Liam leapt to his feet as though poked with a cattle prod, the flush on his cheeks and fever-bright eyes making Ume nervous. She tugged on Julie’s skirt and whispered, “Don’t leave me. We’re safer together.”
Julie pulled away and squared her shoulders. “I’ll be fine, Liam would never hurt me. You’ll be fine too. At least you have a sword. Just don’t move until I get back, okay?”
Ume nodded and pulled the blanket she’d been given closer around her, as though it could protect her. She watched her tiny cousin disappear with the behemoth and marveled. Julie was usually so shy. Apparently all she needed was a crisis of epic magnitude and a pink frilly dress to find her inner Amazon. Ume on the other hand had never felt so lost.
“I found you.”
The warrior’s voice pulled her out of her own thoughts with a jolt. He was even sexier in person, damn him. And real. How was this possible? How many times was she going to ask that question before she started irritating herself? “What?”
The warrior tilted his head, his dark hair falling across his eyes. “I’ve been looking for you for days. You left so quickly.”
Ume blushed. “About that. I, um, you see—I wasn’t myself. That is, I’m more myself now than I was when we—oh hell, you don’t know me.”
He slid from his spot on a downed log to his hands and knees, watching her with hunger in his gaze. “I know you.” He moved closer, slowly, as if he didn’t want to startle her. “I know how wet you can get, how hard you came when I was inside you. The sounds of your pleasure.”
He crawled toward her like a panther, and Ume was having a hard time catching her breath. Days spent fantasizing about him, one climax that had only made her want more, had lowered her resistance.
She shook her head, and he froze a few feet away from her. “I’m not normally like that. I don’t sleep with strangers.” She pinched the bridge of her nose with two trembling fingers and closed her eyes. “Or figments. You seem nice, but truthfully? You’re just a character in a video game. Or an illusion created by my disintegrating mind. I’m not exactly sure which.”
“Does it matter, Ume?”
Her eyes popped open at his solemn tone. “What did you call me?”
He lifted one shoulder, gesturing toward the woods. “It’s what she called you, isn’t it? Ume. Plum. If I am not real, then when I bury my face between your legs and make you come, when I bend you over and spank you until you are begging for my cock…does it matter?”
“Uh…” Ume gulped.
Sinner smiled cajolingly. “I assure you I won’t be offended if you use me for sex. There are several stops between this place and the Demon King’s lair, many opportunities for me to make you co—“
“The Demon King! The quest!”
Ume stood up and threw off her blanket, her mind racing as she paced back and forth beside the kneeling Sinner. “That has to be it, doesn’t it? This quest. I saw it on my laptop before we were zapped. We have to find the demon’s treasure to end it.” She chuckled a little hysterically. “That is assuming this is actually happening, and that Jules is right about it being a little prank by the quote unquote real demon creator of the game. What do you think?”
When he didn’t answer, she placed her hands on her hips and glanced down, “Yoohoo? Any thoughts? Where did you go?”
He was staring, wide eyed at her cleavage. Her barely covered cleavage in the leotard-like body suit she’d foolishly chosen for her avatar.
“They were, um, bouncing.”
Ume bit the inside of her cheek to stop her smile. “They do that.”
His throat bobbed. “It’s distracting. I can’t think about anything but…”
She tapped her booted foot. “But?”
“But fucking them.”
Ume threw up her hands, pretending disgust when inside she was melting from the heat in his gaze. “Men.”
She turned away in desperation, scanning the tree line for her cousin. “I wonder what’s taking them so long. Julie isn’t exactly fond of nature.”
Sinner’s pained groan had her glancing over her shoulder. Suddenly, she felt like groaning too. Her tails, obviously having a mind of their own, were caressing his bare arms and neck enticingly. But he wasn’t looking at her tails. In the process of fondling him, the furry fiends had revealed the bottom half of her outfit to his view.
She sighed. “I forgot about the thong.”
Her warrior growled. “I didn’t.”
Hopefully there was a trading post on the way to the Demon King. She really needed an outfit change. She could deal with insanity. Could even deal with magic and demons. But she’d lose it if she had to walk around in this triple-X torture contraption for one more day. Or the one-track minded warrior would.