I’m very happy to offer the third instalment Demon Interrupted, a new story from the Elemental Coven that will be unfolding in its entirety right here on A Hopeful Romantic over the next few months.  The Lakeland Heatwave Trilogy left so many stories untold and so many fun places in the lives of the Elemental Coven yet to be explored, that a serial seemed like the ideal way to share more of the coven’s adventure. With a coven that specialises in sex magic, it’s not only exciting to revisit my witches at Elemental Cottage, but it’s sizzling hot. Here are the links to the previous two episodes in case you missed them:

Chapter 1 of Demon Interrupted: Perchance to Dream.

Chapter 2 of Demon Interrupted: A Chat with a Demon

Enjoy Chapter Three, and thanks for joining the fun with this Work in Progress.  If you want to know more about the Elemental Coven’s sexy adventures, check out the Lakeland Heatwave Trilogy: Body Temperature and Rising, Riding the Ether and Elemental Fire. Enjoy!

Chapter 3 of Demon Interrupted

Enter the Shadows

Ferris left for Storm Croft early the next morning. He was anxious to take care of the estate’s business and be back to Elemental Cottage in time for the Full Moon circle. Fiori had packed him a picnic basket with enough food to see him through an entire Cumbrian winter. His takeaway breakfast included two enormous bacon butties on her homemade sourdough bread, a punnet of fresh strawberries she’d picked from Tara’s garden and a flask of Skye’s black tea blend with lemon verbena. There were homemade ginger biscuits tucked in too for elevenses, and that was just for the morning. Eating had only been an act of sustenance before he had joined Cassandra at Elemental Cottage, where it had become a sensual pleasure – one among many.

He had made it all the way to Birmingham without much traffic on the motorways and was back in Surrey just before noon. The groundskeepers were busy with trimming the topiary and deadheading the roses in the formal gardens. He walked in the early summer sunshine inspecting their efforts. Cassandra had never cared what the grounds or the great house looked like. For most of the time before she had fallen in love with the Elemental Coven’s High Priest, Anderson, she had lived her life as though she had no home. He had always felt compelled to make sure that though she might live that way, she was not without a place to lay her head, a good place, a safe and comfortable place to return to when she had need. There was no shortage of funds for the upkeep, and unless she told him otherwise, he would continue to keep Storm Croft as though its owner were coming home tomorrow and bringing the whole Elemental Coven with her.

Inside, he skirted the grand drawing room and the great hall, both of which had, only yesterday, had their lush wood floors waxed. Using the servants’ stairs, he headed for the small apartment behind the kitchen where he maintained his office and living quarters. Cassandra had offered him free choice of any of the above floor suites, but he had never desired more than a simple accommodation. The housekeeper had left the post of interest stacked neatly on his desk along with invoices, receipts and any other documents he might need to peruse. The ledgers he needed for the monthly records were set aside as well. He still preferred the feel of paper and fountain pen to the sterile tap, tap, tap of the laptop keyboard when it came to the monthly book keeping for Storm Croft. Of course he made sure Cassandra had everything at her electronic beck and call, should she ask for it, though she never did.

It was never difficult for Ferris to find something to do at Storm Croft. For most of the years of Cassandra’s life he had occupied himself with the day-to-day tasks waiting for her to need him, grateful when she did, feeling that she was somehow safer under the big roof of the great house, under his protection, beneath Deacon’s radar. And though he might have wished it, Ferris had never been able to keep her there.

And now that Deacon was no longer a threat, now that Cassandra had the happiness Ferris had always wished for her, he was reluctant to move away from the routine that had so ordered his life. In spite of Lucia’s little gift, he wanted no more journey of discovery than what was happily offered him in life at Elemental Cottage.

The afternoon passed to evening, with him grazing on the feast Fiori had packed, packed as though he would be digging ditches rather than crunching numbers. In the bottom of the basket was a bottle of Boudreaux that Cassandra had tucked in, wine that she and Anderson had purchased on a holiday they recently made in France. Ferris knew little about wine. He drank nothing but water before he came to Elemental Cottage, but his lack of knowledge did not lessen the pleasure of it. Whoever he was, or whatever he was, strong drink had little effect on him beyond the gentle buzz that always made him want sex.

It was late and the moon hung heavy through the window of his study when he finished the last of the wine and turned his attention, at last, to the weight of his cock in his trousers. He laid his hand against his fly as he mentally went over the list of all he wanted to accomplish on this journey south. He stroked his length and, it stretched and swelled in response. As his other hand slipped below to cup himself, he felt the amazement he did each time his penis drew his attention to its need to be satisfied. He had no memories of sexual desire before arriving at Elemental Cottage. In all those years he had not missed what he could never recall having. And yet upon the very night of his arrival among the witches of Elemental Coven, he cock weighted his trousers like heavy stone and he’d had both Fiori and Sky several times before the night drew to a close.

And there were skills, sexual skills that he had not known he possessed. He knew how to use his tongue and teeth, his fingers and lips on a nipple, on a clitoris, on the labial folds that swelled with sucking and nibbling. He knew how to pleasure a man when the need presented itself. He knew when to stroke and where. He knew when to stop. He knew precisely the edge and how to bring lovers to that edge and hold them there until they were mad with the need to come. He know when the mount them, he knew how to pleasure their nether holes until they wet themselves in waves of pleasure. He could hold the weight of his need for as long as he willed it, and if he wished to empty himself into the gripping tightness of a lover, he could also will himself to remain hard and continue thrusting after his release. As far as he knew, all these skill were his with no previous recollection of having had sex. He had skills that could not have been instinctual, and yet skills that his cock demanded he now use on a regular basis whether he was among the witches and their consorts at Elemental Coven or alone.

At first he believed his surge in libido was because Elemental Cottage was long steeped in the sex magic of its residents, and his body responded to that magic. But he quickly discovered that it mattered not where he was, his desires did not diminish, and the stroking and caressing his cock simply because it felt good to him had become a part of his routine. It was coven practice that the pleasures of the flesh were pleasures one should share generously with oneself, as well as with others, and they were indeed pleasures in which he took delight.

He opened his trousers and lifted his erection free from his boxers sucking his bottom teeth in a tight gasp as engorged flesh came in contact with the heat of his palm. He shifted his buttocks forward and scooped his balls free with his other hand. Then he took a moment to look down at himself, distended and pale against his black trousers. The housekeeper now lived in the gamekeeper’s cottage. She had left hours ago. He was alone in the big house and it was a long time till morning. He closed his eyes and leaned back in the leather chair, stroking and cupping. Sometimes he thought about sex he’d had at Elemental Cottage, sometimes he fantasized about situations that were not a part of the experience of which he had memory and wondered if they were experiences from his past. And sometimes he just lost himself in the feel of his own body, the sheathing stroke of his fist, the cup and fondle of his balls.

The journey down from Cumbria was a long one and he had forced himself to wait, feeling the uncomfortable surging and swelling and tightening in his cock as he travelled the motorway, anticipating the relief that was always welcome at the end of the journey. And even then he had held himself, held the weight of his need close to his body, felt it tug at him while he inspected the gardens, while he balanced the books, while he paid the bills. And now after the meal and the wine, now it was time. As he stroked, he thought of the deep valley between Fiori’s breast, the way she cupped them around his cock as he thrust; he thought of watching Skye’s skilled tongue snake up over Alice’s splay while she sat on the kitchen counter bathed in afternoon sunlight, skirt hiked, panties kicked to the floor. Fiori’d had every intention of chasing them out that day so she could begin dinner. Instead she had joined them. He had watched her ease three fingers into Skye’s wet slit from where she bent over. He watched until he could take no more, then he opened his fly and entered Fiori from behind. Dinner was late that night. No one had minded.

As he stroked and thrust into his hand and ground his buttocks into the leather chair, his mind was a whir of memories of sex at Elemental Cottage. How could he live among them and not constantly be aroused, and not constantly long to connect. Thrust … stroke … cup … His body knew the rhythm so well now, and it would settle for nothing less. Thrust … stroke … cup … It was as if a whole new world had opened to him, a world of pleasure and sensuality, of colour and texture. Thrust … stroke … cup … Outside a tawny owl trilled. Inside the pipes rattled as the heater kicked on just before his breathing drowned out all other sound. Thrust … stroke … cup …

How he had not seen her in the corner, he could not imagine. She sat quietly on the sofa in the shadow. It was the tight whimper and the nervous clearing of her throat as she came forward that got his attention. Before he could do more than blink his surprise, she dropped to her knees in front of him, shoved his hands away and took his cock into her mouth, deep into her mouth, keeping wide eyes that were nearly black in the dim light locked on his face.

Because he didn’t dream, she was not an apparition from the Dreamscape, and there was no doubting her flesh and blood solidity. She had no scent, therefore she must be a ghost, though how it was that she had flesh, he didn’t know, and any thoughts he had of who she was or why she was kneeling in front of him with his cock in her mouth did not linger as she tongued the underside of him and cupped his buttocks to draw him deeper into the tight tug of her cheeks. Motion became frenzied and desperate as he curled his fingers in her tumble of dark hair in an effort to either regain the control she had taken from him or lose it more completely.

It was only as she lifted the skirt of her black gown and moved to straddle him he became fully aware that her clothing was not of this era, though he could not say from which. Her eyes watered from the effort to accommodate his heft, an effort made by one whose arousal was not yet at the level of his own. But she thwarted his attempt at foreplay, pushed his hands away and persevered. Her tight struggle down onto him made him cry out and breathe in shallow gasps to control himself, holding the soft swell of her hips beneath the taffeta of the gown.

She rode him with her arms around his neck and her soft breasts swaying beneath the deep plunge of the bodice. She rode him with her lips pressed to his ear, whispering frantic words he could not make out as his breathing crescendoed to a roar, then a harsh grunt as he convulsed his release in hard, desperate shudders. It was a release he had not yet expected, one he would have never permitted until he had first satisfied her, but as he reached for her to return the favour, she shook her head wildly and shoved off his lap, stumbling backward onto the floor as she did so. ‘Don’t hurt me, please don’t hurt me! I thought you wanted me. I thought you wanted me to do … my duty.’

It was only as she regained her footing and backed away from him that he noticed the rope around her neck. How in goddess’ name could he not notice the rope around her neck? For a charged moment, she stood gazing at him, one hand pressed to her chest, the other holding the looped coil of rope. Then, before he could speak, before he could calm her, reassure her that he would never harm her, she turned quickly and disappeared through the wall of books at the back of the study leaving him stunned and shaken, but there was no denying that he was wide awake and his cock was wet from sex.