Strum: virgin captive of the billionaire demon rock star monster (The Squirm Files)

by Cari Silverwood

  “It’s not?” In the alternating flash of intense lights then gloom, she couldn’t make out the writing. “What is it then?”

  He grinned and held it up to her eyes.

  BACK ENTRY PASS. Then in smaller writing: The holder guarantees anal sex to Skoll Blade.

  Her mouth fell open.

  “Yep, use this pass and know Skoll expects to use your pretty little ass good.”

  Jeez. Mouth firm, eyes hard, she said angrily and perhaps a little too loudly, “Let me in this way then.”

  “No. Not a hope. If you ain’t got a ticket and you want in, you sacrifice your butt. Which is it? You’re holding up the fucking line.”

  Just as she opened her mouth to say something bad, a motor bike revved loudly and shouting erupted.

  “Fuck!” The guard sprinted past her along with his three cohorts.

  A crowd milled around where Dangerous Bob was flailing about with fists and his trusty four by two...where in hell had that come from...laying out his attackers with precision and grace. The roar intensified as the guards joined in, but Bob only hooted and waved to her when he noticed her watching.

  “Awww.” She smiled. Sweet man. He was making the fight last so it was a diversion for her. Ah least he was having fun. She swiveled on the heels of her stilettos, managed not to fall over on her nose, then sauntered in through the unattended gate.

  Chapter 3

  The first step Virginia took inside the hall brought her smack bang up against a man with a face like a creature from a dog pound. Squarest jaw ever, slightly jutting out, with beady, deep-set eyes. To be precise, she’d gone smack bang, nose-first, into his white-shirted, Security-tagged chest – a chest that was so broad she’d need an airline ticket to circumnavigate it.

  Past his shoulder was where she needed to be. Smoke and too many multi-colored floodlights made the stage at the far end of the hall seem to float on a fog of agitated, waving fans. As the song ended, a high-pitched decrescendo riff punctuated the drama of the moment. The crowd screamed, roared, and thumped its feet on the seating stands to either side and above her.

  She blinked and resisted the urge to retreat, or to get out something long and nasty and poke him with it.

  He smiled down at her.

  Eeek. She sucked in a startled breath.

  Teeth. Big. Sharp. Pointy. Teeth.

  Who the fuck in psychofuckadelic land had triangular teeth? Cross out the something long and nasty, she needed a cage and a bunch of zoo keepers.

  She was used to all Karl’s Sea Wolves bikers, most of whom, despite their liking for leather and motorcycles, could shift to become scary sea-living monsters.

  Could this guy shift? And if so, what was he, a shark?

  “Where do you think you’re going, lil tasty thing?” The rumbles from his voice made the floor quake, though that was possibly her knees knocking.

  Sometimes her mouth did bad things before she could stop it. “You file those in your spare time, or did your mama have intimate relations with a lumber mill?”

  Inwardly she was pleased. Good mouth. You didn’t show fear before guys like this or they stomped on you.

  He chuckled. “Har har de har. No.” He leaned in and sniffed her. “Oh, baby. You smell good. I eat things that smell this good.”

  Oh my. Next time she’d sew her lips together.

  “Either you show me that ticket you must have somewhere on you.” His gaze lazily perused most of her from breasts to legs, and back to her breasts. “I can even help you find it. Or I get to throw you out. Or...”

  Fuckitty, as Bob would say. “Or what?”

  As soon as the words left her mouth, she realized she shouldn’t have said them. She’d admitted she wasn’t here legitimately.

  “Or you let me fuck you behind the stands and I’ll let you go watch the show after.”

  Making a small unhappy noise only made him focus on her sharply. If she twitched, he’d pounce. He came closer, aiming to edge her under the framework of the stand.

  “You don’t say nothing and I’ll take that as a yes. Mm Mmm. I’m going to like this. I’m big so you’re going to have to spread those pretty legs a looong way so’s I can get in deep in your wet, tight pussy.”

  “I’m taken,” she squeaked out.

  “Yeah, you will be soon.”

  Horrible man.

  Would he reject her if she told him she might not be so tight anymore after coping with tentacles? Not that she believed Bob. The man had been smoking something. He actually thought Karl had tentacles.

  Her thoughts scurried about like lost sheep.

  She stared at him, trying to think, and sucking on her lip like it was a favorite lollipop. She’d broken herself of the biting-the-lip habit. Maybe she needed a patch. Like a nicotine patch, only with a mouth instead...

  A lip patch. Yeah.

  “You want some of this? My deadly trouser snake?” He came so close she could hear the tinkle of metal under his shirt. From glimpses of something shiny, he was wearing a ton of silver necklaces. “It bites.”

  Despite his words being vile, her pussy was flooding like a basement room with a busted pipe. Alpha men always made her go all squishy.

  You are disgusting, her inner voice muttered. And that busted pipe analogy? Get a plumber before I throw up.

  She didn’t have time for this. Her inner voice needed a smackdown now and then.

  “Shut up or I duct tape you again,” she sieved the words between her teeth, unintentionally out loud.

  Oh shit. He was looking weirded out. Her mind went quiet.

  Then her inner voice giggled-snorted.

  Dammit. “Shhh!”

  “Are you okay?” The man peered at her worriedly.

  “What?” Virginia spat out. “You don’t like crazy women?”

  He shrugged.

  “Take a look at this. Baby.” Exasperated beyond hope of normality, she whipped out the Back Entry pass.

  “You know what that is?” The stock issue leer, that all the men here tonight seemed to have bought, sneaked onto his face.

  “Yes! I do. Take me to your fucking leader.”

  “Okay.” He shrugged again, though the leer only faded to a know-it-all smile. “Follow me.” He grabbed her hand and set off for the stage with her in tow. “I’m not risking you changing your mind. I’m T, by the way. You?”

  Change of agenda. Now it was introductions? She struggled to keep up without tripping over her own heels. If she fell from this height, she’d likely burn up in the atmosphere.

  “That’s it, just T? I’m Virginia Chaste.”

  “No shit.” He chuckled. “You won’t be chaste for much longer. The T is for Tyrone. Last name Rex. Mr. T. Rex if we’re being formal.”

  No. No, no. no. For the first time she noticed how short his arms were. Functional but short.

  “You’re not...”

  He looked at her suspiciously. “Not what?”

  “Not...” She couldn’t say it.

  “Catholic? No. Circumcised?” He grinned. “Not that either.”

  And all the while inside her head, her inner voice was hopping up and down, screaming, Dinosaur. Dinosaur! Like some host on a kid’s show before they broke into song.

  For once, she was too stunned to smack it.

  Maybe he didn’t know he could shift?

  Maybe he couldn’t?

  Yeah, she was dreaming up nightmares for no reason. She guessed having a theoretical tentacle monster fiancé could do that to you.

  Even so, one thought blasted across her brain, as glaring as a highway sign being flattened by a truck.

  She’d nearly fucked a dinosaur.

  She wouldn’t have.

  Not really.

  Damn. A dinosaur!

  Would that make her more a slut than being, haha, tentacle fucked did? This was like the chicken and the egg question. The philosophy of fucking monsters.

  How big was dino dick?

  Wait. Wait, wait, wait. There w
as a logic problem here. She believed in the possibility of dino-shifters, and recalled the Sea Wolves shifting, but she couldn’t conceive of Karl tentacle loving her?

  Oh fuck. Shut up with the logic. Tentacle love was just dumb. End of story.

  Imagine where they could go though.

  Hmm.

  Why were her panties even wetter?

  Chapter 4

  Mr. T. Rex made her sit at the front, in a special row of seats.

  “Stay there.” He leaned in from behind and murmured beside her ear. “You move and my guys have orders to hold you for the cops under charges of stealing. Trust me. We can prove it.”

  Her indignant gasp didn’t impact on him at all and she watched him move away into the crowd.

  Dayum. Just because he was top of the food chain.

  She was off to the left of the stage but three yards from a bank of speakers high enough to tempt King Kong to climb it with a virgin in his grasp.

  The next song began with a strident chord from Zagan’s golden Stratocaster that made her brain spring a leak through her ears. His wide-legged, pelvic strutting routine was classic Zagan. His Sneering Donkeys Spunk Rock T-shirt, plastered with an image of guitar-playing purple donkeys with nuclear explosions coming out their asses, was classic Purgatory wear.

  Why had she not recognized him? It was He. Him. The guy at the party. Only this time his eyes were bare of sunglasses, revealing his burning flames contact lenses. As he slashed his hand across the strings and led the band into the heart of the song, his eyes focused on her.

  Her breath stopped. Her heart stood still then took off like a cat at a meeting of violin enthusiasts.

  With the beat turning the rest of her brains to jelly, she recalled how the floor had crackled toward her. For a moment the stage seemed to shimmy and bow up at the sides as if stretching into a circle with him at the center.

  Kinky. Nervously she checked the nearest load-bearing beams. Maybe she should have brought an architect with her?

  Psst. Need oxygen.

  She breathed and things were sort of okay again. Spiders on the drum kit? Normal for Purgatory. The evil clown, she was reserving judgment on.

  The hall turned into a battlefield of ripples and flashes of light, a war of music where the casualties were the audience. Men screamed and swayed in time. A mosh pit formed to the side. Women leaped up and down and danced from the waist up while sitting on their boyfriends’ shoulders. Some fainted. Several had their heads spin in circles and their panties burst into flame.

  Though boyfriends threw themselves atop the women to smother the flames, from the writhing bodies and the squeals of ohmigod and oooh, it rarely seemed to work.

  Concerned security guards roamed vigilantly with fire extinguishers to put out the fires. A few girls exploded entirely and had to be scraped off the walls.

  Mortalities were to be expected at a Purgatory concert.

  The show must have taken hours but not once did she take her eyes off Zagan, nor his off hers. They were riveted together like a pair of electrically welded joints on a table. It made for a lot of tripping over power cables onstage, and Zagan almost lost an eye on a mic stand but neither of them seemed able to resist the other.

  At the end, when people around her were filing out or screaming for more, she stayed where she was until the place was empty. The band left. Security still watched her and had told her to stay put despite her glares. Then he returned.

  Zagan vaulted down to where she sat and held out his hand. “Come with me.”

  How could she resist? Not only did his irises seem on fire when seen this close, his groin throbbed alarmingly like something in there was desperate to get out. Her mouth dropped open but she resisted drooling.

  Must not drool. In the low light, there was a distinct red glow too. The crotch of his black pants glowed? Did he have a glow stick shoved down there? A torch? Would it fit? She tilted her head.

  “Come. With me,” he repeated, sounding only slightly exasperated at her being fixated on his cock.

  Her well-trained schlong detector said unreadable.

  A mystery? Hmm. She hated those. The itch to discover what lurked within nibbled at her. She so needed to get this man’s pants off. For clinical reasons, of course.

  “Sure.” She reached for his hand and raised her eyes to meet his.

  Boom. Some vital essence of hers recognized his as being the matching element her heart and body needed for life to go on. Butterflies took flight inside her stomach, followed by a herd of antelope and a few flying unicorns in a full-on romantic stampede. Rainbows made their way from pyloric valve to esophagus. Her spleen fainted. It was getting messy in there. She put her palm on her gurgling belly.

  Love. Insta-love. She had it bad.

  Wasn’t there some injection for that?

  Tomorrow she should see a doctor.

  Virginia inhaled and completed the movement she’d begun what seemed like hours ago. She put her hand in his.

  A spark travelled between them. Zzzap. Excruciating pain sizzled up her arm. She snatched back her hand and screamed. The lights dimmed. High above, huge purple sparks crackled from ceiling strut to ceiling strut. Some creature let out a startled meow then a hiss.

  “What the damn fuck. Shit!” She shook her fingers trying to get the pain to lessen. “Fuck. Was that some crazy static electricity thing, man? Are you wearing velvet or something?”

  He was shaking his fingers too. “No, I do not wear velvet. I’m a rock star! Denim. See?” He plucked at his jeans.

  When he went to take her hand again, she gingerly accepted. Phew. Nothing.

  They walked past cleaners shoving piles of litter with brooms. A cat stalked by and shot an accusatory glare at them. Tendrils of smoke rose from its fur. She slowed. Should she get the SPCA to look at the poor kitty? She looked about. Where was the pervert who’d set its fur on fire?

  Zagan dragged her onward.

  In his dressing room the legendary golden Stratocaster rested against the wall. She eyed it but nothing more. Rumor said it was really gold and that no one except Zagan could pick it up without getting a hernia.

  He poured them both a glass of scotch then pulled up a leather lounge chair and sat opposite the sofa she reclined on. From under his brow, through the pale strands of his hair, he looked out.

  Such wonderful evil eyes. She shivered.

  A caged man, swirling the liquid in the glass, which made his biceps push deliciously at the sleeves of his shirt. His ragged and mostly short, white hair seemed to beg her to run her fingers through it.

  His manner suggested a man on the verge of admitting himself to a psychiatric hospital or organizing a worldwide charity for starving orphans, and he stared at the floor so much that she hitched forward to peer at it, to make sure nothing was happening down there.

  Zagan Grimm. He was dark. Apart from his white hair. He was brooding. He was a rock star with a guitar and tonsils of gold, and she wanted him so much.

  No. Mustn’t. Be a good almost-virgin. Not only had she promised Dangerous Bob that she’d behave, she’d promised herself. If she’d been going to marry Karl whatsit, she must have liked him, a lot.

  But...instincts were instincts. He was hot and she was female.

  With her legs bent and drawn up onto the sofa, she could squeeze her thighs together without making a fuss, and not look like she was desperate to orgasm. She whimpered quietly.

  Sexy man. Fuuuuuuck. Her alphabet allowance was depleted. She needed more U’s to spell that fuck. Her diamond-hard perky nipples were sawing holes in the front of her T-shirt.

  The flames in his eyes flickered and embers fell slowly through the air into the glass, hissing as they hit the golden liquid.

  “Wow.” To distract herself from the throbbing between her legs, she nodded at the glass. “That’s some magic trick.”

  “It’s not one. Did you know the octopus on your tights is eating your pussy?”

  His deep voice rumbled like
a train bearing down on her, and she was tied to the tracks, unable to escape, waiting for him to run her over.

  Do it, baby. Choo, chooo.

  “No shit.” She smiled, controlling her breathing and trying not to faint. What an intelligent, wonderful man.

  “I’m going to lay it all out. I can see you want me. I’m a demon. You’re a mortal. You’ll die if I fuck you too much. I’m too much for a sweet girl like you. So...” He heaved in a breath. “Now that that’s out of the way, you’re going to tell me why you’re here and then when we settle that, you’ll run away before I drag you onto the floor and ravish you.”

  Dayum. Be still my beating heart.

  Her voice went squeaky. “You’d drag me to the floor and ravish me?”

  “If you stay too long, yes.” Those eyes turned up the heat by a few thousand degrees.

  Amnesia, remember? She had a fiancée. Whatsisface.

  I must be good. I must be strong and resist. Besides, there was some small detail about him being a demon and her dying.

  She gulped. “I’m engaged.”

  “I know. I was there. I left early because of you. Once I saw how it was between us. The desire.” He set down his glass then took her hand and kissed the palm. “The passion. I also know Karl has left this world. That party was an accident waiting to happen. So why are you here?”

  He kissed her wrist and she gave a tiny squeak and felt her womb clenching...which was odd. She was pretty sure it only did that if you were giving birth.

  “Good point. He has. Left.” Think. What did Dangerous Bob say to do? “I’m here because we need your help to bring him back. Dangerous Bob believes you are the only person capable of finding us, or making us, a new portal.”

  Pulling her forward, Zagan licked up her wrist all the way to the inside of her elbow. His voice was thick with lust. “You are irresistible.” Then he bit.

  Eek. Fire swept into her and after torching her mind turned around and scorched southward to her pussy. She was a blazing maelstrom in need of one of those fire extinguishers. Virginia wriggled and attempted to retrieve her elbow from his lips but nothing gave.