Starved for Love

by Annie Nicholas

  He gave me a shy smile and shrugged. “My meeting finished early and I don’t feel like spending my evening alone. I thought we could do something.” His gaze traveled to the keys in my hand. “You have plans.”

  The male apparently didn’t know what a phone was. I had plans to visit a certain sweet shifter. “Uh…yes. I was going to go visit one of my suitors.”

  His eyes narrowed. “But you fed from Hoel yesterday.” He stepped inside the house, cornering me against the side table where my I’d found my keys. “Pia, when we agreed to a courtship I expected you not feed any others but me.”

  “You think I fed another incubus? Dude, how much of a slut do you think I am?”

  His scowl deepened. “Then why do you need to feed again so soon?”

  I blinked. “I don’t need to feed. I’m just visiting.” What was with the attitude? He acted like—like… “Val, are you jealous?” I slid my hands around his waist and watched a blush creep up his neck. He was so cute I wanted lure him to my bedroom once more. “You know, after I go see Cooper, maybe we could discover a few more compromises to speed bumps.”

  Heat ignited in his eyes, burning away any hint of shy. “Ms. Blyton, I think you’re trying to seduce me instead of answering my questions.” He ran his hand through my curls and gripped them as he drew close enough to share my breath. “Why do you need to see him if not to feed?”

  My heart quivered. Maybe jealousy wasn’t something I wanted to encourage. Things between an incubus and succubus were complicated enough. With him needing wives and me needing suitors, fidelity couldn’t be an option. I’d never really taken the time to think about it. Even though my sisters and I helped feed my father, our mothers had other lovers to keep themselves and my father fed. My father had to share them just as much as my mothers had to share him. In a sick way, it was a balance. But it wouldn’t work so well if they allowed the green-eyed monster into their lives.

  I ran my fingertips along Val’s jaw. “Don’t be this way. It’s not natural for our kind.”

  He jerked from my touch and retreated, a cool expression masking his face. “You’re right, but if we’re to pursue this relationship I think I should meet your suitors.”

  Raising an eyebrow, I studied my new boyfriend who wanted to meet my lovers. This was a terrible idea on so many levels.

  “Traditionally, a husband used to control his succubus’s suitors.” He assessed me with cooled eyes, the heat of seconds ago extinguished by…what? All I’d mentioned was how it wasn’t natural for our race to care for each other.

  “None of your other wives follow the old ways of suitors. You don’t monitor their eating habits. Why should you worry about mine? I’ve learned to take care of myself, even if my parents don’t agree.”

  “Why not call him? Then I can take you down to the river and we can rent a boat. We could bring more wine…” He trailed his knuckles over my breasts. “Maybe I can convince you to show me yours.”

  I laughed but it came out shaky. “Wow, do you always get your way?”

  His gaze darted to pin mine. “You doubt it?”

  Liquid pooled in my panties. Damn, I’d have to buy them in bulk if I ever wanted to stay dry while around Val. “No.” I cleared my throat and scraped together the shreds of my dignity. “I need to go. I’ll call you when I’m done.”

  Val watched me for a moment then nodded.

  I pushed by him and escaped outside. I’d been around humans all my life. I saw them in school, on TV and in books so I knew about what made relationships work but knowledge and practice were worlds apart.

  Val followed close behind. “But I’m accompanying you.”

  I tossed a glare at him over my shoulder. “We’ll take my car.” This wouldn’t go well. I couldn’t allow my dominating incubus to scare away my gentle shifter. I stomped by Hoel waiting in Val’s car. “I’ve got him. I promise to return him in good condition,” I informed the fallen angel before he could exit the vehicle.

  “Sir?”

  “It’s fine, Hoel.” Val chuckled. “I think.”

  Beeping my car unlocked, I went to the driver’s side.

  “I don’t see why Hoel can’t drive us in my car.” Val folded himself into my VW Bug.

  “Because Cooper likes his privacy and my taking you will be bad enough. Why do you need to meet my suitors?” I jammed my key in the ignition and started the vehicle, then kicked it into drive.

  “Making sure you feed properly will fall on my shoulders. I want to meet the…flavors you prefer.”

  He sat with his back to the door, his knee bent on the seat so he could face me. “Do you love him?”

  I snorted, then glanced at him. His eyebrows were furrowed as he frowned at me. “You’re serious? Of course not.”

  “But you care about him.”

  “He’s food.”

  “I’ve seen how you react to chocolate. Is he chocolate?”

  More like macaroni and cheese but from Val’s expression I didn’t think that was the answer he wanted. “What are you expecting? If you want me to promise they mean nothing to me then I’m the wrong succubus to court. I don’t like sex with strangers. It hurts me on all sorts of levels.”

  “So you do love him.”

  “No!” I shook my head since he didn’t seem to understand the first time I answered this question. “I choose suitors who I won’t fall in love with, but I like them. As friends.” I rubbed my forehead. “This is complicated.” Of all the days that Val decided to tag along, I was going to see the suitor he’d disapprove of the most. Cooper was territorial and caring.

  “It’s only as complicated as you make it.” He still frowned at me and seemed unhappier.

  I wanted Val to see beyond our culture’s emotional boundaries. If I could open him to the possibilities of love, we might both get what we desired from this courtship. First, he had to trust me and I needed to earn that trust. “I was just going over to tell Cooper we had a change in schedule.” I poked him in the stomach. “Some incubus is mixing me all up.”

  His scowl grew deeper

  “Look, it’s a long story. Maybe over a bottle of wine one night, we can talk about it.”

  “Maybe we should conclude the courtship. This seems more convoluted than I’d thought.”

  I slammed on my brakes and pulled off the road. “What is your problem? I just don’t get you.”

  He leaned forward, pointing his finger at me. “I don’t understand you any better.”

  Resisting the urge to bite that offending digit, I forced myself to take a deep breath. “You’d break up with me over this?”

  “It’s important, Pia. I need to know I can trust your commitment if we marry. I don’t accept infidelity with any of my wives and even divorced a few because of it.”

  I blinked. “Okay.” I pursed my lips, chewing the inside as I stared at him. Divorces happened among our people just like mortal couples—some differences could not be reconciled.

  He flopped back against the door, his head leaning on the window as he gazed at the car’s ceiling. “I was intrigued when I found out you only feed from suitors. It seemed… sweet. But after today and yesterday, I find myself unwilling to share you with anyone.”

  I opened my mouth but snapped it shut then stared out the windshield at the gravel-strewn shoulder. “Well, how the fuck am I supposed to feed, Val?”

  “I don’t mean sexually. You can feed as needed but only as needed. Sex between feedings, with anyone besides me, is as good as cheating.”

  “I understand that. My parents sent me to mortal school. They didn’t lock me up in a closet my whole life. I know the rules of how marriages work among our people.”

  “What bothers me is your close relationships with these males.”

  My already shriveled stomach shrank some more.
Any smaller and it would turn into a black hole, consuming me. “You want me to have one-night stands.”

  “Like every other succubus I know. Yes. What’s so hard about that?”

  Everything. Nothing. “I’m thinking you’re right, Val. I should drive you back to your cold, empty hotel room and we should just call this off.” He wasn’t the one for me. It was obvious. Better to cut ties before I grew more attached. I tried to gear the car back into drive but his hand stopped me.

  “If you don’t love them then what is it? Talk to me. It’s what people in relationships do, isn’t it?”

  “I have a contract with each suitor, we stick to it and if we don’t, then I can break it.” Except for Sin; I couldn’t break his. “I get to feed from them and they get to have sex with me. If I start…” I swallowed around a lump in my throat. “If I become too attached to them I might hurt them.” I rubbed at my eyes, cursing my weakness. Why couldn’t I have been born more like Adele or Rose? “But I crave intimacy.”

  He gathered my face in his hands and stared into my eyes. “I want more too.” Running his thumb along my cheek, he wiped a stray tear. “I don’t know how to describe what I see when I watch your family together except I want to be part of it. This intimacy you describe. It’s what we shared at dinner last night and at the picnic? I’ve never met anyone like you, Pia.”

  I sighed. “You want me to hand over my heart but it’s all broken and duct-taped together. With the slightest wrong move, Val, you’ll crush it. I’m not ready to give it to you yet. That’s asking a lot on the third date, don’t you think?”

  He flopped back in his chair again as if I’d pushed him.

  “Look if it’s about sex—”

  “I don’t cheat on my wives. I’m courting you because I want to add you to the family, not for sex.” He chuckled. “Well, not only for it.”

  I finally let go of my death grip on the steering wheel. Family. That was an odd word from Val’s mouth. “I don’t really see what you have with your wives as family. Not unless you have some other home that you share with them?”

  “No, I tend to live in hotels. I visit them at their homes or the other way around. Every other family of our race lives like this. Your parents are—different.”

  “Yeah, unfortunately they’re the example I grew up with. I expect a lot more from a husband. Maybe you should think about that before preaching to me about my suitors.” I glanced at him. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’d set me up in some apartment after we were married and come visit, but between these visits, you’re afraid of what might develop between me and my suitors since they’re the ones who’d be around for me.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m not down with that.”

  He tilted his head, the corners of his eyes crinkling in consternation. “What would you want?”

  “To live with you, of course, like a husband and wife should, with your other wives if they want.”

  He made a strangled noise. “I doubt any of them would desire that.” Drawing closer, he took my hand.

  I gazed at the cars speeding by on the highway.

  He squeezed it. “What ghosts am I battling, Pia? It’s not fair to expect me to fight for you and not tell me who I’m against. What drives you to these extremes? What has your father so tied in knots when it comes to you?”

  “A human male.” I sensed Val grow stiff next to me. “Oh, I don’t love him anymore, but there was a time when I thought the universe revolved around him. Looking back, I see how young and stupid I was. I just don’t want to repeat my mistakes.” The quiet grew heavier as Val waited. I could escape by running out of the car into traffic but even that would be temporary. Eventually, I’d have to talk about it.

  He gave me a small reassuring smile. “We were all young once.”

  “I never liked feeding from strangers. Impersonal sex left me feeling cheap and empty. To support the need I dated mortals. I was just reaching my maturity and didn’t understand how out of control the need could get. I met Pierre in college. He was a medical student and I was on my way to dropping out.” I had to smile. “He was smart and kind and all the right things a girl could want. I fell hard. We moved in together. My family never knew. They assumed I was still living in the dorms at the college.” It was only after everything fell apart and I was tied to the contract with Sin that my father confessed he’d known. He once loved a mortal too in his youth, before he’d met my mothers, and had learned the value of caring for someone else. But he’d grown up in harder times and developed a stronger soul than mine to deal with the heartbreak.

  I was feeble. My mistake had harmed so many, including my father. He blamed himself for my near death experience. That’s how Sin was able to make him sign that contract, proving to my father that love really was a weakness. Guilt now drove Dad to hover and shelter me.

  Two years later, those emotions had faded but I should have known better. “I tried really hard to be a good girlfriend. I only fed from him.”

  Val gasped. “Pia.”

  “I know, I know. Stupid. It almost killed me. But he didn’t know what I was and our laws said I couldn’t tell him. He would have seen it as cheating, so I tried for our sake.”

  Shaking his head, Val stayed quiet but his disapproval was evident.

  “I lasted almost a year. I’d lost weight and was weak. He thought I was sick and kept trying to take me to doctors. Obviously, I couldn’t control it anymore. He caught me with the mailman.”

  “Pia.”

  “Oh no, don’t stop me now. You wanted to know. It gets worse. The mailman was married, but what mortal can resist a starving twentysomething succubus? He never had a chance.”

  Val hung his head.

  Oddly, incubi and succubi took marriage very, very seriously. It was an unwritten rule not to feed from married people of any race. “I broke three people’s hearts that day. I never heard from Pierre again and I never went looking. Shame sent me away. I left the city and hid from my family, refusing to feed.”

  I smoothed my unwrinkled dress with trembling hands. “We done? Can I drive now?” Heat sizzled through my ears as my disgrace was laid out before him. “Am I taking you home?”

  With a finger under my chin, he guided my face toward his. He gave me a chaste kiss. “I think I understand now. You’re walking a fine line.”

  “Right, I don’t want to sleep around but having a boyfriend is out of the question. My suitors come into this agreement informed. They know they have to share. After that, I left things open.”

  “Open? For what?”

  “Well, unlike Pierre, they know I have other lovers, we’ve all just stayed friends and I wasn’t exactly shopping for a husband. It was working until this week. The contract doesn’t hold them to me. They can break it any time with no hard feelings.” Big lie. No matter what I told others and myself, I’d grown a little attached to my guys.

  “Fine, I’ve accepted that you need suitors, but I want to go over all your contracts, then together we’ll decide who you can keep. Probably shop for more.”

  “Do I get decide which wives you keep? Why is it okay for you to be in love with other succubi?”

  He tapped a finger on his bent knee and stared outside the window. “I’m beginning to comprehend why most of our race avoids being in love. I wonder how your father does it.”

  “It’s not easy.” My parents fought just like any other couples. They worked hard on their marriage. If I wanted the same thing then I should make the effort. “I think it’s compromise time. I’m willing to discuss my suitor choices with you, just like you’d discuss wife choices with me.” Our culture had rules and I did know them. Sex between feeding was considered cheating for the succubus. Incubus husbands only slept with his wives but there was no limit to how many he could marry. The more he fed, the more his wives would have to feed. The more wives he
had, the less he’d have to feed off one wife.

  “I’ll want to meet all your males.”

  Great, I’m sure they would be so thrilled. Then something struck me as odd. He was looking for something different in our marriage. “Do you love your wives?”

  He shrugged. “If you asked me that a few weeks ago, before I met your parents, I would have said yes. Now, I wonder if I really know what love is.”

  I swallowed reflexively. Was I an experiment?

  He gave me a thoughtful look, a small smile tugging at the edges of his lips. “If we marry, you want to live with me?”

  I nodded, unable to trust my mouth.

  “I think that would be nice. What if I annoy you?”

  “I’ll yell at you.”

  “And if I shower you with attention, you’ll have no emotional need for your suitors.” He grinned. “I’m very determined to keep you.”

  I swallowed again. What had I done? I thought courtship was all about dating. Val was already walking me down the aisle to get my tattoos. Breathe, I had to breathe.

  “Pia?”

  Resting my head on the steering wheel, I held on for dear life as the light-headedness cleared. “I’m fine.”

  A siren blasted one ring behind us and almost made me pee my pants. I checked the review mirror. “Oh great.” A police car had parked behind us and an officer was approaching. I opened the window, my pulse pounding in my head. “Anything wrong, Officer?”

  “No, I was just checking if you needed assistance.”

  Val leaned across from me so the officer could see his eyes. Power pulsed from him. “We’re fine. We’ll be on our way soon.”

  The cop’s eyelids drooped and a half smile formed on his lips. “Of course, sir.” He nodded and returned to his car.

  I stared at my sweetie. My father could influence humans the same way, like judges and witnesses, all incubi could, but it usually took time. Who was Valerio Hunan?