A Date From Hell — Part 5
Lilith reveals a secret that Val finds quite sexy, and their passions reach a new level
The meal flowed on, but my mind remained fixed on the word. Sweetheart. An honest term of endearment that left a tickle on my tongue as the meaningful selection from my unconscious mind floated from my willing lips. I moved from disquiet to desire less than twenty minutes after meeting her.
No questions? Really? What’s stopping you? That bold kiss deserves a little more knowing. It’s earned and perhaps owed. Are you afraid to know the answers? Is there blessed comfort in the unknown?
“It’s a tranquil hike where you savor the moments, not a sprint to a quick finish.”
Lilith’s words drew me from my blissfulness. “A tranquil hike?”
“Yes, exactly that. Our night together is a new beginning, a gentle hike with expectations of peaks and valleys as we explore and savor the experiences. There’s no need to rush.”
“Hmmm…no, no rushing…beautiful moments…perhaps trying ones too,” my lips murmured on their accord with my mind as a passive observer tagging behind. “I’m sorry to seem so unfocused. It’s only that this feels like a fantasy that I’m afraid I’ll awake from, and all of what’s here around us, within us, will vanish.”
“I’m here in flesh, blood, and bone, Valor. I’m real, and so is this evening.”
She stroked my cheek and drew in for a kiss I desperately hungered for to reassure me that everything was real. The taste and friction of her lips upon mine again were as honey and flame. I craved the sensations, hoping they’d be the seeds of something that would grow majestic with time.
True, I didn’t want to sprint, but now that I’d had a taste of ecstatic sin, how could I yearn for anything less? I couldn’t return to who I once was. My chrysalis opened with the first moment we touched. I could no longer be a cautious caterpillar, but a brazen butterfly. I may flutter about, but I’d broaden my experiences with my wings.
I broke the kiss to catch my breath, and unguarded thoughts cascaded out. “I want to be with you tonight. If you want me. If you need me. I want to…connect…with you.”
She searched my face as if she expected to find a flaw in my desire laid plain like a blemish upon my skin or a dullness in my gaze. “There’s time yet to know me better before you decide. I’ll answer anything you ask.”
“That’s cryptic.” I appraised her while I grinned. It seemed a joke, perhaps a bit of a sociocultural sense of humor I could not grasp. “Do you have deep, dark secrets? Facets of yourself that you think I’m unable to accept about you? No, you’re not human, though you’re still a person, one I’m growing an ever deeper affection for.”
“You’re an amazing person, Valor.”
She shifted her position, bringing the dessert sample tray to lie on the moss that glowed a golden light when touched, growing across the floor and beneath our kneeling platforms. She stretched like a long and graceful cat and turned onto her side to face me, propping her head on her hand with an alluring gaze calling to me like a siren song.
I’d expected fangs, claws, or something frightening in her visage and form to appear. Only in that did she disappoint. She remained as human as she had upon entering the cozy private room. That matter did nothing but pique my curiosity.
When she displayed fluidity in her movements, I felt awkward. I mirrored her pose eventually, though without the beautiful feline stretch.
“The moss at least provided a light show for my efforts.” I managed a wry smile. “If this is the worst thing that happens during our date, the rest will be perfect.”
“I think you should offer me something sweet, something just as deliciously tempting as yourself.”
Her directness energized me. Electricity arced down to my center, leaving a tingling warmth behind as the initial pulse dissipated. I wanted to devour her as the ultimate dessert to show how her words awakened my body. She deserved an enthusiastic gift in return for all I’d received this evening.
“I’m open to experimentation.” Somehow, I kept a straight face at the moment, which lasted all of five seconds before I laughed. “I’m sure the desserts rate higher than I do on the deliciously tempting scale.”
“You, as humans say, ‘sell yourself short’ and minimize your seductive charms.”
An inferno flush blazed across me, fueled by her words and lingering, hungry gaze sweeping my body. A spike of fear jutted up, mixed with fresh anxiety. Compliments like hers triggered things I tried to forget.
“I appreciate your compliments.” I glanced away, slipped off my glasses, and stretched out my arm to lay them on the table. A tear trickled down my cheek as I struggled with my thoughts. “They twist me up inside, though, because when I was in high school, kids gave me constant insincere ones and manipulated me for their entertainment. The same goes for some students in college, such as those in fraternities and sororities. It’s a struggle for me.”
She scooted the tray away and flowed toward me until her lips were a breath from mine, and the wildfire heat of her flesh threatened to ignite me. All it would take is one new tender kiss, and I’d melt into her without a second thought.
“Those were foolish children who tormented you,” she whispered and placed my hand over her heart. “I’m so sorry all of that happened to you. You deserved none of it. Know this, little one: I speak from my heart and only say what’s true.”
“I believe you.”
Her eyes turned into silvery mirrored orbs in the berry blue glow filling the room. Then they shifted to a pair of ethereal electric blue moons that made my breath catch. They held a mix of fear and embarrassment for which I couldn’t comprehend the cause.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “My facade melts away when I don’t sate my ardor in time, just as your ability to mask comes and goes with changing situations. So this is—”
I stroked her cheek and devoured her with a possessive kiss before she could finish her words, claiming her mouth with a renewed passion to leave her breathless. I tasted her unadulterated lust in return, feeding upon me with a hunger I’d searched for in a partner. She rolled onto her back, gripping my hips, and pulled me atop until I straddled her.
I broke the kiss momentarily, my voice racing thin and breathy. “Do you consent? I want to make sure there’s no miscom—”
A spicy purr slipped from her lips. “Full, enthusiastic consent. And you? Do you still—”
Her skin shifted from mocha to cerulean blue with crimson stripes, a pair of lithe, spiraling, ridged, jet-black horns curled back above the crown of her head from her brow, and her ears shifted to more Elven points. A pair of petite fangs jutted from the top and bottom of her mouth. My brain struggled to make sense of it.
No hesitation. “Total, enthusiastic, ecstatic consent.”
I dipped my head and teased her hungry lips with grazing kisses, listening to her impatient whimpers as I left her needy. She exposed her neck, like offering a gift my boldness earned me. I nibbled and nipped the vulnerable flesh, carpeting it with kisses that I fantasized about, those an attentive lover would make.
Gazing at her, part of me expected a potent, visceral disgust to fill me from preconceptions. Another part expected heart-ripping fear overwhelming me because of cruel mythologies. Instead, a deep curiosity birthed within me. I must learn about what I didn’t know. This blossomed into the perfect moment.
“What type of person are you?” I didn’t avoid the concern of her radiant orbs birthing trickling brooks down her cherubic cheeks. “Please, tell me.”
Her eyelids fluttered, and surprise flavored her voice. “I’m Hellspawn…a dem—”
“No.” I emphatically shook my head, then kissed her quivering, shimmering pair of bows. “What type of person are you? Are you thoughtful? Are you kind? Do you love to read? If so, what genre or authors? Do you have favorites?”
“Yes…I’m…kind…and…thoughtful. I love to read…human contemporary romantic comedy novels…no favorite author…yet. You’re not…” A puzzlement danced in her eyes, and she bit her lower lip.
I claimed her mouth, this time with a pure, ferocious fearlessness I never knew I had within me. I ran my fingers through her hair, gently working the comb free, liberating every tress. A compulsion to tousle her ebony mane and grip it tight with the deep hunger to have her, to show her I must melt into her, overtook me.
Even accounting for the legendary enthralling power of demons, this much I recognized as my free will. The energy of the moment allayed my fears and anxiety. I existed in the perfect, potent magick of the moment. Everything vanished, save Lilith and I.
As if she could read my new desire, she dominated the moment and rolled me on my back, mounting my body, straddling me with her legs, breaking the kiss as she straightened her torso and rested her hands on her hips. “How can you look upon me like this and not feel revulsion? I’m something from a nightmare from your kind’s point of view.”
“How can you look at me and not feel deep discomfort? My brain functions differently. I have meltdowns when I’m overstimulated. I avoid crowds as much as I can. Everything about me is divergent and strange.”
“You’re beautiful in more ways than I can count. I know that from everything I read about you in the matchmaking letters and your writings.”
“And you’re desirable because you reveal your true self. I know that from your actions so far, and I can’t explain this sensation that urges me not to play it safe because it simply feels right.”
“I’m a monster, a lust demon, cousin of succubae, an abomination that feeds on lurid, depraved thoughts and fucking and leaves behind ruined lives in the eyes of your kind. That’s a lot to deal with.”
“Eh, quite a few humans feel I’m a bizarre being that might be dangerous given that I don’t fit neatly into their preconceived, restrictive boxes. Don’t take it too personally.” A salacious smirk exploded across my face as Rick’s earlier grin flashed through my mind. “Now that we’re past that let’s turn to more important matters.”
“Oh?” She cocked an eyebrow and tenderly rubbed the tip of her nose against mine. “What might those matters be?”
“How many consecutive orgasms does it take to make a lust demon beg for mercy?”
“Dear one, you are bolder than I could have imagined, a trait I’m rapidly growing fond of. I’m a demon of lust and seduction incarnate, an astaroth. My lineage goes back to the beginning with the first Lilith, the One Mother of us. We feed off of the fucking of our…prey, I mean partners. Our hunger is endless, and we’re never satisfied. It can’t be done.”
“You mean no one has yet to discover the number, not that it can’t be done. You can’t prove a negative.”
“You surprise me, my dear Valor. You’re even more adventurous than described.”
I caressed her hips, massaging her firm, curvy ass, tempted to lift the hem of her dress in an impulse of forwardness, desiring to see all of her, to taste all of her. Anxiety throbbed through me. I halted my seduction.
“This is all new to me, how I authentically express myself.” My fingertips traced trails up and down her thighs. “Can I be candid, maybe really direct with you? I don’t know how to nuance my words about these things. Is that okay?”
She lowered herself over me until she rested on her elbows and knees, pressing her breasts against mine, grinding her pussy against my need, yearning for her attention. Her husky whisper along my ear made me buck against her to increase the friction.
“Tell me your every desire, and I’ll make it happen. I’ll make your kinkiest fantasies come true.”
“Such a tease,” I hissed out. “I don’t know what I desire. Too many possibilities.”
She rolled off of me to lie on her side, propped up her head with her hand, and caressed long, languid strokes from the open neckline of my blouse to the center of my hips and back up. I must have taken the edge off her ardor as a shift of her appearance returned her to the human form I first laid eyes on, and she gazed at me with a broad smile.
“You can be as direct as you wish,” she purred. “Tell me more about your filthiest thoughts. While I can hear them in your mind, saying them is more of a turn-on for me. I want to explore them with you.”
“What if I wanted us to make love? Would that be too unimaginative? Maybe too tame an act?” I stared at her roving hand and sighed. “I want to explore what it means to be intimate as Valor…not as who I was before. Nevermind. That’s such a lame statement.”
“No, no, it’s not.” She took my hand, kissed the back of it, then held my palm over her heart. “You’re asking for your needs to be met. And you’re reaching out for what you want. Curse all, you kissed me like no one else has before—by free will alone. You held nothing back, and I didn’t compel, can’t compel you. You wanted it as much as I did, too.”
“I’ll let you in on a secret: I’m not usually this bold, especially not on a first date.”
“There’s no need to apologize. I’m an atypical lust demon, remember? So long as it’s safe, sane, and consensual, let your kink and freak flags fly whenever and however you wish. You’re a superb kisser, by the way.”
I buried my face in her spice-scented messy tresses, too embarrassed to accept the compliment. Her words fueled the inferno blazing across my cheeks and my desire to devour the rest of her body sooner rather than later.
Very much enjoying this series.