The Devil's Playground mk-5

by Jenna Black

“They aren’t exactly dropping off the face of the earth,” I muttered, but I knew what she meant. These were people who didn’t have friends and family who would raise a stink over their loved one being illegally possessed.

  “Why are you telling me?” I asked. “Isn’t this more up Adam’s alley than mine?”

  Shae just looked at me, her eyes cold and hard. I guess I already knew the answer to that question. She might be forced to work with Adam in her role of police snitch, but she sure as hell didn’t like it. Or him.

  “Forget I asked,” I said. “Do you know how these demons are getting to the Mortal Plain?”

  Once a demon was on the Mortal Plain, it could transfer from host to host via skin-to-skin contact. However, it couldn’t come here from the Demon Realm in the first place without an invitation from a willing host.

  “Don’t know,” Shae said. “I don’t seem to be missing any regulars, though, so it isn’t a case of legal demons moving to new hosts. These demons are definitely new arrivals.”

  The implications made me shudder. Although a host had to voluntarily invite a demon onto the Mortal Plain, there were any number of ways someone could be forced to “volunteer.” I was a prime example, having been drugged and manipulated by Raphael so that I would invite Lugh to the Mortal Plain and into my body, even though being possessed was—at the time—my worst nightmare. Luckily, because of my, er, special genetic makeup, I retain control of my body, except on rare occasions where Lugh takes over—usually by mutual agreement, and once in a while by brute force. But whoever these hapless “volunteers” were, they were worse than dead, their minds fully intact, trapped inside bodies they could not control.

  “I don’t know how these demons are gaining access to the Mortal Plain,” Shae said, “but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that there would be this sudden influx while Dougal is keeping Lugh’s seat warm.”

  I didn’t, either. Because Lugh was still king even though he was AWOL, Dougal was only the regent, and his powers were limited. But since Lugh hadn’t officially outlawed the possession of unwilling hosts yet, and since there were always way more demons wanting to come to the Mortal Plain than there were willing hosts, it wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine that Dougal had arranged to make more hosts available.

  “I need to know exactly how they’re getting here,” I muttered, more to myself than to Shae.

  “I’d love to tell you,” Shae said. “For a price.” I opened my mouth to say something indignant, but she cut me off. “I’d love to, but I can’t. I’ve been told in no uncertain terms that I am not to ask any questions about these new members.”

  “By whom?” I asked sharply.

  Shae shook her head and didn’t answer.

  “You’re not the type to let someone come into your place and tell you what to do,” I said. Yeah, Raphael had been able to intimidate her into keeping quiet about his identity, but I doubted there was anyone else who would inspire the kind of terror that Raphael did.

  “I’m not,” she said, and there was a faint gleam of malice in her eyes.

  And suddenly I understood. I felt like slapping myself on the forehead. “That’s why you came here to tell me about this. Not because you really wanted to trade information, but because you’re pissed off at whoever gave you the gag order and you want to sic Lugh’s supporters on him.”

  A slight grin curved her lips, though the gleam remained in her eye and turned the grin into something decidedly unwholesome. “I’ve told you nothing that I was forbidden to say, so technically I have broken no agreements. What you decide to do with the information I’ve given you is your concern, not mine.”

  She rose from the chair, the motion strangely sinuous. “As always, it’s been a pleasure doing business with you,” she said, then turned toward the door without awaiting a response. Which was just as well, because I hadn’t the faintest idea what to say.

  two

  I HADN’T BEEN GETTING A WHOLE LOT DONE BEFORE Shae’s visit, and I suspected I would get even less done afterward, so I closed up my office and headed home, lost in thought. It was a nasty, miserably hot and humid day, and I was soaked with sweat as soon as I stepped outside.

  My apartment is conveniently located only three blocks from my office, but unfortunately, I’d chosen the height of lunch hour for my short sojourn home, so the streets were flooded with grumpy, overheated business-people. Horns blared as similarly grumpy, overheated drivers complained about every minuscule delay. To add to the lovely atmosphere, a road crew was doing some kind of work that involved hot tar and jackhammers. The sound of the jackhammers made my teeth rattle, and there’s nothing that stinks quite so much as hot tar on a hot day. How I missed my quaint little house in the suburbs!

  The air conditioner in my apartment building’s lobby was set to stun, and it felt like the sweat on my skin turned to ice on contact with the frigid air. I shivered, though it wasn’t necessarily an unpleasant sensation after the heat. Mike, the doorman, gave me his usual pleasant smile and greeting, but I caught his quick, no doubt involuntary glance at my chest. Guess my flimsy lace bra had been a bad choice for today. Even really nice guys can be tempted by the sight of a well-endowed woman entering a cold building. If he’d stared, I might have complained, but I could forgive that little peek. I crossed my arms over my chest while I was waiting for the elevator. The majority of the population in my building was retirees, and I got enough “What’s wrong with young people these days?” looks without showing off my perky nipples.

  By the time I made it up to my apartment, my clothes were wet and clammy against my skin, and I couldn’t wait to get out of them. I beelined for my bedroom, stripping as I went, looking forward to a soothing hot shower.

  My building is old and cranky, and it takes approximately forever and a day for the water to heat up. I didn’t have the patience to wait for it, so I plunged into the “refreshing” spray and gritted my teeth against the chill.

  I shivered for what felt like about five minutes before the water finally warmed up. I closed my eyes and let the water stream over my face, washing away any traces of sweat.

  There’s nothing like being in the shower to make a woman feel vulnerable. You’re nude, you’re usually in some kind of enclosed space that cuts off your line of sight—my shower door was that crappy, pseudofrosted plastic that blocked out much of the light—and the sound of water hitting tile masks any sounds from outside the bathroom. So when I opened my eyes and saw a man-shaped shadow silhouetted against the door, I jumped about a mile into the air and yelped like a dog whose foot has been stepped on.

  Adrenaline flooded my system, and I quickly catalogued my collection of soaps, shampoos, and conditioners in search of a makeshift weapon. My rational brain kicked in right about the time Brian said, “It’s just me.”

  I let out a groan of mingled relief and embarrassment. My knees were practically knocking, so I leaned my back against the cool tile and pressed a hand to my chest, ordering my heart to resume beating at a normal speed. Brian and I spent enough time at each other’s apartments that we had agreed to trade keys. Obviously, I hadn’t gotten used to the idea of someone else having access to my apartment yet.

  Brian slid the shower door open just a crack, peeking in cautiously. “Am I risking bodily injury if I open this door a little wider?”

  I huffed out a deep breath and pushed away from the wall, not sure if I wanted to punch him or kiss him. “You just scared about ten years off my life! You’ve seen Psycho. You should know better than to sneak up on a woman in the shower.”

  The door cracked open a little more, and Brian gave me a mock pout as he started working the knot in his tie loose. “How can I make it up to you?” The knot came loose, and the tie slithered to the floor. He untucked his shirt and began slowly unbuttoning it.

  A new kind of heat flooded my veins, but I’m never one to give in easily. “What are you doing here, anyway? Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”

  Brian’s a lawye
r, and a relatively young one, which means he spends way too much time at work in my opinion. “Paying my dues,” he calls it, but I have other less charitable ways to describe it.

  “I’ve had to work the last three weekends in a row,” he said as he shed his shirt. “My boss decided to give me some time off for good behavior.”

  I had to resist the urge to reach out and help him with his belt to hurry him along. He’s disgustingly patient and loves to tease me until I beg. I hate begging.

  “I hope it’s not good behavior you have in mind at the moment,” I said, though the tent in his pants was stunning evidence of exactly what his plans entailed.

  “Trust me,” he said with a waggle of his brows, “good behavior is the furthest thing from my mind.”

  And he dropped his pants to prove it.

  My nipples hardened, and desire licked at my belly. Barely able to keep my hands to myself, I slid the door open wide enough to let Brian in. The shower always felt kind of small even when I was in it all by myself, but somehow I didn’t mind the crowded feeling when Brian was in there with me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled his head down to mine for a kiss.

  We both moaned faintly as our lips touched. He pulled me tightly to him, his hands skimming down my back until they cupped my ass. When he did, I heard the faintest of moans in my head—a moan that only I could hear. I froze, my eyes popping open, and my arousal disappearing with record speed.

  Brian pulled away. “What’s wrong?”

  Sorry, Lugh whispered in my mind.

  My cheeks glowed with heat that had nothing to do with the temperature. Lugh had told me before how much he enjoyed it when I had sex with Brian, but I had forcibly blocked that thought from my mind, and Lugh had never before made a sound. I wanted to pretend that Brian and I were the only two people in that shower, but Lugh had just reminded me that we weren’t. Although he’d apologized, I wasn’t sure it had been an accident. He had his own ideas on how I should structure my love life, and he wasn’t above imposing those ideas on me when he had the chance.

  I felt the tension mounting in Brian’s body as I struggled with myself. I’d never been very good about opening up to him, and admitting that Lugh lusted after him would be … embarrassing at best. Once upon a time, Brian had been patient with me and my need for a certain amount of privacy, but that wasn’t the case anymore. He drew away a little further, and I realized he was seriously considering getting out of the shower. I grabbed for him, and he got the message, though he was giving me his lawyer face, which was never a good thing.

  I didn’t like feeling pressured, and I didn’t want to have to explain myself. Every instinct of a long history of contrariness urged me to let him go. But even that contrary part of me agreed he had a right to know what was going on.

  I shifted uncomfortably and couldn’t meet Brian’s eyes. “This is going to be kind of awkward to explain,” I said. It would have been nice if he’d rushed in with reassurances that I didn’t have to, but of course he didn’t. I swallowed hard and forced myself to look up at him.

  “You know how I told you that Lugh was kinda putting the moves on me a while back?” I’d never quite explained just how hard Lugh had pushed—and how much success he had had—but I had told Brian the truth. Under duress, naturally.

  Brian nodded, and his jaw jutted out just slightly. Jealousy flared in his eyes. “I thought Lugh and I had an understanding about that,” he grated.

  It wasn’t quite the understanding that Brian imagined. Lugh understood that Brian was not willing to share, but that was about as far as it went. However, there was no need to bring that up right this moment.

  “Yeah, well, the thing is he, uh, kinda likes you, too. If you know what I mean.” Crap. I sounded like a Monty Python sketch. But really, can there be anything more awkward than telling your boyfriend the male demon by whom you are possessed lusts after him?

  “Oh.” Twin spots of color rose in his cheeks, and it was his turn to avoid eye contact.

  “Thanks a lot, Lugh,” I muttered under my breath.

  This had to come out in the open sometime, he responded, typically unrepentant.

  Brian scratched the back of his head, his face frozen in a perplexed frown. I couldn’t blame him for not knowing how to handle this. I certainly had no clue. At least he wasn’t a complete homophobe. I’m sure there are plenty of men who would have run screaming by this point.

  Figuring our sexy, romantic shower together wasn’t going to happen, I reached over and turned the water off. Brian looked like he was going to protest, then thought better of it. The erection he’d sported when he’d joined me was long gone.

  Boy, you sure know how to spoil the mood, I told Lugh sourly, but he had no response this time.

  “Demons don’t have the same gender hang-ups that humans do,” I said in an effort to fill the awkward silence. “To Lugh, it’s perfectly natural to be attracted to both of us.”

  “Uh-huh,” Brian said as he slid the shower door open and grabbed for a towel. He handed me one without looking at me, then wrapped his own around his waist and stepped out.

  Damn it, damn it, damn it!

  I blotted off the worst of the water as Brian gathered up his clothes and disappeared into the bedroom. Too bad Lugh resided inside my body and there was no way to give him a smack upside the head without giving myself one as well. I took a deep breath and followed Brian into the bedroom.

  He’d already managed to get his pants back on. I must have looked pretty stricken, because he paused with one arm in his shirt when he saw my face. With a sigh, he let the shirt fall back to the ground and crossed the distance between us, pulling me into a hug.

  “I’m sorry, Morgan,” he said into my hair. “I can’t help being a bit weirded out right now. But it doesn’t mean that I don’t love you.”

  I knew that, but it still hurt to feel him withdraw from me as he was doing now. I held on tight and tried to think of something clever to say, something that would deflect the tension. Nothing leapt to mind.

  Despite my clingy monkey hold, Brian managed to escape my arms, but he didn’t resume dressing, so I tried not to despair. He sat on the edge of the bed, his brow still furrowed with thought. I wanted to kiss that furrow away, but suspected he wouldn’t appreciate an overture right now.

  He didn’t even look up as I dropped the towel and slipped into a comfy, beat-up bathrobe. I gathered the robe tightly around me and climbed onto the bed, sitting with my back against the headboard, giving Brian his space.

  “So whenever we make love, he’s, uh … there?” Brian asked.

  I blinked in surprise. “Brian, he’s always there.”

  He waved that away. “I know he’s always in residence, as it were. I just thought …” He shook his head. “I don’t know what I thought. Maybe that he politely shut his eyes when we were in bed.”

  I refrained from pointing out that my eyes were Lugh’s eyes. “I don’t think he could even if he wanted to.”

  Brian nodded mutely, and I had a feeling he was going through some of our more … exotic encounters in his mind. I know I was.

  “Lugh and I are a package deal,” I said, though why I felt the need to restate the obvious I don’t know. I guess I just don’t do that well with awkward silences.

  “Yeah.” He rubbed his chin, lost in thoughts he chose not to share with me.

  Hurt stabbed through me, though there was really no reason for it. It wasn’t me Brian was withdrawing from. But for the first time, I started thinking about what my future would be like with my demon passenger. Maybe I should have thought about it before, but since I’d first found out I was possessed, my future had looked so uncertain—as in I was unlikely to have a future—that I hadn’t put much thought into it.

  I still didn’t know what would happen between Brian and me, even if I managed to get rid of Lugh somehow. We’d put some jumbo-sized Band-Aids on our relationship, and so far they seemed to be holding strong. But how long would
that last? Sure, I was being more open and honest with Brian now than I had been in the past, trusting him when trust had always eluded me before. But my life had taught me a fundamental truth: People don’t change, even if your perceptions of them do. So where did that leave me?

  Wallowing in self-pity, apparently.

  I shook it off as best I could, forcing a semicheerful smile. “Guess I’m not getting laid this afternoon, huh?”

  Brian gave a little huff of what might have been laughter. “Guess not. But I still have high hopes for later tonight.” He reached over and took my hand, squeezing it firmly. “Just give me a little time to get used to the idea, okay?”

  I wasn’t sure which idea it was he needed to get used to: Lugh’s desire, or just the fact that Lugh was our silent partner when we had sex, the ultimate voyeur. Maybe it didn’t matter.

  I nodded my acceptance, then leaned in for a kiss—the action instinctive rather than planned. Brian hesitated for a fraction of a second before he pressed his lips to mine, giving me a firm but closedmouth kiss.

  Brian is way too perceptive not to notice that his halfhearted kiss stung me, but he pretended not to.

  “How about dinner tonight?” he asked. He glanced at his watch. “I’ll pick you up around seven, okay?”

  “Sure,” I said as my heart sank a little lower. Something told me a single afternoon wasn’t going to be enough time for Brian to sort things through, and our dinner tonight was going to be an awkward and uncomfortable affair. But I just didn’t have it in me to turn him down.

  three

  WHEN I’M STRESSED OUT, I CLEAN. THESE LAST TWO months of relative peace had kept my stress level manageable, which meant my apartment was a pigsty. Worrying about what was going to happen with Brian was enough to galvanize me into action, so I got to work practically as soon as the door closed behind him.

  I quickly lost myself in the familiar rhythm, my thoughts focused on nothing except the task at hand. Some people meditate; I scrub toilets. What can I say?