Confusion clouded his understanding. “You’re one of the most confident people I know. You’ve never come across to me as a person who questions her purpose or decisions.”
It was, in fact, one of the things that drew him to her. Riona made no excuse for who she was while not expecting anyone else to bend their own beliefs to meet hers. Like when he walked in on her making out with that woman. Poor Riona thought when he said “it’s a sin,” he was talking about her activities. She was insulted at his declaration, but she didn’t try to apologize for being found rolling around on the floor with another woman. Little did she know the images that passed through Marc’s mind at seeing her blushing and out of breath in the pursuit of passion: him touching her, making her moan that way, feeling the pressure of her lips under his... She didn’t know of the jealousy that filled him, the envy of that black-haired woman who could explore Riona with her mouth, her hands, her fingertips in a way he never would be able to.
The sins were not hers, but his. Lust, envy, desire. His soul threatened to defect from his vow.
“Marc…” She shifted, moving to the very edge of the sofa. Her hands reached out and took his into their grasp. “I keep so much hidden from you. Truth is, you’ve made me question why I would do… almost do something like that last night. Even under a charm’s influence, I should be able to resist. I’m the Keystone, right? I have to be stronger than the evil I’m fighting, or we’re all doomed. But when it came down to it, I figured that what almost happened, almost happened not because I couldn’t resist, but because I didn’t want to.”
Her eyes flashed up to his, and he prayed she didn’t catch the hint of a grin he quickly doused.
“You’re right,” she continued. “I do have confidence in myself. To the point that I’m arrogant and self-centered and refuse to acknowledge when I’ve screwed up. I don’t make excuses because I don’t hold myself accountable to anyone. I saw the lust charm as an excuse for me to do what I really wanted to do anyways. And I didn’t care how it affected you or what the consequence was. I was only concerned with getting what I wanted. I guess what I’m trying to say, Marc, is that while I do love you, I loved myself more. I was being selfish and I… Marc?”
His white knuckles wrapped around her hands so hard, he feared he’d break her fingers. “What did you just say?”
“I was being selfish?” Her eyebrows arched.
“Before that. You said… You said that you love me?”
She pulled back meekly, shrugging. “I thought you knew.”
Marc leapt up and began to pace with more professional acumen than a lecturing parent. “You know I… I can’t ever be… It doesn’t matter that…”
He could see a tear in the corner of her eye grow into a dollop, and hear her voice break. “I don’t expect anything, Marc. I know I’m beneath you, that I’m not worthy. I know that someone with a history like mine could never hope to…”
But she never got to say what she could never hope to. He had her pressed to his lips and in his arms before another syllable was possible. His heart pounding in his ears sounded like it was auditioning for the percussion section of the Boston Pops. Its cadence gave him a steady marching rhythm to walk Riona backward, through the door he hoped led to her bedroom.
“Fuck, you’re worthy,” he breathed between kisses, turning his attention from her lips to her neck. She hissed when he ripped at her collar to expose her neck before biting at the flesh where it planed out into the delicate curve of her collarbone. “God, Riona, you’re worth every bit of hellfire.”
When they reached the bed, Riona grabbed him by the lapels and brought his body down over hers. A momentary shot of guilt ran through him when, between tastes of her mouth, he spotted his clerical collar being thrown into the corner. Let it go, he told himself. He was aware enough to know this was the end; he would never preach another sermon again. He was giving in, giving up. He was exchanging the purity of Heaven for the bliss of sin. He was going to make love to this woman, come hell or high water.
So it surprised him when Riona ran her fingers through his hair and pulled his head up, meeting his curious expression.
“No!” she gasped through heavy breaths. Her lips were so swollen and wet, he found it difficult to focus on her words.
He pulled back, gasping. “What? Why?”
“You’ll be damned, and it will be all my fault. I can’t carry that on my shoulders.”
His teeth ground, his blood pressure spiked. “Damn Him!” Marc cried as his brow fell on Riona’s chest. “How can God make someone like you and put you in my path, only to deny me the right to love you properly? And in return, ask me to fight His battles on Earth against evil? How could he ask so much of one man, expect all the fucking pain and give none of the pleasure?”
“It’s no sin to love me, Marc.” Riona’s fingers brought comfort as they stroked his hair. “We just can’t… you know… go all the way.”
That was bloody it, wasn’t it? “Riona, you’re brilliant!”
“I know that, but why do you think so?”
Meeting her lips again, he teased her with minute pecks. “We can’t ‘go all the way.’ It’s a mortal sin. It will damn me, and maybe you. But as long as we don’t… um, consummate, I think we’re safe.”
She glared at him askew. “Are you sure? Can you control yourself that much?”
“You don’t understand how much I’ve been controlling myself since the day we met.” He nodded and laughed. “I’m a priest. I know these definitions pretty damned well. I can’t make love to you, Riona. God, believe me though, I want to. But I can do a lot just short of that.”
Riona grinned as she rolled him unto his back. “As long as we don’t go too far, then?” She began undoing the buttons of his starched, pressed shirt. “Okay, agreed. We stop before we cross the line. But I think there’s a lot …”
Her fingertips trailed a path over his exposed chest. When they coasted over his nipples, he felt a little electric shock connect, making the tips hard under her touch. He thought the roles were reversed — it wasn’t like he had clocked a lot of time in bedroom activities to have a better understanding — but damn if it didn’t make his head spin.
“…that comes before all-the-way, which you might enjoy.”
As her lips came down where moments ago her fingers had been, his eyes rolled in his head. The double-edged blade of the feel of her curves and the lust radiating off her aura was lashing in on him from all sides.
He didn’t need to be damned to experience Hell. Hell was what she was doing to him now, knowing it could never be more than this.
Hell was loving Riona.
Chapter 23
Oh, God. His lips… so caressing, so passionate, so sensual.
But not Marc’s.
Hell, not even really Jerry’s.
As Riona came to her temporarily-seduced-and-distracted senses, rage filled her. The bitch slap that landed on the demon-in-a-demigod’s-wool squarely across the jaw was one for the record books. Jerry took it like a man — which was saying something for Hell’s former number one draft pick — as he rubbed the red mark her vengeance left behind, looking more entertained than anything. A mix of smug delight and awkward confusion played in his expression.
Which just made Riona want to hit him again. Or kiss him. Or hit him.
“I’d stab you for that, Jerry Romani, if it wasn’t for the fact that you’re possessing my friend’s body.”
He shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time you murdered me.” He leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, “And just so you know, it would be worth dying for. You taste better than I remembered.”
Ramiel recognized the thin line of tolerance on which Jerry was dancing the cha-cha, even if the demon didn’t. He thrust his body between the two, creating a broad-shouldered barrie
r. Riona wondered if it was for her protection, or for Jerry’s.
“This isn’t what you’re here for, demon. Unless you want to be on the first Hell-bound flight back home, you better finish telling her what she needs to know.”
Jerry nodded and maneuvered his borrowed body back on the corner of the desk behind him. “Oh, drop the holy roller routine, Ramiel. I know why I’m here. Riona, Big Boss has it in for you. I’ve never seen him so determined to harvest a soul in my thousands of years of service. He’s been trying to get at you for the better part of a year now, ever since one of the soothsayers in HR…”
“Lucifer has an HR department?” she interrupted.
Jerry’s answer was accompanied by finger quotes. “Hellish Resources, though if you ask me, it’s not that different from the Earth-side version. Anyways, ever since HR said you’d be the next Pure Soul when the last Keystone was taken out of the picture, he’s been obsessed with you. But every attempt he’s made keeps getting thwarted. Even using me, his number one seducer of the sexes, didn’t work.”
“Don’t give yourself airs, Jerry.”
Jerry’s blue eyes looking out from Dee’s not-entirely-displeasing Grecian face made her breath catch. “Don’t dare tell me I’m not the best you ever had. Has anyone else ever given you four times an hour for three hours straight?”
Even Ramiel turned an incredulous eye to her on that, eyebrows raised. The way she shied away and blushed were all the confirmation he needed.
“You still have that annoying habit of interrupting me when I’m trying to tell you something very important, you know that? Always making everything about sex, too.”
Ramiel caught Riona’s hand and silenced her tongue before either could inflict any harm upon the demon.
“So that message from Dee was fake. Oh, my God, Jerry! I have to call Marc.” She whipped out her cell phone and began punching numbers like a drunken monkey.
“He’ll have blocked Marc’s line. Just ‘cause he’s evil don’t mean he’s dumb. You made it too easy. As we speak, Lucifer is in your apartment, setting up Marc for seduction.”
Ramiel shook his head woefully, but Riona was confused.
“I don’t get it. Lucifer isn’t human. Even if Marc does sleep with ‘her,’ that won’t break his vow to the church, right? It’s not technically fornication, if it’s with a being that can’t, by its very nature, create life. Or at least, I think that’s what Dee told me.”
The corners of Jerry’s mouth peaked. “You know the all-human clause of the Hell-Heaven Accords of 1533? Is this something that has come up in conversation before?”
Riona shuffled in place. “When I first learned about the whole Moral Right truth Thing, I had lots of questions. Being that I did sleep with a demon, and all.”
“But that’s not quite the situation here,” the angel interceded. “The intention, and seeing it through, is a sin under church doctrine, even if the act isn’t technically by agreement of the accords. Marc superseded MRT when he took vows. Even if he sleeps with Lucifer, thinking it’s you, he’ll be just as damned as if he did the real you.”
Riona’s hands became the epicenter of her own personal tremor. “Ramiel, shift yourself to him! Stop them before it’s too late.”
“You know I can’t do that,” he ground out, revealing the depth of his sorrow at that sad fact marring his features. “Angels can only guide and tempt, we can’t fight or force with the use of our angelic abilities. Free will, babe, it’s the unbreakable rule. And I can’t touch Lucifer. He’s way above my pay grade. He’d vanquish me in a second.”
Riona gaped. “Vanquish? Angels can be vanquished?”
Ramiel nodded. “Not permanently like demons, but temporarily, yes. I think it’s also safe to assume that Lucifer wouldn’t leave the area open to access. He’ll have some powerful magic wrapped around that place to make sure no one gets in without a fight.”
“Except me,” she realized. “Because I’m the one he’s after.”
The angel nodded. “Bingo.”
“You know the worst part of this?” Jerry spit out. “Marc’s going to be ruined for you for the rest of his mortal days on Earth, once you guys do hook up.” Both Riona and Ramiel glared at the demon, but he simply shrugged nonchalantly. “What? If he’s damned anyways, why wouldn’t you jump him? It’s not like sinning kills him instantly, and you can’t damn him again once the deed is done. Lucifer is still going to have to wait for his mortal body to die before he can reincarnate Marc’s soul in demon flesh in Hell. Assuming you still find a way to make it out of this and stay earthside, that is. You could… Well, you could really be with him then, build a life together.” Jerry’s voice and hope grew small. “If that’s what you want, I mean.”
“It wouldn’t be right,” Riona breathed out. “I respect his commitment to the church, and even damned, I don’t think his love for the role he serves there would be diminished. His commitment would probably grow even stronger.”
Jerry pushed himself off the desk and paced to Riona. He reached out, and though she flinched, she kept her place as his fingers trailed over her cheek, his fingertips tracing over her lips. “Then frankly, my dear, I don’t think he deserves you. Anybody who’d forgo the love of a woman like you for the sake of a fucked-up organization like his isn’t worth your time. Don’t look at me that way; it doesn’t change my mind. I’ll still help you save him, but you should know that half of me wants to see you in Hell. Then I can be with you and show you what a real man does for the woman he loves.”
Her eyes rolled like dice on a Vegas crap table. “You expect me to wilt or something? Oh, Jerry,” her voice mocked him as she acted the part of a swooning, lovesick Southern belle, “how sweet. You tried to get me damned so we could spend an eternity in Hell making love... Get real.”
Ramiel had seen and heard enough. Standing around listening to Jerry and Riona’s verbal sparring wasn’t doing shit to help Marc. He pulled them both by the arms and dragged them into the hall.
“Enough flirting, kids. We have a job to do. And since I can’t shift you there under the circumstances, I expect a lead foot, Riona.”
Outside, Riona’s hands flew up over her eyes, shielding them from the setting sun’s glare. Jerry sucked oxygen in through gritted teeth like he was a five-year-old, eating lime-flavored gelatin. For all his tough guy talk, he shriveled like a daisy as he fell into the passenger seat, inviting a very reluctant Riona into his lap.
“It’s not like the angel and Dionysus’s hulking body can both fit on this side of a Miata, darling.”
But she was so not having any of that. “Ramiel, shift yourself to my building. You can do that, right? As long as you don’t interfere with our actions, you can stand there, right?”
His head bobbed. “Yeah.”
“Good, go then. We’ll be there as fast as I can drive it.”
“And leave you and him alone in a car together?” Ramiel barked. “Do I look like I was drawn from the ether yesterday? Helping us or not, Jerry’s still a demon, still a minion of Hell. Using Dee’s biceps and his own demon enchantments, he could overpower you in a second.”
Blanching like a slivered almond, the witch spluttered to explain. “I know, but I don’t think he will. I think… I trust him, Ramiel. I can’t explain why. And if anything does happen, I trust myself to be able to handle him, even if he is scum.”
“I’m standing right here, you know,” Jerry reminded them, his arms crossed over his chest. “I can hear everything you’re saying.”
Ramiel’s eyes shifted, first to Riona, then accusingly back at Jerry, then to Riona again. With a huff, the angel took a few steps away from the car, glaring in the demon’s direction. “You hurt one hair on her head, and I will personally redeliver the plagues upon your ass and send you packing back to Old Nick with a big red bow and a bottl
e of Dom, you got it?”
And with that, he was gone.
Shifting the car into fifth, Riona looked at the demon via the rearview mirror. “What kind of defenses will he have up?”
“The mother of all Morgana Boxes. Probably around the whole building.”
“Am I going to be able to break Lucifer’s Morgana Box?” Despite her determination, she knew Jerry could hear the doubt in her voice.
“Like you said, he won’t be blocking you out. You’ll be able to get through the box just fine. That’s not what I’m worried about, though,” Jerry admitted. “He’ll have some of his private guard there, too. Demon soldiers, very lethal, but not too bright. I’m worried whether they’ll recognize you as off limits.”
“And if they don’t?”
He coughed a laugh. “Fortunately for me, I’m wielding the body of a demigod and have an archangel working with me. Ramiel can’t use his angelic charms, but he can use that mean left hook he has when things turn physical.”
“Will that be enough?”
She couldn’t help hearing the doubt in his voice. “It will have to be.”
It was as good of an answer as she could hope for. “Okay, what else can I do?”
“Is there a back entrance to your building?”
“Of course.”
Jerry nodded. “Good, we’ll avoid that and go in the front.” Her confused grimace forced him to clarify. “Lucifer will plan on you trying the less obvious thing. The best hope, then, is to do the most obvious thing. Reverse psych, and all that. Hopefully, that means the guard is lighter by the front. Damn, if only you could make yourself invisible.”
Finally, a bit of a break. “But, Jerry, I can!”
His eye roll would have put any teen drama queen’s to shame. “No, you can’t.”
Pure & Sinful (Pure Souls) Page 19