends.
He wanted to be strangers.
That hurt, but I forced a smile to my face. “Sure. Whatever you want.”
He nodded and let himself out, leaving me alone, rubbing the stapler-shaped bruise on my butt.
CHAPTER TWO
Though Noah politely took me home after the party, he didn’t come in. I stewed in my frustration for a while. Who was he to try and dictate my life? Then, after I calmed down a little, I tried calling him to talk things over. Or to yell at him.
But he hadn’t picked up, so I left a message. That was hours ago.
Noah always returned my phone calls, and I started to worry that he was taking this far more seriously than me. It couldn’t be over just like that . . . could it? I left him a few concerned voicemails as the hours passed. I even caved and told him that I’d think about his unhappiness with the situation. What he wanted was impossible, but I was willing to let him come over and try to convince me otherwise (hopefully with a lovely round of make-up sex).
But when dark hit and the moon rose, I knew he wouldn’t call. Noah had gone into hibernation for the night or dumped me . . . or both.
I didn’t like to think about that.
Zane was nowhere to be seen. My small apartment showed signs of habitation—his dirty shirts were tossed in a corner of the bedroom, his favorite towel discarded on the corner of the bed. He’d been here recently, and judging by the fact that he’d left his favorite lighter on the kitchen counter, he’d be back. I settled in to wait. He was probably out looking for some hapless girl to feed on, and I hoped he wouldn’t be long.
After two cold showers and endless twitching, I called Zane’s phone. It was stupid and needy, and I hated myself for dialing him.
“This is Zane. Leave a message after the beep.” Beeeep.
Drat, his phone was off. I hesitated, wanting to leave a voicemail that sounded sexy, not needy. But thinking of the desperate string of messages I’d left on Noah’s phone, I hung up instead.
Even I had my standards.
Until Zane returned I was stuck with my own company, so I decided to settle in with a couple of pizzas—Suck metabolism required that I stuff myself like a pig—and a movie that neither guy would watch with me except on pain of death.
As
I watched The Notebook, the doorbell rang. Nice. I hopped up from the couch with excitement. It was food or sex at the door, and either would make me a happy girl.
It turned out to be food. The delivery guy was your typical nerd-in-crisis sort: short, fat, a ponytail, and pushing forty. He stared at my boobs, but that was all I got anymore. I was starting to get used to it.
“Pizza for a Ms. Brighton?” He peered at me through his thick glasses, smiling and displaying a need for orthodontia. “A beautiful woman like you, alone tonight?”
“Save it, Casanova. Can I just have my pizza?” Once upon a time, I might have been flattered by the attention—any attention—from a stranger. But it had hit the saturation point weeks ago, and now the leering just pissed me off.
“Twenty bucks.”
I slapped the money into his hand.
He collapsed like a ton of bricks, going down and taking my pizza with him.
Well, that was unexpected. I blinked for a moment, staring down at him. Was this a joke? But he didn’t move, even after I nudged him with my sneaker.
I knelt beside him and tapped his cheek. “Are you okay? Hello?” Maybe he was having an epileptic fit or something. Maybe he was trying to scare me.
It wasn’t a joke, though. His eyes were shut, his face slack and pale, and I jammed my fingers against his throat to try to find a pulse. Then I heard a faint snore come from his throat.
A snore?
Oh crap. I’d somehow used my Suck powers to put him to sleep.
Succubi can touch a person and shut off their mind just by using their powers. Some of the less ethical succubi used their powers to ferret out information and influence others. I avoided using them at all, since I was still new to the whole succubus thing. I could put someone to sleep if I really concentrated, but I had to think about it really hard to make it work.
Glancing down the hall to make sure my neighbors didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, I gathered up the pizza boxes and dragged the guy into my apartment by his legs—not an easy trick, since the Mr. Cheese guy wasn’t any lightweight.
Once he was safely in my apartment, I shut the door and stared at him. What now? I’d only done the mind-control thing twice, and the first time had been a real disaster when I couldn’t figure out how to turn it back off again.
At least the delivery guy was breathing normally. I touched his forehead, letting my mind sink into his body.
As a succubus, I get a few nifty perks. One of them happens to be the ability to read other people’s minds if I touch them. Whenever a succubus interacts with the mind of another person, the absorbing of those memories throws in a lot of visual associations. I guess that was our way of processing another person’s thoughts without overloading our own minds. My friend Remy, the porn star, sees a lot of movie sets in people’s heads. I mostly see them in their cluttered bedrooms, usually something straight out of their high school years. From these “rooms,” we could pick up mental clues about what’s going on in the victim’s mind.
Mr. Cheese had a typical mental room. A TV in the corner—playing Star Trek, big surprise there—and a bunch of fantasy posters on the wall. A beanbag chair sat in the corner and he had a twin bed with Yoda sheets. Yeesh. A stack of books—usually the best way to sift through the memories of the person I was “visiting”—sat beside the bed.
But I couldn’t find Mr. Cheese anywhere. His brain was on, but no one was home. That never happened. Just to be sure, I even looked under the mental bed, and in the mental closet (just in case the jokes held true).
Nothing. He’d vanished.
I jerked out of his mind and tried pinching him, and when that failed I even kissed him to see if that would work, à la the frog prince.
No dice. You can’t wake someone up if they’re not there in the first place.
So I did what I always did in emergency situations—I called Remy.
Remy Summore wasn’t what I’d call a . . . normal friend. For one, she was a porn star. For two, she was the only other succubus in New City. Several hundred years old, she’d seen and done a lot more than I had, and we’d fallen into a mentor-slash-friends relationship. She taught me the ropes, I argued with her a lot, and we went shopping and ate a lot of food court meals at the mall. It worked out well for the most part, even if I did occasionally want to choke her.
“No, Jackie,” she teased as soon as she picked up the phone. “I won’t let you borrow my bra with the tassels.”
“Gross.” I paused, digesting that mental image, then shook myself back on track. “Remy, I have a big problem.”
“Do tell.” I could hear her flipping the channels on her TV. “Hey, did you see that my new movie, Babes in Boyland, is on the Spice channel?”
“That’s nice,” I said hurriedly. “So I kind of sort of stole the mind of the pizza boy. And I can’t get him back.”
“Mmm, what kind of pizza?”
I rubbed my forehead, trying not to get too annoyed with her. “Remy, I’m serious. I touched the pizza boy’s hand and he went down like a light.”
“Woohoo! He went down on you?”
I nearly choked. “Not like that—”
“You went down on him? You little minx, you—”
“No!” I yelled into the phone. “Listen to me! I made him go to sleep by accident. And when I went into his mind to wake him up, he wasn’t there.”
“Really?” Her interest perked, and I heard the TV shut off. “What did Zane say when that happened?”
“He’s not here—he’s out feeding. Can we get back to my problem here? I’m having a really bad day—”
“Oh?” She yawned.
“I just broke up with Noah, and I’ve got some comatose nerd sprawled on my floor and I don’t know what to do with him.” My voice rose a shrill octave and I forced myself to calm down. Breathe. Breathe. This is fixable. I just didn’t know how. Surely Remy would know.
Remy, however, was still fixated on my sex life. “You broke up with Noah—”
“Can we focus on the comatose nerd, please?” I was going to hyperventilate if she didn’t help me soon.
“Okay, okay. Did you try to wake him up?”
Thank you, Captain Obvious. “Uh, yeah.”
“Well, go into his brain and talk to him. See what the deal is.” After a short pause, Remy whispered away from the phone. Of course, she wasn’t alone. Her bed had a revolving door.
“He’s not in his head, Remy. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I checked and he’s not there. His mental furniture is there, but he’s not.”
“He’s not?” She paused. “But . . . they’re always there. Where else can he go?”
“I don’t know!” I wailed. “You’re the expert here. Help me!”
God, I really wished I could call Noah. He always knew what to do. But he wouldn’t be up for several hours; I wasn’t sure he’d want to talk to me, what with the “time off” our relationship was having.
Remy sighed. “All right, all right. I’ll come over. Stay right there.”
Like I was going somewhere, with an unconscious pizza boy at my feet?
“Hurry,” I said, and then hung up the phone. Luckily, one of the pizzas had landed right side up, so I sat on the floor cross-legged and pulled it over to me. As I ate, I tried not to panic. There had to be a way to fix this. Had to.
If Remy didn’t have any ideas about how to get him back in his head, I could call Zane, but I doubted he’d have any better ideas. Remy was the succubus expert and if she didn’t know, then things were scary indeed. I squirmed uncomfortably and crammed another slice into my mouth.
What if I had to get outside help? Again—like in the form of angelic assistance? I shuddered, thinking of beautiful, calculating Uriel. He was the only true angel that I’d ever seen, and the memory was seared into my brain. Immortals called them dealers because they liked to bargain with you, and the bargain never turned out in your favor. Last time Uriel had “helped” me by giving me a blessing that wo
uld stop my Itch for a week, in exchange for the “easy” task of getting information from vampires.
There is nothing easy about dealing with vampires—nothing. Or angels. As a rule of thumb, I tried to avoid both.
Except for Noah and Zane, of course.
I polished off the pizza, but still no Remy. I picked up my BlackBerry, intending to call her and see where she was.
Instead, I dialed Zane.
It was a stupid thing to do. Zane valued his space—that was blatantly obvious as soon as he moved in and began to disappear for hours on end. I told myself I didn’t mind, because he’d always kiss me (or more) before he left and we spent plenty of time before the sun came up. I really liked Zane. I might even be crazy over him, but we were still getting used to each other.
But tonight there was no note, or a flower like he normally left when he went out hunting. After the trouble with Noah, that hurt my feelings. Was I being set up for a double dumping?
To my relief, Zane picked up on the third ring. “Hey, Princess.”
The low, sexy rasp of his voice sent a tingle straight through my starving body. “Hey, Zane,” I said back to him, trying not to blush like a schoolgirl. “Where are you?”
His warm chuckle did wonderful things to my insides. “Missing me?” He sounded like he was about to say something else, but then he covered the mouthpiece, and I could hear a muffled conversation on the other end.
Which made me uneasy. “Who’s there with you? What are you doing?”
A pause, then, “I’m out feeding. You know how it goes.”
Yeah, I knew, because I wouldn’t let him feed from me. Vampires had to feed on a daily basis—their need for blood was more powerful than my need for sex—and that caused a constant strain in our relationship. I didn’t refuse to let him feed on me because it was disgusting or immoral—a vampire-feeding was a precursor to the best orgasm ever—but because it meant that I was giving my body over to him and putting it in his control. Vampire feedings induced a strange mind-meld on succubi—part out-of-body experience and part dream—with the vampire that had just fed. And the last time Zane had fed from me, he’d stolen my powers, left me tied to a bed, then kidnapped my friends.
