Demon Inside

His growl rumbled against her lips, into her mouth. Their tongues tangled, fighting a war Megan didn’t think could be won, as he shoved her hands away and freed them from her dress, pushing it down over her hips to fall on the floor.

She yanked at his tie, pulling his shirt open, dragging it up from his waistband. Her panties disappeared. She thought she heard them tear, thought she felt the tug against her skin as they did so, but didn’t care.

Together they fell onto the bed. Megan thrust his shirt away, desperate to feel his bare skin beneath her palms, beneath her nails. She wanted to bury them in it, to see his blood dark against the tawny flesh.

The thing inside her, the demon or ghoul or simply a part of herself she’d never known before, still raged and ripped at her with sharp, terrible claws, roaring in anticipation when he unfastened his belt with one quick, decisive movement and removed his pants.

He shoved himself inside her with more force than finesse, and Megan screamed his name, her back arching, her legs spreading wider. His answering cry was lost somewhere in the waves of pleasure crashing over her, drowning her. She dug her nails into his skin and felt it break; she smelled his blood in the air. The scream erupting from her mouth didn’t even sound like her voice. She was gone, lost, trapped in a body too small for the tumultuous emotions inside it.

His fingers twisted in the hair at her nape and yanked, pulling her head back so far all she could see was the opposite wall. It didn’t matter. His face was seared into her brain. She focused on it, seeing him, feeling him burning deep inside with his every rapid, forceful thrust.

“Go on, Meg,” he gasped. The pressure on her neck relaxed as he pulled her face closer. His eyes glowed like traffic lights, redder than she’d ever seen them. “Whatever you want. I can take it.”

Her hand moved before she even realized it, before she thought of it, striking out at him with the same unreal speed she’d noticed when Maldon had tried to touch her hair.

Not fast enough. Greyson caught it before it hit him, his fingers making the bones in her wrist grind together painfully. Sharp tingles ran up her arm and blossomed into something stronger in her chest.

She tried again, harder, faster, wanting to hurt him, wanting to feel that power, but he caught her again and slammed her wrist down onto the bed. She wanted to cry, but instead of disappointment, instead of anger, she felt relief. She couldn’t hurt him. He’d beaten her. He would beat her every time, and for some reason that knowledge made her feel safe. She could let her rage go, let it take over. Permission was granted. Her heartbeat sped up.

As if he sensed this—and he probably did—he let go of her hand and took her lips again, plundering her mouth, not stilling or slowing his movements inside her.

“Just…just fuck me,” she managed. “Greyson…”

She hadn’t thought he could go faster, harder, but he did. He gripped the edge of the mattress, using it as leverage while he reared up over her and slammed into her. The smooth perfection of his chest hovered only inches from her mouth. She lifted her head and sank her teeth into it, twisting her fingers in his hair and pulling as hard as she could while the fingernails of her other hand made fresh gouges in his back.

His voice echoed in the small room, mingling with hers. She couldn’t stop herself, couldn’t control herself. Flames filled her body, filled her vision, destroying everything else. All the memories of the last few days, all the memories of this house and her childhood, her father’s betrayal, eradicated in a second by the voracious fire, mixing with the rage and pain and turning into something so pure she wanted to live on it.

“Greyson!” Her back arched as the first waves of her climax rolled through her. Megan rode it, letting it wash her clean, until nothing was left of her but her bare, stripped soul wrapped around him.

His final thrust almost pushed her off the bed. He swelled inside her, impossibly large, wringing one last scream from her throat to almost cover his, until the walls of her childhood bedroom shook from the force of their release and he collapsed on top of her.

Chapter 17

The room looked as though a lecherous hurricane had blown through it. Papers covered everything, the comforter had somehow ended up bunched on the floor, and the sheets had come away from the corners of the mattress. Droplets and streaks of blood decorated them, visible sins on the snowy white.

It smelled like smoke and sweat and blood and sex, mingling together like a bordello carpet.

All of this Megan observed when she sat up and found the remains of her panties, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. The room could be cleaned. Her mind was not so easily erased.

Greyson entered holding a pie plate and a bottle of water, which he handed to her without comment. The icy liquid cleared some of the cobwebs in her head, but when he sat down shock replaced them.

“Oh God…did I do that?”

The wounds were already healing, which made them look worse. Deep, angry furrows covered his back from shoulder blades to waist, surrounded by blood dried almost black.

He nodded, sticking his fork into a piece of her mother’s famous apple crisp. His gaze traveled from the top of her head to her feet. “And I did that to you.”

She hadn’t even looked at herself. Bruises like dark roses blossomed on her wrists, on her upper arms and hips. Her neck was tender enough where he’d bitten her to make her suspect she’d be bruised there too.

She’d never enjoyed or expected pain in the bedroom. He’d never indicated he did either. But God help her if it hadn’t been one of the most amazing experiences of her life. Was there nothing about her that was still the same?

“This is pretty good,” he said, swallowing a mouthful of crisp. “Do you have this recipe?”

“She wouldn’t give it to me.”

“Shame.” He forked up another mouthful.

“Greyson…I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“Look at you.”

“I’ll heal.”

“But—”

“Meg.” He turned to her. “At the risk of sounding like some…hmm. At the risk of sounding like I do your job, negative emotions affect demons oddly sometimes. It’s no big deal. You’ll learn to control it.”

“I’m not a demon.”

He paused. “But you have demon in you, so that’s going to change your reactions to things. You haven’t noticed anything different about yourself? Anything you find strange?”

Damn it. How much did he know, how much had he been able to feel?

“No,” she lied. “Nothing.”

He watched her for a minute, while she forced herself to stare calmly into his eyes. Just why it was so important to keep it hidden she didn’t know. He could help her, if she told him.

But he would also encourage her to do the Haikken Kra ritual, and she was afraid if he really put his considerable powers of persuasion behind it, she would agree. The prospect of losing a part of herself terrified her. The thought of admitting she wasn’t like everyone else—aside from her psychic abilities—made her feel a little sick.

She’d already fed off Gerald’s sister in her office. She’d gotten high off the sadness of the mourners at her father’s funeral. If she did the ritual…she’d become a parasite.

Finally he shrugged. “You should really try to get this recipe. Did your dad have an office here in the house?”

“I doubt she keeps it in there, if he does.”

“We need to photocopy those documents. But you should look for this too. We’ll copy it. And then you can make it for me.”

“I didn’t know you liked apples.”

“All demons like apples. You’re slipping if you didn’t get that joke.”

“What—oh. Right.” She couldn’t help smiling, whether out of relief that he’d dropped the subject of her unorthodox urges or simply because it was the sort of joke she would make. Exorcist jokes about his Georgetown upbringing, Robert Johnson jokes about his CD collection…she should have caught the apple thing a mile away.