Authors: Richelle Mead

Succubus On Top (4 page)

BOOK: Succubus On Top

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“Because . . . because . . .” He tipped my chin up with his hand, the emotion in those eyes making my insides melt. “Because being with you feels so right . . . like it's always been meant to be. You make me believe in a higher power for once in my life.”

I closed my eyes and put my head on his chest. I could hear his heart beating. He wrapped me to him, his embrace warm and solid, and I felt like I couldn't get close enough to him. Probably I should have let the discussion go then, but one more thing was still on my mind tonight. After all, I had a gold-embossed certificate sitting on my counter.

“Even if you can control yourself . . . even if you can stay celibate, you know I won't be.”

The words hurt coming out, but my mouth's control switch didn't always function so well. Besides, I didn't want anything standing between us.

“I don't care.” But I felt his hold on me stiffen a little.

“Seth, you willâ”

“Thetis,
I don't care
. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters except what happens between you and me.”

The fierceness in his voiceâa contrast to his normal placidityâthrilled me, but it was not that that made me give up the argument. It was the word “Thetis.” Thetis. Thetis the shape-shifting goddess. The shape-shifter wooed and won by a steadfast mortal. Seth had coined the name for me when he learned I was a succubus, when he'd first insinuated that my infernal standing was not a deterrent.

I pulled him closer.
Don't look down.

We went to bed shortly thereafter, Aubrey snuggling up at our feet. The feel of Seth's body curled by mine under the covers was tantalizing, a cruel whisper of the restrictions around us.

I sighed and tried to think of something other than how nice he felt or how great it would be if he slid his hand up my shirt. I grinned as a most unsexual sentiment came to mind.

“I want pancakes.”

“What? Right now?”

“No. For breakfast.”

“Oh.” He yawned. “You'd better get up early then.”

“Me? I'm not going to make them.”

“Yeah?” His sleepy voice carried mock sympathy. “Who's going to make them for you then?”

“You are.”

It was a well-known factâat least to Seth and meâthat he made the best pancakes known to mankind. They always came out perfect, light and fluffy. Through some kitchen magic, he even managed to put smiley faces on them when he made them for me. Once he'd even put a
G
on one. I'd assumed it was for my name, but later, he'd sworn it stood for “goddess.”

“Am I?” His lips brushed my earlobe; his breath was warm against my skin. “You think I'm going to make you pancakes? Is that how you think it's going to be?”

“You're so good at it,” I whined. “Besides, if you do, I'll sit on the counter in a short robe while you cook.” Oops. Maybe pancakes could become sexual after all.

His soft laughter segued into another yawn. “Oh. Well then.” He kissed my ear again. “Maybe I'll make you pancakes.”

His breathing grew slow and regular, the tension in his body easing. Soon he slept, not troubled or tempted in the least by having me in his arms.

I sighed again. He was right; he did have self-control. If he could do this, surely I could too. I closed my eyes and waited for exhaustion to take over. Fortunately, it didn't waste any time; staying up late will do that to you. Maybe that was the real key to sleeping chastely.

I woke up in his arms hours later, hearing the ever-sofaint sounds of bad seventies music drifting through the wall. One of my neighbors felt the need to do aerobics to the Bee Gees every day around lunchtime. Certifiable insanity.

Wait. Lunchtime?

I sat bolt upright, panic jolting me into full consciousness as I assessed the situation. My bed. Seth sprawled beside me. The full roar of traffic outside. Clear, winter sunlight pouring through the windowâa lot of sunlight.

Fearing the worst, I looked at the nearest clock. It was 12:03.

Groaning silently, I groped on the floor for my cell phone, wondering why no one had yet called me in to work. Looking at the phone's display, I realized I'd turned the ringer off during the movie.
Seven new voice mail messages
, the phone read. So much for pancakes. Tossing the phone back down, I looked over at Seth, the cuteness of him in a T-shirt and flannel boxers momentarily allaying my frustration.

I shook him, wishing I could just crawl back under the covers with him. “Wake up. I've got to go.”

He blinked up at me drowsily, further increasing his appeal. Aubrey wore a similar look. “Huh? Too . . . early.”

“Not that early. I'm late for work.”

He stared at me blankly for a few seconds and then sat up nearly as rapidly as I had. “Oh. Oh man.”

“It's all right. Let's go.”

He disappeared into the bathroom, and I shape-shifted my appearance once more, turning the pajamas into a red sweater and black skirt, my loose hair into a neat bun. I hated doing this so often, much preferring to rifle through my own closet. Shape-shifting also burned through my energy stash that much more quickly, requiring more frequent victims. Unfortunately, time-crunches call for certain sacrifices.

When Seth returned, he did a double take at my appearance and shook his head. “Still can't get used to that.”

I expected him to go home and sleep, but he went with me to the bookstore. Its coffee shop was his favorite place to write. As we walked into Emerald City Books and CafÃ©, I breathed a sigh of relief that neither my manager Paige nor Warren, the store owner, appeared to be around. Still, business had already opened for the day without me, and my chipper, morning-people coworkers made it impossible to sneak in without notice.

“Hey, Georgina! Hi Seth!”

“Georgina and Seth are here!”

“Good morning, Georgina! Good morning, Seth!”

Seth left to take up his writing station upstairs, and I made my way to the back offices. All of them were dark, which I found odd. No managers at all. Someone should have opened before me. I flipped on the light in my own office.

I was so fixated on figuring out what was going on that the demon took me completely by surprise.

Red-skinned and multihorned, he leapt out at me, waving his arms and making unintelligible grunting sounds. I yelped and dropped the things I'd been carrying, recoiling.

A moment later, my senses returned, and I walked over and smacked him on the side of the head as hard as I could.

Chapter 3

“
Y
ou're such a dork, Doug!”

“Fuck, that hurt!”

Doug Sato, the other dysfunctional assistant manager here and one of the most entertaining mortals I knew, pulled off the rubber mask he'd been wearing, revealing the beautiful features he'd inherited from his Japanese ancestors. He rubbed his forehead, giving me a wounded scowl. Upon closer inspection, I saw that the mask was not that of a demon but rather Darth Maul from
The Phantom Menace
. I should have known. No self-respecting demon would have had that many horns.

“What are you doing?” I leaned down to pick up my scattered belongings. “Halloween was, like, a week ago.”

“Yeah, I know. Everything's on sale. I got this for three dollars.”

“You got ripped off.”

“Boy, you're one to nag, Miss I-Show-Up-When-I-Feel-Like-It. You're lucky it's just me here.”

“Why
are
you here?”

Doug and I held the same position. On days when we overlapped, we usually worked different shifts, not identical ones. It was for the best. We usually distracted each other enough to accomplish the work of one person. Sometimes less.

He grabbed the back of the rolling desk chair and impressively flipped his body into it, the impact of which caused the chair to roll half-way across the office. “Paige called me in. She's sick.”

Paige, our manager, was about six months pregnant. “Is she okay?”

“Dunno. If she gets better, she'll come in later.”

He spun around the room a few times, then rolled up to the desk and beat out a fast rhythm on it with his hands. I presumed the cadence was from one of his band's songs.

“Jesus, you're wound up today. You get lucky last night?”

“I get lucky every night, Kincaid.”

“Whatever. Your demon mask was more believable than that.”

“Okay, maybe I'm not getting lucky
every
night right now, but that's going to change. The group's getting fucking amazing.”

“I've always thought you guys were fucking amazing,” I stated loyally.

Doug shook his head, dark eyes almost feverishly bright. “Oh no. You can't even believe it now. We got this new drummer, and suddenly . . . it's just like, I don't know . . . we're doing things we've never done before.”

I frowned. “Because of one drummer?”

“No, I mean, it's all of us. He's just one of the good things that's happened. It's like . . . everything's just clicking into place. You ever have days like that? When everything is perfect? Well, we're having weeks like that. Songs. Gigs. Style.” His enthusiasm was palpable, and it made me smile. “We're even playing the Verona.”

“Seriously?”

“Yup.”

“That's a major venue. I mean, it's not like the Tacoma Dome or anything, but then, they wouldn't let you play there anyway if you didn't have a monster truck worked into the act.”

He spun the chair around again. “You should come see it. A bunch of the other staff is. It'll be the greatest night of your life.”

“I don't know. I've had a lot of great nights.”

“Second best then. Unless you're thinking of joining my groupies. I'd let you be their leader, you know. You could always have first dibs on me.”

I rolled my eyes, then turned pensive as the sex jokes reminded me of my recent Seth issues.

“Hey Doug, do you think men and women can date without having sex?”

He had been tipping way back in the chair and suddenly snapped forward. “Oh my God. You
are
thinking of joining the groupies.”

“I'm serious. Two people dating without sex. Fact or fantasy?”

“Okay, okay. For how long? A week?”

“No. Like, months.”

“Are they Amish?”

“No.”

“Are they ugly?”

“Er, no.”

“No.”

“No what?”

“No, they can't do it. Not in this day and age. Why do you want to know?”

“No reason.”

He cut me an arch look. “Of course not.” He didn't know about Seth and me, but he did know me.

Our phone's intercom came to life just then, asking for backup on the registers.

“Paper rock scissors?” Doug asked, spinning the chair around again.

“Nah, I'll go. I should make up for my tardiness. Besides, I think you need to come down from your caffeine high. Or your megalomania high. Not sure which.”

He flashed me a grin and turned to the paused game of Tetris on our shared computer.

Truthfully, I didn't mind going out anyway. I worked for the fun of it, not the money. Immortality was long, and vocation and daily work sort of regulated human existence, even if I wasn't technically human anymore. It just felt right to be doing something, and unlike so many other unfortunate souls in this world, I actually liked what I did for a living.

I checked in on Seth a few times as I worked throughout the day, drank a lot of white-chocolate mochas, and dealt with what was becoming a heavy flow of business as the holiday season grew ever closer. At one point, I finally did have to pull Doug out with me. I found him in our office, still playing Tetris.

I opened my mouth to make a joke about his work ethic and then caught sight of the computer screen. He played Tetris on a regular basis, so I was familiar with the game and his prowess, but what I saw now blew my mind. His score was the highest I'd ever seen, and he was at such an advanced level now that the pieces zoomed down the screen. I couldn't follow them. Yet, he caught and placed them all, never missing a beat.

“My God,” I muttered. There was no way his hands and reflexes could be responding like that. The computer would probably implode at any moment. “I guess everything really is clicking into place for you lately.”

He laughed, either at my pun or my astonishment. “Need me out there?”

“Yeah . . . though it seems so wasteful now compared to this . . . mastery. Like interrupting Michelangelo.”

Doug shrugged obligingly, shut down the game, and followed me out. I think the computer was relieved. He and I worked together cheerfully for the rest of my shift. His good mood over the band's success kept him chipper and lively, making the day fly by. When it was time for me to go, I offered to close for him since he'd had to come in unexpectedly early. He waved me off.

“Forget about it. Go do something fun tonight.”

As I was leaving the store, I passed a rack of magazines and saw a copy of the latest issue of
American Mystery
. In big letters, one of the headlines read:
Cady and O'Neill Return! Seth Mortensen gives us an exclusive novella
.

Eek. What a bad girlfriend I was. Seth had told me about this story's upcoming appearance, and I'd completely forgotten about it. It had just come out yesterday. Apparently being with him regularly was distracting me from his art. Before the publication of his last novel, I'd literally marked off days on my calendar until its release. Longing washed over me, but I knew I couldn't read this story tonight. Bastien had left me a cell phone message saying he'd stop by my place later, and I had a feeling he'd distract me for most of the evening.

Tomorrow, I promised myself. I'd read the story tomorrow.

I'd just settled in back home when Bastien showed up bearing Thai food.

“How was the literary world today?” he asked as we had a picnic on my living room floor. Aubrey watched sharply from a discreet distance, her eyes fixed covetously on a container of green curry. Pad Thai did nothing for her.

“Weird,” I reflected, recalling sleeping in late, Doug's behavior, and the frenetic pace of early holiday shopping. “Yours?”

It was clear from his expression he'd been dying to tell me this from the moment he'd cleared my door.

“Fantastic. I moved into the house today. You should see the neighborhood. It's the American Dream and then some. Big appliances. Manicured lawns. Three-car garages.”

“Three cars? Do you even have
a
car?”

“Sure do. Company car.”

“Hmphf. No one ever gave me a company car.”

“That's because you aren't on the verge of the Seduction of the Century. I even met her already.”

“Dana?”

“First day, and she comes to me! Can you believe it? It's like I don't even have to do anything. This operation just runs itself. I am its tool. Its plaything evenâor rather, Dana's plaything.”

“I don't know about that,” I noted dryly, “unless you're going to add that she jumped on you and ripped your clothes off today too.”

“Well, no. She actually just came by to welcome me to the neighborhood. But, she did also invite me to a party she's hosting. âA Barbecue in November.' Charming, huh?”

“Adorable. Nothing I love better than eating hot dogs in the cold.”

He elbowed me. “It's a theme, Fleur. It's fun. And it's all indoors. You know, you're turning into a regular cynic lately.”

“Not cynical. Just still skeptical of this whole thing. It seems overly elaborate for what it is. A lot of work for one lay.”

“One lay?” He tsked me and shook his head. “Let me see your laptop.”

I retrieved it from my bedroom and returned to find Aubrey licking the edges of my plate. I shooed her away and handed Bastien the computer. A few quick clicks, and he soon had the Committee for the Preservation of Family Values' website open. Dana's organization. Most of her radio broadcasts were archived and available for download. He picked one, and we finished the rest of our meal to the sound of her rich, melodic voice.

The first broadcast concerned homosexuality. The CPFV maintained an appearance of sugarcoated goodness, a desire to help people and improve American life. Consequently, because being openly racist or sexist was not good for one's image anymore, the organization only espoused views slanted in those directions in subtle ways. Blatantly condemning homosexuality, however, was not entirely taboo yetâunfortunatelyâand the bulk of this broadcast involved Dana oozing on about the importance of “helping” those people to understand the true way both nature and God intended love to be. Toleration of such misguided lifestyles, she claimed, would lead to a breakdown in our families. The children. For God's sake, think of the children.

Her next broadcast damned the abominable state of today's clothing. School uniforms and fashion censoring were the only ways to go. How could we expect young girls to grow up with any self-respect when they walked around dressed like sluts? It led to sexual acts they weren't ready for, not to mention instilling in them the idea that their value came from appearance, not character.

I thought of the lacy purple thong I wore under my jeans just then. What was wrong with character
and
sex appeal?

The third one we listened to concerned the futility of teaching teenagers about safe sex and contraception. Abstinence training was the way to go. Keep them in pure ignorance. End of story.

“Enough,” I said at that point. Her shallow, prejudiced values cloaked in so-called love and kindness unsettled the food in my stomach.

Bastien grinned. “Still think it's just one lay?”

I stretched back on my carpet, resting my feet on his lap. He massaged them for me. “I hate hypocrites, good or evil. Doesn't matter what they're touting.”

“You should hear some of her background, some of the past issues she's advocated for with her group. Lovely stuff thereâI researched her all day. I can pull it up for you.”

I held up a hand. “No, please. I believe you. The bitch must fall, okay? If I had a sword, I'd tap your shoulders and send you off with my blessings.”

He lay down beside me. “Well, why don't you take a front-row seat then? Come to the party with me. I'm sure no one would mind if Mitch brought his sister.”

“Party on the Eastside? My blessing only goes so far.”

“Oh, come on. Admit it. You have a perverse desire to meet her in the flesh. Besides, it's been a while since you've seen me in action. You might pick up on a few things. Get some pointers.”

Laughing, I rolled over on my side to better study him. “Like I need pointers from you.”

He rolled to his side as well, smirking. “Yeah? Then prove it. Let's go out tonight. Let's go hunting.”

My smile diminished. “What?”

“Just like the old days. We'll find some club, work up a sweat, then tag respective fixes for the night.”

BOOK: Succubus On Top

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