Chapter 14 - Owen - Purge With My Demons

My hand on her thigh was enough to suppress the madness in me for the time being. I could see Brad lurking out on the street outside of the restaurant.

“I’ll be right back.” I squeezed Eleanor’s thigh lightly before standing.

I casually stepped in front of Brad on the sidewalk, gripping his upper arm and guiding him to a more secluded area. “Brad, what the fuck are you doing here?”

“Alastor,” he replied skeptically, trying his best to look over my shoulder. Brad wasn’t a short guy, but with my height and build, he wasn’t going to be seeing around me.

“I asked you a question, dip shit. ” I stare at him blankly.

He’s taken aback by my statement. “It’s none of your business, Owen. Go be Amon’s bitch or whatever it is you do.”

Leaning down, I’m at eye level with him. Through gritted teeth, I hissed, “Why are you stalking a human? And trust me, Brad,” I spat his name, “I know a lot more than you could ever imagine.”

He did his best to mask his nerves, but I took note of the slight widening of his eyes and the hitch in his breath. “Is that supposed to intimidate me, Owen?” His voice was shaky. He probably thought I didn't notice, but I did, and he was intimidated. Idiot. “Do you forget I know about your deal with Amon? You can’t do shit to me unless Amon commands it.”

“No, I wouldn’t forget something like that.” I leaned in closer, so that I was right by his ear and whispered, “But what you don’t know is that a clock is ticking, and I won’t forget how to do my job. I’ll just lose the chains that have me restrained.”

As I backed away from him, he scowled. “You don’t scare me, Alastor.”

“Don’t I?”

He shoved past me, walking away from the restaurant as I returned to my soul.

Rounding the corner to where we were seated, I nearly ran directly into our server. “Woah. Sorry, man.” I apologized.

“It’s okay. I should have been paying closer attention.”

Gesturing to our table behind him, I asked, “Is it possible to go ahead and pay our bill?”

“Yeah, no problem.” He pulled out a handheld device, tapping it a few times before passing it to me.

After paying, I rejoin Eleanor and Giordana at the table.

“Are you okay?” Eleanor looked at me, concerned. Her eyes were like melted chocolate. I wanted to swim in them.

I cupped her check. “Perfect.”

“That’s my cue to leave.” Giordana yelled at us over her shoulder, “Love you mean it, Nor. Owen, you hurt her, I kill you.” She tossed a smile in his direction.

“She scares me,” I admitted.

Eleanor laughed out loud. “Me too.”

* * *

Eleanor had her arms wrapped around my waist so tightly as we rode, it was almost difficult to breathe. Almost. Normally, I wouldn’t have put up with it, but I knew she was nervous. I couldn’t ask her to loosen her grip. Plus, having her that close to me was something I wouldn’t say no to. I took my time guiding us through the streets to her place.

A small, unused driveway was attached to the brownstone she called home. “Is it okay to park here? I was in the street earlier because I wasn’t sure.” My hand gently rubbed her leg where it had been resting the entire ride over. The ever-present heat that seemed to surface whenever we touched surged.

“Yes, here is fine.” Her voice was timid, as she was still nervous being on the bike. It thrilled me in an odd way. I wanted to take her out on one of my long rides so she could feel just how freeing it could be.

Once we were parked in the driveway, Eleanor tried to dismount before me, but I stopped her with a firm hand on her thigh. “No.” I got off, never removing my hand from her leg. I gripped her waist and lifted her off the bike. She let out the most adorable yelp before I placed her down to stand in front of me. Gripping her waist, I was reminded of how perfect she was, how beautifully those muscles accentuated her luscious curves. My hands squeezed her waist gently before reluctantly letting go to remove my helmet.

Eleanor was attempting to do the same but struggled with the clasp under her chin. “Can you help me? I can’t get this.” She tilted her head back, putting her throat on full display. It took everything in me to not run my tongue up that beautiful, delicate skin. Just at the thought, my cock began to strain in my pants. I had to shake the thought from my head before she noticed where my thoughts had drifted to.

“Of course.” Grabbing the clasp, I made quick work of getting it unclipped and gently worked the helmet off of her head. She looked beautifully disheveled. Her hair was a mess, and I couldn’t help but chuckle a little bit.

“Shut up, I’m sure I look crazy.” She started to laugh, pulling the ponytail from her hair.

Reaching over to her, my hand cupped the side of her face, and my thumb gently trailed over her lower lip. “You look beautiful.” She tried to look down and away from me, but I moved my hand below her chin, forcing her to look me in the eye. “You always look beautiful, Eleanor.” Then her lips were on mine in a bruising kiss.

It didn’t take long for our bodies to be flush with one another. For my hands to be tangled in her hair. When we finally broke the kiss, she was the first to speak. “Well now, I’m sure I look crazy.”

Grabbing the checkered scrunchie from her wrist, I smiled. “Turn around. ”She did as I said, and I pulled her hair up into a ponytail.. When she turned back around, she had a little flicker of something in her eye, a questioning look. “I live with Cora and Ashton,” I said, shrugging. “And I had a sister. I’ve picked up a thing or two. Let’s go inside.”

She smiled, reached in her purse for her keys, and began walking to the front door. I couldn’t help but tease her as we walked to the door, tickling the skin showing beneath her crop top, pinching her ass. Her laugh was infectious.

We were laughing together when I heard a very deliberate clearing of a throat as we approached the front door. “Oh, hey, Ms. Nichols.” Eleanor was still laughing as she replied.

The older woman stopped watering the flower beds in front of their brownstone. “I know this isn’t that idiot you had here the other night.” She set the garden hose down and turned to face us with a smile on her face.

Eleanor closed her eyes and shook her head. Leaning closer to me, she said quietly, “I’m so sorry.” Then she turns her attention back to the woman. “No, this is Owen. Owen, this is Ms. Nichols.” She gestured between the two of us, respectively.

I stepped out from where I was standing behind Eleanor to walk over to Ms. Nichols, offering her my hand. “It’s great to meet you.” I tried my best to channel a bit of charm like Finn and Tristan throw around.

Ms. Nichols batted my hand out of the way. “You’re too pretty for me to just shake your hand.” Next thing I knew, she was hugging me. The chuckle that escaped me was involuntary. I glanced at Eleanor over the top of Ms. Nichols’s head, and she was stifling a laugh. “Well, Owen. Take care of our girl. It’s great to meet you.” She patted me on the chest before picking up the garden hose and continuing to water the plants. I had every intention of taking care of my girl. I walked back over to Eleanor and placed my hand on the small of her back as she unlocked the door.

Luci greeted us at the door, as expected. Wrapping my head around how domesticated this Hellhound had become was so difficult.

“I’m going to change, if you don’t mind,” Eleanor said. “I just want to get comfortable.”

“Of course.” Who was I to deny her comfortable clothes?

As soon as I sat on the couch, Luci jumped up with me, lying her head in my lap and making herself comfortable. I looked at the table next to the couch and saw a book laying there titled, Bloody Hollow: Seduction Under the Moonlight. I picked it up, and curiosity got the best of me. I flipped to the page with the bookmark. I know this was going to be a cheesy romance. I may be a hundreds-year-old demon, but I’m not stupid these books have sold well for years. As soon as I start reading a bit, I realize this is a vampire romance, an erotic vampire romance.

“Ahem.” Eleanor cleared her throat loudly and very dramatically. “Find something you like there?” She began walking toward me in her comfortable outfit. She had on black cotton shorts and an old cut-off, white Budweiser t-shirt, with no bra. Fuck. Me. She was trying to kill me. “Go lie down,” she said sternly to Luci, and an immediate fantasy of Eleanor bossing me around flashed through my mind. When she made it to the couch, she sat down facing me, grabbing the book from my hand.

“Hey, I was just getting the good part.” I pretended to be upset, but I knew I wasn’t fooling her.

A sly smile snuck across her face. “Oh yeah,” she says, biting her bottom lip. “What part was it?” She began leaning toward me, but I didn’t want to play games; I just wanted her. I grabbed her chin and my lips met hers with purpose.

The kiss was demanding. It was a fight for dominance. Right now, I wanted control. I grabbed her by her waist and shifted us so she was straddling me. Her cropped shirt made it so the bottom of her chest was on full display, her hardened nipples having already made an appearance as soon as she sat down on the couch.

I slid my hands up her sides, admiring how her skin felt so hot against mine. I ran my thumbs along the underside of her breasts, and she leaned into my touch, trailing kisses down my neck. She began to grind her pussy on my already hard cock. If I didn’t change this position soon, I was going to embarrass myself. Picking Eleanor up, I laid her on her back. She gasped at the movement. I loved that I could surprise her.

Placing my thigh between her legs, I lowered myself over her. “Do you read about this in your books?” I licked from her collarbone, up her throat, to her mouth, and kissed her slowly. “What about this?” I dipped my hand in the front of her shorts, noticing she wasn’t wearing any panties. “No panties, gorgeous?” I leaned down to whisper in her ear as I began to circle her entrance with my finger, “You might just have to make that a habit when I’m around. Especially if this is how wet you are for me.”

I continued circling her entrance, watching her squirm, knowing she needed attention on her clit. I’d give it to her when I thought she deserved it. As I had this thought, I realized that I was burning up. I normally felt warmer when I was near Eleanor. I stopped thinking so much about it lately and assumed it had to do with our souls. But my madness was stirring now too.

No. Not now.

Eleanor let out a whimper that made my cock harder. I didn’t think that was even possible. I moved my fingers, applying pressure to where I knew she so desperately craved it. As I circled her clit, she began to writhe beneath me. “Owen, please,” she moaned. And those words. Those two words from between those two lips. The madness in me seemed to erupt, and I was ravenous.

I made quick work of removing her shorts, hitching one of her legs over the back of the couch and pushing her legs back. Her cunt was perfectly on display and dripping, I knew it would be just by how soaked my fingers were from simply circling her entrance. Just to tease her, and maybe tease myself a bit, I slid my fingers up her center, soaking them. I held them up, admiring how they glistened, knowing that the taste of her would be ecstasy.

I made a show of sliding my fingers in my mouth, knowing Eleanor was watching with rapt attention. She tasted tangy and sweet, so perfectly Eleanor—made for me. Bringing my fingers back down to her center, I repeated the same motion, but this time I brought my fingers to her mouth. “Clean me up.” She opened her mouth and the feel of her tongue as she licked and sucked every last bit of her juices from me was sinful. I pulled my fingers from her mouth with a pop and lifted her up into a bruising kiss.

When I let her go, I lowered her back down to the couch and trailed kisses down her stomach, passed her belly button, and down to her clit. My madness was raging inside me, but I was able to mostly contain it. As the madness stirred, it urged me on. The need I had to make my soul orgasm, though, that was primal.

As I continued to lick and suck at her clit, I looked up at her and saw she was watching me, fisting the couch with one hand and playing with her nipple with the other. Every point where our skin met pulsed with burning heat when we made eye contact. Reluctantly, I broke away from her and reached over my head to take my shirt off. Eleanor’s breath hitched, eyes roaming over me. “You’ll have plenty of time to stare later, my soul, I was in the middle of something.” She let out a moan that I’ll dream about until the end of time when I licked at her entrance and quickly replaced my tongue with my fingers. She began squirming as I gave her clit attention, and I moved my other hand to her lower stomach, holding her in place.

When I look up, she has a hand draped over her eyes and she’s biting her lip. I can tell she was holding back. “Oh, no you don’t. Look at me gorgeous, and don’t you fucking dare hold back. Give me everything you have, Eleanor. I want to hear you.”

Whatever I said must have given her the confidence to do exactly as I said. She released her grip on the couch and grabbed the hair on the top of my head as I lowered my face back down to her beautiful pussy. “Mmm,” I moan, nipping at the sensitive bud, giving her a little bit more of a push. I’m so fucking glad I did.

She grabbed the back of my head and began grinding on my face as I licked and sucked. She was fucking perfect, and I would never be worthy of her.

I inserted a third finger. “You stretch so perfectly, fuck.” As I worked my fingers slowly, I could tell she was close. “I want you to look me in the eyes when you cum, Eleanor. Understand?”

She nodded, with her eyes closed. It's cute that she thought that was going to work.

“No ma’am. I need your eyes and your words.” I was saying all of this while my fingers were still buried in her pussy.

She looked at me with hooded eyes. She was on the brink of an orgasm, and I couldn’t wait to be the one to deliver it to her. “Yes, Owen. I understand.” Seeing the look in her eyes when she spoke to me made the madness shrink to nothing inside me.

“That’s my girl, let me hear you.”

* * *

“I’m sorry, by the way,” Eleanor said as she handed me a cup of coffee. “Caramel syrup in black coffee.” She smiled.

“Sorry? Why are you sorry?” Genuinely confused by her apology, my arm wrapped around her shoulders as she sat down.

She fidgeted with her coffee mug. “Well, now I feel awkward. Never mind, just forget I said anything.” She waved it off and picked up her phone.

I set my coffee down on the table and reached for hers, setting it next to mine. Reaching for her now very warm empty hand, I rubbed comforting circles on her palm and looked her in the eye. “Hey, please talk to me. If you don’t want to, I’ll respect that, but I also want you to feel comfortable talking to me. I’m here for you.” I squeezed her hand before handing her back her coffee mug.

“Fine, I feel so weird, though.” I hated that whatever she wanted to tell me was making her feel so anxious. “I’m just sorry you didn’t finish. There, I said it.” She quickly set her coffee back down and shrugged.

“Eleanor, I will not expect that from you, ever. This is not a one-for-one kind of relationship, okay?” She nodded, and this time I allowed the silent response. “Your pleasure is my pleasure, do you understand?” She continued nodding. I pulled her into my side and kissed her slowly, sweetly. “Okay. Now drink your coffee.”

We sat cuddling together on the couch, drinking a mid-afternoon coffee, while a Hellhound snored in the corner of the room. I started to memorize everything Eleanor had here. Her strange collection of knick-knacks and artwork. It somehow made no sense but all the sense in the world.

“When did you start collecting all of this stuff?” My arm waved around, gesturing to the shelves lining the walls in the room.

She adjusted slightly in my arms. “Oh, when I was a kid. We bounced around, living in a lot of different houses, and I just started finding things and keeping them. Then it just became a thing I did. I look for weird shit when I travel, and if I can manage to get it back home, it lives here.”

“What’s your favorite thing you have?”

Immediately, Eleanor jumped off the couch and skipped over to a shelf above the small television. She grabbed a small piece of what looks to be a human jaw and began tinkering with it in her hands. “This.” She held it up so I could see it more clearly. “When I was about 11, I went camping in Arizona with my adoptive parents. It was miserable. I was so bored and I thought for sure I was going to die or end up in a Tremors kind of situation.” I chuckled. “But I was out exploring one day and found this. I had been watching a lot of true crime shows with Brian, and I had just found human bones in the desert. I thought I cracked a case, for sure!” She was so fucking adorable telling this story, I wanted to capture this version of Eleanor forever. I pulled out my phone and snapped a picture.

Her brows furrowed as she looked at me. “Did you just take my picture?”

“Yes, now keep going. You thought you cracked a case?” I couldn’t stop smiling.

She didn’t miss a beat. “Right. So, we go to the local police and plan to do the whole thing. I fully expected they were going to run all of these tests, and maybe I’d get to be on a show or on the news. It was a dream come true. About five minutes after we left the police station, my dad got a phone call.” She held the mystery bone up. “It was plastic. It was a piece of plastic bone. Like from one of the life-size skeletons. I think they just played along to humor an 11-year-old kid.” She threw the bone to me, and sure enough, it was a piece of plastic jawbone.

“Oh no,” I said with a dramatic frown on my face.

“Yeah,” she adds with an equally dramatic frown. “I was devastated. I cried the entire way back to the campground and didn’t leave the site the rest of the trip. But now, I look back on that trip and that whole event and just think about how excited my dad was with me and how he was so onboard with my crazy theory. He was just like that. Ready to be in on everything. He went back to the station later that day to get it back for me.” Her smile now is small but not sad, just one you have when you’re remembering a happy time.

She settled back into my side on the couch. “Thank you for sharing that with me.” I kissed the side of her head.

* * *

We laid on the couch together. Eleanor dozed off in my lap as soon as we put a movie on. It Chapter 2 at her request. As soon as the wonton cookies became little monsters a familiar voice drifted into my mind.

“Hello Owen Alastor. It’s been a while.”

As my gaze darted around the room, I saw her. Lilith in cat form emerged from the shadows, jumping onto the arm of the couch. Her voice penetrated my mind.

“I wondered when you would make an appearance,” I whispered, not wanting to wake Eleanor.

Lilith’s voice was smooth and sultry in my mind, “I wanted to give you time. But we need to talk, Owen. There’s a lot to discuss.”

My phone vibrated. Gazing at the screen, I saw I had several texts from Tristan.

“He always did have perfect timing.” We must catch up soon Owen.

Tristan:

Where are you?

Hello?

I would call you but I know that’s a lost cause.

Okay, now I actually do need you. Amon summoned you.

Owen. Bro. Come. On. He needs you TONIGHT.

“Shit,” I muttered under my breath, waking Eleanor up. “I’m sorry.” I kissed the top of her head.

“That's okay. I didn’t realize I fell asleep.” She stretched, letting out an adorable little groan, her shirt lifting, and the underside of her chest making an appearance.

“Me either.” I smiled, but I knew my face wasn't a happy face. I didn’t want to leave her. I definitely didn’t want to go see Amon. “I really don’t want to, but I have to go.”

“Oh, okay. Yeah. Of course.” She jumped up like something bit her.

I got up, moving to stand in front of her. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Nothing…I-I’m just waiting for this not to be real, for something to go wrong.”

I grabbed her face in my hands. “Trust me when I say I will always be the first to think like that. I’m making the decision right now for the both of us that we don’t think like that. We are going to just accept this for what it is, which is fucking amazing. Got it?” I rubbed her cheek with my thumb, soaking in the rich brown of her eyes.

“Okay, got it. I’ll try my best.” She leaned into my touch before I kissed her goodbye.