I could hardly suppress the chuckle that rose at that. “Me, bewitch?” I replied, feigning indignation. “Surely that enchantment is more your department than mine. My kind seek to infest and oppress. We do not charm.”
That was only a half-truth, of course. The demon used whatever means he had to capture the soul he wanted, whether that meant entrancing the mortal or crushing them. I, too, had the choice with Cathy, but her beguiling beauty and fascinating light made that decision easy. Why destroy something so wondrous? Why pulverize when I could cage and potentially protect the light? If I did not snub it out, perhaps I could twist it for my own purpose. Cathy could be mine. She could work for me. Hell was always in need of faithful little whores who could wield power of their own, and she was like no other woman I had encountered in all the long centuries of my existence.
“It won’t work.” Her voice had little conviction, the salacious need in her eyes more than enough to confirm what Cathy wanted, though obviously, she was far too moral, or shamed, to actually say so. “I don’t want you.”
“Of course not.” I smiled at her little performance, understanding it was necessary for the previously good girl to let go of the expectations her kind placed on her. She was expected to be dutiful, to put the needs of the other mortals before her own, and not even consider the lustful urges that swelled within her. “I understand perfectly.”
“You’re mocking me.” Her gaze fell, and she tried in vain to lower her chin as well, though my hand stubbornly refused her the right.
“I am here for you,” I corrected. “For Cathy the woman, as well as the Guardian. I am but her humble servant.”
“Servant?” her brow creased. “But how can that be when you expect me to obey?”
Smirking at her query, my free hand rose to stroke the loose strands of blonde hair from her eyes. “It’s a relative term, little Guardian. I shall rule over you, yet I will be your slave.”
“Slave?” Her brow rose this time, disbelief at my statement written all over her expression.
“For you, Cathy.” My voice was that tempting purr I employed when I sensed triumph was close, when I knew the goal I wanted was close to fruition. “I will be a slave to you. To your body, to your every depraved need.”
“Oh God.” Her eyes wanted to fall closed again, but this time I forbade the deed, willing her gaze to remain on me, on my face—the face of her new master. There would be no looking away unless I authorized it, no longing for anything except my touch from now on. “Oh God, what’s happening to me? Why can’t I just make you go?”
“Do not blame yourself,” I soothed. “You never stood a chance against me, little mortal. You have fought valiantly to resist, but we both knew it would come to this moment.”
“What moment?”
I was glad she had asked. “The moment you long for my lips on yours. The moment you want me to kiss you.”
Her eyes widened a fraction, her impotency amplified a thousand times in her head as she struggled to keep up with my onslaught. The knowledge I was right. That I was going to win echoing there, curling my lips all the more.
“Are you going to deny it?” I dared her, wondering if she still had the strength to defy me.
“You have cursed me,” she whimpered. “I don’t know what you have done, but I am blighted because of it.”
“Nonsense,” I pacified. “Women grow from men, and I, little Guardian, am more of a man than any mortal. You will bloom under my caress, flower under my feathery touch, and there will be pleasure, Cathy. So much pleasure. More than you can even imagine.”
“I can imagine quite a lot.” She lifted her chin, a fierce sense of pride swelling in her, enough to have made master Lucifer proud at her effort.
“Oh, I know,” I agreed. “I have seen your thoughts, remember? I know the dark depravities that haunt you.”
“Damon said those things would remain confidential.” A host of emotions registered in her eyes, anger shifting into hurt and then need. “But now, you all know.”
“I read them from you, Cathy,” I assured her. “You are like an open book to me. I promise he relayed nothing of your union to me, other than his sense of loss at the end of it.”
She swallowed at the news. “Really? Are you telling me the truth, demon?”
The way she referred to me was starting to wear, but I was close—so close—to having her, to taking her over, I let the comment go… for now.
“Look into your soul. You know I am. You know he was fond of you, enthralled even.”
“Enthralled?” She sounded pleased at the description.
“Yes, and standing in his place, it is not so hard to see why. You are a captivating woman, Miss Bateman. You have all the appeal of the blonde, with all the allure of the brunette and the fire of the redhead.” I sniggered at my spontaneous assessment. It was true, as honest as I could be. “And it is enticing. I want you, just the way he did.”
“I…” She hesitated, and finally, I permitted her gaze to land at my collar bones. “I had no idea.”
“How intriguing you are?”
“That he found me that way,” she explained quietly. “That you do. I just thought you wanted to extinguish my light.”
“The thought had crossed my mind.” I leered at her stunned expression. “But that was before I met you. Before I knew the thrill of touching you, of wooing you.”
“Wooing me? Is that what you’re doing?” She blinked at me. “Is that what’s happening?”
“We shall see,” I mused. “The extent to which I succeed depends on you, Cathy. It is as I have told you, your path to choose.”
“Fight or fall?”
I grinned at the way she managed to condense my elaborate speech into three words. “Indeed. Resist me if you dare, or you can give in to those desires you harbor, knowing you will never need to vocalize them for me.”
“Because you know them already.” What was that in her voice? Awe, or trepidation?
“That is how I know you want me to kiss you.” The fingers in her hair tightened. “I can tell everything you need, little mortal. I know all the ways you want me to hold you.”
“What must you think of me?” she gasped, her face blanching.
“I think you are astonishing,” I told her. “Stimulating and wonderful. I think you will be the greatest challenge and the most transfixing reward of my existence.”
“That’s it, then.” Her shoulder fell. “It’s over.”
“Not until you say so,” I reminded her. “You can still fight if you like? You can run, and I will chase you. You can spit in my face just as you envisioned.”
“But that will anger you?” The tremor in her tone suggested her panic about that eventuality and proved Cathy was not only attractive and powerful but also intelligent.
“Yes,” I concurred. “It will most definitely incur my wrath, and you would be punished for it, but you could, in all conscience, tell anyone who asked that you tried to counter me, that I swept you up in my darkness and took you by force.”
She shivered at the prospect, tugging against my digits as she contemplated it. “And if I don’t? If I don’t counter you, what will you think of me then? What will they all think?”
“There will be no judgment from me,” I comforted. “You must do as you wish, knowing your fate is already sealed, but that you can write the details for yourself. If you resist, I shall no doubt enjoy the coercion, but if you submit now, I shall relish that, too.”
She inhaled, her chest rising next to me, pushing her tempting little breasts against my form. Naturally, I knew what troubled her. I could sense the demons she wrestled with, and in one last act of unnecessary altruism, I threw her the olive branch she needed to stop the torrent from overwhelming her completely.
“If it contented you, we could always tell them I took you by force.” My brow arched at the proposition. “I could say you struggled hard, but in the end, my power was too great.”
“Lie, you mean?” A
fire burned in her gaze. “We could lie about my will to resist you?”
“Duplicity is the realm of the demon,” I reminded her. “Is it such a scandalous suggestion?”
“No.” She sighed. “It just shows how far I have fallen that I would even consider it.”
I shook my head at her alleged dilemma. “What is your decision then? If I release you, will you run, or will you want that kiss?”
Cathy’s lips parted, her thoughts clarifying what I knew to be true. She could not bear the thought of not brushing her lips against me. She could not contemplate going on with her life without, at least once, having known what true erotic possession was like.
“You know what I want.” Her tone was sullen. “You have damned me, but still, I can’t deny it. You know what I desire.”
“The kiss, then?” I smirked down at her stroppy response. I would soon pound that out of her, a plight I was more than happy to endure.
“Yes.” She looked close to tears. “I do want you to kiss me.”
“Your wish is my command, little Guardian,” I murmured, tilting her head back lightly. “I will happily devour you. You must only do one more thing to achieve your objective.”
“What?” Her gaze was plaintive, desperate as she searched my face. “What is it I must do?”
I grinned at her. “Beg me for it.”
Chapter Nine
Cathy
They said, when your life was about to end, you saw all the pages of the book you had filled flash past in front of your eyes, and that was how it was now. His demand rang in my ears. I had heard it, and indeed, it had been registered by my brain, but I couldn’t think to act upon it.
Beg him.
Is that what he’d said?
Beg. Him.
I was a Guardian, for God’s sake. A woman of moral fiber and integrity. It was bad enough that I had allowed myself to slip into his arms, awful that his teasing words sounded so tempting, but now he expected me to lower myself even further?
There was no way.
No way I would beg for his kiss.
Who the hell did the fiend think he was?
“In Hell, just as elsewhere, I am Satan.” He beamed at the question I hadn’t vocalized. “And I have every right to make the demand. You want all the wonders of the flesh, all the sensual excitement you know I can give. You expect that from me, and in return, I expect you to beg for it to begin.”
“I won’t do it.” Ignoring the way his digits tensed in my hair, I went on. “I will not plead for what we both want.”
He flashed a devilish smile at me. “Indeed, you will, little lady. You would not want to disappoint me so early in our liaison, and anyhow, you know you want to.”
Wait, what? “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Do I not?” He laughed dismissively. “You mean, I do not know those fantasies you hold close to your chest where you are forced to kneel and oblige handsome strangers? You don’t get breathless at the thought of their dirty demands? You don’t—”
“Stop!” I barked the order, breaking his lurid train of thought. “Don’t! Please, don’t finish that sentence.”
“But why not?” He tilted his head. “It is the truth.”
He had me there. For so long, the king of duplicity, it now seemed Satan was able to harness honesty as his greatest weapon and use it against me because the things he alluded to were true. I had thought about them. I had fantasized…
“I can’t deal with those realities.” My eyes closed fleetingly. “I can’t admit them.”
“And I said you would never need to.”
I stirred at the caress of his hand as it slid from my nape to my warm cheek, my hand rising on impulse to grasp at his wrist.
“And all you had to do was obey me.”
“But you ask too much.”
“No!” Satan’s voice boomed around me. “I ask so little. Follow me, and I shall give you everything, Cathy. Everything your heart has ever wanted. Everything that greedy little sex has ever wanted.”
His lips curled at his quip, but it barely registered, his mouth already approaching mine. He neared to about an inch from me, that distinctive sweet aroma that I’d associated with Damon lingering in the air while his gaze pinioned me in place.
“Just say it.” Was that silky tone his voice? The voice of the greatest, most cruel creature who ever existed? Was that Satan’s seductive timbre? “Beg me. Let go of the pride which forces you to pretend and give in to me.”
“But I can’t.” I was close to tears at the quandary.
A part of me was still livid at the concept, that he demanded such capitulation. Damon had demeaned me, his words and actions debasing me in the most glorious ways, but it had never been like this. So hot, so torrid. So damn alluring. Then there was that other facet of me, the part that frantically coveted his lips on mine. The part that would gladly pay homage if only he promised never to stop.
“You will,” he promised. “Or you leave me no choice but to abandon my plans and cut you down, and you know you have neither the strength nor the will to fight me.”
Pulling in a desperate breath, I fought to process the threat. No doubt he was right about that, too, but it was difficult to really garner the fear it deserved when the face of my greatest temptation was right there for the taking.
“You want to kiss me?”
What was I doing? Was I negotiating with the beast?
“Oh, yes.” His brow rose once more. “I can truly say I desire it more than any other yearning.”
“Then why not just do it?” I goaded. “Why make me implore you?”
“You try my patience, little mortal.” His tone was jovial, but the warning was there, laced in the beauty of his smile. “To truly touch, trust, and savor, you must want it above all else. You must covet my caress above everything, and I must hear that need in your voice—the fervor, the commitment to your new master.”
“Master?” I could barely keep up with his line of thought, each word seeming to entice and taunt rather than educate. “No man is the master of me.”
“And I am no man, but I will tire of your obstruction.” His gaze was darker, a glimpse of the menace to come if I continued to rile him.
What was I doing?
Succumbing to him was to go against everything I had ever stood for, but to have to beg him was unfathomable—an intolerable burden.
“Will you kiss me?” I whispered the words to him, imaging them bouncing from his delectable looking lips, landing back over me, like stains of shame I would never be able to clean away, but still, damn him, I wanted it. I longed for the gentle skim of his mouth over mine, for the taste of him, for the sin and salvation I knew only that sensuality could bring. “Please?”
His brow arched. “Come, you can do better than that.”
“God, please, I can’t.”
His expression softened, his dark chuckle enveloping me like a warm blanket. “Not God,” he sang. “Though a god, for sure. One with enough power to terminate you for good, and, contrary to popular belief, enough compassion to save you.”
“Please, what should I say then?” I cringed at the pathetic desperation in my tone, but it was too late, my desires too strong, my need too apparent. There was no going back now. Not even Sevvy could save me. “What will make you grant me this kiss?”
He nodded at me sympathetically. “Do not worry, child.” His voice was soothing, like cold water on a scorching day. “You are going to get what you want, but first, you will lower yourself for me. You will demonstrate your compliance.”
“How?”
“You will refer to me the correct way. The way you know will please me and is fitting.”
Oh God.
I knew at once to what he suggested, the reality stark as though he’d slapped me around the face, but the sting was quelled almost at once by the mesmerizing glint in his eyes. The one that comforted and reassured—everything will be well… if only I just yield—if only I
just stop fighting.
“Ask me with the correct deference. Beg me that way, and I swear I will give you everything. More than you can dream about.”
A tiny, fleeting part of my brain protested, urging me to see straight and tell the fiend to go back to the flames he’d risen from. I could do that. I had the strength somewhere, tucked deep inside. The old Cathy wasn’t gone entirely, she was merely subdued by the captivating force of the devil, but for some incomprehensible reason, I didn’t want to. The beast had beguiled me, and now I had to know—what did those lips taste like. How would his kiss compare to Damon’s, and what would it be like to get lost in him, our bodies fusing the way I imagined them in my mind?
It was intoxicating.
Too tantalizing to deny, and unlike the rest of my life, I was going to give in. I was going to put myself first.
“Master, please.”
In the end, it was easier to say the word than I’d feared. It seemed as though I was on autopilot, so enamored by the tempting intruder, I could delude myself. It didn’t matter if I swore some lurid allegiance if I didn’t really mean it. Whatever self-imposed title he forced me to use was irrelevant. Hell, I would call him Master of the whole fucking universe if it meant getting what I wanted. His lips on mine, his hands on my body, his ingenious mind contriving new, outlandish ways to tease and pleasure me.
“What is it, Guardian?” His expression had shifted somehow. It was imperceptible, yet I’d noticed his gaze all the more intense as he glowered at me.
“Master, will you kiss me?” I imagined myself as one of those distressed damsels in the long, flowing dresses Sevvy used to watch in black and white old movies. His fingers still buried in my hair, my body bowing in his arms, I played the part beautifully, yielding to his will in order to satiate mine. “Give us what we both want, please.”
His eyes lit up at my plea, his face nearing until those lips I’d fantasized about grazed over my mouth. “A first kiss is important.”
I exhaled at his words, my eyelids flickering at the aniseed aroma that washed over me. “Yes.”
“It is the first sign of our union, a memory that will always be there, singing songs in your head.”
Damn Me: A Paranormal Demon Romance (The Demonology Series Book 4) Page 6