“Maybe, but I could have eaten a lot more pizza and done a lot less exercise. And I went to school with plenty of guys who washed their hair once a week whether —”
“— they needed it or not,” she finished, and smiled shyly. “My dad used to say that. Okay, so you were a hottie and you loved it when the chicks were all nuts about you. This isn’t exactly reassuring.”
He shook his head. “I’m not trying to be reassuring, though if you want my word I won’t be with anyone else, I can give it to you. My point is, I thought I’d earned the attention, that I was something special. And then Vivienne turned up year before last — on Christmas, no less! — and she told me what I really am and I realized I hadn’t earned a damn thing. None of those girls liked me because of me or because of anything I’d done. It was a cheat and a lie. And I didn’t want any part of it.”
He looked so utterly miserable she would have gone to him then, if he’d held out a hand, but he didn’t and she hesitated until the moment was lost.
“And then I saw you, at the club, and I didn’t want to look at anything else. And when we danced … the feel of you, the smell of you … I wanted you. And you didn’t want me back. You can’t know — you can’t even imagine — what that felt like. You can’t imagine what it is to know you can say no to me … and what it will mean to me if you don’t.”
“Sebastian —”
“I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t understand it because I’ve never felt it before. But I want to be with you. I don’t want anyone else. I haven’t for a long time and now I can’t imagine I ever will. Maybe that’s what you feel. Maybe that’s why you can’t help yourself with me; because I can’t help myself with you.”
“Couldn’t you just … tone it down a little?” She was trying to be gentle, because that look in his eyes when he’d let go of her hadn’t been just anger. “The mojo?”
“There’s no dimmer switch either, Lily.” He spread his arms. “You’re welcome to look for one.”
A delicious thought, to be sure, but she shook her head. “I don’t know how to know what I really want.”
“Then I suppose we’re at an impasse,” he said, and looked away. “I’ll be in my room if you change your mind.”
And he turned and crossed the suite to the master bedroom, shutting the door very quietly behind him. A moment later she heard glass shattering on the other side. She winced and sat heavily on the sofa.
Now you’ve done it.
He might not be human, but she’d been getting a sense of him these last few days. That hadn’t just been anger in his eyes when he backed away; he’d been hurt. She knew the look — how often did she see it on someone’s face when she said some stupid, thoughtless thing. Which was precisely what she’d just done. He’d saved her life and she’d repaid him for it by basically calling him a rapist.
On the other hand — as soon as he’d backed away from her, her thoughts had gotten less fuzzy. Whether he meant to or not — and she guessed she’d assume he was telling the truth about it, because obviously he didn’t need to lie to get what he wanted out of her — he sapped her will to resist him, just by touching her.
On the other hand — he wasn’t touching her now, and she still wanted to follow him into that room, take what she knew he could give her. He could have anyone he wanted, that much was clear, and he wanted her. Was she going to deny him — deny them both — what they wanted, because she wanted to prove a point? Was she resisting him just because she could?
On the other hand …
No. She was out of hands.
She shook her head, mad at herself. Something amazing was happening to her. Someone amazing had come into her life and wanted her, and she wanted him just as much. And, sure, the otherworldly part of it was mind-blowing and too much to comprehend, really — but the single most basic fact of the thing was the man in the next room wanted to be hers, wanted her to be his. Made her feel alive. Had saved her life.
He wasn’t human.
But he was human enough to want someone to like him for himself.
He was human enough to have hurt feelings when she insulted him.
He was human enough to wrap a two thousand dollar coat around a woman some people would have said wasn’t worth the cost of dry cleaning it.
She stood, crossed the suite, knocked on his door.
The door opened and he stood in the doorway, looking at her with the oddest, softest expression on his face.
“If we start sleeping together,” she said, “it’s going to be really, really amazing, isn’t it?”
He smiled, slowly, and it felt like all the blood drained from her brain and relocated a couple of feet south. “Yes,” he said, and held out his hand.
She took it.
Chapter 12
LATER — MUCH LATER — Lily sprawled contentedly across his chest, her hair plastered to her sweaty neck.
“Sebastian?” she managed, wishing the room would stop spinning.
“Mmph?” he said, eloquently.
“I’m not sure I still have any toes.”
He shifted so he could peer down the paired length of them. “I can’t swear to it. Why the doubt?”
“I haven’t felt them in a while,” she said, giggling.
He used his finger to tilt her chin up, then captured her mouth in a scorching kiss which did absolutely nothing to give her any confidence she might still have toes. She wasn’t actually one hundred percent certain about anything below the knees.
“Let’s have a look, then,” he said, and rolled the two of them over so he was on top.
It took a while for him to get down to toe level, as he stopped at every sensitive spot on the way to experiment with his teeth and tongue. She batted at him the first couple of times he stopped — behind the ears and along the ridge of her collarbone — but was too weak to be very effective. Eventually he made it to her knees, tasted the ticklish skin behind each of them, then pinched each of her big toes.
“We have verified the presence of toes,” he said solemnly. “Permission to return?”
“Permission granted,” she said, already quivering with the anticipation of a long trip back north to her mouth. By the time he got back up there, she’d be ready to —
But to her surprise, he grasped her by the calves and rolled her over, starting the return trip by nibbling along the back of her calves. Lily was acutely aware that she was not insubstantial — to say the least, she thought — and the casual reminder of his otherworldly strength was a little chilling — and a lot erotic.
Maybe she could get used to this whole demon lover thing. It wasn’t like he’d asked for her immortal soul, if she even had such a thing. So far, there didn’t seem to be a downside to the whole thing.
She wiggled, hoping he’d find some pleasant spots to visit on the newly exposed areas; the small of her back, for example, was a full handspan of erogenous zone all on its own.
Like the mind-reader he swore he wasn’t, he feathered his fingers gently right there, along the base of her spine. She shivered.
Then he poked her, higher up on her spine, between her shoulder blades. Kind of hard. Not very erotic.
She frowned. “Do that other thing again,” she said.
“Lily?” he said, like it was a question — and there was something about the tone of his voice she didn’t like one bit. Something hesitant, and unsure, and … worried. From a man who’d broken four men to pieces without getting a scratch on him.
She could, in fact, verify, that every delectable inch of him was scratch-free.
“Lily,” he said, more forcefully. No question now.
“What?”
“Do you have a tattoo?”
“What?” She craned her neck to look over her shoulder at him. “No, I don’t have a tattoo. The way I yo-yo diet? Please.”
“You don’t have a tattoo here?” He traced a little pattern between her shoulder blades. If she did ever get a tattoo, it certainly wasn’t going to be
there — why get a tattoo somewhere you couldn’t even see it?
“What kind of a question is that?” she asked, trying to get her head far enough around to at least get a glimpse of what he was looking at. Not being a professional contortionist, she had little success. “Is there something there?”
He said nothing.
“Sebastian!” Twisting her head around like the kid from The Exorcist was getting her nowhere, so she stopped and resolutely faced front again, looking directly at the pillow. “Tell me.”
“I think I’d better show you,” he said, and rose from the bed, picking her up effortlessly and depositing her next to him. The dresser was only a few steps away and he turned her three quarters away from the mirror and said, “Look.”
She looked back over her shoulder and this time, in the mirror, could see very clearly what he was talking about. There was a mark there, vaguely circular, about double the diameter of a quarter — and while she didn’t spend a whole lot of time checking out her own back, she knew damn well there had been no mark there before. It was far too dark and too regular to be a bruise, and anyway he’d poked it pretty hard; it didn’t feel like a bruise. And it appeared to have some kind of pattern — a knot, maybe, or vines or something of that sort. She couldn’t quite make it out.
“What is it?” she gasped, not liking the strangled sound that came out of her throat but unable to do much about it.
He cleared his throat, just a little noise, but huge to her because it wasn’t an answer.
“Sebastian!”
“It’s … ” He pursed his lips — delectable, but she was too distraught to be tempted.
“It’s what?”
“It’s a brand,” he said. “It’s a mark of ownership.”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry?”
“It marks you as my mate,” he said, as though that made any sense, in any way.
“I’m sorry?” she repeated, stupidly. “It does what now?”
He lifted his eyes, finally, met her desperately confused gaze. “It means you belong to me,” he said. “It means you’re mine.”
She fought the urge to repeat herself a second time and instead said nothing for a minute, taking deep breaths, trying to imagine what he even meant. She didn’t belong to anyone.
With her heartbeat returning to something like normal, she figured probably that was the best way to resume the conversation.
“I don’t belong to anyone,” she said. “That’s not how it works.”
“That’s not how what works, Lily?” he snapped.
“Don’t you get snippy with me,” she said, and bent to pick up her shirt and pants. She slipped them on, didn’t bother with her bra and underwear. They were practically in tatters anyway.
“Don’t try to tell me how things work, then,” he said. “You’ve no idea how any of this works. That mark means you can’t be with anyone else now. You belong to me.”
“I don’t belong to anyone,” she repeated. “I can walk out of here and —” she snapped her fingers. “I’d find another guy like that.”
This was patently untrue. Hadn’t she been single for almost a year before Sebastian turned up? But she was as full of bravado as she was of shit, and it was a potent combination.
“I think you’ll find you’re wrong,” he said. His voice was ominous, and put her hackles up.
“We’ll see about that,” she said, and tried to step around him.
His hand shot out and grasped her by the upper arm. It didn’t hurt, but neither was she going anywhere without his say-so.
“Let me go,” she said.
The tension in the room rocketed into the red zone. She held his gaze, refusing to back down.
Then he sighed and let go. “Please,” he said. “Please don’t walk out right now, not until we talk about all of this.”
She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket, thumbed it on, touched the Timer app icon. “You’ve got ten minutes,” she said, setting it to count down. “You’d better make it good.”
He sat heavily on the edge of the bed. “I don’t even know where to start.”
She shook her head, reached down and picked up his pants. “Start by putting these on. Shirt, too,” she said, retrieving that as well. “You’re distracting me.”
“I’m not doing anything,” he said, frustration in every syllable.
She couldn’t help smiling a little. “No, I wasn’t accusing you of anything. For a change.”
He answered her small smile with one of his own, then patted the bed beside him. “Sit.”
“Sure thing — once you put on those clothes. I know you don’t mean to but you’re doing that … thing.”
He complied and she sat, folding her legs Indian style and facing him. His eyes strayed to her phone, counting backward steadily to the eight-and-a-half minute mark. “Can we maybe reset —”
“Nope.”
“Okay. Cliff’s Notes, then — and please understand, I don’t know much about it myself. This is advanced stuff. I know a little from things I’ve picked up here and there, but it’s not like I had a reason to really ask any questions about this.”
“Noted,” she said. “Now tell me.”
“There are … formalities.” He stole a glance at the timer again. “Contracts, if you will, though there’s no stupid signing in blood or whatever. Covenants. Both of the big guys are huge on covenants.”
“The big guys?” she said.
He tilted his eyes up to the ceiling, down to the floor.
She felt her eyes widen. “You mean —”
“Yup,” he said, but didn’t name them. For all she knew he wasn’t supposed to. “So, when two people — or entities — wish to form a permanent alliance, there’s a sort of ritual. A ceremony of binding.”
“Okay.”
“And that ceremony — it leaves this mark.”
“And it means?”
He peeked at her timer again. “It means you’ve bound yourself to a demon.”
“Bound in what sense?” she demanded. “I assume since you said mate we’re not talking about golf partners, or doubles tennis.”
“Like …” He seemed to be searching for a word, shrugged. “Yes, mates. But it’s not just about the sex. It’s a relationship bond.”
Astonished that her voice sounded like a normal person’s might, instead of the gibbering wreck she’d just become on the inside, she managed, “Are you talking about being married?”
He blanched. Typical, she thought. Demon or no, he’s still a dude. Say the word “marriage” and he falls apart.
“No,” he said, quickly. “That’s not — I mean—”
“Do you have one?” she demanded. “A mark?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I didn’t bind myself to a demon,” he said.
“Well, technically, neither did I,” she said, tersely. “There may have been some moaning and/or sighing, but I certainly wasn’t embarking on any covenants.”
“I know,” he said. “I don’t know what to say. I told you, I don’t know much about this.”
“Then who does?” Lily asked.
He groaned. “My mother would know.”
“Your mother?”
“She specializes in contract language for ….” He paused. “For her particular specialty.”
“Contract language,” Lily said, incredulous.
“Yes,” he said. “I told you, there are contracts. Agreements. Covenants. The language has to be standardized. People keep trying to find loopholes.”
“And she has a specialty?”
He sighed. “Of course she does. Lust and other carnal sins. She’s a succubus.”
“Your mom’s a sex contract lawyer for Hell.”
“More of a supervisor.”
“A supervisor.”
“Kind of on par with, maybe, a Vice President.”
Her eyes widened again. “And the President is?”
Sebastian simply arched
an eyebrow at her, dropped his gaze to the floor again.
Lily took a deep breath, held it for a moment. It was time to fish or cut bait, she supposed. All in or all out. And it looked like all out wasn’t an option right now.
“You are so lucky I watch so much TV,” she said.
He blinked at her. “Come again?”
“Maybe later.” She winked. “What I mean is, if I didn’t watch so damn much Buffy and Supernatural, maybe you’d be carting me off to the loony bin instead of taking me home to Mother.”
He winced.
She giggled. “You’re taking me home to meet your Mom.”
“I suppose, if you want to put it like that,” he said.
“And we’re some special kind of magical demon-style married?”
“I wish you’d stop saying that,” he snapped.
“I know you do, dear,” she said, sweetly. “But what I’m driving at is: do you know what this means?”
“What does it mean?” he asked.
“It means I’ve got the mother-in-law from hell. Literally.”
And despite everything, she couldn’t help but laugh at the way he rolled his eyes and grinned at her.
One way or another, it was going to be okay.
- The End -
Thank you for reading One Hell of a Guy.
If you’d like to know what happens next for Lily and Sebastian, be sure to check out A Deal With the Devil, Book 2 in the Cambion Trilogy, available for pre-order now!
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One Hell of a Guy: The Cambion Trilogy, Book 1 Page 8