How to Love a Blue Demon

by Story, Sherrod

  “They’ve already given me their blessing.”

  Eyoen barely restrained a smile when he saw how that surprised her. “Really?”

  He nodded. “My family has known this was my intention since before I left Cyanus to come to you on Earth. I never made any secret of the fact that I wanted you for my mate, and my father knew it was my intention to court you.”

  “Where would we live?”

  “Here and on Earth. Time passes differently in both places. You could stay here with me and my family for weeks, and go back to find only a few hours had passed. Then we could come back here, and no one would even know we’d been gone.”

  “I’ll still want my career.”

  He looked angry. “Of course! You must play music. That’s a given.”

  She stared at him.

  “What?” He asked. “Surely you’re not finished objecting already? I’d anticipated more of a fight to win your hand, my dear. You’re making this way too easy for me.

  “Ha ha.” Cass sat down heavily on the nearest chair. “You’re royalty.”

  “So will you be.”

  “What about your constituents or subjects or whatever. Will they accept me?”

  “I’m not going to be King, darling. I’m the youngest of my litter. I have many brothers ahead of me who will inherit the throne.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  For the first time Eyoen looked uncomfortable.

  “Wondering how the Earth girl knew that, hey? Perhaps you thought the secret well kept, particularly from someone so new to the star? Well. I’m no little miss, my dear,” she said, gently mocking his favorite endearment for her. “I have it on very good authority that you may be next in line for fathers’ crown.”

  “Who told you that?”

  She smiled. “I may as well have heard it from the King himself.” She paused for dramatic emphasis. “Your mother told me.”

  “Ah. Of course. She was doubtless warning you what will be expected.”

  Cass nodded. “Exactly.

  “It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing wrong with my father. He’s got hundreds of years left to rule.”

  “Really?” Cass asked incredulously. She looked appalled. “You age more slowly than humans?”

  “Yes, and if you marry me, so will you.”

  “But –”

  He waited but Cass just stared at him.

  “How old are you?”

  “Ah!” He should have known this was going too smoothly. “We’ve never talked about this, have we?”

  “No.” Her brown wrinkled in confusion. “I suppose I just assumed –”

  “I’m a little older than you, my dear.”

  “How much is a little, Eyoen?”

  “Oh, a few hundred years little actually.”

  She stared at him. The pause drew out so long he wondered if she planned to say anything more. Perhaps he’d shocked her silent. Now that would be something. His Cass was never without something to say.

  “You’re centuries old?” She whispered.

  He nodded.

  “And you have centuries more life left to live.”

  He nodded again.

  “And,” she paused. “If I marry you I’ll age at the same rate?”

  “Yes.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded. “Well, as long as we have sex, yes.”

  Her brow wrinkled as she thought that over. “So, if I marry you, everyone I know and who knows me will die before I do,” she said slowly.

  “Yes,” he said sadly. “Unfortunately, that’s true.”

  “It sounds horrible,” she whispered.

  He nodded. It was. But it was also the truth. It was best she faced it now. There was nothing worse in a situation like this, than being horribly surprised because no one told you what was in store.

  He would never lie to Cass. One did not deceive one’s mate. He could recall being a pup and hearing his father say that, “love thrived on not having restrictions. There could be no fence on the heart. Only a gate that swung open and shut both ways.”

  It was one thing he’d noticed during his research on love between interspecies couples. Despite their differences, some subtle, some painfully obvious, the couples who made it together were unfailingly lenient with one another. Accepting. They knew on a cellular level that if they were not, rifts brought on by country-rooted conflicts – let alone the tiny, inconsequential things that irritated and sometimes broke up the heartiest, most compatible couples – would destroy their love as certainly as they destroyed lives during planetary wars.

  People in love who desired a life together had to be willing to embrace everything about their mate with open arms. Not that openness and acceptance were a cure all, or that love was the solution to every problem. But knowing and believing and seeing and existing in relative harmony with even the silliest, the most nerve wracking quality could and often did help to surmount other obstacles for one very important reason: No matter what, those two people knew they were loved for who they were. They’d made that commitment. Come what may, whether it was another person bent on mischief, an illness, a sudden bout of poorness, anything, as long as those two people loved and accepted and wanted with their whole hearts, as long as they believed that other person would always be there, gladly, gratefully, gleefully, they could make it. They could be happy.

  “There are many things that will be strange to you about our lives on Cyanus, my dear. Just as there were many odd things that I embraced about Earth. Watching you these past days, I assumed you’ve come to like life here on the star?”

  She nodded.

  “Then you just have to ask yourself one thing. Do you love me?”

  Cass scowled and rolled her eyes. “Come on. You know I do.”

  “Do you love me enough to be uncomfortable or scared?”

  She nodded slowly.

  “Do you love me enough to deal with court life, and my many siblings, my silly mother, my stern-faced father and the curiosity of my kinsman? Do you love me enough to accept that you will age more slowly than a regular human, and that all manner of physical, mental and spiritual changes are bound to occur that will shape who you become and who we are together?”

  She smiled slightly, and his heart lightened to see understanding bloom behind her warm brown eyes. “Yes, I love you more than enough for all of that. I love you more than I ever knew was possible,” she said. “I don’t have a choice.”

  “No?”

  “No,” she said simply, reaching up to stroke his cheek.

  He leaned contentedly into her touch, as always soothed by her scent, her nearness.

  “I used to think this kind of love was reserved for my lyrics, my videos, the movies, hell, even my fantasies.” She traced his lips with a finger, and he took a playful nip before he kissed it better. “I didn’t think it would happen for me, honestly.” She moved into his arms, and he gladly pulled her close as she pressed her cheek over his heart. She listened to it thump for several beats.

  “I thought I was too practical. Too focused on my career, and managing my money and my image. I thought at most I might find a companion. Someone to laugh with other than Priti or the other members of my team, and I did.”

  They both thought of poor Lee. Whose bad luck had led to their being together.

  She leaned back and looked into his golden eyes. “But you’re something else,” she said thoughtfully. “Something I didn’t bargain for, but I’m going to keep you. I have no choice. I love you more than I love my music. But it’s real.”

  His brows shot toward his hair line. “My dear,” he whispered, shocked.

  “It’s a close tie,” she assured him. “But if I had to chose, and I pray to God I never do, I’d choose you.” She sighed deeply. “I can’t imagine life without you. I can barely remember life before you,” she laughed thoughtfully.

  He leaned down to gently kiss her lips, to rub his cheek against hers before he pulled her back into his a
rms. “I’m humbled, my darling. Your words mean the stars to me.”

  She smiled at the familiar sentiment but unfamiliar phrasing.

  “If that is truly how you feel, then I have no doubt that we can make it, my dear. If you feel even a tenth of that I feel for you, we can make it.”

  Looking down at her with serious golden eyes, he asked again, “Will you marry me?”

  She nodded. “Yes. I will marry you.”

  He swung her into his arms, laughing, his happiness inspiring her own ecstatic laughter.

  “So, tell me.”

  “Yes, my dear?”

  “Do you think your momma will wanna have a big wedding? ‘Cause my people will insist on one.”

  “Certainly. There’s my family, the court, the celebrations for our merchants and close political connections,” he said, listing those who would have to be invited so as not to offend anyone. Then he brightened. “I know, let’s have two weddings!”

  Cass burst out laughing. “Hell, why not? You only marry an alien once in a lifetime, right?”

  He grinned, but the grin faded as he wondered: would they be at war before the wedding could take place?

  “That’s it. What’s up? And don’t even try that innocent look. I’m not buying it. You’ve been distracted all day. We’re planning our damn wedding and you just check out? I want to know what’s the deal.”

  Eyoen opened his mouth to tell her the truth, but then he fell silent. He’d only just got her to marry him, and now he had to tell her that the life he’d promised her was in jeopardy. He couldn’t do it.

  “I love you.”

  Cass smiled. “I believe you. But I know you’re just trying to distract me.”

  “Yes, my dear,” he agreed, pulling her into his arms. “Is it working?” he nuzzled her neck, and had his answer when she shivered and arched to give him better access.

  She pressed herself against his erection. “Of course. But it might not always, you know.”

  He lifted his head to look at her. Slowly he shook his head. “I refuse to contemplate such a day,” and he kissed her.

  A soul kiss, Cass called it, because he took his sweet time about it, and by the time he’d moved on to the next stage in their lovemaking she was so fundamentally shaken she hardly knew right from wrong.

  “It’s right,” he whispered, when she first named their lengthy clinch. Now he ate at her mouth just as he had then, slowly, thoroughly, sweetly, and with infinite patience.

  What Cass didn’t understand was that even as her blood heated, as she grew impatient for the hard, driving thrust of his body within hers, even as his blue blooded heart beat deeper and faster and he shuddered with need and want, he was in no hurry.

  She groaned as he slowly carried her to their bed. He waved a hand and the booty she’d collected shopping that day vanished. Her clothes were next, and Cass laughed, as always delighted with what she called his “little magical maneuverings.”

  “Now, if you were really on the ball, your clothes would be gone too,” she whispered, and no sooner than the last word fell from her lips, he was naked too.

  “I love magic,” she breathed, opening her legs so he could get comfortable in his spot, his hardness pressed flush against her softness.

  Eyoen stretched languidly, Cass naturally mimicking his movements until it was almost like they were dancing. He sighed as he licked between her lips, one hand wrapping her throat as his lips found their way up to suck gently on her ear lobe. This was what he’d wanted when he came looking for her.

  With her scent in his nose and her in his arms, nothing else mattered. No enemy of state, no long ago slight, nothing mattered to him but her sweet softness under his hands.

  He turned her head to the side as he rained sucking kisses down the side of her neck to her collar bone, which he investigated thoroughly with tongue and teeth before transferring his ravenous attention to her breasts.

  Each slope and dip bore witness to his mouth’s adoration, the gentle nudge of his nose, the silken rasp of his long, black hair as it brushed the curves he worshiped. His heart swelled along with his cock as she shuddered, moving restlessly beneath him.

  “Still,” he whispered in Cyani, and with a whimper she did. In reward he moved slowly down her torso, kissing and nibbling every bit of skin he passed along the way. Sucking mouthfuls of Cass into his cheeks, he bit down until her gasping breaths caressed his ears.

  He could feel her heart thudding fast, its vibrations soothing and enflaming him at once, and it was his turn to groan when he reached her clit and pulled her into his mouth. Her taste exploded on his tongue, the pleasure making him dizzy, and her back arched as she thrust her flesh against his rapidly moving tongue.

  He could sense when her orgasm approached and with a wicked laugh he backed off, loving her groan of disappointment, the way her hands tugged at his thick hair and the faux threats of a most pleasurable torture that fell from her full lips.

  “I’m gonna get you,” she promised, eying him through a slitted, sexy gaze.

  “I look forward to it, my dear,” he said, meandering his way back up her body to lick leisurely at her pebbled nipples. “Will it be soon do you think?”

  She just laughed. “Don’t get too cocky, demon.”

  He thrust teasingly against her. “I thought you liked me cocky.”

  Her raised brow promised all sorts of wicked things. Things she was more than able and willing to deliver. “Did I tell you I was working on a new song?”

  “No, Cass.”

  She just grinned and began to sing. She’d discovered her power that first day in his bath when she realized he came while she was singing.

  Mildly scandalized that he’d orgasmed in front of his siblings, Eyoen had shrugged at her shocked eyes and gaping mouth. “There is no shame in enjoying you, my dear. No matter who may be near. You,” he’d shaken his head, unable to articulate what her voice raised in song did to his body, to his spirit.

  “That sound,” he whispered now, touching her throat reverently even as he shuddered, his body rushing toward the feeling only she created in him.

  Now, whenever she wanted to turn the tables on him, she’d sing a few soft words in his ear. Or she’d croon him a few lyrics as she touched him. She did these things when they were alone and smiled as she reaped the pleasurable benefits of her teasing. She also did them while they were in company, enjoying his struggle to maintain decorum, and using her vibrato like a weapon to torture him with the best kind of feeling when they were surrounded by servants, family and friends.

  “I love you,” she whispered, turning in his arms and snuggling close as he held her tight.

  “I love you more.”

  She grinned as she looked up at him. “Where did you learn to say that?”

  He raised a brow. “No one taught me that. It’s the truth.” He pulled back from her, just enough to align their bodies and take her with one, slow, inexorable thrust. Another followed, and another, until it was she who shuddered.

  Slipping into her mind, Eyoen could feel how good he made her feel. He could feel her slip inside him as well, could feel her rubbing against his deepest thoughts just as surely as he rubbed against her flesh.

  Her breaths came faster, became more labored. She was trying to hold on, to draw out the pleasure. She smiled as she drew her inner flesh tight around him, pulling a groan from his throat as she rolled her hips and met him thrust for wicked thrust.

  “Two can play that game,” she promised, her brown eyes shining with happiness before heavy lids drifted down to hide her from him.

  “Open,” he begged raggedly. He wanted to see her come undone for him. To look into her eyes and see when the pleasure became too intense to bear and she fell into that place that only he could take her to.

  Slowly her almond eyes opened. She arched, reaching up to pull a hank of his hair until his head tilted back, exposing his neck for her sucking kisses.

  He groaned at the show of roughn
ess. It meant she was close, that she had to push him, wanted to make him come before her.

  He laughed, a soft, ragged exhalation. “You’ve been trying to make me come first since the very beginning. When will you give up?”

  She licked her way up to his ear and bit down until he groaned, his lower body speeding up against his will. “Never,” she promised. “Not until I get what I want.”

  He turned her then. He loved the intimacy of loving her on their sides, entwined like spoons, but he needed leverage. He moved her on her back and began to fuck her in earnest.

  She cried out, her back arching, trying to get closer, to get more as the pleasure grew. Their hips moved like synchronized swimmers. She whimpered, her short nails scoring his back mindlessly as she kissed and pulled and stroked.

  Eyoen loved it all. After hundreds of years and countless women, he had never experienced the depth of pleasure he found in her body. But this kind of loving, this mindless, animalistic pleasure attack was what he loved best.

  He would never hurt her, not even whilst out of his head in the throes of a lust so consuming his sight grew narrow and his hearing the same. His focus was solely on her and what they were doing to each other. But at that moment he came close, so incredibly close to losing control, to becoming a selfish, mindless, clawing demon, the kind his father had warned him he could be whilst inside the woman he loved.

  He bit her. Struck fast and hard and clean, his fangs sinking into her soft flesh where neck met shoulder. She came, screaming out his name as though entreating him to follow. And he did, pumping hot strong, streams of himself into her and growling like an animal as the haze faded and slowly he came back to her and to himself.

  For a long moment there was only their breath and the faint, almost inaudible rasp of the silk sheets tangled beneath them. He began to lick her. Licking the puncture marks and making her shudder and shimmy as her tickling skin healed. With a last nuzzle for the disappeared wound she gave him a smacking kiss and stretched beneath him, nearly splitting her face with a yawn.

  He stuck a finger in her mouth as it closed, and she laughed softly. It was a trick she’d played on him on Earth after he’d drunk too much alcohol and was as sleepy as a pup trying to stay up past bed time.