The Demon Lover by Juliet Dark

gratifying, you know, when you write something as hard to write as my book was and then people are affected by it. Some of the messages I get on my website just make me bawl like a baby!”
    “I guess your honesty about your own travails encourages your readers to open up about their own hardships,” I said, thinking that while Sex Lives had gotten me a fair amount of publicity it at least hadn’t gotten me a string of confessional emails.
    “Exactly!” Phoenix nodded her head eagerly. “You must be a writer, too, to understand that.”
    I admitted I was and introduced myself. She claimed to have heard of my book, but not to have had a chance to read it since she’d been so busy touring for her book this year. She demanded I get a copy of my book from my office so we could exchange signed copies (“The truth will set you free!” she wrote, drawing a little picture of a plumed bird on fire beside her signature.) and that we make a date to “get good and plastered” the coming weekend before classes started. She was teaching a writing seminar. “I just know once I get involved with my students I won’t have a minute for myself—that’s just the way I am!”
    I left her introducing herself to Frank Delmarco (“A big strong man like you wouldn’t mind carrying up a few teeny-weeny boxes for me, would you?”) and made my escape. I was now really and truly exhausted. I was so tired that when I let myself into my house I couldn’t face one more flight of stairs. I collapsed on the couch in the library, not even bothering to draw the blinds against the late afternoon sun, and fell into a deep sleep.
    I must have slept for several hours because when I woke up the room was nearly dark. The last of the sun bathed the couch in liquid amber and shadows stretched long across the library floor, almost, but not quite, reaching me.
    Come here , a voice from inside the shadows said.
    I’m still asleep, I told myself. I’m still dreaming.
    Come here!
    The voice was harsher now. Gone was the gentle oceanic murmur of last night. But there was also something desperate in it. He couldn’t reach me in the light. He hadn’t grown that strong.
    I will once I feed on you again , the voice whispered.
    I shivered, not from fear—but from desire at the memory of those shadow lips suckling me last night. I could feel myself going wet already just at the thought of him—
    But it wasn’t a him; it was a thing waiting to feed on me and even if it was only a dream-thing I had to assert myself. Didn’t I?
    I reached behind me for the lamp, remembering only as I touched it that I hadn’t plugged it in yet. The shadows stretched closer. The voice commanded me again. Come here! He was getting angry. I swung my legs around and planted my feet in the swath of sunlight. The wood felt warm. Solid. Was I really dreaming?
    Yes, only dreaming , the voice said, coaxing now. But such a lovely dream. Come to me!
    The dreams were lovely … well, last night’s dream had been. But still some shred of consciousness told me that there was a limit. That if I let this thing into the daylight I might never wake up from those dreams.
    I stood up and followed the path of sunlight across the floor to the wall switch. I flicked it on.
    When I turned back I half expected him to still be there—my moonlight lover—glowering at me with disapproval for my disobedience. I could feel his anger prickling the hairs at the back of my neck. I spun around but the room, awash with electric light, was empty.
    SEVEN
     
    I slept with my light on that night. In the morning I called Brock Olsen to fix the window in my bedroom and he was at my door fifteen minutes later. He was short and broad and bearded. His face would have been handsome, but he must have had a bad case of acne when he was young that had left his skin rough and pitted. When I showed him the broken window he rocked back on his heels and stroked his beard as if he were contemplating the Mona Lisa