Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers

She was not the hustler he had worried she might be. In fact, within a few minutes it was clear that she was the sort of fascinating woman he’d never expect to meet in so serendipitous a fashion. She had come in to rendezvous with a client, but had arrived to find a message canceling the meeting.

She also managed, by the time his glass was empty, to casually refer to a break-up with her most recent boyfriend, and the lack of anyone new in her life.

At that point, Jordan knew he had to say something.

“Angie, I’m a married man.”

She glanced at his left hand, biting her lip. He probably should have left the wedding band on, but he hadn’t been able to do so since the accident. “I’m sorry,” he added, sympathy fueling the sincerity of the comment.

The woman shrugged, giving a wan smile that said his honesty had made her wish even more that he had wanted her companionship. She gracefully withdrew. As her fine, long legs found rest upon a distant stool, Jordan’s face clouded.

That night, Jordan relished the sensory details of making love to Véronique to a greater degree than he could ever remember doing, as if recording them for all time. The light caught her curves, shadows deepening her feminine outlines. Her mouth was open and hungry. Her nipples quickened as air struck them, then softened until his tongue restored them to hardness. Her hair traced a feathery path along his skin, a faint touch more subtle than her hands or breasts or pelvis, more subtle even than her mouth. Had he ever noticed that before, amid all the pleasures they had shared?

Lying beside him, she draped a leg over him and ground her crotch against his outer leg, her knee gliding on a layer of perspiration. Her eyes blazed with lust. She squeezed his cock urgently, as if anticipating it inside her. He pressed her back and let his own hand rove, bringing it ultimately down to manipulate her labia. She moaned. His finger slid inside and her pelvis drew up, seizing hold. The moan became a gasp.

She pulled him on top of her, wrapped her legs around his pelvis and, by dint of wriggling, placed him at the brink of penetration. He toyed with her, rubbing the head of his erection against her clitoris.

“Put it in.” Her words came out in a hiss.

He entered her and pumped furiously. She rocked with him, challenging him to maintain the rhythm, thrashing. Her tension garnered and he knew that when the peak arrived, it would be a massive, lung-heaving release. As would his.

It was stupendous in the way that farewell passion should be, the way it should have been with the real Véronique, if only they had known the last time was at hand.

In the delirium of the aftermath, they lay intertwined. The sweat cooled. Their heartbeats fell to inaudibility. Their breathing returned to an even cadence. Without a word, the woman slipped from the bed and set off toward the door to the stairs.

“You’re leaving?” he asked.

“Until the morning.” The voice no longer sounded entirely like that of Véronique.

“But…”

“I must. It was what you dreamed, my lord.”

“When?”

“Last night, and the night before, and the night before. I am compelled.” Chin down, reticent, she closed the door behind her.

He rolled to the edge of the bed, intending to rise and follow her, but he never made it past a sitting position. Wisps of memory floated up. Yes, he had produced such dreams, hadn’t he? As often happened, they hadn’t lingered in his daylight thoughts, but in hindsight, he could see the message his subconscious had been whispering.

He lay back, closed his eyes, and waited to see what dreams might arrive this time, with no one but him to see them.

In the morning he excused the household staff, asking them not to return until noon. He found the shapeshifter in Véronique’s dayroom. Jordan and his wife always slept together, but she enjoyed having a bedroom of her own in which to house the spillover from her wardrobe and give her a place to retreat to when she needed privacy.

The elf, looking perhaps as much like Véronique as she had ever managed, was carefully packing away Véronique’s clothes in their designated drawers and hanging them on their proper hooks, many wrapped in plastic as if they were not to be touched again for a long time, if ever. When that was done, he helped her make the bed—apparently she had slept in it for a portion of the night, though her hair was fragrant with pine. Finally, she removed her nightgown, and put that away as well.

They went outside to the lawn, halfway between the house and the woods. She kissed him. Lightly, reverently, the way Véronique always did upon leave-taking. The way she had kissed him the morning of the accident.

The next step was not easy, but there was an element that made it possible: Unlike the loss of his wife, stolen by a whim of fate, he had a choice now in how he acted. Even that small measure of control made such a difference.