Page 67 of Demon's Desire
“So should you, sweetheart.” I rolled my eyes and turned around to keep walking. There were a few more men on the sidewalk heading in our direction.
“Excuse me, bitch?” the guy behind me scoffed. “What’s your problem?”
“I don’t have a problem,” I said simply as I kept walking.
“Mia…” Soul glared as he started to slow down.
I reached out and grabbed his hand, pulling him close. I kept my voice down so only he could hear. “Don’t bother. He’ll go away.”
“Who are you talking to?” One of the guys in front of me laughed as they approached me. “I think you owe my friend back there an apology.”
Of course they were all together.
“I don’t think I do.” I didn’t even look at them as I kept walking. For some reason, I figured they wouldn’t follow me once I crossed the street. Maybe I thought it would attract attention or it would just be too much work for them, or maybe it was just wishful thinking. Either way, I started to speed up a bit as I headed for the crosswalk.
“Hey, come back!” another one of them hissed as I walked past.
I felt one of them grab onto the bottom of my hair and start to tug. I gasped and winced as I stopped walking, not wanting to make the sensation worse. However, as quickly as it had happened, the pressure on my scalp was released and there was shouting behind me. When I turned around, one of the guys was pressed against the chain-link fence beside us. Soul had his hand wrapped around, the man’s throat, and his teeth were bared.
“What the fuck, man?” one of the other guys frowned. “What are you doing?”
“I’m not doing anything!” the guy against the fence shouted. “I can’t fucking move!”
“Soul!” I cried, taking a step toward him. Before I could get any closer, the four men all froze in place, and their faces fell. The man Soul was holding seemed to lose all the color in his face. I knew what that meant. Soul had materialized in front of them. They could see him now.
“So big and tough when you’re picking on a pretty girl,” Soul hissed, tightening his hand around the man’s neck. I had felt his hand on my throat. I knew what it was like. Even so, I knew this was different. He had never tried to hurt me. If that wasn’t enough, his voice was different too. It was… demonic. It sounded as though five different voices were speaking at once, all layered on top of one another, and each of them out for blood. “You’re not so big and tough now. Are you?”
“I-I’m so—sorry!” the man against the fence screamed. “Someone fucking help me!”
The others didn’t make a move to help. They did just the opposite and turned to run away. I barely registered their movement, however. I couldn’t take my eyes off of Soul.
“All alone now,” he smirked, “just like you thought she was alone. And I know what was going through your thick head at that moment. I know what you wanted. But you aren’t fit to lick the ground beneath her feet.”
“S-Soul…” I whispered. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this. It was strange. I wasn’t afraid, not even close. I just had one overwhelming thought polluting my mind.
I wanted him to do that to me.
“I’m going to let you go,” Soul said to the man. “And you’re going to tell each of your friends that I know your names and I know where you live. If you touch any woman like that again, any of you, then I’ll make you regret it. But if you touch this woman again? You’re going to wish you’d never been born. Am I understood?”
The man nodded quickly. Soul released his throat and stepped away, his eyes glowing. The guy in front of him immediately took off running in the direction his friends had. A new image flashed in my mind. Running. Running as fast as I could, and Soul running too… chasing me…
His red eyes turned in my direction. He looked livid. He looked murderous. He looked… so sexy. His chest heaved with absolute hatred for someone who tried to hurt me, and his hand was still flexed, prepared to grab the man’s throat once more. His eyes gazed at me like all he wanted to do was devour me…
And I wanted to let him.
“Mia,” he whispered, his voice slowly shifting back to normal, losing the echoes that spoke with it. “I know how that looked… Let me explain.”
I didn’t need an explanation. I didn’t want one. I closed the gap between us, wrapped my arms around his neck, and pulled him in for a kiss. But this kiss wasn’t like the last one. It wasn’t tentative or emotional. It was hungry. All I wanted was for him to chase me. I wanted to find out what would happen when I got caught…
His hands slid into my hair, the sharp points of his nails barely grazing my skin. He closed his fist, grasping onto my hair and tugging my head back. There was a sharp sensation when he did, but it was different from before, when the stranger had grabbed my hair. This one, I wanted to lean into. I wanted him to pull harder. Instead, he was mostly gentle as he pulled my head away from his, separating from the kiss.
“Let’s get home,” he whispered, his voice a low growl. I nodded quickly, dropping my arms from around his neck. I grabbed his hand instead, making sure that I remained close to him as he released my hair.
We continued walking, neither of us saying anything. I wondered if he was thinking the same thing I was. I wondered if he knew what I was thinking either way. I hoped he was. I had never felt this way before. The thoughts in my head, the things I was desiring, I honestly wasn’t sure how to describe them. I wasn’t a novice when it came to sex. I knew what I was doing. But this feeling…
Eventually, I noticed that the longer we walked, the faster I was going. It was slight. I wasn’t breaking into a run, but it was far faster than casual, for sure. And Soul was keeping the same pace. That made me hopeful. Maybe this feeling wasn’t one-sided.
“Here we are,” I said when we finally got to the apartment.