Demon Seed (6 page)

Though he’d taken a crash course in Xirianá, Demon couldn’t quite get the gist of the women’s conversation. Something to do with confession and sinning. Figured. Jacinta would be feeling like a sinner after he’d finger fucked her. Hell, he felt like a sinner.

Right then Jacinta glanced in his direction, and the smile that lit up her face compounded the unfamiliar emotion wreaking havoc with his mind.
Guilt. Fucking useless emotion.

“Thank you for keeping Jacinta company, Lucia. Fredo’s ready for you.” Demon pasted a pleasant expression on his face.

“Pardon, Señor Demon. I will bring the rest of the food out right away.”

Lucia heaved out of the chair and flashed him a wide grin. Even in the dim lighting provided by the naked lightbulbs attached to the wall, her right gold canine glistened, bringing a whole new meaning to the term
dazzling smile
. He’d heard that for those of native South American descent, a gold tooth was a prized status symbol.

“What’s wrong?”

Demon’s team members ribbed him about his poker face constantly. How the hell had Jacinta cottoned on to the fact that something had gone pissy?

“Why do you think something’s wrong?” Demon took the seat opposite Jacinta.

“Your eyes have less green in them.” She fiddled with her wineglass. “Like they do after you kiss me.”

She was too young for him. Too pure, too sweet, too innocent, every single
too
under the goddamned sun. And what he had to tell her would sully all that and then some. Demon gritted his teeth. “We need to leave here right now.”

“I understand. We must be speedier Gonzales.” She wiped the corner of her mouth, folded the white napkin into a perfect square, and set the linen to the side of her plate.

“Speedy Gonzales.” He marveled that she didn’t utter a protest, ask a single question, and almost wanted her to be ornery and argue. Not that they had a second to spare. “We’ll go through the back door. This way.”

Both Lucia and Fredo had disappeared. Demon and Jacinta slipped unnoticed into the unlit, narrow dirt alleyway that bordered a host of back entrances to various nightspots. He took a circuitous route to Fredo’s home a mile down from the river town.

Humanity’s stamp receded with each bend of the Orinoco, the smells, sounds, and lights of civilization erased by the stark blackness of the jungle night. The wrinkle-nose aroma of cow manure grew more pungent as they approached the two-story wooden structure that listed to the right.

“Cat got your tongue?” Demon didn’t know why her silence irritated him.

“I have never heard that.” She touched his arm. “How does a cat get my tongue?”

The most dangerous, vicious criminals on the continent had marked them for death, and she wanted to know where a phrase came from. Demon wanted to shake her placidity into next week. “Fuck if I know.”

She stumbled. Demon clamped his lips together. He never swore in front of women and children. Never. Demon choked back a string of the foulest words and hauled her into his arms. “I’m not sure anyone knows where that phrase comes from. It could’ve originated in the Middle East, where liars have their tongues cut out and fed to cats.”

“That’s awful.” Jacinta drew back. Though the quarter moon didn’t shed much in the way of beams, Demon could discern her creased forehead. “Does not everyone lie a little every day? I often worried about that in confession. I often told Sister Concilli how lovely she looked because it cheered her up so much. But she had no front teeth and never really did look lovely. Is it a lie to stretch the truth if it makes someone feel better? And to lose a tongue for that?”

Her question sucker punched a hole in the walls barricading his heart. He felt unclean, unworthy, too tarnished by the filth of war and tango kills to ever deserve someone so shining clean. Demon fought to control the rampaging emotions battering his iron control. “That’s why those kinds of lies are called white lies. Everyone tells them. I do. I figure any god that punishes someone for white lies isn’t a just god. And I’m pretty sure they don’t cut off tongues anymore.”

“I believe that you are now telling me a white lie to make me feel better, no?” She set her tiny palms around his jaw. “You are such a kind, honorable man. A true warrior and knight.”

Heat suffused his throat and face. Demon hadn’t a blasted clue how to respond. One hand would be too much to count the number of times anyone had ever applied a single one of those words to him.

“I have not thanked you properly for all that you have done for me. I thank you from my heart’s bottom.”

Demon choked back the automatic correction to her idiom. “Not necessary, Jacinta. We need to get going. We’ll be traveling on our own for a bit. Fredo had someone fetch all our stuff from the hotel, and he stocked the boat with supplies. If you need anything else, it’ll have to wait a couple of days.”

“I’d like to know your real name.” She played with the third button of his shirt.

Crap
. “Demon will have to do for now.”

She dropped her gaze from his. “As you wish.”

“The boat’s around the back.” Loosening his hold on her warm torso, Demon ordered, “Go. Get on board. I’ll be with you in a few minutes.”

“Okay.” She shot him a tight-lipped, wan smile, turned around, and walked to the left of the house.

The second she rounded the porch, Demon went into action. He picked the front door lock and made his way to the “office” where Fredo kept his radio transmitter. The man hadn’t a tidy bone in his body. Stacks polluted the tiny room—sheaves of paper, a three-foot pile of hardcover books that hadn’t seen a twenty-first-century publication date, and heaps of disemboweled weapons.

Demon switched on the ham radio Fredo had told him about. He found a secure frequency and contacted Satan on the first try. He brought Satan current, outlined the change in plans, and requested backgrounds on Rafael Vilas and Elvira and Jose Genro. He gave Satan the numbers of the two disposable cells he’d purchased earlier and signed off.

The houseboat proved more habitable than Demon expected. The bow had two wide benches with cup holders and a nailed-down coffee table that doubled as a trunk. He lifted the lid and spied a plastic-encased blanket and a few tools. A small but efficient engine room contained all the necessary equipment for navigation, and the mother lode—a miniature replica of the old-fashioned radio in the house. He tested the radio. It didn’t work.

Demon had to duck under the archway leading to the kitchen. Again, small but efficient. A gas stove, a minifridge, and a stainless steel percolator. The thought of a strong cup of java had him salivating. He found Jacinta in the last room. Bunk beds lined either side of the narrow chamber. Open shelves half-hidden by a thick plastic curtain covered the far wall.

Jacinta had used the fifteen minutes of his absence like a pro. She’d unpacked the two burlap sacks containing all their possessions. All his belongings lined the bottom bed on the left; hers had been packed into the shelves. He glanced under the bunk and spied his duffel bag, checked the zipper, and his knotted shoulders relaxed when he saw the small padlock he’d purchased earlier was still attached. The beds were made, and she’d stacked the toothbrushes and paste into an alcove above the corner built-in sink on the far right. Through the open door next to the sink, he spied the head.

Jacinta removed her earbuds and smiled up at him. She sat cross-legged on a bunk bed—a tattered Archie comic book lay open on her lap—and looked no older than fifteen. The jailbait picture was enhanced by the pink staining her cheeks and her obvious youth and freshness. What a complete prick he was, standing there, thinking of all the ways he wanted to nail her, taste her, fucking eat her up.

“Why don’t you go ahead and get some sleep. We travel at night from now on.” He did an about-face and hustled out of the claustrophobic room before
Demon’s Rape and Pillage
became the latest TV reality show. He conked his head on the archway, held back another string of curses, and tripped over his own feet before landing in the engine room.

The roar of the twin turbines scared a string of bats hanging upside down from a scarred guava tree into flight. Demon eased the boat into the middle of the river and loosed his hold on the wheel. The currents listed the ship to the left bank; he corrected the direction, fixed the wheel in place, slouched in the captain’s chair, propped his boots on the counter, and contemplated the merits of jerking off. His current mood wouldn’t facilitate a quick release, and he couldn’t afford a prolonged loss of concentration.

“I made coffee.”

Crapola.

So lost in replaying the ecstatic expression on Jacinta’s face when she’d climaxed earlier, Demon hadn’t even heard her approach and never noticed the strong scent of coffee brewing. Everything about her tested him. His feet hit the floor with a
thud
, and he twisted to face her. His jaw dropped. She wore the T-shirt from the beach.

“I like my coffee with sugar and cream. How do you like yours?”

At once he visualized her lush breasts covered in cream, and his mouth watered. What he wouldn’t give to suck the nipples poking at the cotton fabric. Fuck, he’d never been jealous of an inanimate object before.

“You don’t want any coffee?”

Demon couldn’t for the life of him get a word from his fried vocal cords.

“Are you upset because I borrowed your shirt?”

She fingered the hem of the garment, which reached her above the knee. Did she have on the cotton panties? He couldn’t drag his gaze from the lean line of her quadriceps playing peekaboo with the material. Was she nice and wet?

“Why are you angry with me?”

The little-girl voice stun gunned his addled brain, and he vaulted into action, reaching her in one step, and then cradled her in his arms. “I’d love coffee. Take it black. You can wear anything of mine that you like.”

Like his dick, his cum, freaking him—she could wear him anytime. He stared at an oval stain on the wall, too afraid he’d lose it if she so much as smiled at him. His stones jerked up high and tight when her lithe fingers lingered on his cheek.

“Will you not look at me? And tell me what I have done wrong?”

Fuck
. She was going to kill him. He shook his head, but his brain cells refused the command to let her go. It took a few seconds, but once the distress in her voice sank into his head, he met her intense stare. “You’ve done nothing wrong. You’ve been nothing but great. Not once have you protested. Heck, you haven’t even asked where we’re going. Aren’t you curious?”

“Sister Helen always said curiosity would be the death of me.” She flashed him that wide, gap-toothed smile he’d come to relish. “I am curious, but you seemed too worried for me to disturb you with such piffle. I know I have caused you trouble. That is why we had to leave in such a hurry, no?”

Piffle
? She could make him smile at the drop of a hat.

He settled back into the captain’s chair, and his cock did a happy dance when she squirmed into a comfortable position on his lap. “No. First, you’re no trouble at all. Second, I’m not worried. And third, we’re heading to Roraima. I’ll take you back to the convent.”

“No.” She shook her head. “I do not want to go back to the convent. Though I would like to speak with Sister Helen. She won’t be surprised. She knew I didn’t belong.”

A faint soapy fragrance wafted to his nose. She’d washed up. He should too. “Why didn’t you belong?”

Their gazes met. “So many reasons. My besetting curiosity. My rash temper. My passionate nature. That I hate having every day the same as the other. Sister Helen says I relish chaos and crave adventure.”

Demon didn’t know whether he’d deck this Sister Helen or bust her a tongue-lashing kiss when they met. For she had recognized that Jacinta wasn’t convent material and set her free, but she sure as hell hadn’t done a good job of preparing Jacinta for the world.

“You’re sure you don’t want to go back?”

He couldn’t resist giving her a squeeze when she wrinkled her nose and said, “Positive. I should like to tell you something.”

Sexy, adorable, and alluring, she had him by the short and curlies with that cute shoulder shrug and the quick peep. “You can tell me anything, kitten.”

“I should very much like you to—to do again what you did in the restaurant.”

Every single inch of exposed flesh colored, even the dimples above her knees. His raging boner went into overdrive.
Fuck
. He hadn’t creamed his pants since the night before his fourteenth birthday—the night he’d lost his virginity. If she so much as moved an inch, he was a goner. “You understand what happened?”

She gnawed her bottom lip and ducked her head. “I had an orgasm?”

He rested his forehead on hers. “Yes.”

“I thought so. But it felt so different from—” She cupped a hand over her mouth.

“From what?” His desire-hazed brain finally made the connection, and his cock leaked precum in a torrent. “From when you did it yourself.”

Man, was he glad the cabin had great lighting. The riot of colors cascading across her cheeks had him mesmerized. He had to hear her say the words. “You fingered yourself, kitten? When? How often?”

“Sister Helen was right. I am wicked. I like the pleasures of the flesh.” She buried her face in her hands. “On a rock by the river. But it never felt as delicious as in the restaurant. And never did I lose all my thoughts like I did then. I will have to say a great many penances when I next go to confession.”

“Are you wearing the white cotton panties?” He couldn’t have stopped that question escaping even looking down the barrel of a gun.

“Oh.” She pushed off him. “I didn’t mean now. Or to make you feel compelled to do it again. Not if you don’t want to.”

He grabbed the hands she was wringing and brought each palm to his lips in turn, inhaling the clean soap scent, savoring the soft, supple feel of her flesh. “Look at me.”

When their gazes met, he lost it. “I want to. Lose the shirt.”

She shook her head. “No. You are feeling sorry for me. I would have you do it because you want to. Not out of pity.”