Suki filed that away too. Was there anything about this demon that wasn’t fascinating? He had come to a nightclub because he didn’t want to drink and dance. Was that what he had escaped at home?
“Most men come to bars to pick up women, not read books.” She planted her left elbow against the tacky bar top and leaned her chin on her upturned palm, giving him the whole of her attention.
“I am not most men.”
She could see that.
Someone stopped on the other side of the bar to her. She glanced at him.
Kyter jerked his chin towards her, his golden eyes on the demon. “She bothering you?”
Suki hit the shifter with her best glare. Annoying prick. She was a regular here. The hot geek wasn’t. Why was he getting deferential treatment?
“The female is no bother.” Solid Eleven added a graceful dip of his head, his eyes never leaving Kyter.
Suki added polite to his list of qualities.
When the irritating shifter had moved on, Solid Eleven turned to her.
“What know you of wind turbines?”
What know she? She barely stifled her smile. He had to be at least a thousand years old if he was speaking like that.
“What do I know about wind turbines?” She pursed her lips, wriggled them a little to get his eyes on them, and satisfaction hummed in her veins when his dark gaze fell to them and narrowed. “Not much. Less than you, I’d imagine.”
The heat that had been building in his eyes turned to disappointment, but he rebounded quickly, his gaze coming up to meet hers as interest flared in it once more.
“Do you know of anywhere they are installed?”
He was more than interested in the subject. He was fascinated by it. A little like she was fascinated by him. What did wind turbines have that she didn’t? By now, she had expected him to be enthralled by her.
Not that she was disappointed. He was proving more and more fascinating, and for the first time in a long time, she was enjoying herself. She was enjoying herself so much that she kept forgetting she was meant to be seducing him.
His near-black eyes glittered with keen intelligence as they lowered to the book and he sneakily read a few lines. She couldn’t remember the last time she had met a man who seemed so educated, was refined and intent on pursuing intellectual goals. Normally, the men she met were interested in only one thing.
They wanted to let their bodies do the talking, not have an actual conversation.
“I’ve seen a few in the countryside. There’s a farm in Scotland near a mortal town I often visit.” She wanted to smile when his eyes lit up and leaped back to her. “It’s charming how much you care about silly windmills.”
His expression sobered, losing all warmth. “They are not silly. They are important to—”
To who? To him? To others? Was he something similar to an engineer after all? Perhaps demons had a different term for it. Or maybe he was talking about them being important in other ways.
“Are you some sort of eco-warrior? Looking to save the planet?” She cracked a grin. “It all seems a pointless waste of time to me. Renewable energy isn’t going to save the world when human and immortal corporations are pumping crap into the air nonstop.”
He closed the book and tucked it close to his chest as he turned his side to her, as if it was precious and she had just attempted to destroy it. She had certainly destroyed the moment.
Solid Eleven toyed with his shot of Hellfire, his eyes fixed on it as he turned it this way and that.
Way to wreck things, Suki.
She waited at least two full minutes, the seconds trickling past as slowly as a glacier, and just as chilling. He wasn’t going to talk again. He was making a point, shunning her until she left. Damn it. She really needed to learn to think before opening her mouth.
She was on the verge of leaving when he finally spoke, his eyes still glued to his drink.
“I thought perhaps you would be different.”
Wow. She wasn’t sure what that meant, but the fact he sounded bitterly disappointed had her feeling bad, both about herself and about not being whatever he had expected her to be.
It dawned on her that wind turbines might seem silly to her, but they were important to him. They meant more than he was letting on. This wasn’t just a subject that interested him. This was a subject that was close to his heart for some reason.
Because he wanted to build one?
As far as she knew, Hell didn’t have electricity. No power plants. No running water. No real sanitation to speak of. Everything she took for granted, his world lacked. He wanted to change that, and she had poked fun at him for it.
Damn, she was such a screw up. She was starting to see why her sisters called her Sucky.
“You are like the others,” he grumbled.
She glared at him for that one. She had never been like others. That was part of her problem. So, he had that all wrong.
She huffed and turned her side to him. It looked as if Solid Eleven was a lost cause. Now she had to return to her clan as hungry as she had left it and looking like the failure she was. She had lost her appetite. Or rather he had wrenched it from her.
Sherry walked past and Suki flagged her down, because if she was going to be miserable, she might as well drown her sorrows in a cocktail or two. Maybe it would help her find her mojo again. A little liquid courage and she would be right as rain and ready to find another target, one who didn’t think she was like every other woman out there.
“Something tall and strong?” Sherry beamed at her, her long blonde ponytail swaying across the shoulders of her white shirt as she reached down behind the bar.
Suki nodded, trying to ignore the delicious slice of tall and strong sat beside her at the bar. The whole thing was a bust, which was surprisingly disappointing. For a brief moment, she had been having fun, had been a world away from her worries about her clan and losing her family, and whether or not she was going to succeed in seducing Solid Eleven.
She couldn’t recall the last time she had felt that way, and she doubted she was going to feel it again anytime soon.
She closed her eyes and cursed herself. Why couldn’t she have kept her stupid mouth shut? It was rare she found a man she actually enjoyed looking at, one she wanted to spend time with and get to know. It wasn’t how her kind were meant to be. Her mother and her family had drummed that into her head. Succubi weren’t meant to form attachments with anyone outside the clan. Men were for feeding, or the occasional breeding when the clan allowed it.
But she had never been like the others. She had never been one for convention. Sure, she believed that succubi couldn’t experience relationships like others, that love was impossible for them because of what they were, but that didn’t mean she liked forced seductions and killing someone by feeding from them.
Maybe her father had been a saint or something.
She reached into her black boot, fished out a folded ten pound note, and held it out to Sherry as she finished mixing the hurricane for her.
Solid Eleven suddenly leaned in close, his earthy masculine scent invading her senses and freezing her on the spot as he deftly plucked the money from her fingers. He unfolded it and eyed it, lifted it towards the light and then lowered it again, bending his head to closely inspect it.
“What is this?” His dark eyes leaped to her, a furrow between his eyebrows as he held the note towards her, stretched tight between his fingers. “This is not credit or debit card.”
Damn, he was so cute. Why did he have to be so awkwardly adorable? She had never imagined she could find a man who was drop-dead-gorgeous, brash and masculine, yet so innocent and naïve about some things.
“I thought you were done talking to me? I’m like the others, right?” she snapped and tried to take her money from him, but he leaned back, folding the note in his right hand as his left went to the side of his head.
He scrubbed a hand over that side. “I apologise. I have been… on edge recently… and something about y
ou unsettles me.”
Suki wasn’t sure whether to take that as a compliment.
Solid Eleven turned the ten pound note in his hand over, looking for all the world as if he was hiding in studying it.
She sighed.
“It’s called cash.” She reached over and took it, carefully brushing her fingers across his as she slipped it from them. His gaze remained rooted on his fingers as she handed the note to Sherry. “I don’t roll with plastic.”
His eyebrows pinched hard, he blinked and locked eyes with her. “The shifter said plastic is king. It is not king?”
He definitely didn’t get out of Hell much, if at all.
“The fae towns don’t accept it.” She took her change and didn’t miss the glimmer of interest in his eyes.
Suki reached down into her boot again, pulling a different note from the small pocket on the inside, and a few more coins.
She slipped him the five pound note.
He was quick to take it and study it, his dark eyes taking in every small detail about it.
“That’s a fiver. The other was a tenner.” She weathered his frown as he glanced at her, because she was enjoying herself again. Educating a demon with a voracious appetite for knowledge was certainly a new one for her, and she found she liked it. “A tenner has twice the value of a fiver.”
His frown returned.
“But they are not much different. How does the orange parchment hold more value than the blue? The blue one is not half the size of it.” He huffed and muttered, “I do not see how parchment or plastic is as valuable as coins.”
Suki plucked five pound coins from her change and set them on the bar top in a line. “Their value is the same as the note you hold.”
His gaze flickered to them and she didn’t miss that he looked more comfortable with the golden coins.
He handed the note back to her, his voice a low belly-heating purr as he said, “Thank you.”
She was about to tell him it was her pleasure when he spoke again.
“I expected you to throw yourself at me.”
Suki was tempted to hit him with her best glare now, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. She had planned to hurl herself at him after all. The bite in his tone told her that she had been wise not to go through with it. She supposed a gorgeous guy like him probably got a lot of women throwing themselves at his feet.
If she wanted to conquer him, she was going to have to work a little harder, she could see that now.
“Why did you assume that?” She slipped the money back into her boot.
He rolled a thickly hewn shoulder. “Because you are a succubus.”
She muttered, “Typical.”
She felt it too.
She was so tired of men thinking she was an easy lay because of her species, as if she would screw anyone who bought her a drink or just entered her orbit. Some of her sisters operated that way, taking any opportunity to feed. Not her.
She could have her fill of men who did nothing for her, the ones who didn’t present a challenge and flocked to her despite her dysfunctional ability to charm and her not-so-stellar glamours. She knew beggars shouldn’t be choosers, but over the years she had lost interest in kissing men who weren’t attractive to her. Feeding from them was hardly going to prove her abilities to her sisters and clan. They would probably think worse of her for picking the easiest possible targets.
Her sisters who snacked on such targets filled their quota of hot guys and challenging men too. Maybe once she had her skills down and was steadily feeding from men like that, she could take a few easy meals, but not when she was out to show everyone she was worthy of being a member of the family.
Although easy targets often meant weak men and that usually meant they ended up dead, killed by the succubus in the throes of passion, when it was difficult to control themselves and hold back the hunger for more.
The thought of taking a life like that made her want to be sick.
Her mistress had once questioned whether Suki had been born into the wrong species. Sometimes she wondered that too. She had never really felt comfortable in her own skin.
“My apologies again,” Solid Eleven murmured close to her, his breath washing over her bare shoulder, sending a sharp thrill through her.
She shrugged it off. “You’re not the first guy to think that and you won’t be the last. I saw a free seat and figured you’d have a date or a fuck buddy with you, so I just checked to see whether the seat was taken. It wasn’t a come on.”
It had been, but she wasn’t in the mood to tell him that. Right now, she wanted him to feel bad for judging her based on her species.
“You have a strange way of speaking.” He looked as confused as he sounded when she snuck a secret glance at him.
“You’re one to talk. You’re the odd one out here.” She pulled the tall curvy glass towards her, swung the black straw around and sucked on the fruity concoction. Hurricanes were the best, and no one made them quite like Sherry. The mortal bartender really amped up the alcohol and alcohol was one of the few mortal things Suki could enjoy without being irritated by the fact all food and drink lacked taste to her. “You sound like an antique.”
He loosed a deep, delicious sigh that had her wanting to look at him, and stared at the bar and then at everything around them. “I suppose that I am.”
New to Underworld or more than this club?
She bet he was new to everything given that he was definitely new to the money of the mortal world. Her eyes dropped to his left hip and the leather pouch on it that looked heavy. She would bet her left tit there were shiny pure gold coins in it.
“I have not visited the mortal realm in a long time.”
Suki read between the lines. A very long time.
Her ass vibrated.
She frowned, reached around into the pocket on the back of her tight mini, and pulled out her phone. The screen lit up. A message from Allura. She tapped her thumb against the screen and slowed as heat rolled through her, awareness of the man seated beside her drawing her focus away from her phone.
She slid a furtive look at Solid Eleven.
The light from the screen reflected off his black eyes as he followed every move her thumb made. He had definitely never seen a phone before. She forgot about checking the message and waggled the device at him.
“I take it you don’t have digits?” She smiled when his dark eyes shot up to hers.
“Digits?” His brow crinkled. Adorable!
“A phone number.”
Those intense eyes dropped back to her phone. “It has a number?”
Gods, he was so damned cute that she wanted to eat him.
“They all do.” She cursed as the music grew louder, drowning her out.
And then cursed for a different reason when Solid Eleven lifted his face towards the speakers and glared at them.
Because a faint purple-red glow lit his irises around his pupils.
And his ears went a little pointy.
And damn, he was even sexier like that, looking as if he was about to go into a rage and wreak bloody havoc on the nightclub’s sound system for disturbing their conversation.
He leaned closer, his masculine scent stirring the heat in her veins again, a fire that refused to abate while she was near him. His shoulder neared hers and she could feel his heat as it rolled off him, ached to lean closer to him so they would touch again.
“Is there somewhere quieter we might go?” he rumbled over the music, that sexy purr tearing at her control.
Suki managed to hold it together. “For what? I’m not going to screw you if that’s what you think will happen.”
Something briefly blazed in his eyes, something fierce and exciting, intoxicating. She hadn’t been wrong about him. He wanted her. She was hungry for a taste of him too, but she wasn’t about to let him see that.
Not when he seemed to be enjoying her rejecting him.
He liked that she wasn’t an easy conquest.
Her new plan was in effect. Her way of claiming victory here was taking it slow and making him burn for her.
No bad thing as far as she was concerned. She was enjoying being around him, wanted to get to know him better and spend more time with him. There was something about him that drew her to him, had her falling under his spell whenever she looked into his eyes, and part of her felt it had nothing to do with his good looks and everything to do with his personality.
He intrigued her.
“I wish to know more about your… phone.” He nodded towards it.
Suki couldn’t deny him, not when she wanted to see his eyes lighting up again, that fascination shining in them as he spoke with her and learned new things.
She held her hand out to him.
He stared at it for a few seconds before slipping his into it. A million volts whipped through her as his fingertips swept over her palm, the heat of him branding her and melting her bones, filling her with a need to move closer to him.
To surrender to him.
She pulled herself together instead.
And pulled him into a teleport that tore a vicious growl from his lips.
CHAPTER 6
Tegan ripped his hand free of the female’s grip as they landed in a new location, cool air kissing his skin, the scent of salt hanging heavily in the moonlit darkness.
He snarled and backed off a step, his guard swift to rise as he quickly took in his new surroundings, preparing himself for an attack. His wings itched for freedom, his shoulders writhing beneath his tight black shirt as he turned in a fast circle, eyes scanning the darkness as they adjusted to it.
“Where are we?” he growled through his fangs, flashing them at her as he rounded on her, came to tower over her, breathing hard as he fought to keep himself from lashing out at her. “What are your intentions?”
Her hands were swift to rise between them, her palms facing him as she shook her head, causing the colourful waves of her hair to caress her creamy shoulders.
But it wasn’t fear that lit her enormous eyes.
It was desire.
Need that beckoned him, had him breathing faster still as his blood surged hot and heavy, an urge to drag her into his arms and kiss her flooding him and tearing at his control.
Seduced by a Demon King Page 6