How to Kill an Incubus: A Rae Erickson Story (23 page)

He’d taken me out on a few dates after our initial breakfast, hung out with me with no expectation of sex, given me a foot massage once and even slept over. He’d seemed so human and maybe I’d wanted to take a walk on the dark side and see what exactly I was dealing with.

If you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.

I couldn’t remember the beginning of that quote but I knew that Marilyn Monroe had said it. I also knew that it was absolutely true.

“I’m not yours,” I said.

“Come again?”

“You very well know that I didn’t even come the last time.”

He instantly looked remorseful, a look I wasn’t used to seeing on his face. “I was angry. You needed to know and understand that.”

“You said that. Now get back on your knees.”

His gaze became thoughtful before he complied and fell to his knees. I was naked, I was battered, and my entire being was being pulled in two directions by Human Andrei and Demon Andrei. But I was sure about one thing: I was never going to be treated the way he treated me in front of his underlings again.

I snatched a mass of his hair, yanking his face even closer. He let out a soft hiss. “I’m not yours, Andrei.”

“You already said…”

“What I said out there? It doesn’t count. None of it counts. I was being fucked within an inch of my life in front of a demon audience.” I mentally shivered at the memory. “You could’ve told me that I was Wiz Khalifa and I would’ve repeated it. So, you repeat after me: I am not yours.”

His upper lip curled into a snarl. “Remember who you’re talking to.”

“I remember,” I spat, leaning in until our faces were inches apart. “How could I forget when you reminded me oh-so-nicely?”

His eyes shut, long lashes brushing his cheeks. He looked like he was in physical agony. “You are not mine.”

“But you are mine.” I cupped his chin and his eyes snapped open. “You’re a demon of pleasure. A demon of my pleasure. Only my pleasure.”

“As your boyfriend, that would be my main focus.” 

My hand fell from his face and I froze. “What?”

“Tonight you came to a realization? Well, I had mine four days ago, when I discovered that you find another man desirable.” He was still on his knees and it was highly disconcerting. So was the look of pure vehemence he was giving me. A vein in his forehead looked like it was throbbing. “I meant what I said about slitting his throat.”

My hands cupped his face and I stooped slightly until we were eye to eye. “I can slit throats, too, so don’t ever test me with another whore again, Andrei.”

His pupils had dilated and his breathing became hitched. “There’s only you,” he rasped, and he closed the distance between our lips.

It took me only a second to decide that I didn’t want to push him away. And desire sparked until it lit a fire between us. My hands held him to keep him in place and I kissed him harder, taking control of our movement. Teasing his lower lip between my teeth, I savored the pained groan he released into my mouth. Meanwhile, his hands were gripping the back of my legs, and before I could even fully taste him, he yanked me into him and hauled me over one broad shoulder.

“What the hell?” I shrieked, amazed by how high up I was.

“I ran you a bath.”

As the enormous, stark white bathroom came into view, I realized that he was telling the God-honest truth. He set me down in front of the Jacuzzi-style tub. And because of the steam wafting up, I knew that he hadn’t just run this bath a while ago—magic was definitely responsible.

“Get in,” he gently commanded, and the plea in his voice was unmistakable. He didn’t want me to refuse, the bipolar shit.

I gingerly hopped in, expecting scalding boiling water and was mildly surprised when it felt instead like a warm blanket swathing my legs. I sank down until the water was waist-level, letting out a sigh of immense pleasure as I did so—my fatigued muscles practically wept with joy.

“Oh, God,” I exhaled, shutting my eyes and splashing my face with water.

My moment of bliss was cut short when I felt Andrei descend behind me. I stilled, feeling his long, muscular legs next to mine. He’d obviously shucked his pants and the instantly recognizable hardness of his erection was digging into my lower back.

He pushed my hair out of the way and kissed the back of my neck, inhaling my scent. “I don’t know how to apologize,” he admitted, his voice gruff. “I’ve never apologized to anyone before… ever.”

My head bent forward as he continued giving me soft butterfly kisses on my neck.

“I never knew what it felt like to be regretful,” he murmured, “until tonight. Until I hurt you.”

I didn’t want to moan and make him aware of my response to his sweet attention but I couldn’t stop the sound leaving my lips when he licked around the base of my neck.

“Say it already,” I whispered, leaning forward and away from his mouth. I turned at the waist to look at him. “Say the fucking words.” 

He ran his tongue across his lower lip. “Rae, if I could go back, I would have gone to bring you here myself. I would have told you exactly why I was so fucked up in the head,” he said in a low voice, “but I would have still fucked you hard on that table in front of my subjects because you needed it.”

“If that’s your apology, I should tell you never to touch me again.”

His face clouded over. “Rae…”

“But I know what you’re capable of. I know that I want this, that I want you.” I looked away. “You said you would never apologize for being what you are.” I looked back at him. “Apologize for messing with my head then.”

He reached out and pulled me back to him, water swishing around us. “I’m sorry for hurting you.” He kissed my upper arm, rolling his tongue against the bruise there. “So sorry, baby.”

I twisted at the waist. “Did you mean what you said about dominating me?”

His mouth stopped moving and he raised his head. “Did you mean what you said about submitting to me?”

“You didn’t give me any choice.” I didn’t want to dwell on how it had turned me on. Everything about what happened tonight was insane.

Andrei grimaced. “With any other human, there wouldn’t be. But for you, Rae, there is always a choice,” he said gently, brushing a mass of hair out of my face before he tugged me to him. “But don’t you see, you did not submit. I took you. It had to be done but it shouldn’t have been to feed my wrath. I… apologize.”

I could feel his heart beating against my back, and I decided to fully turn and face him to make my point. “You know I’m not good with commands. You know I’m difficult. And you know I will never let you do that to me again.”

He continued to regard me in silence, but I persevered.

“You’re a demon. I know that. I don’t give a fuck anymore,” I pronounced, feeling absolutely absolved of any guilt I had about that. “What I do give a fuck about is how you treat me. You say I’m more than a whore, more than your… your sustenance. You have to prove that, Andrei. And sometimes, that just means that sex isn’t always a means to an end.”

“It’s the only language I know,” he rumbled, sliding a finger up my inner thigh.

I slapped it away, completely refusing to acknowledge my shuddering response. “Stop that. I can’t right now. You hurt me.”

A pained expression crossed his face. “I can’t make it better. But let me see, Rae.”

“You are not examining my pussy!” I exclaimed, horrified. Besides, I didn’t have to look at it to know that it was bruised and viciously red.

“Lean against the side of the tub,” he calmly demanded.

“Andrei…”

“I said, lean back.”

I narrowed my eyes at him.

“Lean back, please,” he amended.

And to prove how much progress he was making, I obeyed him and rested my head and upper back against the marble. Then, placing my hands firmly at my sides, I gave him a sassy quizzical look.

Andrei gripped my legs at the knees and slightly raised them, lifting my ass clean off the bottom of the tub and exposing my vagina to the open air. His face was only a hair’s breadth away from my clit.

Before I could protest, his tongue was slowly, agonizingly licking its way up my gaping slit. The beginnings of a complaint died on my lips and was instead replaced by a sharp cry of intense pleasure. I squirmed as he blew cold air against my distended bud before covering it with his hot, wet mouth. The he started sucking.

“Ah, fuck, Andrei,” I panted, already way too aroused for the sweet assault.

His tongue plunged inside me and the bridge of his nose was nuzzling against my sensitive flesh as he vigorously ate me out. The appreciative moans he was making sent tormenting vibrations deep within me and I arched my back, completely surrendering to the sensations.

“Don’t stop,” I wailed, bucking wildly and chanting his name like a prayer. “Don’t you dare stop!”

Each firm stroke of his tongue jolted me against him, made my entire body boneless. His nose was rubbing my clitoris. I was going to come and I was going to come hard…

Then I exploded all over him as he gently nibbled at my flesh.

Andrei continued to lick his way through the little aftershocks of my climax, and then he scooted forward and brought me down on him. I cursed aloud, still so swollen from the night’s events to take his tumescent rod again. 

But the pain quickly frittered away when he didn’t move inside me. He was just waiting. And when his hands came up to push the hair out of my eyes, I could see that he wanted to make sure I was fine.

“You’re the only being that I bow to, Rainelle Erickson. I’m a fucking human in your hands.”

I held his face and looked him in the eye. “You… won’t… come.”

The shock in his face almost made me laugh. But he quickly collected himself. “I see.”

“That’s it? You see?” I could feel his throbbing cock inside me and knew that he was harder than ever before.     

He squeezed his eyes shut and leaned back against the side of the tub. “Fuck me, then. Use me. You’re here and that’s all that fucking matters.”

I stared at his beautiful, hard face for a long time before I pinched one of his nipples and his eyes flew open in surprise.

“As cute as that was, I want an energetic, eager sex demon inside me.” I leaned forward and kissed his neck. “You will fuck me and you won’t come.”

He gripped my waist and thrust upward, surprising a scream out of me. “Very well,” he declared.

“Real smooth,” I murmured, placing my hands on his shoulders.

Our eyes locked when I began to ride him. I went slow at first, until slow just wasn’t enough. Meanwhile, his powerful thrusts drove his rigid shaft against my womb and I felt completely consumed by it. Water splashed onto the floor as his thrusts became faster and all kinds of sensations overtook me. I squeezed him inside me, as tight as a vise, and languished on his answering grunts of pleasure. The faster our movements became, the more contact I wanted with him. Sensing this, he kissed my neck, kissed my breasts. His tongue set my skin ablaze and his teeth grazed every erogenous spot on my upper body.

“Too much,” I cried out, when he was rolling one of my nipples in his mouth. Sweat tasted salty in my mouth. “Oh, shit! I can’t…”

“Baby, come,” Andrei urged, his voice like sandpaper. “Come around me.”

I threw my head back on one of his thrusts and let it go, climaxing again so soon after my first one. I grabbed his hair in both of my hands and yanked his mouth to mine.

“Baby, come,” I whispered to him, biting his lip.

The familiar heat of his seed filling me up prompted yet another, although smaller, orgasm.  I clenched around him, squeezing every drop of his release.

“Rae, Rae, Rae,” he groaned into my mouth, sucking on my tongue. “Don’t ever leave me.”

Too exhausted to speak, I could only make a small grunt of acknowledgement. I would never leave because I was stuck with him for life… and I totally didn’t mind.

And my boyfriend knew exactly what that grunt meant.

Chapter 16

The first thing I saw when I woke up was Temp’s big head hovering over me. I experienced a moment of confusion—
Where the hell am I? What day is it? God, is that my breath, or did something die in here?—
that I instantly quashed.

I sat up and rubbed my bleary eyes with the heels of my hands. And only when I was fully awake did I take in the fact that I was in my own bed, in my own penthouse.

“You deaf? I’ve been yelling in your ear for the past five minutes,” Temp groused, holding a cup of coffee in his outstretched hand. “Come on, Nancy Drew. We’ve got some work to do,” he said in a singsong voice. Although, he actually looked less annoyed than he sounded.

I gratefully accepted the coffee, surprised to see that he knew how I liked it—black. “I love how you ended that little rhyme with lyrics from the
Scooby Doo
theme song,” I muttered dryly. “What are you doing here at…” I glanced at the digital clock on my nightstand and winced. “… seven o’clock?”

The asshole even had the audacity to look chipper. He was in a bright green T-shirt that actually hurt my eyes and grey board shorts. And he completed his low-key surfer-dude look by letting his icy blond hair down, looking all shaggy and windswept. He still, however, managed to look sufficiently well-dressed. I, on the other hand, was stuffed into a ratty old nightshirt and in desperate need of a toothbrush and Colgate.  

“Well, as your admittedly sexy sidekick, I feel the need to…”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Sidekick? What are we, eight?” I scoffed, raising an eyebrow at him. “Besides, I don’t need one, Temp. I never have.”

“You’ve never dealt with demon stuff, either.” He flashed me a megawatt Temp grin. “Although I hear you have been busy, Baby Phat. You went to the Carpathians?”

“I didn’t exactly go for the mountains,” I said sarcastically as I set the now-empty mug on the nightstand. “But you already knew that. Word about things like that probably get around fast in your world and I bet you’re the Perez Hilton of your kind.”

Temp looked offended. “Did I or did I not warn you about Andrei? And oh, hell, Rae! What is that?” He pointed a finger at my left hand.

“What?” I looked down… and suppressed a curse when I saw Andrei’s ring back on my forefinger. “Oh… that.”

“Tell me it’s not what I think it is.”

“Depends on what you think it is.” I was stalling and he knew it. We stared at each other. “Temp, one minute you’re the happy mother of the bride, next minute you’re the old man warning the kids not to go up the mountain. Pick one character and stick with it.”

“I don’t comprehend those analogies,” he informed me with a poker face.

I rolled my eyes. “Sure, Temp. Let’s pretend you don’t.” I flexed my left hand. “This is supposed to connect me to Andrei, but we’re not really bonded. There was no ceremony. No freaky, gothic blood-letting, no creepy animal sacrifices, and no public sex.” I flushed. “Well, all right, so there was some sex in front of some…”

“So I heard, Baby Phat.” Temp’s face softened and he sat on the edge of my bed. “You know how weird it is that we’re, you know, related? It’s weirder that even though you’re older than me and we just met, I have this freaky, protective-older-brother vibe going on.”

God, he was getting all sentimental and I… liked it. I never had anyone looking out for me before—well, except for Renée and Lorenzo. But they didn’t know the truth about me so they didn’t really count. And so it was quite ironic that the two people who were actually looking out for me now just happened to be demons.

“What are you saying, Temp?” I asked, looking him in the eye.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is… Bitch, don’t kill my vibe,” was his response. Then his lips tilted into a smile. “Let me be your brother and protect you.”

“Do you want matching T-shirts now?” I was trying to be sarcastic, but my heart wasn’t in it. Instead, I was mortified to realize that there was a ball wedged deep in my throat. “Fuck you for making me want to bawl like an Oscar-winner,” I added.

He laughed and I threw my arms around him on impulse. He froze and it was my turn to snigger.

“Just go with it,” I told him, as I tried to really remember why I’d once tried to shut out the only family I really had. It was an unconventional family, yes. But it was all I had.

“Did he hurt you?” Temp’s voice was gentle as he stroked my back.

“Not physically,” I answered candidly, drawing back and finding his brow pinched in confusion. I decided to put him out of his short-lived misery and explain.

A few minutes later…

“That sounds like an episode of
Days of Our Lives
,” Temp remarked when I was done. “Making you jealous? Not very kingly.”

At that, I finally got off the bed as I replied, “Yeah. We already covered that.”

Temp was looking at me strangely.

“What?” I asked, looking down to see if all my private girl parts were perfectly covered. Since I wasn’t flashing him, I was perplexed by the look on Temp’s face.

“You know I’m not a conformist and Andrei isn’t my king,” he slowly began, “But in all the years I’ve known him, he hasn’t talked about his feelings like a teenage girl and he’s never been monogamous. What fucking sex demon even knows what monogamy means?”

“Your point is?” I snapped, feeling on the defensive.

“My point is that if anyone wants to overthrow him, or some such shit, you’re the best way to get to him.”

Oh! I haven’t thought about that.
But then again, I didn’t think much when Andrei was near me.
Or over me, or under me, or in me…

I shook my head. “But he’s immortal. Surely nothing can happen to him.”

He raised a brow. “Darling, you really need to do your homework. Sure, he can’t be killed, but there are other more painful ways to skin a cat.”

“Whatever. I need to take a shower before we go sleuthing. That cool with you?”

Temp didn’t bother to continue a conversation that was threatening to make me want to do my homework. “Be my guest,” he murmured, flopping onto his back on my bed. “I enjoyed this little heart-to-heart, Baby Phat. Maybe next time, we can include
The Notebook
and a mani-pedi.”

The fact that the small group of girls were chattering outside Nicolette in the carefree we-don’t-know-a-thing-about-taxes-and-real-life-bullcrap way college students normally did sort of made it hard for me to associate them with demons. They were all gorgeous, stick-thin model types—Megan-Fox clones from
Jennifer’s Body
, which was ironic.

“Are you sure?” I asked Temp, who was sitting beside me, casually chugging down a can of Red Bull as if stalking six random possessed chicks was an everyday excursion. “I mean, they kind of look like prostitutes, which isn’t exactly evil. But everyone has to eat, right? Well, not you, obviously.”

He rolled his eyes at me over the can. “Sure, I don’t have to eat, but I love food. And yeah, I’m sure, Rae.”

Since we were sitting in my rental car across the street, I wasn’t close enough to get a read on their auras, but Temp obviously was.

“I’m curious, Baby Phat,” he said after a moment of me staring out the window. “What’s the plan?”

“Well, I can always call Daniel,” I mused to myself, although I knew that that would be like signing his death warrant. Andrei, after all, openly admitted that he was jealous enough of the guy to actually think of mindlessly killing him.

Still, if Daniel was the only hunter I knew, what else could I do?

Maybe get rid of the demons yourself?
my conscience suggested.

Right. Easier said than done. I knew next to nothing about demon-hunting because I’d run away from my so-called destiny and decided to be a private investigator. Putting me up against a gang of demons would be like sending an infant to war.

“Hey, don’t freak out,” Temp soothed, putting his hand on my shoulder. A wave of calmness instantly washed over me.

I closed my eyes, opening them again to ask, “How do you do that?”

“Do what?” He withdrew his hand, clearing his throat.

“You know, calm me down like that? It’s… weird.”

He shrugged. “Just happens. Listen, Rae. In my humble opinion, I think you should let Andrei handle this one.” He shot me a sober look. “It was a bad idea for me to bring you here. Whatever these demons are doing, possessing innocent girls… Andrei will deal with it.”

“Yeah, but they don’t answer to him, do they? Besides, this is probably last on his list of priorities. I mean, he’s hardly a good guy.” And I was completely okay with that now. I was no angel, either.

“But he is higher up on the food chain than these body hoppers are.”

“Body hoppers?” I arched a brow.

Temp sighed. “You really need to do your homework if you’re gonna roll with demons. Body hoppers are scavengers, practically at the bottom of the food chain.” He returned my blank expression with a look of frustration. “You know how you channel surf, trying to find something good on TV? Well, they body surf. Honestly, they’re harmless but if they’re being controlled by somebody, somebody with double their IQ? It can only mean trouble and I don’t know what.”

“And you couldn’t tell me this sooner because…?” I said through clenched teeth, gripping the steering wheel a little tighter.

“Sorry, okay? I keep forgetting that you’re a demon-hunter that doesn’t hunt demons,” he replied, shrugging.

“I’m not a hunter!” I hissed emphatically, but I suddenly wished I was. It sucked being so clueless about something I shouldn’t have been clueless about.

But then again, what kind of hunter would I be when I’m related to demons and dating another?

I was like an exterminator that lived in a house filled with roaches and rodents.

“Okay, okay. You’re not a hunter. You’re a gatherer,” Temp quipped, grinning. His eyes twinkled with mischief. “A gatherer of information about hunting.”

I laughed. “Okay, that one was kind of funny.”

I despise homework… always have, always will.

It was for this very reason that I stopped googling demonology and ended up watching a whole bunch of must-see movie trailers on YouTube—an activity that actually lasted a few hours. Movie trailers always take the good parts of a movie though and make them seem so freaking appealing. But then when you go to the movies, you find out that the trailer is the five-percent of the movie that is not shit. Still, zoning out in front of my laptop watching a clip from
The Other Woman
certainly beat drowning myself in demon lore.

All the while, I was absentmindedly twirling Andrei’s ring around my finger... only stopping myself when I realized what I was doing. I couldn't deny the truth, however—I wanted to see him. He was in Vegas today, I knew that. But it didn’t mean that he couldn’t be here in a second. He could, and I wanted him to

Is this what being a girlfriend is all about? Pining for a guy… desperately missing him?