Before I grow irreparably attached. But before that, I want to share sex with you. I want you to be the first male to know me in that way. I’m inexperienced. As you’ve guessed. And you’re very gentle and kind with me.” She gave a small derisive laugh. “If I did no’ know better, I would describe your manner as lovin’.”
Shivaun O’Malley was not particularly impulsive, with the possible exception of the demon. She was the sort of person who made decisions decisively. In other words, once she’d made up her mind it was rarely changed.
Lyric couldn’t point to examples of her being stubborn during his time with her. But he did know that personalities who master difficult skills have a mandatory streak of stubbornness. If it wasn’t there, they’d give up.
He searched her eyes while his mind raced, trying to pinpoint the exact thing that might make her rethink.
“I can’t think about not seeing you tomorrow.” Lyric’s voice sounded strange even to him. He was being truthful, too. He couldn’t imagine not seeing the incomparable female the next day and the day after that.
“This is the surprise? You’re… what? Breaking up with me?”
“Well, honestly, I did no’ think you would take it hard. Since you have no feelin’s and all. I thought you’d be pleased to score your conquest.”
Pleased! Lyric ran this over in his mind. He was the farthest thing from pleased. She’d said she wanted to pull back before she became attached, but he was attached. Maybe he wasn’t in love per se. But he was attached!
Lyric had run the range of experience available to demons countless times. He wasn’t a creature incapable of feeling. He was certainly, at that moment, feeling loss. Profoundly so. For the first time.
He almost laughed at the irony of that. Their first intimacy would be the loss of Shivaun’s virginity and his loss of the light that was her. He’d say no to the proposition if that would change things.
She’d paired the thing he wanted most - intimacy, with the thing he feared the most - losing her.
“What can I say, or do, to make you rethink this?”
She simply shook her head.
At that he decided there was only one course of action open. He would use every skill he’d acquired as a lover to try to bind her to him. He’d pleasure her to a sexual frenzy, a point far beyond ecstasy. Perhaps then she’d realize that he had value and that they were better with each other than without. Love or not.
He took Shivaun by the hand and urged her to stand. Without taking his eyes away from hers, he waved the divan away. In the middle of the pavilion stood a large bed draped with crisp white linen. Not some version of cotton or synthetic material. Real linen.
Shivaun’s attention was riveted to the sight and he sensed a sudden wave of nerves wash over her.
He pulled her hand up to his mouth, turned it over, and kissed the inside of her wrist. Breath caught in her throat and she swallowed.
“No cause for alarm. It’s just the two of us. We’re in a world you created from a fantasy. Just you.” He ran his lips up to the inside of her elbow and kissed with a tiny trace of tongue. The wetness caused Shivaun’s breath to return in the rush of a gasp. “And me,” he added.
She saw that heat was beginning to build in his aura. It was scary. It was exciting. It was titillating.
“Do you want to undress for me?” Lyric asked.
Possessed by overwhelming modesty, she shook her head emphatically, almost violently.
The demon smiled knowingly. Patiently. Seductively. “Very well then,” he said. “I’ll undress for you.”
Shivaun’s eyes flared at that proclamation. She was about to tell him she wasn’t ready, but didn’t get the chance. With a thought Lyric stood before her in fully unclothed demonic glory, complete with pulsing gold spikes emanating from his beautiful swirling red and blue aura.
After watching her look him up and down, he cocked his head. “Have you never seen a male naked before, Shivaun?”
At the end of a quick, deep inhalation, she said, “Aye. My sister and I saw our brother and his friends swimmin’ in the river once.” She paused. “He did no’ look like you. At all.”
“Without begging for compliments, I’m going to accept that as a good thing.”
She nodded. “’Tis a good thing. You do no’ need me to say your looks are fetchin’, demon. I’m certain you’ve