by Tate James
“Come on, Firebug,” he said, “let's find you a … ah … dress.”
The way he just said 'dress' was not inspiring much confidence in me at all, but I followed him through the curtain all the same. On the other side, I pulled up short.
“Oh hell no!” I yelled, while Britt burst out in peals of laughter from behind me.
“Girl, oh my god,” she howled, “I was just joking about the bondage outfits!”
Sure enough, the room beyond the curtain was filled with racks of leather, chains, PVC, and fuck only knew what else, as well as a serious assortment of toys in the display cases and cabinets.
“Told you it needed to be specific,” Billy grinned, “and it needs to show off as many runes as possible. It's the best way to keep you safe, if everyone can see we've marked you.”
“If it helps,” George added, “we have to wear this shit too …”
“Have I mentioned lately how stupid I think supernatural rules are? First, forced marriage. Next, a mandatory orgy. And then …” I took a few steps forward and fingered some hideous hot pink latex suit. “Bondage wear for uniforms?”
“I happen to look really goddamn good in bondage wear,” Billy said, sauntering through the little den of iniquities like he'd grown up there. Hell, for all I knew about the boys, it was possible that he had.
“Don't do that,” Britt whispered in my ear, pausing to heft a large, chocolate colored dildo in her hand. The way she stroked it was a little disturbing, like maybe I should look away and give her some privacy.
“Do what?” I hissed as George and Billy disappeared into the sea of handcuffs and Fifty Shades of Grey themed sex toys.
“That thing that you do, like when you ran out on—”
“Don't say his name,” I whispered under my breath, smoothing my hands down the front of my wrinkled long sleeve top with the fox on it. It was part of that pj set I'd been wearing the other night, definitely not meant for public consumption.
Maybe getting dressed up in bondage wasn't such a bad thing? Clearly I didn't have a lot of room in my fashion repertoire to argue.
Then again, my body was covered in magical runes so you know, fashion choices were limited.
“I'm just saying that after you and … you-know-who fucked for the first time, you had this same face on. I call it your 'I'm-really-happy-but-I-refuse-to-accept-my-own-happiness face.”
“Please don't call him you-know-who,” I whispered as I stared at a display of condoms. Jesus. How many different ways could you really wrap a cock? I picked up a glow in the dark rainbow one and squinted at it. “Makes him sound like Voldemort or something.”
I chucked the condom back onto the display and grabbed another. This one had weird purple spikes along it. Huh. Didn't … exactly look like it would, you know, fit.
“So what the hell am I supposed to call him then?” Britt said, way too loudly for my own comfort. I tried to shush her, but the woman at the counter was staring right at us, at me specifically. At least I knew she had no context in which to judge me. I glared right back at her until she glanced away.
“Don't call him anything,” I said, trading out the spiked condom for one that said Grab a Sock for your Rock! on it. “Don't mention him, don't bring up my college days, just don't talk at all.”
“Oh, you kidder,” she snorted, slapping me so hard on the back that I fell boob first into the condom display.
“You won't be needing any of those,” Billy said, reappearing by my side and sliding the square package from my fingers. He tossed it aside with a stupid smoldering half-smile.
“Why not? I'm marked now. You said I could pregnant if I were marked.” I picked up a handful of square packages and dropped them into one of the paper bags next to the display, a little condom goodie bag.
“We'd have to actually try,” he repeated, taking the bag from my hand and dumping it out. The rainbow condoms got mixed up with the spiked ones and now I could really feel the saleslady glaring at us. “For you to get pregnant, we'd need to do a spell, and make sure all four of us were coordinated.”
“Wow, where did you grow up? Texas? Didn't anyone tell you how the birds and the bees work? It only takes one guy, Billy.”
“Not for elementals,” he said, grabbing my wrist and pulling me away from the condoms.
“Then good,” I said as he dragged me into the back of the store, toward a row of curtained changing rooms. “Because I don't want kids. You hear me? I don't care if your species is dying out. Consider it a socio-political statement on the environment.”
“Jesus, shut up,” Billy said with a bemused half-smile. He dropped my wrist and turned to me, putting his warm hands on either side of my face. It was too familiar of a gesture for someone I'd just met … but maybe an okay gesture for someone I'd had an orgy with? I wasn't sure. “Do you ever stop talking?”
“No, I don't,” I said, trying to slap his hands away. It was futile, like batting at a steel beam. “Besides, the world is overpopulated—”
“With humans,” Billy corrected with a sharp grin. “It's overpopulated with humans.”
“If you think I'm going to be some little elemental breeding—” He smothered my mouth with his own, slipping his tongue between my lips and making me completely and utterly forget what the hell it was that I was saying in the first place.
Heat licked up my spine, but I couldn't tell if that was plain and simple lust or his fire magic or what the hell ever.
When he pulled back slightly and cocked a brow, I glanced down and saw that I was glowing through my wrinkled pj shirt. The runes were bright enough to attract the attention of the sales clerk and that guy in the trench coat lurking near the porn section.
“We'll have to teach you how to control that …” he started, pushing me into the changing room and dragging the curtain closed between us. “Now try on some of that shit and tell me what you think.”
Licking my lips, I lifted a hand to my face and tried to ignore the tingling feeling on my mouth, one that I hadn't felt since … you-know-who. You know what I'm talking about, that special college guy that rocks your fucking world and then your fucking bed and then you just…run away and never speak to him because you're afraid of intimacy? That guy.
I groaned and put my forehead against the shiny vinyl of a miniskirt and tried to suck in deep, soothing breaths. I'd always been sort of a mess and a fuck-up, so now that I was like, some kind of 'chosen one', I was having trouble dealing. I couldn't be the one and only female elemental, savior of a dying race—especially not when the idea of birthing anything made me want to puke: elemental or mini human.
And then all this business with COCS and plumbers and …
“Fuck a nun's dry cunt,” I growled out, standing up and tearing the skirt off the hook it was hanging from. “Billy, this won't even cover one of my ass cheeks, let alone two.”
“That's sort of the point, Firebug,” he called joyfully, clearly having the time of his damn life. I stared at the contraption in my hands, a skirt of lace and vinyl and straps. I had no idea how to even put the damn thing on. I was a barista, damn it, not a dominatrix.
“Do I need to give you a hand?” Billy teased, slipping inside the curtain and sliding his hands under my fox printed pajama top, making as though he was going to pull it off until I slapped his wrist away.
“Thank you, no. I have this.” I glared hard and opened the change room curtain for him. “If you don't mind?”
“Yell if you need me,” he offered, then retreated with a heated look and yanked the curtain shut behind him.
Taking a deep breath, I turned back to the clothes that had been set out for me to try on. If they could really be called that. Clothes. There were so many damn buckles and laces I feared for my own safety just trying them on.
“Here goes nothing,” I muttered, stripping down and struggling into the skirt. It took a whole lot of wriggling, and failed lacing but eventually I was in. And kinda liked it. The little scraps of lace and chain m
ade it into a sort of steampunk meets bondage style which was actually really sexy, and it made my ass look spectacular. Different underwear were a must though, as my I HEART Paxton Blackwell printed panties were way too obvious in the mirror when I bent to pick up the top that had fallen from its hanger.
The top half was surprisingly easier to get into, thanks to the almost non-existent back of it. All that held the leather contraption together was a tiny clasp at the back of the neck, and a pathetic why bother sort of zipper above my lower back. One thing was for sure, my marks definitely would not be missed. Neither would my tits because holy fucking cleavage Batman!
The 'top' had them boosted so high I could practically rest my chin on them if I felt so inclined, but damn I looked hot.
“How we going in there, Firebug?” Billy called through the curtain, startling me out of my thoughts and making me yelp.
“Um, good?” I replied, not altogether sure of what an appropriate response should be here. God knows I didn't want them to realize I was okay with this outfit. I looked like a whore. And not a figurative one, a literal I-get-paid-for-sex whore. My inner feminist was bashing her head against a wall.
Without further warning, the curtain whipped aside and Billy stepped back into the small cubicle holding a pair of deadly looking stiletto boots.
He took a long moment, running his burning gaze all over me and sending the sparkling runes off in a frenzy before he knelt in front of me.
“To complete the look,” he informed me, helping me put one foot into a calf-high black leather boot and lacing it up professionally. Without a word, he did the same for the other foot and I was forced to use his broad shoulder for balance so I wouldn't fall flat on my ass.
Once finished, he sat back on his feet and gave me another shrewd, considering look.
“These won't do at all,” he scolded playfully, sliding his hands under my barely-there skirt and gripping the edges of my cotton panties.
“What's wrong with Beauty in Lies underwear?” I asked, a little breathlessly but determined to defend my choice of undergarments, even if I did already know they looked silly. They were fan panties, which I had bought at the merchandise store during a concert I'd been to last year, and I kinda fucking loved them—also, they were signed.
Billy clicked his tongue, not answering but at the same time dragging the panties in question down my thighs, slowly, then moving my boots one at a time until they were completely off and leaving me bare.
“Much better,” he murmured, trailing his fingers back up my leg until he reached my already throbbing pussy and slipped inside.
“Billy,” I hissed, “someone will catch us. We're in a store for fox sake!”
“Yeah, doll face … a sex store. Now shut up for a sec …” He spoke quietly but with an edge of authority in his voice that told me he demanded obedience. Every part of me wanted to slap him and tell him where to shove his domineering attitude, but instead all that came out was a girly moan when he sat forward on his knees and pressed his lips to my aching cunt.
“Shit, Billy …” I don't know what I was about to say, because his tongue had just located my clit piercing and was playing me like a goddamn fucking violin. One hand gripped my ass, underneath the pathetic excuse for a skirt, while the other pumped two fingers inside of me, perfectly in sync with the motions of his lips. My orgasm was building fast and the runes on my skin were glowing to an intensity that could light up a dark room.
I leaned my back up against the mirrored wall behind me and hooked a leg over one of Billy's thick, muscular shoulders. Briefly, I wondered if all that muscle was from plumbing jobs or if he just spent, like, six days a week working out.
Somehow though, that question didn't seem all that important with his hand shoved up under my skirt, his teeth tugging my clit piercing in a way that was criminal.
“Excuse me,” the bitchy saleslady said from outside the curtain. “But we have a very strict rule—one person per dressing room. I'm going to have to ask one of you to come out of there.”
“Billy,” I tried to say, but he ignored me, lifting up his one free hand and cupping my ass in an iron grip, locking me in place as he teased an orgasm loose, pulling all of that coiled energy from the base of my spine, unleashing it in hot waves across my skin.
“Excuse me,” the woman repeated. Clearly she needed to get a life; she took her job way too damn seriously. I mean, she worked in a sex shop for fuck's sake. “If one of you doesn't come out of there right now, I'm coming in.”
My fingers dug into Billy's charcoal colored hair, nails scraping his scalp. I should've been using my hands to punch him straight in the face, but damn I was going to wait for this orgasm first. If he tried to screw me over like Reg though …
“That's it,” the woman said, jerking the curtain back at the same moment I felt all of that pleasure and feeling inside of me break to pieces, my climax coming over me like a roar. Tears prickled at the edges of my eyes as I sagged against the wall and Billy caught me around the waist, lowering me to the floor.
Unfortunately, there was no one to lower the saleslady slowly down to the black carpet. She just … collapsed right there in the doorway to the dressing room.
“Billy,” I breathed at the same moment George appeared in a … a black collar and leather pants.
“William,” he snapped, angry for the first time since I'd met him. “What the hell are you doing?” He knelt down next to the sex store employee and lifted her into his arms. I tried not be jealous at the way her head lolled onto his shoulder. She did look a little pale though. My orgasm face isn't that scary is it? I wondered as I pushed the asshole fire elemental aside and put my granny panties back on.
“Sorry if I'm excited about actually finding our fucking wife,” Billy said defensively, getting out a cigarette and lighting up. I was pretty sure he wasn't allowed to smoke in here, but what the hell? As long as he put it out before this bitch woke up… “You know how many quads ever get that sort of privilege?”
“Ari,” George said, the alarm in his voice making my alarm bells go nuts. “You need to give her spirit back,” he said carefully, lifting up his face and locking those earth brown eyes of his on mine.
“Her spirit?” I asked, feeling the color drain from my own face. I crawled over next to the woman and realized that not only was her skin sallow and ashen, but her eyes were open and blank, empty. Like she was … “Is she fucking dead?” I asked, feeling my heart thunder away inside my chest. “Please tell me she's not dead, George.”
“She's not dead,” Billy said, frowning, his cigarette hanging limply from his lips as he talked around it. “You must've accidentally used your magic when you came …” His mouth twitched a little. “Musta been a good one.”
“Eat shit,” I said as I smoothed the girl's hair back from her face.
“What's going on back here?” the other employee asked, the one from the front of the store. As soon as she saw us kneeling on the ground around her coworker, her face blanched.
“Okay, sweet cheeks,” Britt said, stepping out of a different dressing room. As promised, she looked really good in pink vinyl. “Back your troll ass up and forget what you've seen here.”
“Like I'm going to listen to some rogue ass werewolf,” the woman said, going into full-on bitch mode. “I'm calling Charlie.”
“Like hell you are,” Britt said, storming across the room in four inch heels. She snatched the troll chick by the arm and dragged her back through the curtain and into the front of the store. I didn't pay them a whole lot of attention—I was far too concerned with the fact that a woman was literally laying here dying in front of me.
“What do I?!” I asked, looking imploringly at George. “How the fuck did I take her spirit in the first place? Oh God, is her soul trapped somewhere?”
“Not her spirit, like her incorporeal self, Blossom, but her spirit energy.”
“Her magic, basically,” Billy said, waving a hand at the woman's comatose form. “A
nd since this chick is a human, she doesn't have a whole lot of it. Whatever you took, just give it back.”
“How am I supposed to give it back when I don't know how I took it in the first place?!” I snarled at him, hating him at the same moment I was lusting after him. Bastard. Wonder how he'd cleaned up his hands? Probably wiped 'em right off on his jeans. Fucking men. So gross. Why couldn't I have been born gay?
“Hey, Blossom!” George snapped his fingers in front of my face. “A little bit of focus here. This chick has maybe a minute left before this becomes a permanent thing.”
“Well, okay but fucking how?” The guys both gave me blank looks and I had to resist the urge to scream.
“We haven't got a clue, babe,” Billy offered up, oh-so-helpfully, “you're the spirit elemental here, in case you forgot? We only know what you've done because we’ve heard about it from Reg's mom. But just hearing stories doesn't exactly give a play-by-play of how your powers work, you know?” He paused and glanced at George. “Should I try to call Joan?”
“No time. Arizona, just … take a deep breath and try to let your instincts take over,” George urged, his fingers pressed to the lifeless girl's throat. “She's almost gone.”
Clenching my teeth against a smart-ass retort, because time really didn't allow for it, I screwed my eyes shut, clenched my teeth, and … tried.
“What are you doing?” Billy asked impatiently, breaking my … er … concentration.
“I'm trying,” I muttered back, not opening my eyes.
“Looks like you're trying to take a really hard shit,” he muttered and I cracked my eyes to glare his way.
“Quit it, you two,” George snapped. “Now or never, Blossom. Maybe try and look inside yourself? When I’m doing earth magic I find like a metaphorical seed, then coax it forth. Try that.”
It sounded like a crock of hippy shit, but I had no better ideas so I shut my eyes again and tried to 'look inside'. However the fuck one did that. What I found wasn't a little seed waiting to be coaxed forth, but instead a blinding ball of light just bobbling around inside my consciousness.
