Kathy Love - Demon Cant Help It

Jo shook her head, still not understanding what Ellina was trying to say.

"You two are meant to be together."

See, that was just what she didn't want to hear. She already knew they were meant to be together. More validation did nothing to make the loss any easier.

"And since you are bonded, you can call him to you."

"What good will that do if he doesn't want to be with me?"

"Well, I can't help you with that. All I can do is tell you how to get him there." Ellina smiled a cute, naughty little smile. "You'll have to do the work to make him stay."

Jo considered that information, then nodded. "Okay."

She was miserable. She had to try again.

Maksim sat in a bar on Bourbon. He'd gone back to Hell for a while, but couldn't seem to stay away from Jo. Oh, he hadn't seen her. That would have been too difficult for him, but being in the same city was enough.

Well, no, it wasn't enough, but it was all he was going to allow himself. She was better off without him.

He sat in Lafitte's drinking his usual whiskey on the rocks, when suddenly he felt very strange. Like he was dematerializing, except he wasn't doing it.

Next thing he knew he was in Jo's apartment. She stood in the living room wearing a dress that had a plunging neckline showing the gentle swells of her breasts. The high waist tightened over the swell of her belly, which he was surprised to see had grown noticeably since he last saw her. The material was covered in bright flowers, reminding her of the bouquet he'd bought her just a day before they were no more.

"Jo? What's going on?" He frowned, trying to understand what was happening.

She walked up to him, the sway of her hips, the sight of her lush body all holding him captive. Especially the enigmatic smile curving her lips.

"I brought you here."

"You? How?"

"Well," she stopped in front of him. "It turns out that you and I are bonded."

Bonded? He'd wondered if that could be the case, but it still didn't matter.

"Jo, bonding doesn't mean we have to be together. It just means we have a connection. You can be with anyone you want. I won't stop that."

Jo shook her head, laughing slightly. "You are the silliest demon I've ever met."

He raised his eyebrow. "And how many demons have you met?"

"That's not the point," she touched him, her fingers running along his jaw, down his neck. The caress sent fiery raging need throughout his entire body.

"The point is," she said slowly leaning up to kiss the same path her fingers just did. "Is that I want you. And as a bonded female, I can have you."

Maksim groaned. "Ellina told you?"

"Mmm-hmm." She nipped his neck and he groaned. Damn, he'd missed her. The smell of her, the feeling. He turned his head and caught her lips, kissing her hard.

She moaned, melting into him.

They kissed for several minutes, hours, hell, he didn't know. Finally he managed to gain a little sense and pulled back.

"Jo, how can you really want to be with a demon? One who was created to embody all the traits of someone who has hurt you?"

She smiled, gently touching his face. "Because of that very reason. You were formed to exist only that way, yet you have been better to me than any man. You turned away from your old nature to be what I needed. That's more than any woman could possibly ask for."

"But what if old Maksim returns?"

"Has he yet?"

"No," he admitted. He hadn't seduced, deceived anyone. He really was turning out to be a failure in the demon department.

"I can't be disloyal to you. I love you."

"Well according to your sister, once a demon loves, all his sins reverse."

Maksim raised an eyebrow. "Is that so?"

Jo nodded. "That's what she said and she does research demons for a living."

"Well, I think she may be mostly right. But I'm pretty sure my seduction techniques are still working fine."

Jo laughed, the sound throaty and sexy as any sin he knew.

"As long as the seduction is only directed at me."

"Only you." He kissed her lingerly.

"I love you," she murmured against his lips.

"God knows, I love you, too."

EPILOGUE

"I think we succeeded in having a very unusual wedding," Jo said, snuggling up against her new husband, pressing a kiss to his bare shoulder.

Maksim chuckled. "Oh, I think we did."

He cuddled her closer still, his hands stroking over her large belly. The man was obsessed with her pregnant body, which she had to admit she liked. Maksim always made her feel beautiful, even with swollen feet and a popped-out belly button.

"And you know which part I thought was the most unusual?"

He lifted his head to peer at her in the shadowy light of their bedroom, a huge master bedroom in a gorgeous house in the Garden District. Maksim's wedding present to her.

"Let me see, was it the fact that you, very pregnant with another man's baby, married me, a demon?"

Jo laughed. "No, that wasn't what I was thinking about."

"Could it be that most of our wedding party were lampirs?"

"And a half-demon," she added.

"And a half-demon."

"No." Jo grinned.

"Hmm. How about the fact that the wedding band was all vampires?"

"And one werewolf," Jo added.

"Right, and one werewolf."

"Nope," Jo said again with a little giggle.

Maksim smiled too, clearly enjoying her merriment. "Well, I can't imagine what else could have made it more unusual."

"That we went with devil's food cake instead of the usual white cake with buttercream frosting."

Maksim stared at her for a moment, then laughed. "You are too much."

Jo laughed, too, then stopped when the baby kicked her hard. Maksim lifted his head, watching her bare belly. Both of them never ceased to be fascinated by the little person growing inside her.

"We are going to have, like, five more of these," Maksim said, shaping his hand over her belly, smiling when their daughter kicked again. They'd been together for the sonogram that revealed Jo's intuition had been right. They decided to name her Kara. Kara seemed to approve—because she had not reappeared to Joe.

"Let's have this one first," said Jo, although she already knew she wanted more, too. Maksim, who now admitted he'd originally only volunteered at the community center to be near her, turned out to be one kid-crazy guy. And he could now honestly sway he was a member of Big Brother/Big Sister. Damon was his little brother.

"You're sure you don't mind being married to a demon? Having a demon's children?

Jo lifted her head to look at him. "Of course I am. And your sister seems fine."

Maksim made a face at that. "Most of the time, when she's not writing books that incite other demons to curse her into a cat."

Jo raised up on her elbow. She frowned. It did seem Ellina had ticked off some powerful beings. More strange things had happened to her since escaping Boris. Not that Ellina took the occurrences as anything serious.

"Just the usual mishaps," she'd said. Like nearly being run down by a car—not once but twice in as many weeks—was normal. Or that fact the her apartment had been ransacked.

Jo sighed, knowing Ellina's heedlessness worried Maksim a lot.

"I have no regrets," Jo said, wanting to draw his attention away from fretting. "I love being married to a demon. Even when you're red and scaly."

"Oh, we are not going to even speculate on how much you like my demon self. You kinky thing."

She laughed. "Plus you are a pretty reformed demon these days."

"Shh, you're ruining my reputation."

She laughed again, but the sound died on her lips as his hand sloped down over the swell of her belly, heading to the place on her body that always ached for his touch. He leisurely stroked her, her arousal slicking his fingers.