How to Love a Blue Demon (16 page)

She stared, her mouth opening and closing, eyes so wide, he wondered they didn’t pop f
rom her head. He heard her swallow and reached out to her. His eyes widened when she leapt up and moved swiftly away from him.

She snatched up a letter opened from her desk and brandished it like a weapon.

“I don’t know what kinda shit you’re pulling, or who you are, but you better stay your big ass back, or you’re gonna be sorry.”

He sighed and took a step closer, intending to console her,
to assuage the fear he could feel coming off of her in waves, but Cass leapt back again, slashing at him with her impromptu blade.

“Get outta my fuckin’ house!” she screamed.

Irritated beyond reason he raised a hand, and Cass watched in appalled shock as her weapon flew from her hand to his. And he didn’t hold it. Eyoen closed his hand around the slender silver wand, and it simply vanished.

“Lord have mercy,” she whispered
, a hand to her throat.

“I know this is shocking.”

Cass barked out an incredulous laugh and gave him a look like, you think?

“One minute, I’m Lee, the boyfriend you’ve known and loved. The next I’m a blue demon from a star you’ve never heard of. But I still love you, Cassidy,” he whispered
, and he let waves of sadness flow from his body to hers. It was unfair, but he wasn’t adverse to using a little magic to lure her to his way of thinking. The decision to accept or deny him was hers to make, but there were no rules to say he couldn’t pull out all the stops as the Earthlings liked to say.

Tears fell then. Cass
whimpered in confusion and fear. His heart clenched as he felt her mind race frantically. She wondered if she should scream, but if Priti and Boyd were there she didn’t want to endanger them. Plus, she was pretty sure they weren’t home. She wondered if she could make a break for it, race for the phone, then the door. Would a knee to the balls work on this creature? Did it even have balls? And what had happened to Lee? Where was he?

“Lee!” she screamed. “Lee! Boyd!”

“They’re not here, Cass,” Eyoen said calmly.

She
tensed as he stepped slowly closer. He held his hands up in the air, why he had no idea, but it seemed like the right thing to do. He felt the adrenaline coursing through her as she prepared to run, but then she recalled that locked door, and her fear grew exponentially. When he sent a wave of calm to her, she would have sunk to the ground and bawled her eyes out had he not snatched her up before she could touch the floor.

Gently he
laid her on her bed. He stroked her arms and her back, pulling her against his chest so she could catch his scent. He continued to stroke her despite the stiff rejection in her limbs, and after awhile the pheromones that made Cyani royals so attractive in the first place, began to work on her and the fear faded.

“There now,” he whispered. “Now you’re calm. You can see I don’t want to hurt you. I would never hurt you, Cass, and you know that. You’re just startled. It’s a lot to take in all at once, with no preparation.”

She shifted against him, restless, fretful movements that rubbed her full breasts against him. He willed his cock not to harden.

“A moment ago, I didn’t believe in aliens,” she said, he
r shock audible.

He chuckled softly. “And now you know for certain they exist, and one of them has fallen in love with you.” He shifted, cradling her in his arms
, one of his long legs pushing in between hers. “I’ve been watching you for a long time, Cass. Thanks to my seer, watching your life has become my favorite TV show.”

He could feel her s
urprise, but she was also listening. “I’ve spent countless hours watching you live, watching you do interviews and listening to you play music. Though nothing could compare to that first time I heard you live. You know, at Univision? That was so wonderful,” he said reverently, and she perked up hearing that deeply impressed tone. “You had the audience in the palm of your hand. You’ll get terribly conceited when I tell you how many stiff cocks there were hiding behind baseball caps and clip boards in that studio. All because of that magic you play with your voice and guitar.”

He knew had her attention now.
“I petitioned my father, the King, to come here to woo you. I thought I would court you, the way humans do. But the only way I could come was to use a host body,” he repeated. “It came as quite a shock when I realized exactly whose body I’d been given.

“It felt quite strange, inhabiting another m
an’s body, a lover you didn’t know was gone. I worried over it. It seemed rude, indelicate, almost like cheating in a way, but I couldn’t turn away from this chance. There was no way I could leave you alone when I had a chance for us to be together. I’ve been wanting you so long,” he whispered, shaking his head. He leaned forward as though to kiss her, and felt his heart thud in disappointment when she moved back.

He knew it was too early, but he couldn’t help himself.
“Do you think that you could love me?” He asked softly, and his hands began to run all over her body.

She stiffened at first, but he let
the love from his heart bleed into his fingertips and she softened like butter as he touched her arms, shoulders, sides, hips, and slowed to clutch hand fulls of her ass before starting all over again.

Cass
stared at Eyoen for a long time. Her eyes ran over his tall, broad shouldered body, lingering over his thick black hair and large tip tilted, almost oriental eyes in their startling golden hue. He was beautiful. He too could have been a model, a very successful one with that huge, overtly masculine body and those finely wrought features. His jaw was square, his lips full, if it wasn’t for the blue skin he could easily have passed for human. A thickly muscled, extremely hot human.

As strange as the face and body were, t
he voice was familiar. She’d heard echoes of it in Lee’s voice and thought the accident had something to do with the change. She realized she’d been right, though not in the way she’d thought.

Her mind ran back over everything that had transpired since the accident. The changes in his behavior, in his spe
ech, in the way he touched her. The way he’d teased her, playing with her in ways that Lee never had. The way he’d massaged her until her body purged itself of waste. She wondered now if massage had been all he’d done to her. Could he be controlling her mind right now?

Why else would she just l
ie here in his arms as though nothing was wrong? She thought about the last time they’d made love; her body wanted to do so again. She began to squirm just thinking about it. Her blood seemed to run hotter, her heart beat faster in anticipation as though he wasn’t an alien. As though he hadn’t just admitted to stealing her boyfriend’s body like one of the paranormal creatures in the romance novels Priti was always reading.

“I’m a demon,” he said. “From a star called Cyanus.”

Well, that was something, at least. The only demons she knew of came from hell. But he had taken over poor Lee’s body –

“Where is
Lee?” she asked suddenly, fear surging anew.

“He died,
my dear,” Eyoen repeated softly. “He did not survive his injuries after the car accident.”

Cass remembered him saying that earlier. “But, where is the body now?”

Eyoen hesitated, but he knew enough about this culture to know that ceremonies for the dead were necessary for spiritual healing and acceptance. Things were not terribly different on his star, except that after a demon died, the body was not buried or burned, it was absorbed back into the atmosphere. The dead demon’s energy went back into the star, ensuring that nothing and no one was ever wasted, that all continually made a contribution to the continuity of the species.

“Do not be alarmed,” he said softly. “I have not desecrated his body.
I know that you cared deeply for him, and I would never disrespect what he meant to you. Would you like to bury the body and have one of your funeral ceremonies?”

She nodded
uncertainly. “Though I don’t know how we’re going to explain all this,” she whispered. “If he’s really dead, if – it doesn’t feel like he’s dead,” she petered out.

He could feel her confusion beating at him, and it was deep.
She had a dozen questions tumbling around in her mind, more, but she didn’t know where to start. She wasn’t even sure what was real, and what wasn’t. How was she supposed to feel now? About him, about Lee? Where was Lee? Did she have feelings for him, this stranger? For them both? Should she have feelings for him? How could she? She didn’t even know him. She didn’t understand any of this.

Eyoen wished the
re was something he could do to help. She was battling the evidence of her eyes against an entire life’s beliefs, and the lust inspired by his still stroking hands only added to her confusion. Her body craved him, stretching into his touch and shuddering lightly when he closed his blue hand around her breast for the first time.

Cass would have been comforted to know their thoughts were so similar. Pleasure shook her body as she absorbed the strangely familiar touch. She’d felt it before, but the hand was bigger, the fingers that teased her nipples longer, more clever.

Tears filled her eyes as she wondered if she was some sort of pervert. This couldn’t be right. Could it? He was an alien, or crazy, or she was, she didn’t know which. She had to be crazy. There was no other explanation. She wasn’t reacting the way she should. There was no surprise, no upset, she just felt confused.

Her foundation was no longer solid, and Eyoen sympathized even as he sent a fervent prayer to the Goddess that Cass would put him out of his misery and tell him that she still cared for him. That his deception had not ruined all between them.

He felt her shake
her head against his chest and knew she was remembering Lee’s body melting away and his growing in its space. Eyoen wanted to jump up and dance around the room. He knew Cass didn’t realize it, but by even acknowledging the possibility that Lee was gone and that he was now her lover, she’d made the first move toward accepting him.

“Where, where, is he?”

“His body lies in state. Would you like to see him?”

After a long moment, Cass slowly shook her head no.
Eyoen frowned. Why did she hesitate?

Humans do not like to look upon their dead over long, sire. All they see when they look at the body is what is no longer there, and the sadness is too great.

“I, I don’t think I can bear to see him dead twice,” she whispered. “When you, when he was in the hospital lying so still, he looked dead then too.”

He nodded.
Thank you, Rierdane. You are ever wise counsel.

His servant offered a mental bow and was gone.

“I understand, my dear. He will rest in state until we are ready to have his funeral.”

“In state?”

“Yes,” he paused, not sure it was a good idea to remind her of his magic so soon. Thankfully, Cass didn’t seem to want to explore the idea further.

“I don’t know why I’
m lying here with a stranger,” Cass muttered. “I should be kicking your ass or screaming bloody murder, callin’ the man or all of the above. I don’t know why I’m not,” she said again.

“I’m afraid that’s my doing,” he confessed
, stifling a grin at her adorable confusion. “The same pigment that makes the royal skin this shade of blue also contains a pheromone that is both an attractant and a kind of,” he paused, looking for the right word.

Drug sounded wrong,
negative, and sedative wasn’t quite accurate since most of the ones he knew of put the taker to sleep.

“Soother,” he finished. “It calms you in much the same way a
very mild tranquilizer would only without the side effects.”

“You drugged me?”
she whispered.

“No! You are under no undue influence. I’ve just calmed your fears and cleared your mind. I couldn’t bear your fear, my love. It was breaking my heart.”

“Do you have a heart?” she asked curiously.

He felt her
hand stretch its fingers against his chest, and had to restrain a primal war cry of satisfaction. She was interested in his body! Perhaps they would be able to make love again soon. He could touch her and take her as himself for the first time. His cock surged in response, and he forced himself to take several deep calming breaths, not wanting her to become alarmed by the evidence of his desire – or hers for that matter – not when so much between them was unsettled.

Still, the idea of her touching him, of covering her i
n his true form, he took a deep shuddering breath and forced himself to answer her.

“Yes. Our physiology is much the same. Apart from the skin color, ears, and a few other things.”

“Your skin color.”

“Yes, my dear.
This shade of blue is specific to the royals in our kingdom.”

“And
it means you can do magic.”

He nodded. “Yes,
although most all demons of any caste or kind can do some magic. Of all the planets and stars in this realm, it is only Earth that has almost wholeheartedly turned its back on the power of the universe in favor of science. I can also heal. Do you remember when you had a belly ache?”