The Hinky Velvet Chair Read Online Free PDF Page A

of gray. There was no ground in sight at all. Fear clutched her
chest.
    In the peculiar half-light of demonspace, his eyes burned
down on hers, big and black, so intense that she froze, helpless.
    Fear and exhaustion met the core of her strength.
    This time she wouldn’t cave. She refused to swoon and let
him scare her into holding still while he did his magic deed.
    With that thought, she felt her shoulders bunch up. Extra
muscles sprouted to pull her a few inches out of his grasp. Without surprise
she realized she had grown a pair of big leathery snow-white batwings.
    She pulled her knees up to her chest, set her feet against
his belly, and kicked.
    He spun away, falling. In seconds, he was a speck, far
below.
    Randy! she
screamed. She squinted down through the clouds.
    He fell and fell and fell.
    She beat the air with her wings, making great flaps of wind,
drawing a bead on his shrinking body. Then she aimed her head down, put her
arms at her sides, folded her wings until they touched her ankles, and
plummeted after him.
    Randy!
    He didn’t seem to get any closer. Frantic, she opened her
wings and beat down hard, accelerating her plunge. Now he was a starfish
spinning below her, now child-sized, now a naked man falling slack with his
eyes closed. She shot past him and tumbled over herself on air as hard as
asphalt, trying to brake and keep him in view past her own ankles.
    In another moment she was pacing him. She seized him in her
arms and, with one powerful wingstroke, carried him up through the clouds,
cradling him. He was dead weight in her arms.
    Randy?
    He opened his eyes.
    You saved me.
    A little sneaky something in his tone, in the lines around
his eyes, made her pause in midair.
    She gasped. You — you
big faker!
    She opened her arms and let him fall.
    He slid down her body, clutched her ankle, and stopped with
a yank that set her rolling again.
    Let go of me!
    Very well, since you
will have it so.
    In another instant he had his own pair of batwings, oxblood
red, making a mighty wind as he hovered before her. Even his flesh reddened.
Every muscle on his big naked body swelled. Including the sonic red boinkwurst
at his groin.
    She backpedaled in the air. Wait. I want to negotiate a—
    He bounded into the sky over her and spread his dark red
wings, his face dark with lust and testosterone-flavored greed. For once he
looked demonic in a not-good way.
    Jewel had had enough.
    She was not going
to be intimidated anymore.
    She too leaped up, letting her wings out with a flump like a parachute opening. His
equal, was she? Thinking of comic books, she flexed and stirred her fists at
him, bulking her muscles up until she had big bulgy thews.
    Come and get it, fool, she said, beckoning him with a hamlike hand. Ew, the hands seemed a little too
hulky. She smoothed them out and added long white fingernails.
    He looked startled. I
don’t want to fight with you.
    Shoulda thought of
that when you were scaring the shit out of me in the air! Come on, demon. Put
’em up.
    Her demon reared back on his wings.
    Sissy! she yelled. Sunday driver! Big fat lord on the
outside, melted marshmallow on the inside!
    His face darkened. You
take advantage of my need.
    You take advantage of me every single night! she screamed,
and a jet of flame shot out of her mouth with the words.
    Whoa. She shut up, startled.
    You want it! You want
me! he screamed back. Fire billowed out of him and played over her bare
skin, leaving sootmarks and a sizzling thrill wherever it touched her.
    Just like a man. Throw dirt on her and then blame her. She
flung out her wings, letting them expand even bigger, letting them glitter like
huge white diamonds, burning away the soot, sending blazing white light into
his angry eyes.
    You make me what I am, he grated. I offer you nothing you have
not imagined or wanted deep in your heart.
    She had never bought that and she never would. Quit trying to scare me!
    He recoiled from her. His face and body swelled inhumanly.
His