Chapter 1 – Charlie POV
The heavy canopy of Alastor's bed creaked under every deliberate thrust, the antique wood groaning like an old radio tuning between stations. I was on my back, knees pushed wide and high by his clawed hands, the velvet sheets twisted around my ankles. Each roll of his hips sent a spark of raw pleasure racing up my spine, forcing a broken moan from my throat before I could swallow it down. My body betrayed me in the best and worst ways—heat coiled tight in my belly, slick and aching, every nerve alight.
*This is the deal,* I reminded myself, fingers digging into the dark wood of the headboard. *Just the deal. Protect the hotel. Help the guests. Anything he wants.* The words echoed in my head like a contract I had signed with shaking hands weeks ago. Vaggie's face flashed behind my eyelids—her hurt, her loyalty, the way she had looked at me this morning when I told her I had "important business" with our new partner. Guilt twisted sharper than any pleasure, yet it did nothing to stop the slick slide of him inside me or the way my walls fluttered greedily around his length.
Alastor's shadow loomed above me, antlers casting jagged silhouettes across the crimson wallpaper. His smile was all teeth, the ever-present radio static in his voice crackling louder than usual. "Why the long face, my dear?" The words dripped with saccharine venom, each syllable layered with that 1930s broadcast timbre. "One might think you're merely *enduring* this little arrangement of ours."
I tried to answer, but he chose that moment to snap his hips forward harder, driving so deep my vision whited out. A genuine cry tore from me—high, needy, nothing like the controlled sounds I had planned to give him. My back arched clean off the mattress, breasts brushing against the soft fabric of his partially unbuttoned coat. The friction of his clothed chest against my bare skin only heightened everything. Another wave of pleasure crashed through me, tighter and hotter than the last. I was close already, embarrassingly so, and the realization made fresh tears prick at the corners of my eyes.
He misread them. Of course he did.
His grip on my thighs tightened, claws pricking skin just enough to sting without drawing blood. The static flared; green sigils flickered in the air around us like angry fireflies. "If this is such a chore, Charlotte," he hissed, leaning down until his crimson eyes bored into mine, "you might at least have the decency to pretend with a little more *conviction*." The anger in his tone was new—raw, almost personal. He sounded… hurt beneath the broadcast filter, and that only made the knot of guilt in my chest worse.
Because I *wasn't* pretending.
Every brutal stroke lit me up from the inside. The way he filled me, thick and unrelenting, hit a spot that made my toes curl and my breath stutter. I could feel myself dripping down onto the sheets, could hear the wet sounds every time our bodies met. My clit throbbed untouched, begging, and when one of his shadow tentacles finally slithered up my stomach to circle it with perfect pressure, I shattered.
"Alastor—!" The orgasm ripped through me without warning, sudden and violent. My inner walls clamped down around him rhythmically, milking him as pleasure burned white-hot through every limb. I couldn't stop the moan that followed, loud and unrestrained, nor the way my hips jerked up to meet his thrusts like they had a mind of their own. For a few glorious seconds there was nothing but static in my head and the feeling of him moving inside my spasming heat.
He growled—an actual growl, not the theatrical one he used for show—and the radio distortion warped into something darker. Instead of slowing to let me ride it out, he doubled his pace, fucking me through the aftershocks with punishing force. The headboard slammed against the wall hard enough to crack the plaster. His shadow tentacles multiplied, one wrapping around my throat in a loose collar while others pinned my wrists above my head.
"You think I can't tell?" he snarled, smile never faltering even as his eyes flashed with static. "Those little sounds, those pretty tears—they're all for *show*. For the hotel. For your precious dream." Each word was punctuated by a deep thrust that nudged me closer to a second peak I wasn't ready for. "Well then. If you insist on performing, I'll simply have to give you a performance worth remembering."
I wanted to tell him he was wrong. That my body was burning for him, that the guilt only made the pleasure sharper, that something about him tonight felt *different*—more frantic, more *alive* than the Alastor who had first knocked on our door. There was a wildness in his movements that hadn't been there before, a spark of something almost chaotic beneath the refined cruelty. When he hit that perfect angle again, my mouth fell open on a silent scream and another climax slammed into me, stronger than the first. My vision tunneled, static crackling at the edges like it was leaking from *him* into me.
For just a moment, his eyes flickered—not red, but something warmer, almost amber, like a memory that didn't belong. His grin twitched, the corners softening for half a second before the radio smile snapped back into place. The power rolling off him felt heavier than before, pressing down on my skin like a thunderstorm looking for a place to break. The chains I had once sensed lurking behind his deal were simply… gone. No cold weight, no invisible leash. Just raw, unchecked strength that made the air itself hum.
He leaned closer, breath hot against my ear, voice dropping into a lower register that sent fresh shivers through my overstimulated body. "Come again for me, darling. Let's see how long you can keep up this charade before you admit what we both know."
I couldn't answer. Another tentacle joined the one on my clit, vibrating with that strange new static, and the world narrowed to the relentless drag of him inside me, the pressure building impossibly higher. Guilt and pleasure braided so tightly I couldn't tell which was which anymore. Vaggie's face appeared again, but it dissolved under the next devastating thrust.
My third orgasm hit like an explosion of golden light behind my eyes. I cried out, loud enough that I was sure the entire hotel could hear, and felt myself gush around him as every muscle locked and released in waves of pure ecstasy. Through the haze I saw his smile falter again, just slightly, as if my genuine response only made him angrier.
He wasn't stopping. The deal was the deal, and the night was still young.
Static danced across my skin like electricity looking for ground, and somewhere in the back of my mind I wondered what had really walked through our door wearing Alastor's face—because whatever it was, it was more than the Radio Demon now.
And it was still buried deep inside me, driving us both toward something neither of us could take back.