I held out my hands. “Whoa there, you’d have to be an idiot not to see that Elsie loves you and only you, big guy. Take it down a notch.”
Elsie stepped forward and put her hand on his chest. “You’re riling up Bob.” On the back of her hand was an imp just like Ukobach’s, and it was pulsing with a deep red light. How did she manage to attract one of those? They usually avoided mortals. Looking between me and Uko, she opened and closed her mouth several times, like she wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words, then she turned and walked away, totally silent.
I looked at Uko. “Are you fucking insane?”
He slapped me on the back. “Maybe, but I know Elsie, and she’s been interested in you since you arrived, even with all the tentacles. If you need a hand, what are friends for?” He made a jerking motion with his hand and followed after his girlfriend like a faithful hellhound.
Insane.
I trailed behind them and hoped that Elsie would forget what Ukobach said. I liked her, and she treated me like a normal being and not like a freak. Even in Hell, I was an anomaly.
As if she also wanted to breach the awkwardness between us, she cleared her throat. “You sound a lot more like a modern human than Uko did when he first arrived. Have you spent more time in the mortal realm?”
I shook my head. “No, this is my first time, but my mother—she’s a succubus—and aunts enjoyed human television shows. She paid one of the higher level demons to sneak her down copies of reality television programs and telenovelas. They love their soap operas. I could do a dramatic pause and stare down the camera lens before I could talk.”
Her soft chuckle made happiness swell in my chest, and my tentacles flailed a little where they were tucked tightly against me. “Well, now I need to see that. Just pretend I told you that your fiancée is really your half brother’s twin.”
I contorted my face into a serious frown, then I gasped and stared right down an imaginary camera. “But you told me Storm wasn’t real. And Ashley, she’s… she’s… pregnant!” I exaggerated my fake American accent and clutched my chest. “This is the part where I’d have a heart attack and fall into a coma.”
Both Uko and Elsie were applauding, and we were getting several strange looks from the people lining up outside the clubs. The clientele was getting a little less polished though, and the people loitering on the sidewalk looked a little more predatory.
“Maybe we should head—” Pleasure pulsed along my body like a hot poker. Oh fuck. It was stirring deep in my groin, and I folded in half. “Fucking Hecto.”
Elsie rested her hand on my back, and I resisted the urge to grab her fingers and suck them into my mouth. “What’s wrong?” she asked, looking around for help.
“Hecto found a willing victim. Need to go somewhere…” I grunted as another wave of pleasure-pain dragged across my skin. “Quiet. Dark.”
Ukobach scooped me up, tossed me over his shoulder, and strode down a dark, dirty alley. That would do.
CHAPTER
SIX
KRAX
It waslike a great glutton after being starved, and whatever Hecto was doing, it was doing it with abandon and a lot of different people. My other tentacles burst out, swirling around me agitatedly.
I groaned and scraped my nails over my skin, squeezing my flesh and trying to get any sort of connection and relief, but there was none. My breathing was labored, but when I tried to suck in air through my nose and exhale through my mouth, it was like sucking in hot ash.
“There has to be something we can do to help. Look at him!” Elsie hissed at Ukobach, who was staring at me with one raised eyebrow. He knew there was, and I knew there was, but humans had different sensibilities than demons. He couldn’t be the one who made that connection for her. She had to get there herself.
I certainly wasn’t going to do it. I’d rather give my ass gravel rash by rolling around in this filthy alley than ask her for something she wasn’t willing to give. I wasn’t even sure if Uko would offer himself without permission from Elsie, and I’d never request that either.
The ache was like being stabbed in the abdomen repeatedly. Fucking Hecto. I hoped it was having a great time, the selfish prick.
I began to sweat, my black hair sticking to my forehead and cheeks. I bit my tongue so I didn’t whimper as I sunk down on the asphalt, leaning my head back against the bricks. I could do this. It would be fine. Besides, how long could it really go? It had to release soon, and then I’d get a little reprieve.
Squatting down in front of me, Elsie pushed the hair from my forehead, her face twisted in concern. “Do you need water?”
I huffed out a bitter laugh. “Unfortunately, water isn’t the fluid that will give me relief right now.” I’d throw myself into Lake Michigan and stay there until Hecto came to its senses if water helped. Maybe I still would, just to cool my overheated skin.
As tempting as that was, there was a greater chance I’d just drown—an unpleasant way to go.
Elsie’s eyes were an odd light shade of brown, like burnt sugar or the smooth stones at the bottom of a clear stream in the morning sun. So pretty. She cupped my cheek, and I leaned into the warmth of her palm. Even that provided a little relief.
Her jaw tensed with worry as she looked over her shoulder at Ukobach. “What would helping him involve?”
“Nothing you wouldn’t enjoy,” he said, coming over to rest a hand on my arm too. A little sigh passed my lips. Nice. “Orgasms mostly. Yours, not his. Lots of them until your cum coats his body. He can absorb it through his skin.”
