Chapter 7
Chapter
Seven
YOU’RE BEGINNING TO FASCINATE ME, AND I RESENT THAT IN ANY MAN
Only when the cool air hit her skin did Clara realize she had drifted off in the bathtub.
He was still with her, this strange, careful, infuriating, and exciting shadow thing, and he was lifting her from the tub and into a warm towel in his arms. With the fog in her mind cleared a bit after her temperature went down, she finally realized she didn’t know a thing about him.
“What’s your name?” she asked as he carried her back into her bedroom, leaving her clothes on the floor where he had torn them from her.
The question took him by surprise. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been asked such a thing. For the briefest of moments, he struggled with the answer—another name wanted to bubble up to the surface, but it didn’t quite get there.
“Shiver,” he said, attempting a smile she probably couldn’t see.
Clara wrinkled up her nose, trying not to laugh. The expression made Shiver’s throat clench with adoration.
“I’ve never met a Shiver before,” she said. Her voice was small and weak, but far warmer than the start of their last conversation.
“You’re my first Clara,” he said, just to cover the awkwardness of sharing himself with her. He had no idea how she might take him, but as soon as the words were out of his mouth, he realized how much he liked calling her his.
Shiver laid her down in her bed, slipping the wet towel from under her and covering her in blankets. He avoided her inscrutable gaze, instead finding something very interesting in the embroidery of her quilt.
“Are you…” Clara wasn’t sure how to ask everything she wanted to ask. She had no trouble being rude to him when they quarreled, but she couldn’t do so now. “Are you a ghost?”
Shiver smiled again, and Clara could indeed see it. His features were beginning to stand out more, no longer an ink spill on ebony but almost a dark blue with a prominent nose and angular jaw.
“Have you met any ghosts?”
“Thought I did once,” she admitted.”Some sort of… dog, almost. But not exactly a dog. I probably imagined it.”
“You probably did not,” said Shiver, tucking the blankets around her a little tighter, as if to shield her from the spectral canine. In fact, there was nothing on her land scarier than he. “I’m not a ghost. I’m more of a… well, a demon.”
In the end, he couldn’t come up with a nicer word for it. He knew perfectly well what he was, just as he knew she would scream and banish him from the house and never let him touch her again.
Instead, Clara just lifted an eyebrow and smirked at him.
“I don’t think I believe in demons,” she said.
Shiver let out a scoff that was half offense and half amusement.
“Well, we believe in you, my dear,” he said.
She rolled her eyes. “Do you mean to tell me you’re a real demon, pitchfork and fire and all that? It’s not exactly what I thought you would look like.”
“We look like a lot of different things. I’ve been like this as long as I can remember.
” Except that wasn’t entirely true. Something was tugging at him from the corners of his mind, something he hadn’t dared look at closer.
The scent of lemons, the salty sea air —something was scratching at his skull, asking to be let in.
“I thought I was just dreaming of you because I’ve been… not feeling entirely well.” Clara still hated admitting she was sick, but when a girl gets rescued from a fainting spell by an actual demon, it’s time to just admit she’s in a pickle.
“That’s sort of the idea,” he admitted. “I’m here because you’re sick. When you’ve recovered, I’ll just…” Die. I will slowly starve to death and none will mourn me. “Move on.”
“Oh,” said Clara.
That “oh” contained more words than either of them could say aloud.
It was an “oh” that sounded like goodbye, sounded like I’m sorry, sounded like anger and regret and love, sounded like a song played outdoors and carried off by the wind to parts unknown.
Shiver’s heart—for he knew he had one now by the agony it caused him—cracked and splintered, an old log on the fire with the last embers pulsing and fizzling within.
He slid his hand forward the slightest of increments, brushing the backs of his fingers against her pale little hand.
“But I will think of you,” he said softly. “And I will be happy to know you’re out of danger.”
Clara wasn’t quite ready to think of all these things.
Couldn’t she just continue on like this, with his visits in spite of her scolding and banishing him, with her head on fire and her limbs shaking at all hours…
. Well no, that didn’t sound as if it could last. They would have to part ways eventually.
“Well,” she said, moving her fingers against his in a way that might almost have been accidental. “Are demons allowed to kiss humans?”
Now she could really see Shiver’s smile, the flash of dazzling teeth against his night sky skin.
“Oh I should think not,” he said, slowly leaning in. When he spoke next, she could feel the unbearable tickle of his lips brushing against hers with each word. “But what manner of demon always follows the rules?”
He might have teased her another second before finally giving in, but Clara didn’t give him the chance before closing the breath’s worth of distance between them.
Her arms slid around his neck, inviting him forward if not outright pulling him.
She felt the rumble in his throat traveling down her own, through her chest, settling somewhere between her hips.
Her lips were soft and slippery, with a flavor so sweet he could feel the sun on his face, hear the waves and the cries of gulls in the distance—memories. He actually had memories.
Shiver was torn between wanting to rip the blankets away from her delicious body and wanting to keep her tucked in, safe and warm.
Just when he had made up his mind to protect her from himself, she peeled back a corner of the blanket and urged him inside.
Once he felt that hot, cream-smooth skin against his own, he was lost.
"I'm still concerned about your temperature," he rumbled against her lips as he settled carefully around her, knees on either side of her waist.
"Then I suppose you should check it," she said, and the moment the words were out of her mouth, she felt even more heat rise to her face at certain thoughts.
Shiver, being a demon, was already ahead of her. One of his long, thin tendrils snaked out, sneaking between her thighs and slowly stroking its way inside her hot entrance.
"Oooh, you're right," he said against her ear. "You're still very warm. What am I going to do with you?"
Clara wanted to reply with something flirtatious and witty, but that slim little tentacle pulsing inside her was making her squirm with need and embarrassment.
"Don't worry, Clara, I'll see to you," said Shiver, kissing his way down to a pebbled nipple as more tendrils wrapped around her thighs and opened her for him. "I'll take such good care of you."
Clara's breath hitched as she was spread open by arms she couldn't see, examined by another deep in her core.
Excitement and desire battled with fear and humiliation as she realized, again, he had never been a dream.
She had felt these tentacles before, and they had been real every time they touched her.
Shiver lined himself up with her entrance as he sucked a nipple between his lips and licked back and forth.
He didn't have the time to reflect on the memories that were creeping back or the realization that he had once been a person—he already knew all he needed to know: never had he felt this way, not in life, and not beyond. She was a gift, and he was killing her.
"Deep breath," he warned her before slipping inside.
She was prepared this time, but even so, Clara couldn't help the nerves or the shaking. She could not contain that soft noise of shock when she realized he was slowly entering her—and that the tendril he had been teasing her with was still inside her heat.
"Sh-Shiver…" she cried softly.
"I'm here," he said, feeling his own body tightening up at the sound of his name on her lips, at how tight she was around only the half of him that had made it inside.
Clara's protests died on her lips as her body warmed to him. The stretch was almost too much. After all, she had only taken him once before, and at the time she had contented herself with the thought that it was no more than a dream.
At last, he was fully inside her, and just as Clara thought she could begin to breathe again, he wriggled the tendril deep inside and made her whole body jolt with electricity. She cried out, gripping his arms with white knuckles, afraid to move and disturb these huge and gorgeous sensations.
“Ohhh, damn me twice," Shiver groaned, being still for a moment so he could soak in the heat of her, the pressure, her hot little breaths above him.
Clara was too occupied to make a joke there. It felt as if she was pinned like a butterfly in a museum, paralyzed and held in place by some unfathomable skewer, but beyond the pressure was a pleasure she craved.
Like the first time she’d tried dark chocolate, it was a shock, rich and bitter and unusual, with a rolling sweetness that swept away everything else. And like dark chocolate, Clara craved another taste of Shiver's body within hers with a tongue that ached for it.
"Shiver, d-don't…" she choked out a whisper, her hips wriggling around a cock that felt too big, too hot, too everything.
"Don't?" Shiver swallowed, a great thump pounding at his chest. By all the dead gods, if she made him stop now, would he survive it? Would he even be able to stop?
"Don't… be… gentle," she said. "Don't be gentle."
His whole body went from lit tinder to a forest fire in half a second. He squeezed those generous hips as if he could use her to ground himself, to calm down before the storm began, but it was too late. The storm had not stopped for a moment since he first saw her.
"I won't," he said. He pulled back both his cock and the tendril he had inside her, feeling that warm honey inside her making his way easier.
He gave her just a second of stillness, just enough to make her wonder if he might stop, just enough to crave him - and then he slammed back inside her up to his hip bones. The bed shook, and Clara shook too.
"Oh ffffff-!" She bit down hard on her bottom lip to keep herself from cursing, a part of her still certain she would be scolded for it.
She had to still be delirious; such things as this simply didn't happen. Demons were not real, and if they were, a good girl brought up with Sunday school and supper prayer should very likely not be letting one fuck her so hard she might break through to the floorboards.
Clara was happy enough to keep on blaming her fevered mind, as long as he kept going.
Those strange tendrils that curled out like wisps of smoke but held her tightly in a strong grip, the big body against hers, piercing her on his cock, she craved more even as he was rocking and shaking her with every thrust. Those little fingers of smoke curled their way around her breasts, pinching at the pink tips, slipping between their bodies to play between her thighs, circling her clit, pinching, stroking.
Inside, she was stretched to her limit, his cock fighting for space with the tendril that seemed to grow thicker with every thrust.
“Oh, Clara… gorgeous girl," he said through his teeth.
He was addicted to her. That extra softness she carried in her hips, in her belly, was so mouth-watering he wanted to bite her.
He longed to treat her sweetly, to brush the tips of his fingers over every luscious inch, to make her drink cool water and eat fresh fruit he would fetch himself from anywhere on this globe if she asked for it, to tell her over and again that she was beautiful, that he would care for her—and he also longed to slam his hips into her till the house cracked apart.
Clara could feel it rising in her again.
It didn't matter that her body was exhausted; Shiver was taking away the pain even as he created new little intoxicating pains all over, pinching her breasts, her clit, pounding into her like a hammer and eliciting little cries with every clap of his hips against the insides of her spread thighs, little cries that became big cries that became begging incomprehensibly.
"Come for me, angel," Shiver said between his teeth. "You're d-doing so well."
That compliment, given in a rush of halted breath, went right to her core, eliminating the last of Clara's defenses.
She snapped her head back to the ceiling and screamed, clenching from her teeth to her toes.
Shiver felt that clench, yanking him in deeper, demanding he follow her, and so he did, his vision stuttering into blackness for a moment as he came.
They collapsed together, shaking and panting and clutching each other tightly in spite of the boneless sensation in their limbs.
Something new was there between them, something deep and frightening, something they couldn't talk about, not yet, something they both wanted desperately to protect at the same time they wanted to kill and bury it.
Shiver fully intended to die with those words left unsaid. It would be noble of him, and he had always wanted to try being noble. He would keep this dark, horrible secret; he would help her recover without ruining her. She would live far longer and happier never knowing.
"I love you," he said.
Well… fuck.