He Loves Me, He Loves Me Hot

by Stephanie Rowe

  Satan shot a guilty look at Iris. “I do not recall her name.”

  Iris narrowed her eyes. “What’s the look for?”

  “Nothing.” He put his arm around Becca and hustled her off to the living room, where the couch pillows had been built into a cave on the middle of the floor. There was a pair of handcuffs and some massage oil inside, and Becca made a noise of disgust. “Tell me, Rivka, why do you die? I fix.”

  She sat on the couch a little too heavily, and Nick wanted to go sit next to her and lean against her, but he couldn’t, not with Satan being so protective. Instead, he stood behind her, his hands gripping the back of the couch on either side of her head.

  “One of our leads on tracking down Satan Jr. got tossed in the Chamber and I pulled the Terrors out of his body,” she explained. “But now I can’t get them out of me.”

  Satan sucked in his breath and sat back on his heels, a muddy gray aura suddenly bursting to light all around him. His pain and horror hit Nick so hard that Nick actually grunted and had to sit down. “Iris! Come hold me! I need you! My Rivka is going to die.”

  Iris didn’t move from the doorway. “Not until you tell me what’s going on with your ex-lover.”

  Satan spun around, a look of utter disbelief on his face. “How do you reject me at a moment of greatest need? I give much for you!”

  “You tell me why you got that guilty look on your face when Satan Jr.’s mom was mentioned, and then I’ll hug you.”

  “But—”

  Nick couldn’t stand it anymore, so he hopped over the back of the couch and landed next to Becca, drawing Satan’s attention back to them. He could feel the dark jealousy pouring out of Satan, along with his total devastation. “It’s your Chamber,” he said. “Surely you must know how to cleanse her.”

  “Why would I know that? People who go in Chamber are supposed to suffer terrible fate. They do not get healed.” Satan stood up and paced the room, his hands clasped behind his back. “This is much worrisome. The Chamber was designed most specifically to torture Rivkas. It is most excellent for that.” He came to a stop in front of Becca. “I order you to tell me exactly how you feel right now.”

  She sighed. “I itch. I’m tired. I feel…crappy.”

  “Aigh!” Satan grabbed his hair and tugged on it. “This is much bad! Much bad!” He sank down on a recliner and dropped his head between his knees and began to take deep breaths. “Too much to cope with. I cannot deal. Need to destroy world.”

  Nick shoved himself off the couch and sat on the edge of the coffee table, and leaned his head next to Satan. “I can help her,” he said quietly.

  “No, you cannot,” Satan whispered, his voice broken. “She is doomed. I toy with her much and pretend I kill her, but I never will. I cannot live without her.” His bent further toward the floor, his hair almost touching the carpet.

  “I have healer blood.”

  “Do I care? No! I do not care!” Satan sucked in a quaky breath and his shoulders quivered.

  “My light can give her the strength to keep the Terrors at bay until we can figure something out. I can keep her alive.”

  Satan took another breath and turned his head slightly, listening.

  “She won’t let me do it,” Nick continued. “When I merge with her that way, it becomes intimate, and she doesn’t want to be disloyal to you.”

  Satan lifted his head. “She would choose to die rather than be disloyal?”

  Nick nodded. “Yes.”

  Satan turned his head to Becca. “This is true?”

  She gave Nick a wry look. “Basically.”

  Satan sat up. “You challenge me and try to break free, but it is all a farce because you love to tease me, no?”

  “Of course.”

  Satan clapped his hand on Nick’s knee. “Man-friend, you offer your services to keep her alive? Is this what you do?”

  Nick managed to look unhappy. “There’s only one problem.”

  Satan’s face fell. “What is that?”

  “To connect enough to help her, we might need to have sex. Intimate sex.” He met Satan’s gaze. “It wasn’t in my plans, but for you, my new man-friend, I would do it. If you want me to.” He glanced at Becca and saw the hope in her gaze. He gave her a nod, and she smiled faintly.

  Satan nodded empathically. “Yes, I do. I do. Have sex with her. Do what is necessary.”

  Nick sighed. “You’d owe me.”

  “Of course. I would expect no less. What do you want?”

  “He will decide later,” Becca interrupted. “He needs to think about it.”

  Nick looked at her. “I do?”

  “Yes.”

  He shrugged and turned back to Satan. “I need to think about it.”

  “Very good. Very good.” Satan took a deep breath. “You keep her alive, yes? I will assign my best researchers to determine if there is way to save her. She must not die before I have answer.” He leaned back in his chair. “I will wait while you have sex with her. Then we will discuss disruption of hell.”

  “No.” Becca’s protest was quick. “Not here.”

  “Yes, here. I do not want to risk your life.”

  Nick got up and sat next to Becca, putting his arm around her and pulling her up against him. She immediately started drawing on his energy, and he relaxed slightly as he felt his light begin to restore her. “This will be enough for the moment.”

  Satan’s brow furrowed. “I can feel that. It is most intimate.”

  Becca tensed against him, and Nick gave Satan an easy grin. “So, now you realize the sacrifice I’m making to help you?”

  Satan frowned. “Yes, yes. I understand. Most big favor. I do not like favors. Decide soon what I owe you, or I kill you both.”

  He felt Becca’s wry amusement at that comment and knew that Satan’s threats to kill Becca would never scare her anymore. Not after this display. And Satan wouldn’t kill Nick, either, not as long as Nick was all that was keeping Becca out of the grips of the Terrors.

  She took a breath, and he could feel the void inside her filling, pushing back the Terrors. Somewhat. Not completely. But enough for the moment. “Satan, someone used the blister machine and linked the bubble to your life force. Is there a way to save that person other than killing you?”

  “Of course not. What kind of leader of hell would I be if my tortures had easy escape?”

  Nick frowned. “Are you sure? Nothing?”

  “Of course I am sure. I am Satan. I know all.”

  Nick closed his eyes for a brief second. Satan has to be wrong, too arrogant to admit weakness. There simply had to be a way to save his sister that didn’t entail killing Becca incidentally.

  “Who had access to the Goody Room?” Becca asked.

  “Ah…” He cleared his throat and snuck a glance at Iris, who was still by the door. “My fair Iris does not want hell’s business in her house. Perhaps we should take this discussion to my offices—”

  “No.” Iris walked across the room and sat down in another armchair and crossed her legs, the smooth material of her expensive black pants gliding with the movement. “I find politics fascinating. Please continue, or I’ll think you have something to hide.”

  Satan looked at Nick. “Help?”

  “Lies are bad. Be honest. Always better that way.”

  Satan looked at Iris again, then back at Nick. “Lies are quite good, actually. I find them most useful.”

  Becca sat forward, her hand gripping Nick’s knee. “Okay, so instead of getting all over Satan, I have a question for Iris.”

  “Oh, most excellent. Question for Iris.” Satan beamed at Becca. “Ask away.”

  “Why did you ask Satan to release the souls in hell?”

  Iris stopped swinging her foot. “Because I don’t approve of his day job.”

  “And you thought that sending bad people back into the mortal world to prey on the innocents would be a good idea on what level?”

  Iris blinked. “Is that what’s happening?
”

  “Yes. These people are bad, Iris. That’s why they’re there. He’s releasing all the worst souls.”

  “And they’re all trying to kill Becca,” Nick added, then tweaked her nose when she glared at him. “Hey, I care if you get assassinated before I’m through with you, even if you don’t.”

  Iris turned to Satan, who was frowning. “Why didn’t you release the ones on my list?”

  “I did.” He nodded. “That is not a lie. I have been going from your list. One soul for each orgasm. I was most admiring of your choices. Very bad people. Some of my favorites. Will be great fun to harvest them again. But I am not happy they are going after my favorite Rivka. Should they not be fearing my wrath if they hurt her? Do they not respect me?”

  “No!” Iris frowned. “That list was of people who didn’t deserve hell. She told me—”

  “Who told you?” They all asked the question at the same time, and Iris jerked back at the joint assault.

  “A woman in my purgatory women’s support group,” she answered. “She works in the admissions office in purgatory, and she’d gotten a list of people in hell who didn’t deserve it. We both thought it was would be doing a service to release those people…” She stared at the room. “The list was wrong?”

  “The list was wrong.” Becca drummed her fingers on Nick’s thigh, and he smiled at her unintentional contact. Now that she wasn’t worried about Satan killing him, he could feel her drawing on him with every ounce of her body. He was feeding her as best he could, but he could still feel the conflict inside her, the restlessness, the itch. He knew how desperate she was by the fact that she wasn’t trying to block him.

  She needed more, and soon.

  He set his hand over hers. She flipped her hand over and curled her fingers around his, and then started jiggling her lower leg.

  “Who is this woman?” Satan asked. “Why do you discuss our relationship with her? Is it not sacred to you?”

  “Her name is Rosemarie Galoux.” Iris ignored the last two questions. “She’s my friend. She’s been very supportive about my efforts to merge my life with yours…”

  “Rosemarie Galoux?” Satan’s mouth dropped open, and then he started to laugh. “Why did you not tell me this? Did she tell you not to tell me?”

  “Yes…why?” Iris was frowning now.

  “That is Satan Jr.’s mother! She has been manipulating you.” He slapped his thigh. “She has not lost her devious ways. Most impressive. Befriending my lover is most ingenious, and convincing you to manipulate me is most cunning. Women’s purgatory support group? I am much impressed. Rivka, send her letter of congratulations and invite her to next planning session on hell.”

  Iris was staring at him. “Rosemarie is your ex-lover?”

  “Yes! Most entertaining, no?” Satan sat back. “No wonder my son is so devious. Perhaps I should not have been so quick to discard her. Perhaps she would have made good queen of hell.”

  “What?” Iris’s voice was steely. “You want her instead of me?”

  “No, no.” Satan was on his knees in front of her in an instant. “She does not fill my soul with love. She is simply sex and cunning. Useful. Handy. You see?”

  “I hate to interrupt,” Nick interrupted. “But what about the bubble machine?”

  Satan gave Nick a look. “Later, man-friend.”

  “No, now.” Iris flicked him off her. “Tell me all.”

  Satan stood up and faced her, puffing out his chest as if he was trying to remind her of his virility. “Very well. I will tell you. After you gave me final rejection a month ago, before we reconciled, Rosemarie texted me to discuss how we could work together to get our son out of freezer. She was much admired of me, and I was much in need of being admired, so we had lots of somewhat hot sex—” At Iris’s outraged roar, he hurried on. “And after she left, I realized my Goody Room key was missing, but then you came back to me and I was so enamored of my love for you that I forgot about missing key until my best Rivka ask me about blister machine this very minute. And then I reject Rosemarie and tell her you are my one and only and she was much angry. So you see? You should feel proud she came after you. It means you are much threat to her.”

  Outrage rolled off Iris as she leapt to her feet. “You slept with another woman last month?”

  “To be fair,” Becca said, “you’d been rejecting Satan for two hundred years. It wasn’t as if you had a claim on him.”

  “But he was pursuing me! He wasn’t supposed to lose interest!”

  “I did not lose interest.” Satan darted over to Iris, taking her hand in his. “But I am a man. I am Satan. I must maintain my ego at all times, and I had to take emergency action. It is who I am. Being a god among peons is a burden I must accept and live with.”

  “That’s not an acceptable excuse to have sex with your ex-lover.” Iris pulled her hands out of his and took a deep breath. “I need some space.”

  Satan nodded. “I think that is best.”

  Iris looked stunned. “You do? But you never want space from me.”

  “My Rivka is dying. My son and ex-lover are making plans behind my back that I do not know about because I am giving you much vaunted orgasms instead of ruling all things with ruthless control. You want to make me into wuss man. I do not like wuss man. I do not like that souls no longer fear my wrath. I am not the man I once was, and I do not like that.”

  Iris met his gaze. “You could be so much more than what you are.”

  “I am already magnificent. You do not appreciate me. I accept you how you are, yet you seek to strip me of all that makes me manly man.”

  Iris stiffened. “That’s not true.”

  “No? You would take me as I am?”

  “I…” She glanced at Nick and Becca, and Nick could feel the love pounding from both of them so fiercely that it actually hurt his chest. And the pain. So much pain. Iris walked across the living room and picked up her purse. “I’m going for a walk. Alone.” She hesitated, but when Satan didn’t protest, she turned and walked out the door.

  Satan stared after her, then turned back to Nick and Becca. “Well, then, so we must find Rosemarie. I do not know where she lives. She finds me.” He frowned. “I do not know what she is, either. I thought she was human, but she would be dead now if she was. But she is quite not dead.” He smiled. “She was very feisty in the bedroom last month. Not like Iris, but…” Tears suddenly filled his eyes. “My Iris is gone. There is no hope for us. I cannot go on without her, but I cannot go on with her.” He groaned and slumped back in the chair, then stared at the wall behind Becca, blinking hard.

  Becca frowned, and Nick felt her concern for Satan. Bad boss or not, she was worried about him, which just added to the complexity of her nature. There was nothing cold and heartless about his Rivka, nothing at all.

  “Are you going to be all right?” she asked Satan.

  “I am most excellent.” Satan took a deep breath, but Nick could feel his anguish cascading off him. “I think maybe I need some time alone.” He looked at Nick. “Keep my Rivka alive.” His eyes got even more watery. “I tell my researchers to look for cure.” His voice cracked slightly, and he looked horrified. “I must go. People to kill.” And then he disappeared in an explosion of gold and black bubbles.

  “Well, okay then, now we have a name,” Becca said briskly just as Nick turned toward her to ask her how she was feeling, waving him off. She pulled out her phone and hit speed dial. “Theresa? It’s me. Yes, I’m fine. I need your help…” She looked at Nick. “No, he didn’t abduct me. I’ll tell you later. Can you please have Zeke find Rosemarie Galoux for me? Thanks. Call my cell, and yes, I’ll tell you later.” She snapped her phone shut and shifted restlessly. “Theresa’s husband can find anyone. He’ll be able to tell us where to find her in an hour or so.” She wiped the back of her hand over her forehead and stood up, tugging her shirt away from her ribs. “I need to go home and change. These clothes of Dani’s are driving me nuts.”

  �
�It’s the not the clothes. It’s the Terrors.” He slipped his fingers around her wrist and pulled her toward him, not letting her shut him out anymore. “You need me, Becca.” He brushed his lips over hers and almost winced at how cold they were. “Take what I can give you.”

  She pulled back slightly to look at his face, and he knew before she spoke what she was going to say.

  Nineteen

  I’m fine.” She twisted free, and he let her go, his fingers drifting off her skin, sending shivers up her arm that made her want to fall into his embrace and let him make her feel alive. “Listen, Nick, I appreciate the whole getting permission from Satan to have sex, but I’m not going to sleep with you. I just can’t, okay? I’ll just go visit your mom and she can take care of things. Keep me going.”

  “My ma is already drained enough. She can’t help you.”

  Oh, well. Best laid plans and all that crap.

  His eyes flickered with determination, and he leaned into her space. “My sister’s life is at stake. Hell is breaking loose. You don’t have the right to let yourself die just because of your emotional baggage.”

  “Oh, now, see? That’s just a like a man. Ordering me to stay alive. You and Satan both. What right do you have to tell me to stay alive?” She rolled her eyes. “That is my whole problem with my life! I have no control over any choice I want to make, and then you come in and think you can order me around, too.” She glared at him. “Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do.”

  He held up his hands in apology. “Just one question, then.”

  She eyed him as she shoved her hands in her front pockets to keep from rubbing at the burning sensation creeping over her skin. “Only one? I doubt it.”

  “Do you want to die when you don’t have to?”

  “You know I don’t.”

  “So, why won’t you take advantage of the fact that I can help you?”

  She stared at him, then spun away. “I have to go.” She dissolved into the floor but was too slow, and Nick grabbed her arm before she had fully faded.