A Year of Love

by Anthology

  With another shock of anger, I climbed to my feet and shoved him backward, making him stagger. I followed quickly, reaching him when his legs hit the couch and helping him fall back onto it. He lay crooked but I didn’t care. I couldn’t wait. I needed him inside of me. I needed to fuck him hard and fast, working this rage into an orgasm before I dragged him to the ground and begged for more. I could hate myself after it was finished. It would be worth it.

  I knelt over him, grabbing him by the base of his cock and lining us up, on the pill and knowing demons didn’t give diseases. I sat down hard, driving him deeply into me. He filled me to the point of bursting, so long and hard and thick. Fuck, I’d missed this perfect fit, stretching me almost to the point of pain.

  “Oh fuck yes, Jaelyn,” he said in reverence, his head dropping back and his beautiful eyes closing.

  I rolled my hips, lifted up, and slammed back down. Again, somewhat slower, somewhat harder. He groaned, his hands gripping my butt. Pleasure spiraling through me, I melted over him, draping across his body, seeking his lips.

  Knowing what I needed without having to ask, he curled his upper body up and tangled one hand in my hair and braced the other on my jaw. He kissed me, running his tongue against the seam of my lips, and when I opened for him, his tongue found mine as he pumped up his hips. Moving within me.

  I moaned, and he flipped me in a blind rush, his strength making me feel like I weighed nothing. He trapped me to the couch and drove down into my me. I cried out with exquisite pleasure, clutching him. He gripped my hair again and curled his big hand around my nape, keeping his lips pressed to mine as he railed, slamming home over and over. Crowding me with his body. Branding me with his cock. I held on for dear life, needing his onslaught. Needing the hard fucking. Needing his body deeply inside of me in a way that couldn’t be explained.

  “Yes,” I moaned, my eyes fluttering. “More.”

  He pumped faster, harder. His control wobbled, I could tell. His body was slick under my palms. His muscles flexed. He groaned as he kissed me. As he thrust.

  I raked my nails down his back.

  He growled into my mouth, and his control fled altogether, taking mine with it.

  We rolled off the couch, Emeric falling to the ground onto his back to protect me, and then over again until I was pinned under him. He lifted a big arm and shoved a table leg to keep from crowding my head, and then he was ramming his cock home. His hips smacked against my flesh, the sound competing with my moans of delight. He rose up, his hands fitting to the backs of my knees and spreading me wide. His eyes hooded with pleasure, he massaged my clit with one hand as his cock continued to plunge in repeatedly.

  The dim light glowed against his glistening, perfect chest and strong shoulders. His muscles flexed as he thrust. His fingers worked, unraveling me little by little.

  I reached up for him, and he bent to me, keeping his fingers on my clit, trapping his hand between us. I pulled him to my lips, and the world dropped away. Light danced behind my eyelids in a kaleidoscope of colors. My heart surged, not at all in league with my brain.

  “Jaelyn,” he murmured softly against my lips. Longingly. As though the name itself was divine.

  One hand trapped between us, his fingers still working me, his cock still plunging, he threaded the other behind my head and held me tight. The hold was dominant. Possessive. His kiss was desperate.

  I fell apart.

  An orgasm exploded through me, ripping me to bits and scattering the pieces. He groaned, shaking over me, coming inside of me. In all my life, I’d only allowed him to do that. I trusted it was still the same for him.

  With a last thrust, he pulled his arm from between us and sank down onto me, lightly shaking. It matched my trembling.

  “I remember it being exactly that good but had forgotten all the details,” he said between reverent kisses. “The details make it better.”

  “I still hate you, and I still plan to try and leave.”

  “I know. But about that…”

  He threaded his other hand under me, and I held onto his back, knowing he planned to move us to a more comfortable location before we started again. He got up and lowered onto the couch, still inside me, pulling my head down to rest on his shoulder as he held me.

  “I wanted to explain something now that I should’ve explained last time,” he said, his voice rumbling in his chest. “When you belong to an organization, it’s less like being owned than it is like being in a wolf pack. Or on a baseball team. Every demon employed by me has undergone the same ritual you did. In exchange for their allegiance, the organization—I—protect them. If anyone acts against them, it is my duty to use the organization’s resources to avenge them. If a demon does not belong to an organization, they are on their own. They must protect themselves.”

  “Those demons made a choice to join your organization. People who play baseball sign up for it. I didn’t.”

  “No, you didn’t. And one of the reasons I killed the last prince was for doing shit like that. You don’t fuck with kids. You just don’t. Not to mention he was dabbling in other shit that was weakening the outfit. I found a lot of loose threads when I combed through our books. All but one of those threads I have since tied up. The demons in your position were given three options: join as an active member of this organization, transfer to another if I could arrange it, or be set free.”

  “All but one.”

  “Yes. I met you five years ago to see if you’d manifested any power. I was not expecting…what happened.”

  The immediate connection. The incredible passion. The whirlwind night of mindless fucking. The hard morning when I’d learned about a world I hadn’t really known existed. There’d been that half-remembered ceremony, of course, and Dad’s drunken ramblings, but my reality had been so far removed from any kind of fantasy, even a dark one.

  The truth had been hard to bear. I’d known something about me was off, but I’d figured it was because of my stepmom’s neglect, not because I was a demon.

  “Five years ago, I didn’t explain your situation very well,” he said, and I could hear the genuine remorse in his voice. “I was too excited about finding my soul-mirror in the most unlikely of places. I forgot that you didn’t know anything about this life. That you wouldn’t be as excited as I was. By the time I came to my senses, you’d used magic you didn’t even know you possessed to dislocate a guard’s shoulder. You were gone.”

  “You could hardly expect me to stay with a guy who’d just told me that he owned me and planned to shackle me and use me for my effect on his power…”

  He chuckled softly. “Hindsight. It showed your potential that you were able to get out. I had hoped you would come back to talk. To at least inquire about your magic. To ask for training. To fuck.” He tensed. “I’ve missed you something fierce, Jaelyn. No one could take the edge off. For you either, I know. But apparently giving you space and sending notes with my groveling, or commanding, or pleading, or…I can’t remember what the other year was…”

  “Arrogance, I think.”

  “Right, yes. That sounds about right. I didn’t want to force you. I wanted to give you your space. When none of those worked, I tried this route.”

  “And if it hadn’t worked?”

  “I would’ve expected your…very angry…visit when you found out I’d kept you from leaving.”

  I bristled with anger. He traced circles across my skin.

  “And now I will explain something else,” he said. “Without my protection, you are at the mercy of the other organizations, or rogue profit-seekers who would wish to exploit you. Without the means to magically defend yourself, you’re…well…fucked. You especially. If you went to Oregon, the magic binding you to my organization would fail. It would be stripped from you. We’ve devised a way to fix that, but you haven’t received that…patch, we’ll say. All someone would need to do is follow you, force you outside of the region’s protective bubble, and forcibly bind you to their organization.�
��

  “What? How is that okay?”

  “It isn’t. It’s about as not okay as binding an eight-year-old. And it’s incredibly rare because anyone powerful enough for that kind of interest is either already in an organization or is at the center of a ‘if I can’t have her, no one will’ war. It's juvenile but it's mostly how it goes. You, however…are a bit different. You're half-mortal. You were unwanted by a prestigious family. You grew up with humans."

  “Then why would anyone want me in their organization?”

  “Because you have the power level of a princess.”

  “Right but…why doesn’t that fall under ‘if I can’t have her…’?”

  He sighed softly. “There are rules in the human world, and because we are living among them secretly, we color within the lines. Mostly. We stick to causing the kind of trouble we can get away with or buy our way out of. I just explained the rules with demons, as they are. But you don’t fit into either society, and you’ve been previously rejected from an organization.”

  “You mean as a baby? That counts?”

  “Yes. So you’re…a wild card. No one would know how to treat you. Other than with disdain. You would be used, and no one would stop it.”

  Tears filled my eyes. “That can’t be…right.”

  “I would like to offer you an olive branch. I want to train you to at least protect yourself. You have enough power to live independently if you want to. I need you to know how to use it to save yourself. Once you’re where you need to be, I’ll give you a choice. Either you can get the patch, as it were, and live your life under my protection, or I will strip you of this organization’s magical mark and constantly worry about your wellbeing. I think this is a fair offer.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  “I will trap you on my compound, force you to train to protect yourself, and then allow you to leave.”

  “So…not totally a choice, then. Kind of a kidnapping situation.”

  “The choice comes after the forced training…”

  A tear tracked down my cheek, and I shuddered out a sigh, his body still inside mine, a strangely comforting feeling in this situation. “I didn’t ask for any of this.”

  He hugged me tightly. “I know. The hand you were dealt wasn’t fair, but it is remarkable. You are incredibly powerful. I'm at the top of my class, and you are my mirror. This is a cheat-to-win situation. You need to let this hand ride so you can get an even bigger payout. Don’t cash in too early.”

  “That’s a lot of poker metaphors.”

  “Yeah. One of my hobbies is cheating at poker. I could probably win on skill alone, but it’s more fun to cheat and try not to get caught.”

  The tightness in my shoulders seeped out of me. I’d hated him because he owned me, but he wasn’t the one who’d made that deal. Before the whole soul-mirror development, he’d intended to set me free. According to him, he still did. I couldn’t very well blame him for the things he’d said in the heat of the moment. I hadn’t possessed enough knowledge of his world to make sense of them.

  He’d let me stay away, too. He hadn’t forced me to come back, not really.

  In the end, Emeric wanted what was best for me. I’d had him all wrong.

  I was still wary about all things demon-related, but that wasn't his fault. None of this was actually his fault. And he was right, I did need training. I was in a precarious position, being half-mortal and half-demon. Hiding from that fact wouldn't do me any favors. It was time to strap on my big girl panties and claim a future for myself. Whatever hand I had, it was mine. I needed to know enough about poker to play it.

  I sighed and ran my fingertips over his smooth skin. “I’ll accept the training, and I’ll accept the choice. But as far as we go, this marathon of fucking is the last one. It’s over after this. I train, I leave, that’s that.”

  “It’ll be like a game of poker," he said staring into me with those amber-rimmed eyes. "I’ll pretend to play by the rules and cheat like hell. In the end, the house always wins.”

  I smiled and closed my eyes, feeling his hardness grow within me.

  The house might always win, but the fun was in the game.

  The End

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  Forever More is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are all products of the author’s twisted imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  Annie

  The music is piped in softly overhead to the nearly empty bar. There are a few stragglers sitting here and there, grabbing a last drink before heading home for the holiday. It’s probably their last reprieve before they are forced to endure their great grandma’s burnt turkey or spending time with their sibling they can’t stand.

  I smile bittersweetly into my drink because it would be such a nice problem to have. Family to annoy you and drive you crazy. A place to go to where you belong regardless.

  The barstool squeaks beside me as someone sits down, but I don’t look their way. Rather, I wait with bated anticipation that builds with each passing second before I hear a velvety smooth voice ask, “Whiskey on the rocks, huh?”

  “It’s been that kind of week,” I say after a sip, my smile automatic despite the response. Nerves dance with that anticipation. Both hum through my veins even though we’ve been here, done this many times before.

  “Let me guess,” he says as he points to my drink to order the same when the bartender looks our way. “Holiday blues got you down. Your roommates, your friends, everyone is leaving to go home for the holiday except for you?”

  “I think you messed up.” I look at the man beside me for t
he first time. I’m met with narrowed gray eyes and a smile that just won’t quit. His dimples are subtle but there, and everything in his expression makes my insides sag just a little.

  Lyric Evermore.

  Yes, that Lyric Evermore. Lead singer of Evermore. Notorious ladies’ man. And a guy currently with a furrow to his brow as he stares at me while running a hand through his hair so that the silver rings on his fingers glint against the dim light.

  “I didn’t mess up. I know my lines.”

  “Yes, you did.” I shrug and fight my full-on grin. “Face it. The always-perfect Lyric Evermore messed up.” His smile is dazzling. So are his dark gray eyes that take me in and dance with amusement. “You may be a rock star now who has women falling at his feet every second of every day, but you can still flub a line.”

  “At least it’s a line with you instead of screwing up a lyric onstage,” he murmurs before giving a shake of his head and simply staring at me. For the briefest of moments, I wonder if he feels the same way I do about being here. About doing this for a fourth year in a row.

  About me like I do him.

  But then he emits a bark of a laugh before pulling me into one of his big bearhugs, and I know I’m just hoping for things that aren’t there. That I’m still holding on to hope that he might see me as anything more than a little sister.

  This is Lyric after all, and why would he choose me when he can have anyone he wants?