Her back hit the open closet door, the hinges squealing as her weight forced it as wide as it could go. He raised her hands, snagged the handcuff chain over the coat hook screwed to the top of the door.
“You jest,” she laughed again. “And will you torture me now? Perhaps if you do so, I will be able to hate you and won’t need to pretend to look forward to fulfilling Lucifer’s bargain.”
Her laughter faded as she caught sight of his face. He closed his eyes, as if against terrible pain—but when he opened them they were filled with determination.
The wild tousle of his hair should have softened his appearance, but his features were stark, edged with desperation. His gaze pierced her like blue steel: steady, resolute. He traced the line of her jaw with his forefinger. “Now we bargain, Lilith.”
Too late, she realized his humor a moment ago had been a ruse, designed to lower her guard, to allow him to position her just so. “What are the terms?” she said, her voice hoarse.
“You will resist me as I torment you, as I prove your lie and your humanity,” he said. “And forcing it from you will take mine.”
“It is more like a wager than a bargain.” Dependent not on an action, but an outcome.
“A wager binds as closely, does it not?”
He knew it did. “You’ll hurt me?” She swallowed. Though she had been joking before, it might be a way . . .
“Yes,” he said, his face carefully blank, and her stomach twisted.
She jingled the cuffs. “These will not hold me.”
“The wager will.” His lids lowered, his psychic blocks snapped back into place. The sudden absence of his emotions left her floundering to make sense of her own. “I have seen you do this to a human; but if you haven’t changed, if you are demon, it will be nothing to you.”
She searched his face, could read nothing in his expression. “You know it isn’t.”
“Then you best fake it—as I did for centuries. If you cannot hide your response from me, how will you from the Morningstar?”
Was he trying to save her? Would he never learn?
“He does not touch me.” No one’s touch, no one’s kindness had ever affected her as Hugh’s did.
“He does not have to.”
She squeezed her eyes closed. He was right. “You’ll destroy us both.”
“It is equal consequence, then.” He hesitated, and she looked up at him. “I will not hide from you, Lilith.”
A reversal of their past. “And yet I must from you.”
He nodded. She laughed bitterly, but could not deny the temptation of having him open to her. Finally.
And it was that temptation which decided her. “You are an imbecile to use a demon’s methods.”
He tipped her chin up. “I know.” Pressing his lips to hers, he inhaled, as if taking her into himself. “Shift. Full demon.”
It was a gentle command, one that didn’t immediately register over the pleasure of that soft kiss. When it did, she smiled, shook her head. “You don’t want that one; it will make this impossible for you.” How could he desire the thing she became? It made her uneasy, ashamed, to think of him touching that form.
But perhaps it would be easier for him to be cruel.
“Your shape has never mattered; I have seen you in too many,” he said, his eyes searching hers. “But it might be the mental defense you need. Shift.”
A defense . . . she did not know that she had any against him.
But the wager had been made, so she transformed. And though he had seen her naked in this state less than fifteen minutes before, she was relieved when he told her not to vanish her clothing.
Her brows arched. “Mandeville I left with his hose around his ankles. Will you do the same to me?”
“Nay,” he said, his voice rough. His hands trembled slightly as he brushed her hair back over her shoulders. “I won’t leave you.”
There was more meaning in his response than in her question, but she had no time to ponder what lay beneath the statement. His fingers skimmed the crimson scales on the arch of her neck, his thumbs meeting at the hollow of her throat, then running the length of her collarbone. “They are like newly blown glass.” At the point of her shoulder, he traced the rounded edge of a scale with his fingertip, then circled behind, back up under her arm. “But softer here.” His head dipped, and he pressed his lips to the vulnerable skin.
She clenched her jaw, her claws curling into fists over her head. So simple to break away, yet she could not. How long would he be gentle? When had he learned the torment was deeper when it followed pleasure? Had she been the one to teach him?
“Perhaps you would perform a reenactment in other ways,” she said and pulled in the long, slender branch from her mental cache, let it fall to the floor. No decay in that space; it was as supple as it had been in the thirteenth century. “I striped his ass with this.”
Hugh glanced down. “Perhaps you would have been better put to use preserving England’s forests than whipping men with them.” He cupped her bottom, lifted her against him. She gripped the hook with her hands, thought it might snap off—but, no, he easily supported her weight, her thighs alongside his hips, her wings pressed to the door.
Ridiculous, to be thrilled at his strength when hers was exponentially greater. She could kill him with a squeeze of her legs, and yet it was pleasure she wanted when she pulled him closer, hooking her ankles behind the small of his back and forcing his erection hard against her. Exquisite pressure. She grinned as he drew in a sharp breath.
He thought to play the demon? He should have chosen less capable prey.
“This is not resistance,” he said.
With a lift of her hips, she stroked up and down his length. “I’ll resist when you hurt me.”
“I’ve no intention of hurting you physically.” In her moment of surprise, he pushed her legs to the floor and spun her around. His weight forced her against the door, her cheek pressed tight to the wood. “I only intend to torment you, to prove your humanity.” His breath was hot in her ear. “My idea of torment happens to differ from yours.”
“You knew I thought—”
“That because you could not deny your human nature and save yourself, I would deny mine and be damned for it?” Gently, he bit her earlobe, then flicked his tongue across the scales behind it. She shivered, and she felt his smile against her neck. “How readily you accepted that your solution must require your pain.”
“So speaks the martyr,” she said bitterly.
Cool air against her nape as he lifted her hair. “Your tyrant.” His fingers tugged at the lacings of her corset. The leather slowly loosened, and he eased back to slide it over her hips. Then his chest was warm against her back, wings crushed between them, his arms circling around.
She tensed her stomach muscles as he flattened his palms against her abdomen. The scales were softer there, rectangular instead of rounded. Though he couldn’t see them, he would recognize their shape. They must remind him of a snake’s belly, remind him of what she was.
Perhaps he was right—perhaps this body would be her best defense, despite his claim that it did not matter. It did not matter how she’d begun life; she’d been a demon for two thousand years. And demons did not feel physical arousal, took no pleasure from it.
She clung to that thought as he explored the curve of her ribs, where the scales hardened again. As his fingers traveled along the crease beneath her breasts. She did not breathe, would not expose herself. Waited for him to go further, to discover just how different this form was.
He cupped her breasts, ran his thumbs over her nipples. Pleasure shot through her, but his hiss of surprise and pain dampened it. She closed her eyes. Though she intended to laugh, her reply seemed carried on a sob. “A fine joke, is it not?”
Slight tang of blood in the air, and she felt his wariness. But he managed to express his humor, forced or not, better than she did. “Should I avoid any other portions of your anatomy?”
“Al
l of them,” she said into the door, her chest aching.
“Your teeth,” he mused, as if she hadn’t spoken. “Though it would be hard to kiss you with your face turned away from me, I should have liked to finally use your horns as handholds. Would almost be worth it to risk your fangs for that.”
Damn him. She shook with laughter.
He laid his cheek against hers, his unshaven skin scraping, tickling. Her waistband parted as he untied the fastening. “I have missed your laugh, Lily.”
Forcing away the bittersweet pleasure of that confession, she said, “You shouldn’t have killed me, then.” She meant it to be hard, cruel, but it escaped on a gasp as his hand slipped between black leather and blue satin.
“This is your resistance? This is your control?” His fingers stroked the moist fabric. “ ’Tis a weak showing.” Then his bare skin was against hers, where she was wet and soft and hot, sliding against her clit, his calluses rough on the sensitive flesh.
“There are teeth inside,” she said, panting. “Sharp as razors. They slobber in anticipation, that you’ll be foolish enough to—”
He parted her, pushed two fingers deep. She moaned, her head falling back onto his shoulder. Thrusting his hips forward, he captured his hand against the door, his erection hot and hard against her bottom. The action shoved his fingers further inside, ground the heel of his hand against her clit. “Grab on to the door,” he growled.
She could feel him shaking behind her, the tension that held him rigid. Without a word, she flexed her claws, ripping through the hollow-core door and clinging to the holes she made.
He rocked his hips, pushed his thigh between hers to widen her stance. “I’ve missed your heat.”
Shutting herself away from the pleasure of his thrusting hand, the slippery, rhythmic pressure against her clit became impossible. “I only pretend to enjoy this.”
“I’ve even missed your lies,” he said, laughing breathlessly against her ear. “A demon would not come.”
“As I will not,” she said, though the liquid ache coiled through her, wound tighter. “It’s only the power of this that excites me.”
He slid in a third finger, stretching, pushing. “Whose power?”
“Mine.” But she could not stop herself from pressing down, to take him deeper again. “You think that if I show any human tendencies, undeniable human response, it will”—he twisted his hand gently, and she had to grit her teeth to keep the moan inside—“mean that I am good. But humans are as capable of evil—ah, fuck—”
He pulled his hand away, fell to his knees. Yanked her pants down with him, pulled them all the way off. Cheap wood shredded beneath her talons as he turned her again.
He draped her thigh over his shoulder. “Go on,” he said, his voice thick with arousal. Perspiration glistened over his cheekbones, his eyes were like glittering blue stones, but he was grinning. “Persuade me that you are in control. That you have power.”
She forced herself to speak evenly. To ignore how near his mouth was to her. To pretend that as he rubbed his chin against her inner thigh, it didn’t send shivers over her skin. “Demonic influence does not account for the evil done by humans—most of it is of their free will. Proving that a portion of my humanity still exists will not mean I am good. That you think it does gives me the advantage, the power in this.”
His brows drew together. “You think I want you to be a paragon of innocence, like the countess?” A laugh rumbled from him, and he shook his head. “That is one thing I did not miss, for I don’t believe I ever saw it in you. Nor did I ever want it.”
“What do you want, then?” She told herself she asked so that she could deny it, to exercise that power over him. Not because his answer had shaken her, and she needed to center herself, to find something to hold to.
His lips parted, and he took a deep breath that rocked her against him, reminded her how exposed she was, wet and slick. Her legs quivered as his exhalation skimmed over her sex.
Despite that terrible vulnerability, she was dismayed when he slipped her thigh from his shoulder and stood. She tilted her head back, watched the play of emotions on his features, suddenly uncertain that she wanted an answer.
Softly, with his fingertips, he touched her chin, her lips, traced the arch of her brows. “I want you brimming with humanity, with feeling, so that Lucifer will choose to punish you for it by returning you to Earth to fulfill your bargain. I want to stop missing you. I want to wake up without nightmares and know that you are alive. You may not be good, Lilith, but you are the best thing in my life, and when you were not in it . . .” His throat worked, his gaze lowered before meeting hers again. “Does not matter if this bargain destroys me, for I did it well enough when I killed you.”
There was too much in his intense blue stare to process, too much emanating from his psychic scent—except that he spoke the truth, and that it resonated within a hollow, unbearable place within her.
“You would manipulate me in this way?” Cerberus’s balls, but she sounded so weak. Looked weak. Ripping the cuffs apart, she lowered her hands to his shoulders, clenched on the muscle there—not enough to hurt, but enough to remind him of her strength. And still, her voice shook. “It’s the worst kind of manipulation, one without lies. You play your role well, Hugh. A fine demon you make.”
“Aye. You call me martyr and ascribe altruistic motives to me, but I confess I think only of myself. It’s an honest manipulation, but it is a selfish one, made entirely from what I want.” The corners of his mouth lifted. “Sixteen years ago, you would have been pleased.”
“Sixteen years ago you said you became me, and I got a sword through the heart,” she shot back, grateful for an excuse to think of anything but how his “selfish” declaration had affected her. “I’ve learned since then it’s best not to be around those who resemble me in any way.”
His gaze softened. “There are none such as you, Lilith.”
“Because Lucifer has killed them all.” Her hands trembled, and she took them from his shoulders lest they betray her. “You must see that you risk too much with this plan. I can’t bear another Punishment.”
“He has only taken your ability to shift into various human forms with it, to change your clothing. Is it so terrible not to have that power?”
“No,” she said slowly. “But that is not what I speak of.”
He stiffened, then lowered his forehead to hers. “All the more reason to make certain you return.”
She closed her eyes, sagged back against the door. “Release me from this wager, Hugh. Let me try to convince Lucifer.”
“I cannot.” His lips caressed the side of her mouth.
She tried to move away as he licked her lower lip, but had no retreat. “My fangs,” she breathed.
“Then I will bleed.” But he lifted his head, silent until she looked up at him. “You may convince him, but if he thinks you take pleasure in destroying me, what will keep him from choosing Punishment instead? You lie too well—and you are most adept at lying to yourself. You tell yourself that there is no light without darkness, you convince yourself your role is to be the darkness so that light will exist—yet moments ago you admitted humans are fully capable of it without help from Above or Below. Do you think I don’t know what you’ll tell yourself as you move through that Gate? That your reaction to me was a scheme to draw my feelings for you into the open, so that you may manipulate them later, destroy me with them? That you have been a demon for so many years, it was impossible that you truly felt desire? And you would force yourself to believe it, because Lucifer will see if you do not, if it is only an illusion. But I won’t allow you that lie, not when it might destroy you.”
She laughed without humor. “And this is how you save me? With sex?”
“With evidence that you cannot lie away. For no matter what you say to yourself, no demon feels physical desire, nor physical release. Even you cannot rationalize it into something else.”
“Release me from this wager,�
�� she said, her voice flat. “It will fail.”
“If you don’t return, then I will traverse the Gates of Hell to retrieve you.” It was said like a vow, and she did not doubt the truth of it.
She steeled herself against it, and said harshly, “You would die. Release me.”
“Then I would die sacrificing myself for another.” He smiled, but it did not touch his eyes. “Perhaps Michael would turn me back into a Guardian, and I would try again.”
“Release me.” The pleading note in her voice terrified her.
He lowered his gaze, but not before she saw the pain that flashed across his features. “I did not truly want it to be force,” he said, and turned her to face the door.
“And I didn’t want it to be kindness,” she said bitterly, placing her palms flat against the wood on either side of her head, the broken handcuff chains dangling. The top of the door was almost completely destroyed from her earlier response, but this time, she determined, she would resist. Shut herself away from his touch.
“At least I have never been raped by a demon,” she said, her eyes burning.
“Aye,” he agreed thickly. “Men can be infinitely worse.”
And his hesitation was almost a cruelty, drawing out a moment that she’d rather have gotten over with quickly. She wouldn’t care that it was born of the inner conflict she could feel raging within him. Unnatural for a man of his character to touch her in this way: against her will, even if by her consent—and she should not feel betrayed by it. She had given up her will long ago; it should not matter who used it against her: Lucifer, Beelzebub. And now Hugh.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and she flinched away from the words. She pressed her wings together to block his view, block access, but he slipped his arms between the membranous folds and smoothed his hands down the length of her spine.
His groin rested against her bottom. She could no longer feel his arousal, only the breath that shuddered from his chest, his palms as he moved them around to her stomach. They slid up, cupped her breasts.
He laid his cheek against the top of her head. “The first time I saw you, I could not stop staring at these,” he said softly. “I think you meant to distract me so you could make your bargain.” His thumbs caressed the outer curves, moved in, strayed close to her nipples. “They are still beautiful, even tipped with these razor ruby scales. And just as dangerous.”
Demon Angel Page 27