Neon Blue

by E J Frost

  I lean my face against the cool glass of the window, hug myself tightly and breathe deep, to keep from screaming at him, to keep from bursting into tears.

  “How can you manipulate me like this?” I whisper to the window, but the answer’s obvious. He’s a demon.

  “Guess that’s a no, then.” The grim satisfaction in his voice squeezes my eyes closed.

  He’s a demon. Demon demon demon demon. It rings in my ears like a refrain. Like the club music’s heavy beat. Like the trip hammer of my heart.

  We drive the rest of the way home in silence. A silence that continues as I follow him into the house. I stand uncertainly in the hallway while he walks into the kitchen. I hear him greet the salamanders. A tiny scratching of claws on the floorboards and Wizard streaks down the hallway to me. With a tremulous smile, I pick him up and scratch him under the chin.

  I’ve never had a pet welcome me home before.

  “What were you doing while we were out, hey, boy?”

  He wriggles in my arms until he can present his belly for scratching. Just like his sibling. I give him a good scratch, concentrating on the folds where his short limbs meet his belly, attention that has him grunting and writhing with delight.

  That’s obscene, the demon observes. I glance up and see his silhouette framed in the doorway to the kitchen. Moonlight silvers his dreadlocks, turning them into a furry halo. His face remains in darkness and I can’t see his expression.

  “You taught it to me, “ I say cautiously, afraid of setting him off again. Afraid of what he’ll say if I do. I don’t think I can handle many more of his brutal truths tonight.

  His wicked chuckle, deep in my mind. Lots more I can teach you.

  “All of it obscene, no doubt.”

  Not all of it.

  I put the salamander down and stand awkwardly, not quite looking at him. “So, what now?” I’m afraid to ask, but I can’t help myself. I don’t know what to do next. I don’t want to do or say anything that will reignite the tension that’s dropped to a slow simmer between us. But I don’t know how to avoid it.

  Now you find me three pieces of cord. Red, black and grey. I think you know how long they need to be.

  Three times three. “Nine feet.”

  Yards. Gimme some room to work.

  “You’re going to tie me up?”

  Yup. And then I’m going to fuck you. So hurry up.

  He brushes by me, stripping off his sweat-darkened shirt. I close my eyes at the sensation of skin on skin. At the rush of desire that tightens my body, despite how confused and angry I am.

  Stumbling, I make my way through the moonlit kitchen to my herbarium to gather the cotton cord I’ve braided and dyed myself. Winding the long, thin strands around my hand, I shiver. Red for lust, blood, strength. Black for binding. I can guess what he’s going to do with those. The gray cord doesn’t make as much sense. It’s usually associated with female power and the Goddess. I use it for spells involving the sphere of air. I’m not sure why he wants it. Maybe just because he needs three strands of cord for whatever spell he’s about to work and other colors aren’t appropriate. But that’s the cord that makes me the most nervous as I climb the stairs to my bedroom, clutching the hanks of cord to my chest.

  Chapter 27

  He’s already naked when I reach the bedroom. He’s opened the curtains so the room’s washed by moonlight. It gleams on his skin. Highlights the massive musculature of his chest and shoulders, the long, smooth planes of his hips and thighs. The clean salt smell of his sweat and arousal fills the room.

  He stands on the far side of the bed, silhouetted, and gestures to the bedtable. “Put the cord down and take off your clothes.”

  With an audible swallow, I pile the cord on the bedside table and unbutton my jeans. He watches me, eyes burning. He’s seen me before, explored my body at length, but I still feel awkward. Even with my skin washed to shades of grey by the moonlight, my body has none of the perfection of his. Where the moonlight pales his skin to dusk, mine just looks jaundiced. Each mole and freckle on my arms stands out in sharp relief, a dark imperfection against my imperfect skin.

  He rounds the bed, pacing towards me, the muscles of his abdomen and thighs flexing as he moves. That what you think I see?

  I shrug self-consciously, stuck in the incredibly awkward posture of pulling my jeans off.

  You think I’m lookin’ at a couple of moles when you’re naked? Trust me, sweet meat, that’s not what I’m lookin’ at.

  I finally get the jeans off and stand with them clutched to my chest. “I feel like an idiot, taking off my clothes in front of you.”

  Why? ‘Cause of a couple moles, or ‘cause I said I love you an’ you can’t say it back?

  Tears well up, hot and sudden. Burning, blurring. I can’t stand it. I drop the jeans and turn and bolt, without any idea of where I’m going, other than away from him.

  He catches me before I reach the top of the stairs. Hauls me back, dragging me off my feet and pulling me hard against his body. I kick at him fruitlessly.

  What the fuck are you doin’?

  “Put me down!”

  No. Tell me where you’re going.

  “Nowhere. Away! Don’t you get it? I need to get away from you!”

  He drops me to my feet and steps back. “You’re runnin’ away from me?”

  I stagger, off-balance from the unexpected release. He puts out a hand to keep me from falling down the stairs, but I weave in the other direction, bump into the wall and collapse down it to slump at his feet. Cover my face with my hands.

  “You took me there tonight on purpose. To screw with my head,” I whisper into my palms.

  No, I took you there to dance.

  “You knew Saul would be there.” I glare at him through my fingers.

  He looms over me. Watching me, the neon blue of his eyes glinting in the shadow of his face. He shrugs. Yeah.

  “So you did it to hurt me! And now you want me to get in bed with you like nothing’s happened!”

  No, I want it fresh in your mind while I’m fuckin’ you. You think about what it was like with him an’ what it’s like with me. I ain’t gonna suffer in comparison, that much I know.

  “That’s so unfair,” I hiss.

  You think I’m playin’ fair? Fuck that. I’m playin’ to win. But I’m not gonna as long as you cling to these illusions you got of a perfect life.

  I bury my face back in my hands. “They’re not illusions.”

  Illusions, delusions. Whatever you want to call ‘em. They’re bullshit. I’ll give you what you need.

  “Because you know so much about what I need,” I sneer.

  He grabs me by my upper arms and hauls me up until we’re eye to eye. All I’ve done since I got off that fuckin’ wheel is learn as much as I can about you. So, yeah, I do know what you need.

  He kisses me then, a sweet, soft kiss. Not angry. Not demanding. Not at all what I expect in that moment, and it completely undoes me. I reach out and wind my arms around his neck and when he lets me up to breathe, I bury my face in his throat and cry.

  He holds me. Reaching up occasionally to wipe tears off my cheeks. Stroking my jaw and throat. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t invade my mind with his thoughts, just lets me cry until my tears stop and I breathe raggedly into his skin.

  “C’mon, sweet meat,” he whispers into my hair. “Bed.”

  I choke on the remnants of my tears. “Is that what I need right now?”

  “Yeah. An’ even if it ain’t, it’s what I need right now.” He cups my face in his big, warm hand and kisses me again, a kiss that holds all the hunger he kept out of his earlier kiss. My body leaps in response, belly tightening, sparks jumping from my fingertips to sizzle along his skin. The smell of power, which always has the same musky edge as sex to me, fills the air. He holds me there for long moments, kissing me, stroking my shoulders and throat. With his other hand, he finishes undressing me. Baring my skin to the cool night air, to the heat
rising from his skin. He sets fire to my nerve-endings. Makes me shiver with pleasure and a need so deep it goes beyond sex into something I can’t name.

  Finally, he closes those big hands on my butt, lifts me onto his hips and, with his mouth still locked to mine, carries me into the bedroom. The door slams behind him; I feel the wards rise like a wall of fire. I don’t have any time to wonder why he’s raised my wards, or how, because he’s pushing me down on the bed and climbing on top of me without giving me any time to recover. His pulls me under him, positions my hips and guides himself into me, looking down into my face, watching me, eyes glowing like neon suns while he takes me.

  I gasp out, “oh, no” without really knowing why. We’re beyond denial. And my body’s way beyond any rejection, arcing to him, taking him in, my legs wrapping around his hips. He works himself into me. He’s not holding back, entering me thick and full. Almost more than I can take. My body burns for a moment, stretching, then he strokes back out and the pleasure’s so intense I cry out.

  Easy, sweetness. This ain’t supposed to hurt.

  I bury my face in his shoulder, clutch at his broad back as he begins to thrust. His weight on me, his heat within and around me, the pulse of power between us, gulps me down. I’m lost and insensate to everything except the pounding of his body into mine.

  Until he takes one of my wrists and stretches it up to the headboard.

  I shudder, yanked out of the hot envelope of sex and back into the real world, where I feel cool strands of cord loop around my wrist. “Jou—”

  “Shh. It’s okay.” He pauses just long enough to kiss me. Submerge me back into the vortex of sex and pleasure, before his fingers begin working at my wrists in earnest.

  He keeps fucking me, his hips working in a slow, steady rhythm, while he binds me. Encasing my wrists in a complicated web of knots. Three knots for each loop of cord. Three loops of each color. Twenty-seven knots for each wrist. He counts them out into my mind. Punctuates the sealing of each knot with a driving thrust that has me panting and writhing under him. All the while he murmurs low and harsh into my mind, around his count, words that I only catch fragments of—

  Red to gray to black . . .

  Blood to bone to flesh . . .

  Gray to black to red . . .

  Spirit to soul to heart . . .

  Black to red to gray . . .

  Death to life to eternity . . .

  —words that build the magical energy, stoking it with touch and breath and will, until it glows on and under and between our skins. Finally, he ties the last knot, seals it with the burning brush of his tongue. He slides up onto his forearms, reaches above me and takes a grip on the headboard. Looking down at me from the shadows of his dreadlocks, he whispers roughly, “Now you’re mine.”

  I panic. Thrashing under him. But it’s too late. Power binds me. His hips pin me to the bed. He takes me, hard and fast. Running himself into me over and over. Filling me with his demanding flesh. His equally demanding will fills my head, my heart. A huge fist of power that hammers into me, pushing inside my soul, striking again and again against that hard core of self. I feel myself fracture. I scream with pleasure and fear and scrabble for one last second to contain it, to hold onto what I’ve tried so hard to keep safe inside myself. He pistons into me, holding me down and giving me what I need to take me to that place where pleasure turns into hot white light. My body bows, orgasm rippling through me, and he breaks me. I pour out everything I’ve kept caged. Wave upon wave of emotion: joy and despair, contentment and fear. It fills him. Glowing under his skin. Bright as molten gold. He arches above me, driving himself deep, and groans with the flood of power. I feel him flex within me. A deep, burning surge at my core.

  He collapses across me, burying his face in my hair. His body moves on mine. In mine. As though he’s still coming, or can’t get enough. He touches my face, strokes my cheek and neck, while our bodies and breathing slow. He’s making a low, grumbling sound in his chest on each exhalation, a sound very much like the salamanders’ purr. I move tentatively under him, beginning to feel the stinging soreness that’s going to have me running for a healing potion in the morning. Or, at least, limping.

  Finally, he withdraws from me, rolls onto his side and does something to the cords binding my wrists so I have more slack. The burning in my arms subsides to a bearable and then a gentle ache. I scoot away from him, exhausted and more than a little frightened by what just happened now that the insane excitement of it has passed, but he doesn’t let me escape, not even by a few inches. He pulls me close, tucks me into his chest, wraps his legs around mine. He sighs heavily, his warm breath ruffling my hair.

  When he doesn’t seem inclined to do anything else to me, I relax into him. Close my eyes.

  He keeps cuddling me, touching me, stroking and soothing me, but also keeping me awake with his small movements when all I want is sleep. Deep, dreamless, oblivious sleep.

  “You are as soft as a snowflake,” he whispers.

  That’s so unlike him that I say, “What?”

  He shifts, lifting his head and nodding at something over my head. “Says you’re soft as a snowflake. Whoever wrote that’s right.”

  I strain my head back, but I don’t see anything other than my bedroom wall, washed to grey in the moonlight. Nothing even shimmers in my Sight. “There’s nothing there.”

  He blinks at me, his eyes solidly black in the darkness, and smiles lazily. “You’re human, aren’t you?”

  “Of course I am . . .” It hits me. Like a slap of cold water. He came. He doesn’t know who I am. He doesn’t remember. “You don’t know who I am,” I say flatly.

  He flexes his legs around mine, reminding me that we’re pressed skin to skin. And very naked. “Well, you must know me . . .”

  “Oh, God.” I’m in bed with a stranger. A stranger who doesn’t know who he is, or who I am, or anything that’s passed between us. “Let me up.” I begin to struggle.

  “No,” he says. “You’re stayin’ right where you are and we’re gonna do that again as soon as I can.”

  I shake my head vehemently. I’m not having sex with him when he’s a stranger, when he has no memory of me. “You don’t even know my name.”

  He glances up at the wall. “Tsara Elizabeth Faa.” He pronounces it the right way instinctively, his voice deep and soft, and I shiver. I can feel the power of the naming. Even without his memory, his will is a fearsome thing. “That’s your name.”

  “There’s nothing there!” I’m edging back into panic.

  He cups my face in his hand, tightens his legs around mine, forces me into stillness. “Look at me. I may not know you, but you know me. I can feel you in my head. I can taste you all over me.” His voice drops, a bass rumble. “This says my memory will come back.” He flicks his eyes up at the wall. “So we’re gonna lie here and enjoy ourselves until it does.”

  “God, no, get off me.” I shove against him with my elbows, kick at him, reach . . . and find myself solidly blocked. The neon wall of his will encircles my mind. Sucks away my magic and my consciousness until there’s nothing but darkness.

  I come up out of the darkness slowly, blinking, not sure what’s happened. Or how long I’ve been out. My skin’s cool, sticky with dried sweat. The demon’s lying half on top of me, his body heavy and languid on mine. He’s stroking my throat, nuzzling my ear in a way that feels better than good. One of his thighs is wedged between mine and despite everything that’s happened and how sore I am, I feel the beginnings of desire coil against that heavy pressure.

  “Uh—“

  “You awake? Good, we can go again.”

  “No, we cannot.” I shiver and try to twist away from him. “What did you do to me?”

  “Calmed you down. Just relax, Tsara.” He uses my name like he uses sex – to manipulate me, to create connections between us that shouldn’t exist, particularly now, after what he’s done. “I can feel how much you like me fuckin’ you, so why are you fighting it?
”

  “Because of what you just did!” It’s pointless. He doesn’t remember. I could explain each detail and he still wouldn’t understand why I’m afraid of him. “Never mind.”

  He runs his finger over the webwork of knots enclosing my wrist where it lies on the pillow next to my head. “Did I do this? Good work.”

  “Yes.” He did that and I let him. What on earth was I thinking? He’s a demon. I should have known there’d be more to it than just sex play. I turn my face away.

  “You my seggurach?”

  “What?” I glance back at his face, into his dark eyes. “I don’t know what that is.”

  He smiles, the wicked grin. It must come naturally. “Then I’d better not tell you.”

  “Why not?” His memory is gone, so he doesn’t remember what to keep from me and what not to. I can ask him anything. “What’s a segger-ack?” I stumble a little over the unfamiliar word.

  “Seggurach, and if you have to ask then there’s a reason you don’t know.” He kisses me, nips at my lower lip. “You’re not gonna get around me like that.”

  Damn. “I’m sure if you could remember . . . if you had your memory, you know, you’d tell me.”

  “Would I?” He strokes my throat, spreading heat across my skin again. His dark eyes follow his hand. He rises a little onto his elbows so he can look down at my body and I shiver both with discomfort and desire. “Wall says there’s lots of things I shouldn’t tell you.”

  I twist my neck to peer up at the wall again. It still looks empty. “Uh, like what?”

  “I think the idea is not to tell you.” He leans into me again to lick my exposed throat. “What d’you call me?”

  “Jou. Isn’t that your name?” Ro called him Jou and I assumed that was his true name. Goes to show what assuming gets me.