Neon Blue E Frost (speld decodable readers .TXT) 📖

for the sex. He licks me all over, with both tongues, until I’m so breathless from giggling and moaning that I nearly pass out. After an orgasm so intense that I do gray out, I fall asleep on his chest, with him still buried inside me, exactly the way he wanted. When I wake again, my bedroom is filled with golden morning light. Jou has slipped out of me and turned on his side. I check on him as I rise and find some clothes to wear to work. He stirs when I take a shirt off a hanger in my closet with a bit of a clatter, rolls onto his other side, but doesn’t wake. I can feel him in my mind again, that banked-fire presence.

I leave him sleeping and in the care of the two lizards who are malingering in the hallway, waiting to waddle into the bedroom as soon as I open the door. How they’re going to get up onto the bed, I don’t know. Maybe they levitate. I ponder the abilities of salamanders as I collect my shoes and head out the door.

It’s only afterwards, as I’m riding the T into work, that I realize he didn’t come.

Lin’s standing at Evonne’s desk when I arrive at the office, sorting through the day’s mail. She glances at the clock on the wall when I come through the door. Nine-forty. I’m practically on time.

“Sexybeast keep you up late?” she asks.

I elbow her as I come to stand beside her at the desk.

“We still on for Friday night?” she asks as she hands me several letters.

“Uh-huh.” I open the first letter, which is a cream card with gold lettering, inside a thick cream envelope with an iridescent liner. Wow, fancy. The envelope alone must cost more than all our office stationary combined. I turn the card over in my fingers. It’s an invitation for a fund-raiser at the Column Museum in November. Black-tie. Three course meal and dancing. Suggested donation, two thousand per plate. “Yow,” I say.

“I got one, too,” Lin shows me hers. “That’s a heck of a suggested donation.”

“No joke.” I take both cards and drop them in the waste-basket next to Evonne’s desk. “I’ll give Timmi our regrets.”

“Mmm, she called for you.” Lin fishes around on Evonne’s desk for a moment until Evonne brushes her hand aside impatiently and hands me a message slip.

“Postponing until four,” I read. I hope everything’s okay. I glance at Evonne. “Is my schedule clear for then?”

She nods and grins her lighthouse smile. “Look at you with the friends in high places.”

“Oh, yes, that’s me.” I wave my mail in the air as I head toward my hearth-room to brew.

“You go with your bad self,” Evonne calls after me to Lin’s chuckle.

Brewing gives me too much time to think. Jou didn’t come this morning. He denied himself that pleasure – of sowing me, fuck, whatever – because of me. Because he didn’t like what happened during his last amnesiatic episode. Because he cares about how I respond to him. He wants me to enjoy being with him. So that I’ll agreed to be with him . . . forever.

That is just way too long. I mean, there’s promising someone forever and meaning a couple of decades, and there’s promising someone forever and meaning eternity. Okay, “forever” is supposed to be for life, but when life is measured in a hundred times the normal span? That’s much too long. What if I can’t cope with being his seggurach and want a divorce? Do demons get divorced? Somehow I doubt it. Nor can I see Jou ever letting me go. He’s been very clear on how he treats what he regards as his.

And then there’s what I want. A normal life. Jou’s casual disregard of my dreams makes me want to scream. Maybe I don’t have any chance of a normal life. But it is what I’ve always wanted. Don’t I have the right to go after what I want? Is that clinging to a hopeless illusion, or is it just following my dreams?

I push my whirling thoughts aside and focus on finishing the potion with a clear head and light heart. The magic milk is not a particularly sensitive mixture – it doesn’t absorb my feelings along with my power – but I try not to brew while in emotional turmoil. Creating a generation of manic-depressives and mass-murderers is not the idea.

Chapter 36

Timmi’s apologetic for rescheduling when I arrive at the Museum, and I quickly absolve her during the cheek-kissing stage. I reschedule all the time; there’s no shame in it. Once we’re past that, I give her Lin and my regrets for the fund-raising event.

“Nonsense,” she says. “I won’t hear of it. The suggested donation is just to encourage those tight-wad Brahmins to get their hands in their pockets. Most of them don’t give a penny, and I know your contribution to the Museum will be far greater, my dear. I’ll take it very badly if you and your partner don’t attend. And I insist on helping you find an appropriate dress. Something extremely flattering.”

What is it with my wardrobe that everyone feels the need to dress me?

“Okay,” I say, bowing to the inevitable. “I’ll try not to embarrass you.”

“Excellent, now what young man will be escorting you? I know several suitable gentlemen—”

“Timmi, no!” I protest with a laugh. “I’ll find my own date.” Although it definitely won’t be the demon. Bringing him into a group of practitioners, even ‘just collectors’ like Timmi, is asking for disaster. I could bring the Squire. That would cause a stir.

Timmi leads me a different way through the Museum – the place really is a maze. She stops several times to let me admire the exhibits, but picks up the pace as we get deeper into the Museum. As we walk past a case of flashing gold, cold washes up my spine and I stop, shivering. Timmi turns when she realizes I’m no longer following her. Quickly