Part 25: My Very Own Demon

Ash turned and stopped.

Something was unusual. The room was only lit by the present full moon and... there was someone next to him.

'Can I please just hold you this way for some time?'

The words came back to him. He had said them to her while hugging her to him, at the time where nothing else would have felt right. She had allowed him to hold her tight, and that was his last memory. He must have fallen asleep and been taken to bed.

He smiled to himself as he imagined her little form struggling with his gigantic size. It wasn't surprising to see how angelic she appeared when asleep, he had imagined it before.

Her black hair which was in contrast with the white of her skin was fanned untidily around her head, her clamped eyelashes forming deliberate slanted lines on either side of the slightly high bridge of her little nose. Further down her smooth-edged face her lips rested, majestically tiny yet plump with the upper one vaguely fuller than the lower lip.

Her eyebrows furrowed and she murmured something in her sleep before her eyes slowly opened. They focused on him for a moment and closed, a smile appearing on her lips.

The smile disappeared and the eyes snapped open again, this time eyeing him with confusion. Her expression softened and she gave a little smile, shifting away from him to turn on her bedside lamp.

Ash flinched under the assault of the bright light.

"Are you better now?" she sat up.

"Yes," He continued smiling at her.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked, her eyes glancing at the door before focusing on him again.

"Thanks." He said to her. "I love you, please don't abandon me."

There was something in her presence that made him feel like laying all his burdens at her feet. He could sense understanding and acceptance within her gentle gaze, something he hadn't been granted before.

He had been respected and more so feared, but the acceptance and understanding had only ever been partial. In fact, only one person had bothered him with some love and partial acceptance and understanding, Rhys Grier, which hadn't lasted.

Rhys Grier had betrayed him at the first opportunity he had gotten and had dashed off into the harsh, wide world leaving Ash to lick his wounds in lonely, valley corners by himself. The wounds refused to heal, and Ash could only be grateful for the scab which stopped the bleeding.

The girl looking down at him, Ash believed, was the antiseptic he wanted to take all the days of his life. He had found out during his first sight of her, when his heart had fluttered and had found himself standing before her as though under compulsion.

"You're thinking about whatever happened to you last night?"

Ash shook his head. She must have noticed his smile slip off.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked him. There was no pity in her ocean blue eyes, fortunately, only compassion.

He could take that. "I..." he breathed. He hadn't expected to have trouble telling her exactly what was in his heart. Being in bed with her must have distorted his capabilities. He looked away from her and stared up at her ceiling instead.

'You're a selfish bastard that cares about your own interests even when you claim to love the next person.'

'You are an animal that is incapable of love and also incapable of being loved.'

The words kept playing over and over in his mind, the words said by the person he had trusted with his life with no hesitations before. The person he had hoped that with his coming for him would be reminded of the blooming memories they had shared and would somewhat let him in once again.

But all those were feeble hopes that Ash hadn't really put into serious consideration. Rhys had betrayed him once, and would most definitely stab him with a poisonous dagger in the back when the opportunity came.

She reached over to touch his hair.

Ash brushed her hand away. "I'm a bad person, Princessah. I..." he swallowed. "I love you, the thought of you being with someone else drives me crazy and being rejected by you makes the air I breathe scorching hot. It burns me up inside. But I can't help it as much as I can help being bad. That's just me."

He felt a sad smile stretch his lips. "That's just me. I... no one wants to accept it but, I can't reject myself. I'm the one holding me up, once I abandon myself, I would crumble and..."

Ash's eyes widened as her soft lips pressed against his. He kept still, gripped by the fear that the slightest of movements from him would mar the most heaven-sent beautiful moment presented to him.

She pulled away and looked down at him, her seraphic face looming over him as if he was at the very gates of paradise. She smiled and he felt a part of his soul shy away from the brightness it sent through him.

"I miss my boyfriend, not this poor animal drowning in self loathe."

Ash felt his lips part and at her words. He hadn't been forcing her to love him after all, he hadn't misinterpreted the desire in her eyes during their previous encounters.

"My very own demon, where have you been?"

He jumped up and pounced on her, pinning her body beneath his. "I knew your innocence was a front." He claimed her mouth reveling in the little noises that escaped her throat as she arched her back and lifted her face to meet his at a better angle.

Lifting his heavy chest a little, Ash demanded entrance into her mouth with his tongue, sweeping inside like the conquering general he was. Her tongue brushed against his before hiding away and he sought it out, luring it until she started sucking at his tongue. He felt her legs go lax beneath his, parting to wrap around him.

His own erection was ablaze behind the constricting pants and he knew she could feel it for she had started grinding against him.

That took him by surprise. He pulled away, chuckling with joy. She moaned in protest and he brought his mouth down again, steering clear of her mouth and dropped chaste kisses around her mouth instead.

"It never crossed my mind that you'd be this horny." Ash whispered in her ear.

"I'm not." She giggled.

"Tongues make you weak." He told her. "Your weakness."

"Don't evaluate me in bed, Mr. Ash." She pulled him closer and buried her teeth in the skin covering his neck.

"You agree to be my little bitch then?" He asked breathing in the acai berry scent of her hair.

"Anything, as long as it's yours."

Ash shifted and lifted her face to look into her eyes as he asked. "You're not going to betray me, right? You won't abandon me and go for someone else?"

She blinked, and appeared to think about it. Then she shook his head. "I'm not going anywhere."

He felt his heart clench. "Princessah, I swear I'll never intentionally cause you pain. Okay?" Ash told her and she nodded.

Pressing his lips to hers, Ash held her in his arms. "Go to sleep babe, go to sleep."

He watched her eyes close with a smile on her face.

She loved him back, he could feel it and that was enough.