Strum: virgin captive of the billionaire demon rock star monster (The Squirm Files) (5 page)

After nudging off his shoes, Zagan padded to the very edge of the roof and faced outward, looking across the breadth of the streetlight bejeweled city. He stripped off his shirt and stood with his arms thrust out and up, and with his fists bunched. His blood-orange flame tattoos writhed across his bare back. He roared like a barbarian king standing before his people, daring a newcomer to defeat him.

S
weat dribbled slowly down the prime A-grade muscled contours of his back, sizzling and leaving trails of steam.

Virginia’s fingers twitched.
Must not touch.

Bright cracks opened in his skin
. Within them, lava seemed to flow – as eye-scalding orange as melted metal.

Eww
.
Must not touch because fingers would get all nasty hot and owie. Was there something wrong with having a boyfriend you could use for a toaster? Wait. Not boyfriend. Friend. Friendy friend. She straightened her top. Totally
not
sexy hot friend.

A few streets away, a fire engine’s siren screamed
. Red lights circled and flashed off the sides of buildings.

“We
must leave before they arrive. Our burning path to the rooftop must have alerted them.” Zagan splayed his fingers and began to intone some mysterious incantation. “Oom zhala kaz a min. Oom zhala...”

The gouts of fire now shooting from his fingertips wouldn’t be helping
calm the fire fighters either.

A car’s engine started in the car park and Virginia sneaked closer to the edge.

From the open window of the car, someone shouted. “Going to the hotel now! Had to call the Fire Department! You set the sofa on fire, man! Not good!”

“
Ahh.” Zagan leaned over. “Sorry!”

“Sorry
isn’t good enough. Insurance, dude, insurance.” The car screeched in a half-circle and drove off.

“You forget I can afford it!”
Zagan resumed his position, shook out his fingers. “Where was I?”

“Uh.
” She thought back. “Second Oom zhala?”

“Yes.”
As he recited the air seemed to shiver and grow tense. Her eyeballs strained as if trying to see something far, far away. A green speck appeared to the left, over the sea, from the direction of Karl’s castle. It arrowed toward them, enlarged rapidly, then spun in until she could see it was the green book of her dreams. The book jetted away toward the city, leaving a trail of singing, scintillating green. Sparkling flecks fluttered down, faded, and vanished.

The
quiet of the night returned, except for the dominating blare of the fire engine siren.

She stuck her fingers in her ears and yelled, praying she
could lip read. “Was that the Necrosexi-texmexicon?”

“It was
, but that was the book in the past. The thing has definitely gone to the Zon and we need to capture it before it implodes the entire universe. The Zon contains so many books that it could easily tip past the critical mass and become a giant black hole of books. With the Necrosexi-texmexicon there, anything might happen.”

“
Sounds bad,” she whispered.

He nodded. “Shopping would
never be the same again. We have to get going. I need men with steel sinews, hearts of gold, and big guns to venture in with us. Men who aren’t afraid to die or be terribly mutilated in the name of goodness.”

Big guns?
Her dirty mind went off on a tangent but she whipped it back into line. “For a demon you are so damn conflicted.”

“That’s part of my
punishment – being forced to live on Earth as a rock star billionaire, be good, and have heaps of sex but with women I can only fuck once. Sometimes the ache to do evil consumes me.” Then he grabbed her, ran across the roof, and jumped off the other side of the building.

On the way down
, he kissed her. “For example, doing this is pure torture.” He resumed the kiss.

She wasn’t quite sure she believed
him, especially when he stuck his tongue in and swizzled it around. This demon had a huge tongue.

When their feet smacked
into the ground, they were still kissing. Clearly, it was a longer distance down than up.

He paused. “Though maybe
...” He grabbed her hair and made her arch her neck. “If I do that and then
this
.” He sank what seemed to be claws into her ass.

Where the hell had those come from?
Even through her tights, the sharp points drew delicious little spots of pain on her skin.

“
It might be evil?” He forced another kiss onto her that made her shudder and melt right down to her toes.

When he stopped, s
he took a moment to recover, using her grip on his solid muscly shoulders to steady herself.
Oooh
.
Yum.

S
he gripped him a few more times, in a few more places, not wanting to fall over accidentally. “I’m not so sure this is evil.”

“
You could be right. We should double check?”

“
Mmm-hmm.” She nodded as well as she could.

“Good thinking.
Stay still. I wouldn’t want to miss.”

Her
half-naked demon kissed her, again. She sighed at his passion. Every sexual part of her stirred and wakened. Her toes curled and the ground seemed to shake. The world faded into darkness.

Was this one of those black-outs you got gratis with super good orgasms? She didn’t recall an orgasm.
Minor detail.

“
Zagan,” she whispered. “The world’s gone black.”

His ardent reply was mouthed against her lips. “The floodlights are on a timer.”

She peeked past his shoulder.
Oh.
“You spoiled it.”

“
You want black? Next time I’ll bring chloroform.”

“Now that
would
be evil.”

“Good to know.”

After hurriedly retrieving his golden Stratocaster, dragging on his shirt, and tossing the guitar into the Zagan mobile, they set out on a roundabout route to collect the rest of the band.

The
Zagan mobile had been covered in every national magazine possible but it was still a surprise to be sitting in it. Virginia smiled and caressed the padded front seat. All gold on the outside, platinum engine, powerful as a speeding lion, gleaming and smooth enough to be a butt plug, and heavy as a brick. The craft got one mile to the gallon and had to be followed by a fuel truck to get farther than the corner store.

The Monster,
Zagan called it.

They picked up Lars and
Skoll from the hotel. They piled into the spacious back seats. But Crush, Purgatory’s drummer, had gone to a house he was helping to build on a terraced road above the ocean. They pulled up on the quiet street outside the partly erected three-story structure. Brilliant lights bathed the area.

“This is going to be an orphanage.”
Zagan patted her hand then slipped out and beckoned to Virginia to join him. “The man has issues. I might need a woman’s touch to get him to come with us. When he was a boy, his uncle would torture him each night.”

“
Ohmigod. Why? What happened?” She eyed the big man. He shone in the lights and looked almost naked from a distance. As they approached, she realized he actually was naked.

“
He would read books to Crush like Sleeping Beauty, and other fairy tales, over and over, when all the poor boy wanted was to play with his toy soldiers and run around the house being an airplane. Unspeakable torture.”

“Uh
-huh. I see.” Weird, but she supposed...

Were those hammering sounds?
She frowned. Her instinct was to run up and yell at him to stop. “How can he build a house naked? The construction tools. The possibility of accidents. I’m cringing.”

Zagan
took her hand and squeezed. “Don’t worry. Crush is a hard man. Harder than anyone I know. He does it to show he’s tough. After that childhood accident when the tower of building blocks fell on his head, he needs to remind himself that he has courage.”

C
hildhood had done bad things to this man. Seriously bad.

“Don’t say anything about the
scars,” Zagan said in a muffled aside. “He thinks he’s so ugly no one will want him.”

“
I’ve seen them in pictures. Poor man.”

“
There’s more. On the way to school one morning, he saw his mother mauled by a dog.”

“
Ohmigod!” Her heart was already aching for him but this was the last straw. “She was killed?”

“Her toe needed a bandage. It was a
chihuahua. Big one.” His mouth turned down. “Don’t mention
any
of these things to his face.”

That was a lot of things to be tortured by.

“I have trouble remembering shopping lists, but I’ll try.”

“Someday a good woman will show him he’s worthy of love.”

Then Crush swung around and she saw the rest of him properly. Her eyes widened.
Oh boy.

His
cock was a masterpiece of metal art. It gleamed with stainless steel. Things stuck out everywhere. The man either had a penchant for piercings or he’d already nailed his dick over and over with a nail gun.
Owie.

He had an ere
ction too. A big one. As an engineering feat it would rival the Eiffel Tower. Consolation prize – at least he’d not done his balls.

Crush
nodded at her then grumbled. “You brought a girl to see me build?”

“Be nice, Crush, or I’ll melt your dick.
I need you on a mission.”

His laugh
surprised her and shook her eardrums. “Hehehe. I will be nice. See this one?” He lifted his cock so she could see the metal in the lights he had rigged. The one piercing he ran his finger over was an outline of a cat’s face. Under it was tattooed,
Hello Pussy
.

She merely raised her eyebrows. “I see it.”

“Is joke. The girls like it. Especially when I run it inside them.”

Zagan
tsked. “If you weren’t the best drummer... One of these days we’ll teach you how to talk to women, Crush.”

“I don’t need talk.”

Virginia’s schlong detector went into overdrive and it’d been sulking for hours, since the guy at the concert. “May I?” she asked Crush, indicating his cock.

He made an
agreeable, yet puzzled, sound.

Gingerly she laid
her hands on it. The feel was like massaging a barbed wire fence, but beneath all the stainless steel was a true schlong.

Alarm crept in when she realized Crush had stopped breathing. His eyelids quivered but otherwise he seemed fine.
Phew
. She concentrated, screwing up her face.

“What?” Crush sounded worried.

“I’m getting visions...visions of your future. You will meet a small, blonde, and pretty woman who will make you very happy as well as scream a lot.” She smiled at him. “Your sperm count’s good too. Keep eating that spinach.”

“I don’t need no future telling. Or no woman who makes
m
e scream.
I
make
them
scream.”

She shrugged and took away her hands.
“I’m never wrong.”

Without saying anything, Crush swung about and did a funny pelvic movement.
The distinct bang of a hammer echoed. When he stepped away, she could see a nail that he’d driven home. Crush lifted a shirt and pants from a peg.

“
That was my cock. Is why I make women scream when they come.”

“
Whaa?” She glanced at the nail again. He was so hard he could drive nails? Really? She pursed her lips – imagining what must happen.
Gaawwd, damn.

As he
sauntered past her toward the car, he bent and whispered in her ear. “Free trial for you.”

For a second she stayed put, mouthing a swear word or two
.

All that metal.
She shuddered. “No fucking
way.
”

Zagan
shook his head. “He’s a show off.”

“I thought
he was tortured and couldn’t make love to women? And you said you needed a woman’s touch to get him to come.”

Author hurriedly rethinks her word choice and types faster.
Nothing to see here.

“I did
say that, didn’t I? I think he likes you. But I never said he didn’t have lovers. He goes through hookers like a receptionist goes through post-it notes. But none of them can get him to think he’s worth shit.” Zagan walked away.

“If he comes near me with that cock
, he’ll be sorry!”

What would a big fucking magnet do to those piercings?

“He won’t,” he yelled back. “You’re mine now. He won’t touch you.”

Oh
crap.

Karl had said those words to her.
Mine.
She remembered that. What was she doing?

But she headed after them.
Time to cut loose. Let them go in and get this evil book. Stay back and sit on her hands. That was what she should do. Be a good fiancée. Stay the hell away from Zagan.

Inside her mind she could hear someone chuckling quietly.

She snapped.
What?

Don’t get snippy with me. Read the cover, Miss Virgin Captive.
You ain’t getting out of this book without being fucked sideways with multiple implements. Say hello to Mr. Metal Dick from me.

S
martassier by the second. She tasered her inner voice then blew away the smoke. Silence at last. It was worth losing some brain cells.

She scribbled a note to herself – get new book cover ASAP.
Besides, it should really say,
almost-virgin
.