The demon uncrossed his arms, hands going to his hips in a posture uncannily reminiscent of my great-aunt Barbara. He shot a pointed look at the clear evidence of insanity laid out on the small table, and then leveled his gaze on me again.
“Yes, clearly,” he said, and I winced. “I mean, this,” and he waved a hand at the guttering candles and stale spices of my spell, “is pathetic and kind of insulting. Canned soup? And that—what the fuck is that?” He leaned down and peered into the bowl of pink salt and honey. “You finally make it work, after so many times—is that supposed to be a joke?”
He glanced sharply up at me, frowning, and I fell back against the wall again under the force of those gleaming eyes.
“It’s—sweet and salt,” I stammered. “Like it says. In the book? Seriously, aren’t you supposed to be here to take me over and, and, I don’t know, possess me?”
The demon blinked at me slowly, crimson lashes casting long shadows on his cheekbones. And then he reached over the table and twisted the dimmer switch on the wall, flooding the kitchen with an eye-watering glare.
“Ow!” I said, throwing up a hand in front of my face, temples throbbing and everything going a little sideways around me. “Shit, warn a guy!”
“The mood lighting was starting to feel a little bit clichéd,” he said, and those words in his raspy, demonic growl were the weirdest thing I’d ever heard. I dropped my hand and stared at him, as he continued with, “For one thing, of course I have my own body. For two, shouldn’t you be naked and on your knees?Or on your back? Can you cross your ankles behind your head? You do yoga.”
My stare turned into an outright gape. I opened my mouth, closed it again, blinked—and no, I still had a giant half-naked demon crowded into my tiny kitchen telling me he expected me to be on my knees, and also asking if I did yoga.
No, he’dstatedthat I did yoga. How the fuck?
“How the fuck do you know I do yoga? Have you been watching me? No, stupid question, I just summoned you a minute ago, but I mean, do demons have powers like—”
“Of course I haven’t been watching you. Why would I have been watching you?” he said in a hurry, and he was looking off to the side, not meeting my eyes. Weird. “I walked through your living room. And I, ah, saw your yoga mat.”
“Oh.” I swallowed, feeling my cheeks and neck go all flushed. “Well, yes. I do yoga. And that’s my yoga mat,” I added lamely.
He raised one thick, dark-red eyebrow and looked down his nose at me…way, way down, because I scraped five foot six in my favorite boots.
“You dodged the really important question,” he said, flashing a wicked, teasing, fanged smile that hit me somewhere in the solar plexus. And lower. Deeper. “Can you cross your ankles behind your head or not?”
Suddenly I could almost see and feel it: my back curled and my legs hiked all the way up, the way my feet would be caught between my head and the pillow, the compression of my lungs that’d have me panting as I peered up at him between my thighs. Big, hot hands on the curves of my ass, a gleaming grin and glowing eyes and the terrifying jut of his massive…
“Oh, gods,” I whimpered, and snapped back to the present, panting as much as if I really had been…wherever I’d been, with heat pooling in the pit of my gut and behind my balls,all molten and tight and shivery. My palms slipped on the wall, sweatier than ever. Seriously? I didn’t even want that. Kenny had told me I looked ridiculous in positions like that because I was too chubby and it gave me rolls in unattractive places, and he wasn’t the only one. And yet…
I blinked, and there he was,rightthere, with one of his hands braced by my head as he leaned down and in. My eyes fluttered almost shut, and I peeked at him through my lashes. The radiating warmth of his body toasted me from head to toe. It was better than any heating pad in the world. His eyes glowed faintly, like the coals in the depths of a fire, the way they had in my little vacation from reality.
“You smell like you’re ready to take me inside you,” he said, all low and raspy, his breath brushing my lips, a delicate caress that made my skin tingle. “Here? Or in your bedroom? Humans care about things like that, right?”
Ready to take me inside you.
My brain went staticky, a radio tuned to whatever frequency corresponded to a demon appearing in my kitchen hell-bent, so to speak, on…hell-bending me? Over. Bending me over.
Oh, gods, I’d lost it. And my whole body had started to quiver.
He leaned nearer. All my hair stood on end. The parts of my skin nearest to him got prickly and tender, every cell in my body responding to him.
But…no, no, I had to focus, I didn’t want that at all, I wanted him to possess me, not…
Oh, fuck.
Possesshad more than one connotation. I’d screwed up the spell somehow.
Or misunderstood it completely in the first place.
Damn it, I knew that fucking spicy menudo had been a bad idea.
“Wait,” I gasped, as his free hand curled around my hip, hot as a brand even through my clothes. A shockwave coursed down all my nerves. His hand was so big. Gods. “Wait, that’s not why I—”
My next words faded into a garbled moan as the demon leaned all the way down, curving his huge body over me, and pressed his face against my throat. A hot, wet tongue slipped out. And out. And…up, fuck, flicking my earlobe and teasing the shell of my ear.
“How long is that thing?” I choked, my hands coming up of their own accord and grabbing onto his shoulders. Granite under satin. Fucking gods, he felt good. But this wouldn’t help me! I wanted him to take over, make my life easy, and cure my migraines!
