Page 2 of The Succubi's Choice

And, in the back of the group, standing on his toes as if he needs to be balanced above to see things, is the most handsome man she’s seen all day. Or, rather, the most handsome man she’d be allowed to fuck that she’s seen all day, with dark hair and tanned skin and cleanly cut cheekbones.

A smile dawns on her face, and Gabriel follows her view, before shrugging and sitting deeper into the booth. “I’ll be here,” he says, pulling out his phone.

She nods at him before she scoots out of the booth, straightening out her spine and stretching, like she’s finally fitting back into her body.

A few people glance her way with an idle surprise that she’s there. Because if she didn’t want them to see her, their eyes slipped off of her and moved to the next person without really stopping on her but…

But if she wants to be seen, she’s seen.

She gets halfway across the bar before her target looks up from his wallet, does a small double take at her, his eyes sweeping over her and up her legs and resting on her chest line.

Which is magnificent, so she can’t blame him, but there’s still a little twinge of disappointment at him not even looking at her face.

She sidles up next to him, and a few of his buddies clear to make way for her, like she somehow can command them to. Which would be a majestic thing, if she could legally do that, but instead...instead she relies on societal norms and the universal fact that people like to get their buddies laid.

The man gives her another up and down, and she’s as patient as she can be, waiting for him to make a quick decision.

“Want a drink?” He offers, finally, after a long moment of just staring at her, and finally, that’s her opening.

See, the laws around being a succubi are ridiculously strict. If she’s gonna seduce someone, if she’s gonna use her charm, despite everything else and despite her innate need, they have to show first verbal interest. If she just goes up and charms them into sex...well...it gets into real thorny legal territory real quick, not to mention it goes against a lot of what Miri believes in.

And so she holds back, keeps her charm —her powers, for a lack of a better term— back to where it can’t influence him. Relies on the good old-fashioned seduction that succubi have baked into their DNA.

She slides a hand around his waist, and the touch of clothed skin against her hand sends a shock down her system, sends her pulse racing, sends sparks behind her eyes.

“I have a room upstairs,” she says, barely choking back her charm, where it seems to buzz against her skin and light her on fire. “I don’t need a drink, unless you do?”

The man’s eyebrows raise, and he does a quick look around the room, as if not quite believing her words. Which, fair. Not many people just go up and proposition like that.

“I’m not...I don’t have money,” he says, his voice cracking a bit in embarrassment. “I’d like to, but...”

And of course he thinks she’s a prostitute, which again, fair, but she blinks back the smarting hurt and just smiles at him. “I’m not like that.”

Back in the booth where she left him, Gabriel snorts in amusement. Because after seeing her pull this exact line so many times, he hears basically all the responses she gets.

The man blinks rapidly, giving a glance to his friends, bordering on so uneasy that she drops her hand from his waist, taking a deep breath.

“Oh, no, I mean, you’re beautiful, I’m just...” He runs his hand through his hair, sticking it up on end, before visibly giving himself a shake. “Yeah. Yeah, let's go up to this room. See what happens.”

“See what happens.” She repeats back to him, before she takes him by his hand and leads him out the same door he came through, his friends slapping him on the back as she walks past them.

Outside, the sun shines so bright she has to squint, as she climbs up the rickety stairs to the room Gabriel rented for her earlier, the plastic knob on the key hitting against her wrist as she turns the ancient lock.

The room is...fine, and the man looks around it with wide eyes, before obviously looking at the single queen bed. “You don’t...you don’t mess around, do you?” He asks, his voice dipping into caution.

“Don’t see a reason to,” she says, slapping the key onto the cheap wooden desk, reaching up and tossing her mass of russet curls off of her neck. “You don’t seem to mind.”

And here, in this moment in the overly air conditioned cheap hotel room, where no one else can see and no one else can influence the situation, she shakes herself loose and smiles at him, really smiles at him.

Succubi are often described as perfect, and she doesn’t feel that way, right until this very moment.

His eyebrows flash up, and he grins back, subconsciously in the way that men often do at beautiful women.

“Do you want me?” She asks, getting that last bit of verbal confirmation, before she lets her charm loose.

“Yeah.”

She smiles again, and like flipping a switch or correcting her posture, turns on her charm, and he’s drawn to her immediately. A hand in her hair, a hand against her ass, and it’s that skin on skin contact that sends her blood thrilling through her. Quickly, she rubs her fingers together, generating a smidgen of warmth, before grabbing him on his arm.

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