My Demon Saint (3 page)

She’d never been one for cyber flirting. Face to face was more her style. It gave her a sense of the person’s intentions.
Don’t be silly, Ume. This isn’t flirting. It’s just a game. A character
.

Ume swore she saw the warrior smile.

In case you were wondering, I’m definitely flirting. Why don’t we go to that booth in the corner and discuss it in private? That, along with a job I have for you that I think you’ll want to take.

Oh my. Ume looked around her living room with a guilty blush. It didn’t matter that she lived alone. She still felt a little like a teenager about to do something she knew she shouldn’t. Suddenly getting back to the battle right away didn’t seem so important. Nor did the computer glitch that had sent her here. She was curious. And there didn’t seem to be any harm in satisfying that curiosity. She sent her character to the booth, and the warrior who called himself Sinner followed.

Ume took a sip of her soft drink to soothe her dry throat, then began to type once more.

What is this job? I’m curious.

Sinner’s reply appeared in the window.

It’s something I know you want. Something everyone wants. A treasure no one in this world has ever gotten close to. But first, *I slip my hand under the table and you can feel my fingers trace a line up your thigh, gliding between your legs* I want to know why you’re here. Why I’ve never seen you before.

“What the—” Ume looked down, lifting up her laptop and the blanket beneath it. Nope. Nothing there. But she’d felt it again. Those rough, masculine fingers between her thighs. She still felt them. And her body was responding. Heating.

Maybe it was time to lower the dosage of her pain medication.

Maybe you should just go with it
, the devil on her shoulder whispered. Ume raised her eyebrows. This was a fantasy, wasn’t it? And there was no way for anyone to know who she actually was. But then again, there was no way for her to know who
he
really was either.

She settled in once more and bit her lip before responding.

I was in the middle of a battle. I’m not sure why I’m here. And I’ve never seen you before either. How do I know you aren’t trying to set a trap? That you aren’t working for the demons?

“That you aren’t a teenager with braces and acne?” She mumbled out loud, trying to splash a little cold reality on her overheating libido.

*Shakes his head at your distrust* I work for no one but myself. I can take you to the Demon King’s lair to retrieve his most sacred possession.

Wait a second…had he said what she’d thought he said? The Demon King’s lair? Saint’s lair? No one had ever been to that level. Ume had heard the stories. The game was a labyrinth of levels, always changing, adapting to each player’s skill. The end result for most serious gamers was to get to Saint’s lair. To retrieve his treasure and end the demon attacks once and for all. There were always rumors, but no one had ever gotten…she lost her train of thought as the hand she shouldn’t feel between her thighs heated her skin.

Her heavy-lidded eyes focused on the screen again and she typed without thinking.

Why do I think you’ve used that line before? Not that you’d need it.

She covered her eyes with one hand, groaning. She was flirting. There was no denying it. Talk about desperate. Ume peered through her fingers as he responded.

*Takes your hand and places it on my hardening cock* It’s not a line. I can prove it to you if you let me. In fact, I can do more than that
.

She moaned. Was this happening? Could she really feel the metal of his weapon? The scratchy fabric of his pants? The thick erection beneath? She curled her fingers and shivered. It felt real enough. Wonderful and forbidden and real.

A ding of sound alerted her to a new window popping up above their conversation. The words there made her gasp.

The warrior has propositioned you. Do you accept? Y/N

“I know I’m going to regret this.” Ume hesitated, but clicked yes before she could talk herself out of it.

A new cutscene began to play. The characters Sinner and Plum were in one of the bedrooms above the bar, facing each other.

“Lovely. Animated porn.” Ume snorted, but she couldn’t peel her gaze from the screen. These were superb graphics. When the warrior, Sinner, slipped off his weapon, and the rest of his clothes, her mouth began to water. He was so…it was…

Yeah
. Really
good graphics.

Her character began to strip as well, and Ume’s heart started to race. This was silly. But at least she knew for a fact that this character’s user was not a child. The game had strict policies and security in place to insure that minors could not access the program’s more adult features. It was something young hackers continuously complained about in the main forums.

Sinner pulled Plum into his arms, pressing her breasts to his chest, his cock against the curve of her stomach.

Ume cried out in surprise. She was experiencing every sensation as though it were real. As if she were her character. Impossible. Her imagination wasn’t
that
good.

But that didn’t stop her from wanting more. From holding her breath to see what came next.

She didn’t have to wait long. With a devilish smile Sinner lifted Plum into his arms and carried her, not to the bed, but to the wall. Ume could feel the soft fur of her tails against her back and her legs, her strong lean-muscled legs wrapping around Sinner.

Plum’s tails. Not hers. Shit, she was going crazy, but she didn’t care.

Her hand slid down her stomach toward her sex, desperate to ease this ache. She was so wet. She needed release.

On the screen one of Plum’s hands left Sinner’s shoulder to do the same. Sinner stopped her. “Let go, sweet. Let go and give in to me. I can make you come.”

Ume bit her lip so hard she could taste the blood. Her hand couldn’t move. He was stopping it somehow. And he’d spoken in the game. With a deep, rich voice that made her
need
to do what he wanted.

Before those thoughts could completely register in her mind
he
was inside her. Oh God. He felt just as big, just as sinful as he looked.

It had been so long since she’d had this. Three years. Ume’s head tilted to the side and she moaned, lost to it. Lost to this stranger. “Fuck me.”

Plum opened her full lips and moaned. “Fuck me.”

Sinner growled. “Just remember. You asked for it.”

There were no words to come close to describing how she felt as he held her against the wall and started to shaft her.
Taken
. Deep and long, hard and slow, filling her beyond what she thought she could take before dragging his hips back so slowly she thought she would die from it.

“Faster. Please. More.” Ume was begging, unashamed that he’d brought her to this state so quickly. Teasing her with exquisitely slow strokes. Gripping her hips with his strong hands, controlling her body.

His seductive voice was raspy with desire. “What makes you think begging will help?” He thrust deep, laughing at her groan. “I’m enjoying this too much. Too damn much.”

She curled her fingers, digging her nails into his biceps and clenched her inner muscles around his cock, making him shout, his hips jerking against hers. “Don’t tempt the devil, babe. You may not be able to handle what comes next.”

Ume stared at the character on screen through a red haze of passion. “I can handle whatever you dish out.”

Plum sent Sinner a siren’s smile. “I can handle whatever you dish out.”

“Oh, poor girl. Now there really is no going back.”

Her cries echoed through the empty living room, and her back arched hard off the daybed.
This
. This was what she wanted. She was drowning in sensations—the smell of him, the feel of the heat rolling off his body, burning her skin. The noises emerging from his throat as he powered into her, jarring her body with the strength of his thrusts, sounded animalistic. Wild.

She loved it all. He didn’t treat her as though she were fragile. As though she would break. He claimed her as his equal. Demanded everything like a conqueror. Trembled like a lover.

Her climax took her by surprise. A bonfire. A raging, burning conflagration rushing through every cell in her body, leaving nothing behind but ashes. He’d destroyed her. He joined her with a roar of satisfaction, and in that moment she knew she would never be the same.

Ume tasted the salt of her tears, mingling with the salty taste of his skin in her mouth and she realized she was biting his shoulder. She blinked, forcing herself to focus. Her
character
was biting his shoulder.

He was looking at the screen, directly at her. “More, Ume. Give me more.” His guttural voice shocked her completely back to her senses.

She slammed down the laptop cover, unplugging it for good measure before placing it on the table beside her as though it had just turned into a poisonous snake.

Ume. The computer-generated character that had just made her climax had called her by her real name.

And she could have sworn she’d seen his eyes flash red.

She was trembling, and pretty sure she was never going to play
Demon Saint
again. Hell, she might never open that computer again. And she was definitely going to talk to her doctor about those pain meds.

She ran a shaky hand over her face, pushing her damp hair off her forehead. It had seemed so real. Her body was convinced it was. Her sex was still pulsing from the most intense climax of her life. And no one had actually touched her.

Playtime was over. From now on, she’d stick to the real world.

Chapter Three

It had been two days. Two long, difficult days. Ume threw her pen and the book of crossword puzzles she’d been trying to focus on across the room. Nothing was distracting her from what she’d done, what she’d seen on the computer the other night.

The physical therapist had come by yesterday, and Ume had nearly exhausted him, unwilling to stop until she’d been covered in a cold sweat, collapsing before having to listen to his lecture on going slow and taking it easy. But she didn’t want to take it easy.

She’d wanted to be so exhausted that she didn’t relive Sinner’s touch. The touch of someone who didn’t actually exist, or so she told herself over and over again. He couldn’t exist. And it had just been her imagination that he’d spoken to her, that his eyes glowed.

Any other explanation was crazy. Instantly a memory of her mother tucking her into her bed filled her mind.

“Beware the
Oni
, Ume-chan. They know your desires as well as they know your fears. They will use both against you if they discover your existence.” Her mother reached down and held the necklace she’d made Ume wear since she was a baby, watching the single pearl glimmer by the light of the small bedside lamp. “This should protect you from our
Oni
. It has always kept me safe.”

But it hadn’t. Not from her early death. Not from her own fears, that had grown to such paranoid proportions before she died that her teenage daughter had been embarrassed by her. Embarrassed…and cruel. That had been the hardest thing for Ume to accept. That like her father, she’d left her mother alone with her terror. And the last conversation they’d had before she died could never be taken back.

The one where she’d told her mother there was no such thing as
kitsune
, as
Oni
. The one where she’d called her mother crazy.

Maybe losing her mind was Ume’s punishment.

“I know. I was just here, but my mother made her famous dumplings and she knew you would want some, so here I am again.”

Ume jumped, swiping her palm over her damp eyes to hide her tears. “Dumplings, huh? Sounds delicious.”

Julie stopped in the middle of pulling out a plastic container full of pork-filled goodness and stared hard at her cousin, making Ume squirm. “Have you been crying? You sound like you’ve been crying.”

Ume shook her head but Julie wasn’t buying it, rushing to the daybed, a look of true concern on her lovely face. “Ume Wu, tell me what’s wrong right now. Are you in pain? Do I need to call the doctor?”

Julie took Ume’s face in her hands and she crumpled, the tears she’d been holding in pouring down her cheeks. Her cousin looked bemused. It was understandable. Ume didn’t cry. Not during the surgeries. Not when she’d discovered her chances of ever walking normally again. Not in front of people, at least. It was a lesson from her stoic father that she’d never forgotten.

“Please, tell me what to do. What happened?”

“I ha-had cyber se-sex,” Ume sobbed. “And it felt real. I mean really real. And then…and then…hiseyesturnedredandnowI’mafraidtoopenmycomputer.” She looked up at Julie, whose mouth was opening and closing like a fish trying to breathe above water. “You think I’m loony tunes, don’t you?”

“Because you had cybersex? Or because of how fast you’re talking?”

Ume sniffed loudly. “Because I’ve been playing that stupid game and now I think there’s a demon on my computer. Oh God, I can’t believe I just said that out loud.”

Julie sat back. “You’ve been playing
Demon Saint
?”

Ume nodded, and Julie bit her lip. “And you think you had, um, cybersex with a demon?”

Ume nodded again.

“And it was good?” Another nod. “So, why are you crying again?”

Ume snorted, accepting the tissue Julie handed her. “You’re no help at all. I’m admitting to you that insanity may run in my family and you just accept it. I keep forgetting you believe this is all real.”

Julie sighed. “Okay, you want practical? I don’t think your computer is possessed with an orgasm-inducing demon. To prove it, I’m going to sit here while you turn it back on. Besides, you can’t be afraid of the Internet. You’re my best customer.”

She stuck her tongue out at Julie but felt a nervous flutter in her stomach when she looked at the thin, rectangular object of her fears. Maybe Julie was right. She should just open it up, turn it on and prove to herself once and for all that there was nothing to be afraid of.

Julie reached over and picked up her laptop, holding it out towards her. Ume’s hands lifted hesitantly to take it. She opened it, releasing a startled shriek as it started to ring.