Succubus Takes Manhattan

by Nina Harper

  He didn’t say a word until he had cleaned the plate and drained the mug. Then he closed his eyes for a moment. “Thank you,” he said, looking me full in the face. His gaze was naked, undefended, which is dangerous around demons—but then he was used to us. And in that naked, vulnerable moment I saw something else in him, something beyond the magician and the expert lover. I saw just a touch of his soul in his eyes, tired and lonely and used hard, but still hanging on. A soul that was forfeit to Hell, that was destined to join us.

  And there was a tenderness when he looked at me that was more than just desire, more than simple sex or even not so simple sex.

  I’m a succubus and I can recognize the difference between lust and something more. This was definitely a something more, and it ambushed me.

  He wrapped his fingers around my wrist. “I am so tired now, Lily, I am sorry. But you do not leave until after tomorrow, I think. Promise me some time tomorrow. Alone.”

  And for all my skill at bargaining and for all I know that one does not make promises to a magician, I promised. “Tomorrow. Right now you need to get some sleep. We should get you home.”

  Nathan volunteered to take Marten home in a taxi. The whole thing seemed odd to me but it left the demons all cozy together. When the humans were gone, I got up and hugged Raven. “You were magnificent!” I said. “You were amazing. And Satan has already asked me to mentor you.”

  “Thanks,” she said and she smiled.

  We put her on one of the sofa beds in the living area. I was too tired to even take a bath. I just climbed into bed and slept like the dead thing I was until well into the morning.

  The next morning we all woke up late. Nathan emerged from his room in the suite, so obviously he’d made it back. Meph had ordered room service for us, a big hearty Dutch breakfast of cheese and ham and fruit and bread and coffee. Disgusting. I took a cup of the coffee and tried to ignore the rest of the mess.

  Neither Meph nor Raven was anywhere to be found. As I sat in the farthest chair from the food sipping my French Roast, Nathan came and pulled over another chair. “Lily,” he said.

  I looked up expectantly but said nothing. I had no idea of what was coming, only a fluttering of hope. Hope that now that he had seen us, had worked with us together, he would be able to accept what I did. That he would be able to deal with me and with himself.

  “Lily, I . . . spending time with you has been, has reminded me . . .” he began slowly. Nathan, scholar, almost a Ph.D., did not normally sound confused and confessing.

  “Are you in love with Marten?” he asked abruptly.

  “What?”

  “I took him home last night,” Nathan reminded me. “He was exhausted, yeah, but he talked. At least a little bit. And I think he’s got a real thing for you. So I wanted to know, are you in love with him?”

  Nathan is not used to the negotiations of Hell. He doesn’t know quite how close we stay to the letter of an agreement. And I knew what he really wanted to know and what I needed to tell him. I pulled myself up just a bit and rested my warm cup on my knees and looked straight into his eyes. I knew that my face, innocent of makeup, revealed only the most sincere and heartfelt truth. “I’m in love with you,” I said very softly. “I don’t want to be, and it’s really hard for me to work with you like this because I wish we were still together. But,” I shrugged, “I am in love with you. Even though you dumped me. I’m trying to get better and get on with my life, and that’s really hard when you’re around like this.”

  He dropped his head so that the long dark hair fell forward, shielding him from view. “I wish I knew what to do, Lily,” he said softly. “I want to be with you but then I see you with Meph and I see you as a demon and I’m so torn. If you were a woman, human, I would have no hesitation. I’m crazy in love with you but then I remember the other part and all I want to do is run away.”

  “What about right now?” I asked very softly. “Do you see a demon or a woman right now?”

  Then his arms were around me and we were kissing, deeply and passionately and I wanted him with every cell in my body. With the whole entire soul I had signed to Satan three millennia ago. His mouth, the warm firmness of his body, the smell of his shampoo were all home.

  He got up and took my hand and led me to his room. There were no words, nor any need for them. He slid his hands under my T-shirt and his palms were warm on my skin. Then he slipped it over my head and looked with appreciation at my body, my full breasts revealed in a baby blue bra.

  He stood transfixed—but then how many men have seen a succubus unclothed and lived? His face strained with desire, and that wasn’t the only thing straining, either. I smiled, wickedly, and stepped away from him before I unfastened the waistband on my jeans and slid them slowly down over my thighs. I took my time, stepping out of them, showing off my Italian lingerie. Which showed off the body underneath. In a long, languorous tease I turned my back and shook my curls so they brushed my lace panties, drawing attention to my posterior curves.

  I reveled in my power over him.

  “Araamki,” he whispered in Akkadian. I knew I wasn’t supposed to understand.

  It had been thousands of years since I had heard that phrase. “I love you,” with the intimate intonation that reminded me of my mother and the Priest who had initiated me. Something that swept deeper than the succubus, that talked to the woman I had once been. And still was.

  He held out his arms, open and empty. The desire in his eyes owed nothing to Hell and even his lust was something more complex, focused on me alone.

  I went to him and he folded me into his embrace. I lifted my face and kissed him, hard. Right then it was the only thing I wanted in the world. His mouth tasted of coffee and chocolate. I closed my eyes and lost myself in the textures of his tongue, his fingers on my shoulders and then my back and then tracing the curves of my hips.

  Pressed against him I could feel his unmistakable desire, and for a moment the power rushed through me again. I owned his lust; I commanded his need.

  His mouth moved down from my mouth to my throat. He licked the hollow in my clavicle before teasing out my ear from my hair and exploring it thoroughly with his tongue. He held me hard against him as he returned to my neck and my breasts. One thumb traced my nipples through the blue lace until I gasped. But he didn’t remove the bra, merely increased the pressure just a bit, letting the uneven texture of the fabric stimulate me.

  I must have whimpered because he said, “Shhhh,” and lifted me up and carried me to the bed. His arms were like rock, like steel, like his hard cock wanting me without reserve. The only strain was his holding back, and I responded to the strength that I hadn’t known he possessed.

  I wanted him. I wanted his skin, I wanted him naked, I wanted to touch and taste and take from him. My nails scrabbled at his buttons, and then he grasped my wrists and held them at my sides as he knelt between my thighs, and I was pinioned on the mattress.

  Completely at his mercy, I couldn’t move. I gasped and realized that the immobility was exciting. “Please, please,” I moaned.

  His only reply was a throaty chuckle. He held me, his hands like steel cuffs, his breath hot between my legs. I tried to wriggle, to position myself better, to get—more. Something more. The heat ran through me and only need and desire existed. Nothing else, not even thought interfered. I wanted him, I wanted his body, I wanted his soul. I wanted him forever and I wanted him Right Now.

  “Be still,” he commanded me.

  Lust warred with pride through me. I was not to be commanded and yet—there he was, holding me down with one hand as the other carefully traced the pattern of lace over my mons. I tried to lift my hips and he stopped. “None of that,” he crooned.

  Oh whywhywhy wouldn’t he touch me yet? Why wouldn’t he remove those scraps of lace that I had thought so lovely when I bought them, and suddenly found so very annoying.

  I lay still and he used one finger, far too lightly, over my panties. He’d turned his mouth to
my nipples, first the left and then the right, sucking and breathing heat over my bra, and then he lifted my left breast out of the restraining garment.

  I wanted to arch my back, to push my breast up to his mouth, to tear off his clothing and the last shreds of mine. I wanted sex. Right. Now.

  Instead I lay without moving, waiting for him to torment me with pleasure as he flickered the tip of his tongue over my now bare left nipple. He barely brushed me with his lips, but arousal had made me even more sensitive than usual. I trembled with need as he waited, touching me far too gently. Finally he took the nipple into his mouth and played just a little with his teeth, just enough to make me pitch and moan.

  “Still,” he said, laying one hand on my stomach. The heat radiated out of his palm across my skin, somehow touching the center of desire in me although he was still too far away, teasing. And I was still in that dratted underwear.

  Desperate, I lay back and commanded my muscles to remain soft and still, to sink into the mattress. He made a humming sound in the back of his throat and inserted one finger between the elastic and my quivering flesh. Without removing my lingerie, he pulled the panel aside against my leg and touched me as I had wanted him to for what felt like hours.

  And when he touched me again I succumbed, pleasure knifing through me, cutting all control, all thought. Everything was gone and only need and desire and something else beyond both remained. I couldn’t remain still any longer, no matter what the provocation.

  Nor could Nathan. He ripped off his trousers as I grabbed at his shirt. We were both more than ready, overripe, and when he entered me the orgasm canceled out any conscious thought.

  Gasping, desperate, he still waited. I could not be here alone. I needed him to be with me, to have his pleasure be as deep as what he had given me, our immortal union to be sealed in our mutual ecstasy.

  “Will I live?” he asked. His rhythm did not change, his body pulsed with need and power held in check. But now I perceived the anger inside his lust. “Or do you deliver me as soon as I come?”

  And I slapped him.

  chapter

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  He released me and I picked up my clothes and ran out of the room. I didn’t even think of Raven or Meph elsewhere in the suite. I went straight to the bathroom and ran the water in the shower as hot as it would go. I was still in thrall to the immense pleasure and desire he had given me, but I felt—broken.

  I couldn’t stop shaking and I couldn’t stand to think about Nathan, who pounded on the bathroom door.

  “Lily, Lily, please,” he pleaded. “Come out here, talk to me. I didn’t mean that.”

  “Yes you did,” I said, but I wasn’t sure the words could be heard over the water. I was sure I didn’t want them to be.

  “Lily, I’m sorry,” he yelled. “Please, Lily, open the door. Talk to me.”

  But I couldn’t. I couldn’t bear to see him. I couldn’t face how much I’d let myself be taken by him for the second time.

  Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

  He didn’t trust me, not even to let him survive. He was still afraid, too aware of the succubus in me, too afraid of his own humanity. Not arrogant enough in some ways, without the confidence in my feelings for him to know that I would never take his soul or his life.

  “Lily?” I could hear his voice and I tried to let it fade into the background. I paid attention only to the pummeling water and the French-milled lavender soap and the shampoo that washed the smell of sex from my body without washing my memory clean.

  I don’t know when I stopped hearing him. I have no idea how long I stayed in that shower, just that my fingertips were all turned to prunes before I left. And then I thought only of the thick, thirsty towel around my body, smelling of good detergent and powdery fabric softener. Smelled all clean and safe like home, like the soap and the suite, everything from last night dispersed with sunlight and life.

  “It’s okay, you can come out now,” I heard a young woman’s voice. “He’s gone.”

  I opened the door and Raven was standing there in her own form and her own clothes. She must have gone shopping with Meph, and there wasn’t much to her taste in Orangestad. She held her arms wide and I collapsed into them.

  “I told him to go and Meph told him too and he’s gone. He’ll be on the plane, but we can change the seating,” she said, comfortingly. “Meph even said that he’ll change the flights so that you don’t have to see him. You should have something to eat and we’ll get you dressed nicely. That will make you feel better. What did the jerk do?”

  “He’s not a jerk,” I said, and sniffled. “No, maybe he is. He’s a good guy who can’t deal with me being a succubus. He’s jealous. He doesn’t trust me.” Raven gave me a mango smoothie in a take-out cup. It was cold and sweet and almost as soothing as ice cream.

  “That sucks,” Raven commiserated. “But if he’s acting like an asshat because he’s just lame, well—you’re too cool for a lame-ass, Lily. You do know that.”

  “Yeah. Thanks.” I could almost smile at her choice of words. We’d have to clean up her language; Satan doesn’t like thoughtless profanity.

  “Smoothie good?” she asked kindly as I finished it. I nodded.

  “Okay, clothes,” she suggested. “Meph is coming back soon and didn’t Marten want you to stop by before you leave? I mean, wow, I so envy you. I wish he wanted to see me. You’ll have to tell me about his place and everything, okay? Are you actually dating him, or is it just, ummm, a thing?”

  Well, after that ritual last night, no wonder the poor girl had a crush on him. Hot magician and all that blood, saving her, I couldn’t fault her.

  So—was I actually in love with him? I didn’t know . . . no, I knew. I knew last night when I was afraid for him in the ritual.

  “We used to be dating. We’re not anymore,” I said as Raven pulled clothes out of my drawers and draped them over every available surface. “These are okay,” she pronounced a pile with my Seven jeans, my Rick Owens skirt, the D&G camisole and my Armani Exchange sweater. “That other stuff, I don’t think so.” Given that she’d consigned the Prada suit, the Anna Sui top and the Michael Kors pants to purgatory, I had to laugh. The girl had an awful lot to learn about clothes.

  Laughing felt good. The smoothie was gone and Marten was waiting. To please Raven, I put on the jeans and the green camisole. She made a face at the cute green Jimmy Choo sandals that made the outfit. I made her come and watch me put on makeup, and we experimented with her a little bit too, though my foundation was all wrong for her skin.

  “Blush? Yuck. I don’t want more color in my face,” Raven protested as I tried to warm up her cheeks.

  “You’re dead,” I reminded her. “You don’t want everyone to know you’re dead. A little color helps.”

  She pulled a face and made me laugh again. “When I was alive I worked so hard to make myself look dead, and now that I’m really dead and have this perfectly dead white skin, you’re saying I need color. I can’t win.”

  Still, she did like the effect of the gray eye shadow and good mascara. And it was fun. I hadn’t done this with my girlfriends since—not since we’d done the makeover on Sybil. That had been fun for her in Aruba, but she’d gone back to her sweet pastel palette when she returned to New York.

  “This is like when I was in middle school and my friends and I would buy all this Wet N’ Wild makeup at the drugstore and play with it,” Raven said.

  “I think you’re going to have fun with us in New York,” I said. “When we get back, with my friends and all. We’ll go out to clubs and restaurants and shopping. And you’ve got to take your advanced exams as soon as possible because Satan’s Companions should have high rank and set an example. It’ll be great,” I promised her.

  Then I was all dressed and made up and my eyes weren’t red, or at least weren’t red enough to matter. I looked good. My heart might be breaking but Marten would still find me beautiful.

  And th
inking of Marten made me feel just a little better, a little lighter. The warm flush of emotion that I had experienced when I was afraid for him in the ritual washed over me again. Maybe it was time I admitted that if Nathan hadn’t been in the picture I would have known I was head over heels in love with Marten for a while. Probably since his last trip, though the ritual had clinched it.

  I did love Nathan. I thought. He hadn’t treated me well but . . . he was hurting and scared and didn’t know what to do. And I was certain that he was behaving badly because he did love me. Otherwise he would have just walked away. Otherwise there wouldn’t be that electricity between us every time we looked at each other. Otherwise . . .

  Otherwise, Marten was waiting for me. Marten who understood about demons and didn’t care that I was a succubus. Marten who could talk about the politics of Hell and knew what we were trying to trace down and why it was important. Marten wasn’t afraid of me—in bed or out.

  Marten had been clear that I wasn’t just a fling for him, either. He might like the fact that I was a succubus, but if I were being honest I had to recognize that he truly cared for me just as me.

  He didn’t live terribly far from Margit, my succubus friend (who was currently shopping in Paris), in an elegant section of the city with sprawling houses that looked like pastel bungalows from the outside. Marten’s was painted a frighteningly cheerful blue with pink flowers climbing over the front of it. I rang the bell and Marten came to the door.

  I couldn’t help but look around, drink in his personal space. So very different from Nathan’s trendy Brooklyn loft, this was a small, warm, cozy house. The Dutch like cozy. They have a special word for it, hezellig, and that applied perfectly to Marten’s house. The floors were richly golden wide plank wood polished to a high sheen and matching gold-toned furniture upholstered in tan and café au lait leather. Inside the walls were a softer blue that set off the warm golds. The colors reminded me of the beach, sun and sand and water. Wide windows let in the brilliant tropical sunlight, making everything even more wholesome and cheerful.