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26

Envy

Gwen

G wen had Saturday off.

Ordinarily, she wouldn’t, but Mary had explained that hours had to be cut.

Gwen hadn’t argued. It felt wrong to get upset at someone who had fed her so well.

Mary had quickly collected herself, though Gwen noted how exhausted she looked.

For a moment, Gwen had worried that she had taken too much.

Worried that she might have damaged the woman in some way.

But when Mary had looked up from cleaning her mascara, she had smiled, and Gwen could feel the relief of the emotional release.

Mary was tired, but she felt better.

Gwen wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

It hadn’t been her intention to eat a part of her boss anymore than accidentally helping her feel better.

I guess it doesn’t matter.

Nobody died, and I got to eat.

That’s a win, Gwen, she thought while stepping out of the shower .

The spider colony had grown yet again.

As Gwen dried her feet on the bathroom mat, she noticed the bizarre black webbing had expanded.

Stretching up and across the ceiling, thick tendrils supported dozens upon dozens of blue-backed spiders.

Despite her initial trepidation around them, they had mostly been good house guests.

If she didn’t count the whole taking over her bathroom thing.

“What are you guys even eating?” Gwen asked as she wrapped her body in a towel.

The blue backed spiders didn’t answer, but she could feel those tiny eyes staring at her.

Almost like the way Gwen imagined her old dog used to.

Piki had a deceptively sweet face.

Most Pomeranians did, though Gwen wasn’t sure if all Pomeranians had the same temperament as Piki had.

She had named him Piki because of how much his fur had reminded her of the soft fuzz on a peach.

He had been old when Gwen adopted him, and she had been horrendously na?ve about him.

Despite her best efforts to train him, Piki had been as stubborn as Gwen at times.

Piki didn’t like anyone who wasn’t Gwen, even driving away an old boyfriend.

I wonder if Piki would have driven him away—

“Fuck,” Gwen winced before gently knocking her forehead against the closed bathroom door.

Her brain had not just put a demon in the same category as boyfriend.

A demon couldn’t be a boyfriend, especially not a demon who insisted on being her boss for a job Gwen never wanted.

Sex did not equal boyfriend material, either!

Gwen shook her head, sending a small scatter of water droplets to fly from the tips of her hair.

The sensation of the wet strands against her neck and cheeks made her shiver.

This is bad .

Not just bad, but deranged .

The urge to blame her exes on the whole ordeal was grating on her nerves.

The lie couldn’t cover the fact that Gwen was attracted to him, or the fact that a part of her liked him.

When he had just been a stuck-up antique dealer, Gwen had envied him.

She wanted to be him.

Someone who freely expressed themselves in every manner of speaking.

Ambrosius spoke his mind and cared little about hurting someone’s feelings.

And fuck, had he hurt her feelings more than once.

But wasn’t it better to be honest than to lie?

To bullshit through another conversation where nothing was actually said?

Why not live honestly?

Because Ambrosius isn’t a person, he’s a demon.

He can get away with that kind of talk, but if I told Tom to go fuck himself for staring at my breasts, I’d get fired.

No, Gwen couldn’t live like Ambrosius…

She frowned.

But couldn’t she?

Gwen wasn’t a human any longer.

Ambrosius had assured her of that multiple times.

If she wasn’t human, why play by the same rules?

Gwen wasn’t an expert when it came to reading or feeding on human emotions, but she had seen the potential advantages.

Why worry about pissing someone off when Gwen could just subdue someone into exhausted compliance?

Why play at any social norms when Gwen could just make up whatever ones she wanted?

The thought was heady.

Powerful, even, and far too tempting.

Was this what it meant to be a demon?

As much as Ambrosius claimed to have no association with devils, Gwen couldn’t help but draw the comparison.

He had tempted her—in more ways than one.

The more Gwen thought about it, the more tempting the offer was.

Would it really be so bad if she just …

gave in?

“No, no, no! ” Gwen exclaimed.

“You are not giving into that asshat. ”

Gwen swore she would kick her own ass if she submitted to him.

This had to be part of his plan, just like how he had planned to trick her.

She couldn’t think of a more perfect way for a demon to seduce a human into complying.

Show Gwen all the things she had always wanted, and make it very easy for her to lose.

Gwen could picture his smug face as he counted inventory—or whatever it was demons did in antique stores—thinking he had won.

Not today, Satan, Gwen thought snidely as she swung the bathroom door open and stomped toward her bed.

No, the next time she saw him, Gwen needed to lay down the law.

She may be a monster now, but Gwen wasn’t going to be a pushover.

He couldn’t just boss her around like an underling, and they definitely could not, under any circumstances, have sex again—

“I’m starting to suspect you’re perpetually angry, my bittersweet.”

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Gwen whirled around, spying Ambrosius in the doorway of her bathroom.

“Will you stop doing that?!”

“No,” he said simply.

Gwen wanted to glare, but found her mouth going slightly slack at the sight of his bare arms. Ambrosius was wearing a vest top with a lapel collar and nothing underneath it.

The ink that had teased her for days was suddenly on display.

Her eyes trailed across the jagged spider, following the connecting design up his forearm.

The ink was strange, almost like spider webbing, but off somehow.

Like the cracks along broken pottery.

The more Gwen eyed the ink, the stranger it became.

Gwen could swear she could see shapes between the interconnecting lines.

Eyes … mouths…

“Gwen, my bittersweet, it’s rude to stare. ”

An argument was right on the tip of her tongue when Gwen realized how close the demon was to her.

Close enough that Gwen could see the skeletal form of a two-headed snake creeping up Ambrosius’ neck.

The fangs of one of them bared toward Ambrosius’ jaw, while the other curved toward his Adam’s apple.

Gwen could have sworn she hadn’t seen that before.

Gwen cleared her throat, meeting his near black stare and felt her mouth go dry.

The hypocritical jackass was looking at her, too.

He was just doing it so damn slowly that Gwen hadn’t noticed his eyes trailing over her form.

Now that she did, Gwen felt hot and suddenly self-conscious of the fact that she was only wearing a towel.

She tried her hardest not to double check that it was securely attached, fingers curling slightly at her sides.

“What are you doing here?” Gwen asked.

“Why haven’t you finished the doll?” Ambrosius asked.

Gwen’s jaw tightened.

Of course, he was here because of that.

It wasn’t as if—

“Because I’m still figuring out how I feel about it.”

The unexpected admission caught her off guard.

Gwen saw the advantages Ambrosius had given her.

She had her own damn lie detector test built in, which meant navigating social interactions wouldn’t be as difficult as they had been.

On the off chance it did get away from her, well, Gwen could just suck a person dry of the feeling.

They’d get sleepy, and Gwen could fuck off into the distance, no questions asked.

“But we can talk about that later,” Gwen sighed.

“We need to … to clear the air, okay?”

“Funny how you manage to avoid business so much,” Ambrosius snidely replied.

“ Look ,” Gwen said through gritted teeth.

“It’s clear we both don’t like each other, okay? I’m not happy about being tricked into this deal, and you aren’t happy with me for not complying. Cool, we’re both miserable … but what happened the other night—that can’t happen again.”

Ambrosius’ eyes narrowed.

“Exactly what can never happen again?”

“For fucks sake, do you really want me to say it?” Gwen huffed, leaning her weight onto her hip.

“The sex , Ambrosius, the sex can’t happen—”

“ Gwendolyn , what have you been doing while I’ve been gone?”

She frowned, “What are you—”

“You smell of something old. Something familiar , ” he hissed, nostrils flaring as he leaned in.

“Like dogwood. ”

“What vague bullshit are you—”

Ambrosius didn’t let her finish, swallowing the sentence whole as his mouth collided with hers.

It sent her reeling, hands clutching the soft material of his vest. His own hands felt possessive as they pulled her closer, like a snake tightening around her torso.

Gwen was helpless to resist, joining lips and tongue almost violently.

Whatever had set Ambrosius off had determined the pace of this encounter, and it was quickly spiraling out of control with every breath Gwen hurriedly took.

And she didn’t care.

Gwen pressed closer, lifting her hands to tangle in the short strands at the base of his neck.

She gasped when his own hands traveled along her back, curving along the outline of her breast. He had barely begun to touch her, but Gwen could already feel that frustrating ache.

Gwen would never voice it out loud, but she wanted more.

More of his hands, more of his lips, his tongue, his teeth.

Every sharp, gnarled part of him, all for her.

A small moan escaped her as Ambrosius’ hands slid down to her hips, directing her back onto the bed.

Despite her best efforts to keep him close, Ambrosius broke away, pressing his long fingers to her sternum.

Gwen panted, eager to see what he would do next as they stared at each other.

Would he turn those soft, padded fingers into hideously gorgeous claws?

Would he slice through the thin towel?

Gwen didn’t realize she was trembling until Ambrosius tapped his fingers against her skin.

She took longer still to realize he was waiting for something.

Some signal that Gwen was missing.

She glanced at his hand, felt her heart race as she slowly lifted hers.

Her hand wrapped around his wrist and slowly guided the demon’s hand up to her neck.

Gwen pressed until his palm was firmly against her throat, never breaking eye contact.

When his fingers tightened, Gwen’s pulse quickened.

When Ambrosius smiled, Gwen’s core throbbed.

“We’ll have to play with that later,” he hummed, and Gwen dared not acknowledge the way her heart leapt at the thought of later.

“For now, I’m afraid I have something else in mind.”

“Something else?” Gwen echoed.

His fingers dragged down her throat, to the center of her chest, and paused above the apex of her thighs.

“You see I’m quite starved…” Ambrosius’ grin turned evil.

“How do you feel about a little brunch?”

She frowned at the question, but immediately felt her brain stop as Ambrosius dropped to his knees.

He pushed Gwen’s legs open, causing the towel to ride up.

The distant memory of that first dream came roaring to life as Ambrosius leaned forward and licked.

She was already so open to him, so eager and wet.

He made lazy circles, then shapes she couldn’t understand before finally brushing her clit.

Gwen couldn’t help but jerk as the tongue in her nightmares was finally where she secretly wanted it the most. She fell against the bed, back arching as pleasure built within her.

It took everything in her not to buck into his mouth, to not whine and become a complete mess too soon.

The demon must have sensed her struggle, because his tongue stopped and Gwen almost cried in frustration.

“Oh, you fucking bastard ,” she whimpered.

The vibration of his laughter against her cunt caused starbursts in her vision.

He made lazy paths with his tongue now, nowhere near her clit.

Gwen raised her hands, intent on nudging him where she wanted him.

But her hands dropped to her sides in shock when she felt his tongue work his way inside her.

This time, Gwen did cry out.

She whined and bucked and shuddered with every messy glide of his tongue.

Yet, Ambrosius didn’t allow her to move very far, hands still firmly keeping her exactly where he wanted.

Fingers that at times felt more like needles against her skin burned.

Sweat mixed with the damp strands of her hair, pooling along her temple.

Or maybe it was the tears gathering in the corner of her eyes.

There was no doubt in Gwen’s mind that he was teasing her on purpose.

He seemed to exist just to torment her, after all.

Why would sex be any different?

Just when Gwen thought she couldn’t take anymore, a sudden pulsation caught her attention.

For a moment, Gwen wasn’t sure what was happening, until she felt Ambrosius’ tongue from every side.

Her jaw dropped, eyes widening as Gwen realized that his tongue was bigger.

How—

And it was moving— much to Gwen’s surprise as she let out a wail of pleasure.

It wasn’t just bigger, but it was deeper than it had been before.

A slight tremor of discomfort shot through her at the sudden change.

The strange appendage was so much more intense than it had been in her nightmares, lapping along her insides in a way that could only be described as sinfully impossible.

It was like the demon was trying to lick every part of her clean, and it only made her hotter.

Gwen’s hands fell to the crown of his head, pulling the strands with every rough lap of his tongue.

She bucked, and this time Ambrosius allowed her.

Gwen moaned, pleasure overtaking everything again.

Her lashes fluttered, catching something hanging from the ceiling.

It took her pleasure-addled brain a moment to realize that she was looking at chains.

Each one interconnected with others, creating loops and tangles.

Before Gwen could question it further, Ambrosius deliberately curled his tongue and dragged.

Gwen immediately careened over the edge, crying helplessly as she chased the last ounce of pleasure that the demon offered.

It left her panting for breath, the heat still warming her skin.

She whimpered as his tongue slithered away, brushing the last remains of her wetness as it went.

“ Ambrosius ,” Gwen whined pitifully when his tongue traced one last time against her oversensitive cunt.

At his chuckle, Gwen opened her eyes to glare and paused.

Ambrosius was smiling, but his mouth had become something terrible.

Shark-like teeth stained with dark teal ichor shined down at her.

His lips were pulled tight across his face, becoming a line that followed the hinge of his jaw to his ears.

And his tongue—it was slowly licking its way back into his mouth, swiping along his wet cheeks and collecting the last bits of her.

When it finally disappeared within his mouth—much like a snake slithering into a cavern—Ambrosius hummed.

“Delicious as always, my bittersweet.”

Gwen internally cursed.

Fuck, she wanted him, horror and all.