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

don’t see anything other than my bedroom wall, washed to grey in the moonlight. Nothing even shimmers in my Sight. “There’s nothing there.”

He blinks at me, his eyes solidly black in the darkness, and smiles lazily. “You’re human, aren’t you?”

“Of course I am . . .” It hits me. Like a slap of cold water. He came. He doesn’t know who I am. He doesn’t remember. “You don’t know who I am,” I say flatly.

He flexes his legs around mine, reminding me that we’re pressed skin to skin. And very naked. “Well, you must know me . . .”

“Oh, God.” I’m in bed with a stranger. A stranger who doesn’t know who he is, or who I am, or anything that’s passed between us. “Let me up.” I begin to struggle.

“No,” he says. “You’re stayin’ right where you are and we’re gonna do that again as soon as I can.”

I shake my head vehemently. I’m not having sex with him when he’s a stranger, when he has no memory of me. “You don’t even know my name.”

He glances up at the wall. “Tsara Elizabeth Faa.” He pronounces it the right way instinctively, his voice deep and soft, and I shiver. I can feel the power of the naming. Even without his memory, his will is a fearsome thing. “That’s your name.”

“There’s nothing there!” I’m edging back into panic.

He cups my face in his hand, tightens his legs around mine, forces me into stillness. “Look at me. I may not know you, but you know me. I can feel you in my head. I can taste you all over me.” His voice drops, a bass rumble. “This says my memory will come back.” He flicks his eyes up at the wall. “So we’re gonna lie here and enjoy ourselves until it does.”

“God, no, get off me.” I shove against him with my elbows, kick at him, reach . . . and find myself solidly blocked. The neon wall of his will encircles my mind. Sucks away my magic and my consciousness until there’s nothing but darkness.

I come up out of the darkness slowly, blinking, not sure what’s happened. Or how long I’ve been out. My skin’s cool, sticky with dried sweat. The demon’s lying half on top of me, his body heavy and languid on mine. He’s stroking my throat, nuzzling my ear in a way that feels better than good. One of his thighs is wedged between mine and despite everything that’s happened and how sore I am, I feel the beginnings of desire coil against that heavy pressure.

“Uh—“

“You awake? Good, we can go again.”

“No, we cannot.” I shiver and try to twist away from him. “What did you do to me?”

“Calmed you down. Just relax, Tsara.” He uses my name like he uses sex – to manipulate me, to create connections between us that shouldn’t exist, particularly now, after what he’s done. “I can feel how much you like me fuckin’ you, so why are you fighting it?”

“Because of what you just did!” It’s pointless. He doesn’t remember. I could explain each detail and he still wouldn’t understand why I’m afraid of him. “Never mind.”

He runs his finger over the webwork of knots enclosing my wrist where it lies on the pillow next to my head. “Did I do this? Good work.”

“Yes.” He did that and I let him. What on earth was I thinking? He’s a demon. I should have known there’d be more to it than just sex play. I turn my face away.

“You my seggurach?”

“What?” I glance back at his face, into his dark eyes. “I don’t know what that is.”

He smiles, the wicked grin. It must come naturally. “Then I’d better not tell you.”

“Why not?” His memory is gone, so he doesn’t remember what to keep from me and what not to. I can ask him anything. “What’s a segger-ack?” I stumble a little over the unfamiliar word.

“Seggurach, and if you have to ask then there’s a reason you don’t know.” He kisses me, nips at my lower lip. “You’re not gonna get around me like that.”

Damn. “I’m sure if you could remember . . . if you had your memory, you know, you’d tell me.”

“Would I?” He strokes my throat, spreading heat across my skin again. His dark eyes follow his hand. He rises a little onto his elbows so he can look down at my body and I shiver both with discomfort and desire. “Wall says there’s lots of things I shouldn’t tell you.”

I twist my neck to peer up at the wall again. It still looks empty. “Uh, like what?”

“I think the idea is not to tell you.” He leans into me again to lick my exposed throat. “What d’you call me?”

“Jou. Isn’t that your name?” Ro called him Jou and I assumed that was his true name. Goes to show what assuming gets me.

“Mmm,” he murmurs, his breath buzzing against my throat. “What d’you call me when we’re fucking?”

“Jou.” I lift my arms to put them around him, or push him away, I’m not sure. Blow out a breath in frustration when I reach the limit of the bindings. “Could you untie me?”

“Nope, Wall says not to.”

I’m beginning to hate the wall and everything he’s written on it. Or everything I assume he’s written on it, since I can’t see anything, even with my Sight.

“What else does the wall say?”

“Says your name, and to use it carefully. Not to hurt you with it.”

“Could you hurt me with it?” I’d intuited that he could, but hadn’t known for sure.

“Yeah. I could pare you down to tendon an’ bone with it.”

I shudder. “Look, this was just a really bad idea. I don’t think either of us realized how bad an idea this was. I’m sure if you could remember, you’d agree and let me go . . .”

“Wall says no. Just enjoy it, uh, what do I call you when we’re fucking?”

“You don’t. Seriously, you should untie me—”

“Ain’t gonna happen,” he growls, lifting up onto his arms again and looking down at me. “Why don’t you call me