by Nadine Mutas
Azazel’s fingers in my hair tightened just the slightest bit. “Certainly, my lord.”
Still kneeling on the floor, I watched the female demon—Hekesha—lead Zaquiel through an archway on the opposite side of the hall.
A heartbeat of suspended inertia and tense silence after they’d disappeared out of sight—and then Azazel had me up against the wall.
My back met the stone, and I uttered an oof, the breath rushing out of me. He’d moved so fast, I hadn’t even seen or felt him pull me up. Now his body pressing into mine held me pinned against the wall, all hard muscle and unmovable strength, his power a whisper of darkness with a bite.
“You,” he said, his face so close to mine I could see the iridescent silver in his eyes swirl in a way no human iris should be able to, “will regret this.”
I still had trouble catching my breath, but not from the impact of him pushing me against the wall anymore. It had to be a sign of impending madness that it was all I could do not to wrap my legs around his hips. God, but I wanted to.
Before I could ask him what part exactly I’d be so very sorry for—I could name a few things where I’d been pushing my luck in the past couple hours—he brought up his hand to stroke over my throat and muttered, “I was willing to let you go with a warning, make this a short lesson in humility and send you back to your rooms. By piquing the curiosity of our guest, however, you just bought yourself an extended time pretending to be my devoted pet. You will clean up, slip into something more appropriate—” his hand moved torturously close to the neckline of my tank top “—and then you’ll have the pleasure of serving me at our little get-together.”
I squirmed under his touch, my legs twitching with the urge to lift up and clasp him closer. The pulse ticking low at the apex of my thighs craved some more pressure, irritatingly so.
“And you better play your part perfectly,” Azazel continued in a silken murmur. “Or else our little bargain is null and void.”
I narrowed my eyes. That was a gauntlet thrown if I’d ever seen one. “You want a show?” I asked with a saccharine smile. “I’ll give you the performance of your lifetime.”
“Careful with that promise.” He raised a brow. “Considering I’ve lived for thousands of years, the bar is set high, my dear.”
Stepping away, he grabbed my arm and pulled me after him as he strode toward another archway leading away from the large hall. I scrambled to keep up and not do a full face plant. His pace brisk, he yanked me down the hallway, in another direction than the one I’d come from when I’d fled from the creatures.
As far as I could see, the walls were bare of the marks I’d left, which meant we must be yet in a part of his labyrinthian house that I hadn’t explored earlier.
When I stumbled and almost tripped, he grabbed me around my waist, slung me over his shoulder and walked on at a clipped pace.
“Hey!” I managed to wheeze while bouncing with his steps. “You don’t have to carry me like some ill-tempered barbarian. I can walk just fine.”
“Not fast enough,” he growled. “Zaquiel has requested your presence, and you will not displease him by wasting time. You do not keep a Fallen waiting.”
“Fallen?”
His answer came grudgingly, impatience clear in the tone of his voice. “One of the angels who fought and fell with Lucifer. The original demons.” His hand holding on to my thigh tightened. “As much as you enjoy poking at me, you better hold your tongue in his presence. He is not to be trifled with.”
And from the way they’d interacted and addressed each other, Zaquiel clearly outranked Azazel.
“Okay,” I wheezed. I had no intention of riling up a demon more powerful than Azazel who wasn’t contractually obligated to not kill me. There was rightful defiance, and then there was utter stupidity. I tried to steer clear of the latter.
A moment of silence while he kept carrying me in a rush.
“Just okay? What—no saucy comeback, no spiteful challenge?”
“Contrary to your impression of me,” I ground out, “I do have some sense of self-preservation.”
“Hidden underneath misguided pride and impulsive intractability,” he muttered.
I gasped. “That’s rich coming from the guy who’s too high-and-mighty to explain the basics of Hell to someone who’s never been here.”
I expected a snarly reply, instead he paused for a second, and I heard the click of a door opening. The next moment he carried me into a dimly lit room, kicking the door shut behind us, and strode on while I strained to make out my surroundings.
This wasn’t my suite.
And not just that, but I recognized the furniture from the day he’d brought me to Hell—we’d come through these rooms when we first entered the house.
Sure enough, the next room he carried me through was the one with the huge bed and seating area, the one with the balcony where he’d landed. He didn’t stop here, though. Without pause, he continued on to yet another room.
Torches flared up as he stepped inside, illuminating a cavernous room tiled in silver-veined black marble. A bathroom, its size and equipment on the upper end of luxury, glossy surfaces gleaming in the light of the flames.
He set me down and gestured at the enormous shower in one corner. It seemed big enough to accommodate fully extended wings, no glass enclosure, no curtain, just a step down into an area that was easily bigger than my shared dorm room in college.
I caught my breath and looked around. “Why didn’t you take me to my rooms?”
“Mine are closer.”
That yanked my gaze back to him. These were his quarters.
I tried to peer around him into what was his personal bedroom, but he snapped his fingers in front of my face.
“In there, now.” He pointed at the shower area. “And do not dawdle.”
I wanted to snap at him for being a presumptuous ass, but my words died a shameful death on my tongue when he stripped out of his shirt. I stared. And stared.
Godfuckingdammit, if there ever was perfection of the male form, it stood right there, limned by the glow of the fires as if the light itself wanted to lick him.
I understood that urge far better than I was comfortable with.
Built with just the right amount of bulk, his muscled form spoke to every intrinsically heterosexual part of my femininity, from the broad shoulders, massive pecs, ribbed abs to the tapered waist...and those arms. Good lord. Arm porn was a real thing, and his were a prime example. A dusting of dark hair covered his chest and trailed down over his abdomen, disappearing underneath the waistline like some sinful lure.
“You’ve got something there,” he said, tapping the corner of his mouth. “Looks like drool.”
That snapped me out of my embarrassing stare-a-thon like nothing else. “Puke is more like it,” I growled back. “And you better not plan on joining me in the shower.” Crossing my arms, I hoped the irritation in my voice hid my nerves. I certainly didn’t want him to see my sudden apprehension about the prospect of being naked in front of him. Or him in front of me. “We haven’t started our pretend play yet.”
“Why, my impulsive human, are you afraid you won’t be able to control your urges and ravish me?” His eyes gleamed, and he laid one hand over his heart. “How considerate of you to care about my honor.”
I glanced around in search of something sharp to stab him with.
“Never to worry,” he continued, “there will be plenty of time for you to act on your base desires later. You have five minutes to wash up.”
And with that, he left the bathroom, the door softly falling shut behind him.
I exhaled, releasing the tension that had locked my muscles. For a moment there, I’d thought—I shook my head, remembering Azmodea’s words. He’s not the sort to take what isn’t offered.
Okay, then. Okay. I blew out another breath and stripped out of my blood-soiled and torn clothes. If it was weird to stand butt-naked in Azazel’s personal bathroom, with him waiting just on
the other side of the door, I totally didn’t feel it. Nope, not at alllllll.
I hurried into the shower area and fiddled with the controls until streams of water fell from the multiple heads in the ceiling. Thankfully, with Hell’s climate, it wasn’t a gush of ice-cold water that hit me, but a warm shower, like a summer rain.
I grabbed the bar of soap from the shelf and started lathering myself from head to toe, all the while replaying the events that led me here.
Had I actually managed to bargain with Azazel? Successfully? I still couldn’t believe it. Such a stroke of luck to discover his one weakness, and to use it to my advantage. Finally, the kind of leverage I needed to exert any amount of power, to level the scales between us just a little bit.
For however long that would last…
At least I’d gotten my two most important demands fulfilled. With our bargain ensuring he’d have to take me to visit Earth as much as I wanted, as well as allowing me freedom of movement within his house, the threat of mental death by boredom and isolation was officially off the table. I could breathe easier knowing I’d have some semblance of a life down here, rather than a semi-comfortable prison sentence.
I could work with that. Everything else would fall into place somehow.
Of course, there was the matter of my side of the bargain…
Now, if Taylor had been here, she’d have grabbed me by my shoulders and tried to shake some sense into me while yelling, “Have you lost your mind?”
Given that neither Tay nor anyone else with a lick of reason was here, though, I was alone with the embarrassingly eager part of myself that looked forward to my little charade with Azazel. Sometimes—okay, all too often—my good sense lost the fight to dangerous defiance, and I lived and breathed for a level of contrariness that was worrisome.
I knew what Azazel was doing. I recognized spite when I saw it. He wanted to put me in my place, punish me for my recalcitrance by making me uncomfortable in my role as his “pet.” Well, if he thought he could embarrass me and would see me cringe, he had another think coming.
I would show him up. I’d play my part so well, he’d be fooled right alongside that bigwig Zaquiel. He wanted to use sex as a means to fluster me? Oh, I’d fluster him. Right then and there, I swore I’d make him so hot under the collar, he’d blow steam even in Hell’s unrelenting heat.
The fragrance of the soap permeated the air, the same slightly spicy note I’d scented on Azazel, and I realized I would step out of this shower smelling like him from head to toe. Not that it affected me in any way.
Nope.
All clean, I shut off the water, rubbed myself dry with the huge fluffy towel hanging nearby, and wrapped it securely around me. It did a great job covering me from my chest down to below my knees, and I didn’t feel quite as exposed as I’d feared. My hair hung still mostly wet around my shoulders, but I hadn’t seen another towel large enough to wrap it up in. Steeling my spine, I opened the door to the bedroom.
His back turned to me, Azazel was in the process of pulling on a new pair of pants, and the one-second glimpse of his bare ass before the fabric covered it was enough to completely jumble my thoughts.
Heat flooded my already shower-warm skin, centered low in my abdomen with an irritating pulse.
It wasn’t fair. Such bitability should be prohibited.
“When you’re done admiring the view,” he said without sparing a glance at me while fastening his pants, “put that on.” He jerked his head at the bed.
Yanking myself out of my trance, I looked at the item he’d indicated.
Draped across the comforter lay a dress from my own wardrobe, and—likely not quite so incidentally—the most revealing piece of clothing I owned, aside from underwear, of course. Skin-tight, the blue sheath-style dress would mold to my body as if painted on, but not just that—it was mainly made of lace, see-through enough around the torso to grant enticing glimpses of anything underneath. It was meant to be worn with a decorative bra teasing through the lace, in a confident display of one’s own goodies at an opportunity that would invite such ostentatious eroticism…a bachelorette party, for example.
I’d never gotten up the nerve to actually wear it, and it had hung untouched in my closet for over a year.
“How did you—” I brushed my fingers over the filigree lace. “Did you run out and get this from my rooms just now?” Remembering the time it had taken to walk from his quarters to my suite that first day we’d arrived, I added, “Don’t tell me you kept this in here all this time.” I threw a salacious smile at him. “If you needed things of mine to sniff at and rub yourself on, my panties would be the more obvious choice, don’t you think?”
His gaze was molten as he raised a hand, and a towel appeared in his palm. “It’s called summoning. I can call on and materialize any object that is physically within my own estate and that I have seen before.” He threw the towel at me. “For your hair.”
I caught the towel before it hit me in the face and wrapped it around my head. “Nice trick,” I muttered, trying to stifle my envy.
Demon powers sure came in handy. Not that I wanted wings, or the ability to set my skin on fire, or heal wounds, or disperse a pack of bloodthirsty inferni-something creatures with a single word—okay, yes, fine, I did want all that. But hey, I could spontaneously mash up two sentences to create an epically embarrassing phrase in just the right situation, like that one time at the Target checkout when I struggled to pull my wallet out of my tote bag and my brain couldn’t decide between telling the cashier, “Hold on for a moment” and “Give me a minute,” so what I blurted out was, “Hold me for a minute,” so yeah, at least I had that going for me. Takes a special talent in the oral arts, that one.
Picking up the dress, I frowned. Checked the bed. Frowned some more. “Where,” I asked my devious demon, “is the bra?”
He didn’t even pause while shrugging into a new shirt, and the sight of his muscled torso in fluid motion temporarily stole my breath. “What bra?”
I cleared my throat. “This dress needs a bra. It’s almost completely see-through.” I demonstrated the level of transparency in the chest area by slipping my hand inside.
“I know.” He buttoned his shirt while regarding me with a glint in his eyes. “So?”
I breathed in and out through my nose, steadying myself. “Summon me one of my bras.” Realizing something, I added in a voice that was rapidly losing any steadiness I had managed, “And panties!”
The lace pattern of the dress did get denser below the hips, to the point the material wasn’t see-through anymore where it covered the butt and crotch area, but still.
“You seem to labor under the impression that you have any demands left to make.” He closed the distance between us with sinful grace and sensual menace, his fingers grabbing the knot in the towel wrapped around my body. “Let me disabuse you of that notion.”
He pulled just enough that the knot loosened just so, and I clasped the edges of the towel to hold it in place, my heart racing.
“Zaquiel is waiting. There is no time for your compulsive obstinacy. You either put this dress on yourself in the next minute, or I will put you in it.” His expression clearly said he preferred the latter.
It should have sounded like a threat. Really. Any woman with two brain cells left would have taken it as one. Apparently, I had less than that because for a second there, I considered resorting to the kind of defiance that would immediately get me option number two.
Glaring at him with what I hoped was haughtiness—and not the unbidden arousal I was trying to keep at bay—I gritted out, “Fine,” turned on my heels and stormed off into the bathroom.
The door closing behind me almost cut off his chuckle. Almost.
Chapter 9
The dress fit me like a glove. A super sexy, who-are-you-and-what-did-you-do-with-Zoe glove, and as I stared at my reflection in the mirror, I was torn between glee that this outfit would torture the fuck out of Azazel, and awkward self-con
sciousness about demonstrating roughly ten times more sex appeal than in my usual jeans and tank top/T-shirt.
Well, I had no other choice but to flaunt it. Wearing this dress with anything less than self-assured awareness of my own sexuality would not just be a disservice to the outfit, but also—more importantly—would play into Azazel’s little scheme of trying to make me uncomfortable. And I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me embarrassed.
We’d see about other kinds of satisfaction.
When I walked back into the bedroom, it was with a sexy swing to my hips and my head held high. Let the games begin.
Azazel was leaning against the door frame to the balcony, his form outlined by the storm of fire and lightning outside. With the lights in the bedroom dimmed low, all I could see in that moment was his shadowy form, silhouetted against the spectacular light show behind him.
But his eyes flared when his gaze fell on me, the silver flash competing with the lightning in the sky.
I couldn’t help it—I preened.
Despite all his bluster from before, his obvious intentions to simply set me aside and not engage with me, he couldn’t ignore me now, could he? I’d vowed not to beg for scraps of his attention, but damn did it feel good when I had his complete focus on me, underlaid with sensual hunger.
“Let’s go,” he said, and it wasn’t just my imagination that his voice had dropped lower, rougher than before.
I felt like a snack dangled in front of a starved lion.
A thought struck me as we walked out into the sitting room, and I halted in my tracks, my stomach dropping to my feet.
“Wait,” I rasped, cleared my throat. “Wait.”
Azazel swung around, his voice sharp and impatient. “What?”
“Will I have to...serve Zaquiel?”
It had occurred to me that we hadn’t specified this in our bargain. Azazel hadn’t said a word about the scope of our play, whether I’d be expected, as his “pet,” to be of service to his...friends as well.