Succubus in the City (28 page)

A date. A real second date with someone. He had taken me to the bat cave and had a picnic, and we had danced the night away when I arrived, and I still hadn’t slept with him.

After I got dressed I met up with Desi and went downstairs. And there was Marten, looking even more elegant than he had last night, waiting near the fountain. Waiting for me.

And he looked beautiful, all Delft blue eyes and warmly golden skin and a pair of Helmut Lang trousers that clung and curved over a firmly developed rear. But he wasn’t just displaying his assets to find someone for a quick fun and tumble tonight. No, he was scanning the area, eyes discarding every woman there even though some of them were breathtakingly beautiful.

He was looking for me.

chapter
TWENTY-TWO

His eyes lit up when he saw me and when he smiled I saw the deep dimple in his cheek. Oh my yes, he was lovely. And far more lovely because he was thrilled to see me.

He held out his arms and I moved into them and he hugged me warmly. “You smell as enticing as you look,” he said. “Would you like a drink?”

We drank, though I was carefully moderate in my intake. I didn’t want to get so drunk that I lost control and delivered him entirely by mistake when I didn’t mean to.

We danced a bit, or rather swayed around to whatever the DJ was inflicting on the company. Mostly I was thinking of how firm Marten’s arms were around me and how he guided me on the dance floor. How he nibbled so lightly on my ear and then whispered, asking if I would like to go someplace quieter, and led me off the floor.

I took the lead and led him to my room.

For a moment I hesitated, wondering whether I should just drag him to the bed. But he sat down on the white sofa and pulled me with him, close, almost in an embrace. He turned to me and put his arm around my shoulder. “I hope you are having a very nice time on our island,” he said softly. The he leaned over and kissed my ear.

I made a deep noise in my throat, closed my eyes and leaned into his chest. His expensive cologne and scented soap did not disguise the warm masculine smell of sea and sun and sand that emanated from his sun-kissed skin. I leaned my cheek tentatively against his neck and felt the smooth, soft, freshly shaved skin.

Skin was the only soft thing about Marten. His arms tightened around me and I felt the hard muscle enfold me effortlessly. I leaned my head on his chest and found that, too was firm. I wanted to run my hands up under his shirt, to feel the interplay of flesh, the power in his shoulders against the sensitivity of his skin.

He nuzzled me gently, teasingly, breathing into my ear and flicking his tongue around the upper curves. Then he moved down, kissing my neck and stroking his fingers down the deep
V
of my halter top. His fingers barely brushed the top of my breasts, hesitant, hovering.

I was ready, but then I’m a succubus, and he was going slowly. He kissed the hollow in my throat and then, moving like honey on a hot day, slid his mouth down over my exposed décolletage. I could feel the heat of him. His muscles were tensed, powerful, but he was taking his time.

“Beautiful, so beautiful,” he murmured into my flesh. “I could just look at you all night.”

I smiled.

He traced the tracks of the ribbons, where the black and pink met and ran over my nipples and then the chevron pattern down to my stomach. Again, this time harder, I felt his fingers over my nipples and they stood erect. Then he smoothed his palms down over my stomach and I felt all warm and fluttery.

“Shall I?” I started to ask, but he shook his head.

“Shhh, we have plenty of time. Let me,” he told me.

I leaned back and succumbed to his gentle insistence. He was still seated next to me on the sofa. Instead of working back down, he dropped his hands to my knee and massaged down my bare calf to my shiny strappy sandals.

He bent down and kissed the top of my foot, and then untied the laces around my ankle. They came away leaving marks, and after he removed my shoe he began to massage, very gently, from the bottom of my toes, relieving the discomfort that I had almost forgotten from dancing for even a short time on those high narrow heels.

His hands, his hands moving over my bare skin, were electrifying. He massaged my poor battered feet and then moved up to my calf. He explored higher, up to my knee, paying careful attention to the curves of my right leg as if there were nothing else in the world at that moment.

I sighed and sank deeper into the cushions, my head against the arm of the sofa and my leg across his lap.

He smiled, and there was a kind of innocent delight that lit him up. He stopped at my knee and reached for the other foot, and I was torn.

Oh, yes, I wanted him to massage the other foot and leg, and oh very yes, I wanted his hands on my thighs, under my skirt. I craved his more intimate touch and I quivered with desire and frustration.

Most men are done and delivered long before I felt half the arousal Marten was inspiring. I made a little noise in the back of my throat and he froze, then looked up quizzically.

“You are happy?” he asked gently. “You are not worried that you are doing something wrong, that you have a boyfriend at home and you are having qualms of conscience? If you are worried I can stop.” He said the last gently, bending down to kiss my knee.

“No, don’t stop,” I said. “Please, please, don’t stop.”

He leaned over me then and put his face close to mine. “I would not like to make you unhappy. I want to remember that Lily was only ever happy with me. That all her memories of Aruba will be pleasure in paradise and there will be no guilt or sorrow. Ever.”

I reached up and pulled him against me. Feeling the length of his body along mine, I knew that he was as aroused as I was. I kissed him, deep and open and with a passion I had not kissed anyone in centuries. I explored his mouth and he replied eagerly.

When we finally broke for air I whispered to him, “I want you now, tonight, and I will only feel unhappy if you leave.”

“No guilt?” he asked gently, one last time to be sure.

“No. No guilt,” I assured him. “Just lust.” Then, to prove it, I smiled and ran my hands down over that perfect rear, aware of the powerful muscles bunching in my grasp as he gasped.

I’m not certain quite how we got untangled, but he managed to get to his feet and picked me up and carried me into the bedroom. And, exactly as I expected, he could carry me with as little strain as if he routinely ported around a hundred-and-six-pound weight.

After lowering me to the bed, he carefully unbuttoned the twelve tiny buttons down the front of the ribbon top, and then unwrapped me as if I were the best present under the tree on Christmas morning.

Then he just leaned back and stared down at me, eating me with his eyes.

I was hot, dripping, panting, I wanted him so badly.
Don’t make me wait, touch me,
I screamed in my mind. I would have said it, too, but his slow generosity had already brought me closer to the edge than any man had done in—way too long.

I thought I knew what would come next, and wiggled a bit in anticipation, but I was wrong. He didn’t even attempt to remove my skirt. Instead he reached under it, bunching the fabric around my waist, and slid my panties down my thighs. He didn’t remove them entirely, just took them down far enough to look at me.

And look he did. He examined me, ooohed and aaaahed as if he couldn’t stare long enough. “You truly are a redhead,” he breathed softly, lightly fingering my carefully trimmed pubic hair.

“Please please please,” I moaned, demanding and begging together.

He chortled deep in his throat. And then he bent down and buried his tongue in my nether curls and flicked his tongue between my legs. And I was over the moon, waves of orgasm washing outward so that I felt shaken to my fingers.

He didn’t stop. Instead he licked with more urgency, as if he had been dying of thirst on a desert island and I was the oasis of his dreams. I came a second time before I could pull him up and try to get his clothes off.

“Now, I want you inside me now,” I said desperately as I struggled with buttons and zippers. When he assisted it was easier and he was naked and he was as beautiful and as endowed as I had imagined. And I was hot and desperate, and even having had several orgasms could not deter me from my need.

He efficiently slipped on a condom, which struck me as terribly considerate since I had not asked.

And then I pulled him toward me and while he tried to delay I could not. I wanted all of him inside me,
now.
I’d been wanting him since I first saw him, and now my need was overwhelming and insatiable. And oh he felt so good, so hard and full, touching all the overstimulated and needy flesh.

And he moved so slowly when I wanted him to devour me. He moved inside me carefully, as if I were delicate and he could harm me. And this, too, sent me back over the edge yet again, to have what I wanted and yet still have him holding back, holding off, and using his body to please mine.

“I want, I want,” I panted as I tried to make sense through the overwhelming pleasure coursing through me. “Harder, please, harder,” I encouraged him.

But he stayed slow and deep until I had come a fourth time before he began the hard thrusting that presaged his own building orgasm and lack of control.

Yes. I wanted him wild, wanted all the hard power in him. His excitement fueled my own, driving me further into mindless joy.

Then, just as I was about to crest again, he pulled out of me. With one strong arm he flipped me over onto my stomach and took me from behind. Holding with one arm like a vise around my waist, his other hand strayed between my legs and began to caress my clit while he continued to thrust into me.

Thought was gone. Only pleasure remained. My body convulsed again and again as he rode me. I was a demon from Hell in Paradise. Only one more thing I wanted, and I wanted that now more than I wanted anything, ever. I wanted his pleasure, wanted to feel him lose control and explode within me.

And so I begged for more, harder, until he couldn’t resist, slamming into me with such force that had I not been immortal it might have been too much. But it was wonderful, glorious, and better still when he shuddered and rammed me hard and cried out hoarsely behind me.

Yes. Oh yes.

If my prey can make me come before he does, then I have the option to let him live. Marten had made me come more times before he did in one night than all my partners in the past decade had.

We lay panting in the bed. His arms were still around me and I enjoyed the nestled postcoital comfort that I had rarely experienced. I wanted him to touch me, to continue touching me although I had used all my passion, at least for the moment.

I turned in his arms and he gathered me close and kissed me. And then he got up as if he were going to leave.

“No, stay,” I told him, but he pulled on his pants and buttoned up his shirt.

“I must work tomorrow,” he said. “But I will see you tomorrow evening, yes? We will meet again near the fountain?”

“Okay. What time?” I was disappointed and let it seep into my voice.

“Oh, my lovely Lily, do not sound so sad. I would stay if I could, but I must be at the office at seven in the morning, and I cannot arrive there in these clothes and with the delicious smell of you on my skin. I must go home and wash and put on working clothes and be able to take care of clients. You would not wish me to do less.”

I conceded as much, though grudgingly.

“It is the price of living in Paradise,” he told me, although he seemed a bit wistful. “But we will meet tomorrow evening, let us say seven? And we shall have dinner together and then spend a proper amount of time on our pleasures. But for now I must go.”

And he leaned over and kissed me good-bye before he left into the night.

As I lay alone, reflecting on the pleasures I’d enjoyed and hoped to enjoy again, I found myself thinking of Nathan. What did Nathan look like without his layers of jacket and heavy shirts? Were his lips as soft and firm as Marten’s? Were his arms as strong? Was he, hmmm, as well endowed?

And was he as skilled? Did he know a woman’s body in the same way? Would he pass the succubus test?

I found myself wanting to know—and I was afraid. I wanted him so badly and I wanted him to be the kind of lover I didn’t want to deliver. Who was generous and wanted to satisfy me for his own pleasure. There are so very few men in the world like that that our succubus leniency is almost never possible. Maybe a few dozen in all my demon life had qualified, and I had let every one of them live.

To my knowledge, all of my sisters did the same.

If only they knew,
I thought. If only they knew it was so easy, if only they bothered.

They don’t bother, and that is why we can so easily hunt them into Hell.

But Nathan was different. I hadn’t even really touched him, but I wanted, so very much wanted, to know that he would survive. Even if he was like most men I wanted his company; I wanted to translate more Akkadian with him and listen to his funny accent.

I rolled over and drifted into dreamland, replete with Marten’s lovemaking but dreaming of Nathan Rhys Coleman.

“You let him live,” Desi said, and sighed.

“I most certainly did,” I agreed. “How would I have a date tonight if I hadn’t?”

All four of us were lying out in lounge chairs on the beach. We each had an iced-tea glass full of something blue and alcoholic with an umbrella in it. The cute waiter had joked with all of us as he brought the drinks and made sure we had fresh towels.

“What about your evenings?” I asked politely. Given the satisfied expressions around me, I wasn’t the only one who had had a great night.

“Oh, it’s mostly Sybil,” Eros said. “Desi and I both found attractive men, enjoyed them. This was a very good idea, actually. Aruba, I mean. Lots of good-looking prey. But Sybil tried something new last night.”

I turned politely to Sybil and lowered my sunglasses. “Something new? Oh, do tell.”

Sybil blushed. “I can’t. Just—it was really good. Really, really good. Fun. I didn’t think it would be that much fun.”