Chapter 4
There is a particular kind of heat only a cooking fire gives off, and among demons, it’s known as Mother’s embrace, a flame both gentle and fierce. Its warmth draws you close with the promise of comfort.
Sofia tells me she has a six-course tasting menu in store for us tonight, and as the hearth fire crackles, we prepare food together, or more like she prepares food as I hold bowls and keep out of her way. But as I watch her, I’m struck by the thought that she must feel it, too, the embrace. She’s too attuned to the needs of the fire for a human, too tender in her touch, especially for one who has been burned by it.
I sit at the counter when she tells me to, and she serves us dinner. I’m soon enthralled by a performance far beyond any of my expectations, and they’ve been set by some of the finest restaurants in the world. Her’s is a graceful dance, and she performs it just for me. The textures. The flavors. The movements of her body. I devour it all with no wish to stop, even as it becomes painfully clear that I’m being ruined for any other meal. Bite after bite, I am undone.
At least I have the advantage in one important way. No number of chores could pay this off. I could tear down this cabin and build it again, and still, I’d come out ahead. If I am to be ruined, at least I have this satisfaction.
She moves us on to our last course. The diminished fire is refueled, and she coaxes the flames higher. As they leap, something inside me awakens. The dancing fire is an ancestral memory all demons are born with. Sharp and bright in childhood, the image fades over time. Tonight, Sofia Maria Moreno, a name I only now remember her telling me, has coaxed that long-buried memory to life in an exquisite, almost excruciating way. I rub my chest, my thighs. It’s too much.
Dessert is served, and my head swims as it melts on my tongue.
“Take off your pants,” I tell her, and I don’t know what I’ll do if she says no. Sweet Mother Below, let her say yes. The more she feeds me, the more I starve. I will make a meal of her to satisfy this hunger.
“You want to taste me?” she asks me softly, and on the air is the faint taste of her want. I am as relieved as I am desperate.
“Yes, Chef.” I eat up her every little expression. She blushed last time I said this, but now, her tongue darts out to wet her mouth. Her eyes go heavy lidded.
“Sofia.” I roll her name over my tongue as I stand and walk around the island, closing in on her. She follows me with both her eyes and her body, turning with me as I crowd her against the counter and cage her between my arms. Her breath comes quick and heavy, and there’s a thick cloud of excitement around her now. So tasty.
I eye the surface over her shoulder. The butcher block is wide open and ready to receive her. In an easy motion, I hoist her atop it. She kicks off her shoes. I undo her pants. She lifts her hips, and I pull them off. I leave her panties on. For now.
“Lay back,” I tell her. She makes a little wordless eager noise, and a growl echoes from deep in my belly in response. She stretches out across the butcher block, her legs dangling over the edge with me standing between them.
I run my hands up her thighs, and we both hiss excitedly at the burn. Her flesh against mine should feel cool, my body runs far hotter than a human, but not Sofia. She feels like she has fire in her veins.
My eyes trace the length of her, noting each swell and hollow of her beautiful form, stopping only when I reach the peaks of her breasts. Her nipples point through her t-shirt toward the ceiling. I grin and salute them with a courteous nod before returning my gaze to the delightful view of her spread legs.
“Do you want my mouth on you?” I ask as I tease the edge of her panties with my finger. The red of my skin is a tonal match to the brown of hers, and I wonder if there’s demon in her blood somewhere far back along her family tree.
“Yes,” she says with a quick nod.
“Then tell me to do it.”
“Put your mouth on me,” she says, but there’s a question in her voice.
“Like you mean it.”
“Put your mouth on me. Now.” Unbending steel. That is the Sofia I want to devour. I grin, my sharp teeth on full display as I meet her eyes.
“Mmm. Yes, Chef.”
“Your eyes,” she gasps, lips parting in surprise with a touch of wonder. Not all demons have smoking eyes, and not many would want them. Among demons, it’s a tell, and all tells are weaknesses, even between intimate partners. But Sofia shivers with arousal under my hands, and I am glad my eyes smoke for her. I want her to know what she’s done to me. I want her to see it, and most of all—I want her to feel it.
I strip off my shirt and toss it aside before lowering my head into the warm valley between her legs. I nip at the delicate flesh of her inner thigh, then bathe it with my tongue. She likes it. Her soft noises and her delicate quivers tell me so. I bite her other thigh just as lightly, only a trace of a red mark left behind, and I lick it away with my tongue.
Her hips lift and her legs fall wider for just a moment before they close around me. They press at my sides, directing me to that sweet spot. As if I don’t know where to go, as if my mouth isn’t watering hungrily for it. I’m intentionally holding back, engaging my self-restraint. I’ll get there, but not yet.
This is only the first course. An amuse-bouche of black lace panties.
I tease my fingers under the lace, swiping deep enough to reach her sensitive places, but I don’t linger. The first course is meant to awaken the senses. I knead the flesh around her hips and thighs and dip my fingers, stroking all the fun places hidden beneath that lace.
Next comes my tongue and my teeth. I would not bite such a sensitive place if not for the thin shield to protect her. I place my lips just so, encircling her before I press my teeth in ever so lightly and suck. The textured fabric draws into my mouth, silky yet rough against my tongue with a titillating scratch at the roof of my mouth.
Her body trembles with a gasp and a shudder. “Yes,” she breathes, and I harden at the sound. I suck once more before I start to lick, getting rougher as I repeat my strokes. I don’t stop until her panties are soaking wet, and then it’s time for them to go.
Second course.
I slide the bit of black lace down her legs and toss them aside. “Grab my horns,” I say as I lean over her. I throw her thighs over my shoulders, and as soon as I feel the weight of her grip on my horns, I hoist her up off the counter and onto my shoulders to straddle my face. Her head nearly bumps the raftered ceiling. “Hold on tight. You got it?” I ask.
“Yes, keep going,” she says. Her voice is raw and breathy, and my blood pumps faster at the sound of it. I will indeed keep going.
With a hand on either of her bare ass cheeks, I lift her up until my tongue finds what it’s looking for. It slips along her sensitive folds. The fabric shield is gone, and I groan at the pleasure of my tongue making contact. I lick her over and over, savoring her like a sweet treat. She moans, and her thighs clamp around my neck. I lift her another inch higher, and I thrust my long tongue inside her, wiggling it deep into the wet, scorching heat.
She bucks, and I have to squeeze her ass to keep her from falling off my shoulders. She’ll have bruised imprints of my fingers on those cheeks tomorrow.
Keeping her firmly pressed to my face, I continue thrusting my tongue inside her with deep strokes. She uses my horns for leverage and rides up and down in rhythm to my in and out. She cries out each time she bounces against my face, her movements growing more urgent and frantic as she nears her edge. My blood surges in response until I’m painfully erect. My hips roll and strain with every gasping noise she makes. If I don’t push her over the edge, I’ll come in my pants.
I grind my face against her, shoving my tongue as deep as it’ll go, glad for the extra length. I nuzzle my nose into just the right spot to give her some extra friction, and she goes off, singing the song of sweet release for me. Her shuddering walls squeeze my tongue, and her trembling legs kick at my back.
“Qué bárbaro,” she mumbles on a gusty exhale just before she loses her hold on my horns and falls. I catch her as she goes down with an arm at her hips and a hand behind her head.
I know she thinks she’s done, but there’s still a final course to come. What’s dinner without dessert?
Third course.
I flip her over and lay her on the butcher block, face down, legs dangling. Mmmm… Her naked ass is on display, and I revel in the magnificent sight. Cheeks so round and sweet, with pinpricks of my nails half mooned across them. I take a moment to imagine all the things I’d like to do to her. Then I take one finger and trace a line up from her swollen nub, along her center until my finger arrives at her pucker.
She gasps, and her head pops up off the block. Looking over her shoulder, her eyes lock with mine, and I hold her gaze as I lower my head, my tongue slowly extending. I watch her watch me, noting every little twinge of an expression as I swipe my tongue along the crack of her ass.
Her eyes roll just before her head drops. She presses her forehead into the butcher block, moaning as her cheeks clench. I lick again, and she lets out a couple of panting breaths. I probe at the pucker with the tip of my tongue, and she gasps before unraveling ever so slightly. I don’t know if she can come like this, but I’m game to find out.
I spread her cheeks and set a rhythm, licking up and down and in tender circles, probing her just a bit as I massage and knead her flesh. She’s flushed a pleasing shade of red and has grown even more tantalizingly hot to the touch. This woman is a delightful torment to my senses. She groans again, and her hips jerk in uncontrolled little spasms that echo in me. I shudder through the string of tremors, willing my knees not to buckle.
“Samite.” She says my name, and unlike the last time when I cringed in the woods, this time, my erection strains against the seam of my pants at the sound of it. I want her to say it again. I want her to scream it, and I’m narrowing in on the quickest way to make that happen when she turns to look at me over her shoulder again.
“Put your cock in me. Now.”
Looking down, I slide my finger inside her instead, working it in and out, imagining the relief I’d feel if I unzipped my pants and pumped into her this exact same way. I add a second finger, and my hips rock forward as a new wave of tremors moves through me. Holy fuck, I want inside her. “Are you sure? I don’t have any protection.”
“I’m sure if you are. We can’t make a child anyway,” she says. That’s not entirely true. It’s difficult but not impossible, and that’s only if she’s one hundred percent human. If she’s even a fraction demon, it’s a much riskier gamble.
“I don’t know.” My fingers slide out of her, and my arm falls to my side. My heart is still pounding, and my erection is throbbing. I can’t remember a time I wanted a woman as much as I want her, but—
I don’t gamble.
She lifts herself off the butcher block and slides to her feet. “What’s wrong?” she asks in a shaky voice, tensing away from me as if I’ve suddenly become a threat. She pulls at her white t-shirt, shrinking and twisting until her fire scarred arm is hidden behind her back. I taste the air. There’s a sour note of fear. What is she afraid of? A child?
That’s my fear. The chance of us making one tonight is small, but not impossible. It’s a risk I can’t take. “We should stop,” I say with more firmness than I feel.
“Of course, whatever you want,” she says without looking at me. And before I can say another word, she swipes up her pants from the floor, scoots past me, and disappears down the hallway. I hear the sound of her bedroom door lock, and I slump against the counter.
I’m not entirely sure what just happened, but I’m deeply troubled by the urge that rises in me next. I’m still achingly hard, but for some reason, what I most want to do is knock on her door and apologize. I’ve done nothing wrong. In fact, I did several things right. So why should I apologize?
I grit my teeth and wrestle against the bubbling feeling. I’m sorry, Sofia.?
I’m not sorry.
Earlier today,?I left my shower with a plan in mind. I was going to seduce her and convince her to help me get back to my hotel. But then she fed me, and if anyone was seduced, it was me. How did that happen? I am the demon.
And yet…
Sofia bargains.
She seduces.
She plays with fire.
This woman is a devil in spirit, and I have been a damn fool in letting down my guard. She is not some hapless human living atop Mount Deadzone. She is a skilled opponent. Tomorrow, I’ll come up with a new plan that takes that into account. Seducing a seductress is not a workable strategy. I have to be smarter than that.
The longer I’m here, the greater the risk to my personal wealth. All my money, the entirety of my investment egg, could already be gone. But I’m praying to the Dark Mother Below that it’s still there. I just need a way off this mountain. There has to be one. I will coax it out of Sofia one way or another. I am the demon after all, and I will not be out deviled by anyone, least of all this tricky, mountain-dwelling human.