The familiar sense of self-loathing got its claws in me, my gut churning. I’d never been good enough for anyone: not attractive enough, not interesting enough, not muscular or masculine or outgoing enough.
A familiar prickling sting at the corners of my eyes made me glad no one was there but Sean after all. What if Xan had seen me cry? What would he think of me then?
Except that…he had seen me cry. Probably a bunch of times, because I hadn’t exactly been in control of my emotions in my teens. Okay, or since then, but whatever. Particularly in my teens. He’d watched me. Foryears.
He’d seen me trying to fuck myself on that improbably large dildo—which had been, in fact, one of the many things that’d made me cry.
Damn it. My hands flew up to cover my face, as if I could somehow retroactively hide from him.
Xan had told me he’d imagined it was him.
I’ve waited a long time for this.
He’d been lonely too, maybe. He must’ve been, or he wouldn’t have been hanging around watching a human in another dimension living his mundane daily life instead of going out and living his own. Maybe whatever teenage demons did to get ready for being a death-challenging grown-up didn’t appeal to him all that much. Or maybe…
Maybe he’d genuinely liked me.
If he’d liked me so much, waited years for me to get my act together and summon him effectively at last, why had he left as soon as I fell asleep, though? Why wasn’t he here disapproving of the way I didn’t have anything to eat for breakfast—because my grocery shopping skills sucked when I was buying food at least as much as when I bought spell components—or simply skipping breakfast and fucking me again?
Shit.
I pulled my hands away and stared up at the ceiling in horrified realization.
Tell me you want me to stay.
Had I answered him? Told him yes, definitely, make himself at home? No. I hadn’t. I’d mumbled something that sounded encouraging and kissed his arm.
For a human, that would’ve been plenty. If I’d been in his place, I’d have been pretty confident that the guy I was sleeping with wanted me to stick around.
But for a demon? Who’d been summoned to this dimension with magic I didn’t even understand—obviously, or I’d have made it work a decade ago?
The rules were different.
He’d clearly known that. Xan had asked me to ask him to stay, and I’d been too fucking out of it to understand.
I kicked myself free of the last of the bedding that’d tied itself around my legs, and I rolled out of bed and staggered for the bathroom. First things first. I’d take care of my immediate bodily needs, because you couldn’t fucking think straight with a full bladder. A quick shower would be a good idea, too, because I had Xan’s come leaking out of me and my own all over me, and I might need to run to the store for new spell components.
Damn it, I was going to summon him back here if it was the last fucking thing I ever did. Even if I had to buy every can of menudo in town and pawn my laptop so I could afford the fancy smoked cayenne pepper.
The shower left me with more clarity than I’d had in months. Or at least it felt that way. Maybe it was the complete, total lack of anything resembling a migraine. No pain, no dizziness or vertigo, no nausea. My ass ached—more than my ass. Internal parts of my body I didn’t think you were supposed to be conscious of ached, too, still feeling the imprint of that massive cock. When I dried myself off, bending over made me wince. And the muscles of my arms and legs and back all protested.
But those were good pains, the remnants of pleasure. And my mind’s gears turned smoothly, for once. I hadn’t even realized what a fog of constant neurological misery I’d been in until it suddenly lifted.
It’d worked. My plan had worked. For the moment, at least, I was cured, though I’d have to wait a few hours to see if the orange logos came back on schedule.
And yet it wasn’t good enough. I wanted Xan. A little glimpse of happiness had made me greedy for more. I didn’t know him very well—not yet. But I wanted to.
Xan…he’d watched me, waited for me, for years.Me. How could I resist that? He could’ve been kind of awful and I’d still have been flattered. But instead, he was the hottest guy, in all ways, I’d ever met. Kind and thoughtful. Extraordinary in bed. He liked me. He wanted to make me smile.
I’d used to think a shared taste in movies, stuff like that, made you compatible with a boyfriend.
Yeah. That had gotten me Kenny. And the guy before that, who’d only lasted two months, and whom I’d thought wasthe onefor the first few weeks because we both hated avocados and dreamed of traveling to Iceland.
But that crap didn’t matter compared to the way Xan made me feel. In only a few short hours he’d had me excited, relaxed, drenched in pleasure, comfortable in my own skin.
And apparently I made him laugh.
Which meant we could find a compromise on what movies we watched on date night and where we went on vacation, and take the rest of it from there.
