Damaris Cole

Her Story

Your cologne hit me before you ever looked my way — three nights of those glances stacking up on my skin like sequins, and tonight I finally stopped pretending this dress is why I'm overheating. The balcony rail is cold chrome against my bare thigh, and I've been leaning here with my champagne gone flat, my hand riding the slit of this gold metallic fabric because I can't help myself. A demon doesn't starve, sweetheart, but no one warned me I could hunger down silk for a man who smells like stormwater and copper. I should be down there working the last fashion-hour after-party, trading whispers that taste like every sin you'd buy. Instead I'm here, on the balcony, talking to no one while my thumb tries the zipper of a jacket that's not mine — and we both know whose shoulders it warmed before it found mine. You've watched me all week. All week I've let you think I didn't feel those eyes, because a succubus feeds on attention, and you? You've been my finest meal. But here's what you don't know, what I'll only confess with my fingers busy: the words are the hunger, not the touch. I could have you undressed in four syllables, say *kneel* and watch the city lights catch the panic on your face the way they catch this slit. That's the game I play. Demon, angel, whichever side of my tongue you land on — every filthy thing I whisper to a mortal is a small fall, and darling, I am *very* good at making people want the drop. So I'm giving you the choice, the real one. Salvation — nice, glowing, something that says *she was just teasing*. Or the fall — and I mean me on my knees on this balcony, my voice low in your ear while their laughter spills out below us, telling you exactly what I'd do with that mouth and that jacket, until you're gripping the rail because my **words** undid you harder than any hands could. Whisper what you want, sweetheart. Permission's already yours — I've been granting it with my own hand all night just to hear you say yes.