by L-J Baker
Being with Luc would provide opportunities that any girl he was with might never have otherwise. His status, and angel abilities, afforded him privilege that would be passed on to his mate. He wouldn't be allowed to tell her any of that, at least not upfront, but he could imagine a time where she would be able to benefit from it. Who would he most want to share that with?
Harley pushed Luc out of the way and switched the view back to both girls. "Well?"
"Yeah, it's not like I'm making a life decision here or anything." Luc folded his arms across his chest and huffed.
"Technically, you're not," Harley said. "I'm the one making the decision. You're just giving your opinion."
"What does it even matter? You've already chosen, so just tell me which one it is?"
"After you tell me which one you'd choose."
Luc glanced back over to the mirror at both girls. He didn't want to be invested in this sin and he wasn't sure why. He wanted to tell her it didn't matter, that if the girls both represented lust, he would be fine with either, but he knew that it did matter. One of those girls could be his soul mate.
"Fine, I'd choose Destiny." It wasn't until he'd said it, that he knew it was true. Az was right, she did look more mature. Maybe that's what he needed. Maybe she would have her life in order and he could keep the focus on getting to know each other. He had enough on his plate without all the rest that went along with these girls so far.
"See?" Az said. "She's clearly the one."
"I thought so too," Harley said. "She's a bit more set in her life, even though she only moved here last year, she knows exactly what she wants, and she has the drive to get it. She's not perfect, but she's on her right path. I think she could keep up with you, eventually anyway, and fit into your life."
Luc flicked his hand at the mirror and looked closer at Destiny. She was softer and rounder than the other girls, with wider hips. He could imagine someone like her as the mother of his children, if he ever had any. She wasn't a bad choice, but he didn't feel much about it either way.
"But I didn't choose her," Harley said. She pushed Luc aside and waved her hand, bringing the mirror back to Annalee.
Luc and Az stared at her, waiting for her to say she was joking. She didn't.
"You seriously picked that girl?" Az asked, squinting his eyes to look at her. "Are you sure?"
"Annalee is a little more impulsive and distracted in her life, but she has a good heart. She's a little mischievous, which I thought the devil could do to have around. She's not a complete mess, like you requested," she said, looking at Luc. "But she's not perfect either."
"I'm not looking for perfect." Luc stepped forward again and looked over Annalee. She was cute, in a bad influence, sidekick sort of way. There had to be something more to her though. Harley picked her for a reason, one that she wouldn't tell him even if he asked her straight out. He would have to figure it out on his own and decide if she was right.
"Okay then, this is your girl." Harley flashed him her I'm-not-telling-you-what-I-know smile. He was getting used to it by now. It was all part of the game. Luc just had to strap in and enjoy the ride, and this month, he had a feeling he just might.
He took one last look at Annalee before Harley waved her hand over the mirror, turning Annalee into fog. "How do I get to know her?"
"What do you mean?" Harley walked around the front of the sofa and flopped down onto it. "You need help getting to know women now?"
"No." Luc blinked a few times, taking the chair across from her. "I mean, she's not looking for a job, distributing alcohol, friends with Toby, wait, she's not friend's with Toby, is she?"
"Not that I'm aware of."
"Okay, so how am I supposed to meet her?"
"She's a journalist, well an intern journalist."
"So?"
"Do you ever check your calendar in advance?" Harley rolled her eyes.
"I'm not following."
"She's in your schedule, Lucifer," Harley said. "She's doing a piece for City Life magazine, you know, where she now works. She's going to follow you around for a week and see what it's like to run a club."
"You set that up?"
"Days ago. You're welcome."
"So," Az laughed. "If he looked in his calendar, he would have already known which girl you picked. Sly."
Harley inspected her fingernails, pretending not to be proud of her sneaky set up.
"I guess that makes things a lot easier," Luc said. He had asked her for easier this time. He just never expected to get it. Easy was good though. He could do easy. Now he just needed to not only keep her safe, but keep his super powerful brother from stealing the Hell Tablet. Oh, and maybe keep Michael from killing him.
No big deal.
2
"Anna, you need to get out of there," Georgia yelled, while banging on the bathroom door. "I have an audition in like twenty-five minutes. If you make me run out of here without peeing, next time I'll just go in your shoes."
"Use the gray ones. They're worn so thin they give me blisters," Anna said, sticking her head out of the door, then slammed it shut again.
Three girls with one bathroom, in a tiny city apartment, was hell. Good thing Anna didn't care much for the primping and pampering the other two girls did. Shower, brush her teeth, a quick comb through of her hair, and she was good to go. If she was feeling adventurous, she'd glide on some lip balm.
Georgia and Destiny were a different story.
Thirty seconds later, she slipped out the bathroom, just as Georgia rushed in and dropped her pants to pee, without bothering to close the door. Moments like that made her grateful she had female roommates, rather than males.
She made her way out to the kitchen, which meant walking the twenty steps across the apartment, and poured a cup of coffee. Destiny was at the table, nibbling on toast, reading her lines for the play she was in.
"How's it going?"
"Eh." Destiny looked up and shrugged. "It's not like I'm the lead. I'll have it down in a day or so. You're going to meet that club owner today?"
"Yeah, in about an hour."
"That's exciting. Which club is it again?" Destiny took another nibble off her toast and put it down.
"The Devil's Playpen."
"That the place on fifty-second, with the tacky neon sign?"
"I think so." She pulled a crumpled paper from her pocket and looked at the address. "Yeah, that's the place. I've never been there, so it should be interesting."
"I was there once. It's nice, crowded on weekends, or when there's entertainment. That's what I hear anyway. I went on a Tuesday. It was still busy." Destiny put her script down and stretched.
"Not really my kind of scene, but I do the stories I'm given."
"Life of an intern."
"I should be grateful that Sanders gave me this gig. Honestly, I caught him looking at my boobs, so he probably thinks it will get him on my good side."
"Pig." Destiny snorted. "Doesn't he know this is a bad time in history to sexually harass an intern?"
"I can't believe there was ever a good time in history for that." Anna gulped down her coffee and checked the cabinets for something quick to eat. Her choices were pumpkin spice pop tarts, or cereal. "We really need to do some food shopping."
"It's your turn." Destiny raised one eyebrow and picked her script back up. "Make sure you get coffee. I had to dump out the can to get enough grounds to make that pot."
"I thought it tasted a bit weak."
"Yeah well, do the shopping."
"Yeah, yeah." Annalee grabbed a pop tart, and her bag off the chair, and headed for the door.
She needed to catch the bus before it was too late. The last thing she wanted to do this morning was waste money on a cab. City living wasn't cheap and her savings were almost gone. Being an intern didn't pay well, and until she got a few good stories under her belt, she had no chance of moving up to a full-time position.
The only other option was to beg her parents for help. When she
decided to move halfway across the country to a big city, she knew they wouldn't support her. She didn't know they would cut her off completely. 'If you're old enough to move out there, then you're old enough to support yourself on your own,' they'd said. It was more her father, but her mother went alone with everything he said, like a dutiful wife.
It was always like that with her parents though. Everything had to be their way, by their rules, following their values. Anna had her own dreams, with her own values, and would do it her own way. Even if that meant starving and living on the street.
Hopefully, it wouldn't come to that.
So, she'd agreed to take this story, to follow a club owner around for a week, and do a 'day in the life of' story. Or a week, in this case. She'd rather cover firemen pulling kittens out of trees, or the spaghetti dinner at the local VFW to raise money for the homes that got flooded in the last storm. Or just about any other fluff story that didn't include her trailing some guy for a week.
If she had her way, she would cover real stories, the kind with meat, that made people think. But she was an intern and she took what she could. She just had to find a way to keep getting stories without having to fight off her wandering eyed boss.
Now she just had to make it through a week with a guy who named his club The Devil's Playpen.
Luc got a text from Annalee confirming their meeting just after he'd woke up. He wanted to reschedule, give himself another day to prepare, but it was just stalling, and he knew it. He'd had a dream about Amanda after seeing her the day before. In the dream, he'd asked her out for dinner, and she'd accepted. They never actually made it that far though. They ended up in his bed, where they stayed until he woke up.
There was something special about Amanda. She was tiny and fierce. Although she took a bit to warm up to him, Luc felt a spark with her. Maybe if they'd had more time together, it would have turned into something else. She hadn't been ready then, but maybe at some point, she would be.
Part of him wanted to postpone with Annalee just so he could go see Amanda. It would be wrong to see her after he officially met the new girl. This was her month and she deserved all of his focus. But it wouldn't hurt to sneak in a quick lunch with Amanda first. At least not unless Harley found out.
"Lucifer," Harley said, sticking her head into his office, where he was pretending to work. "Your girl is here early. Do you want me to send her back, or should I set her at a table and have her wait?"
"Neither. I'll come out and greet her." Luc took a deep breath and got up. The chance to postpone was past. The possibility of seeing Amanda again, would have to wait. His month with Lust had officially begun.
The bar wasn't technically open, but Harley always let the locals in for their morning fix before she turned on the window lights, so there were a few people already there drinking. But even from behind, he knew who she was immediately.
It wasn't just the golden highlights that made her dirty blond hair almost sparkle even in the dark bar, or the same hunched over position she sat in scribbling into a notebook, like the way he'd seen her in the mirror, that gave her away. There was a pull, an electricity in the air, that drew him toward her, an instant spark, that caught Luc off guard.
This was different from all the other girls and it made him pause halfway through the room. Was this the universe's way of telling him she was the one? Would they have some love at first sight reaction, so he would know straight away, that she was his soul mate? He was almost afraid to find out.
Even though he'd thought this through, had wanted it for a long time, he wasn't sure he was prepared for it to actually happen. As if she could feel Luc behind her, she turned and looked right at him. There was no instant recognition, no lost in love eyes, no smile that told him she knew there was something between them. Just a quick glance, then she moved past him to scan the room.
Maybe he'd just imagined the whole thing. He wanted to find the right one for so long, he'd convinced himself he felt something, when nothing was there. With a deep breath in, he made his way over to her.
"You must be Annalee James." He extended a hand and she shook it, standing up, and flashing him a professional smile.
As soon as they touched, Luc felt it again, the electricity, the spark, the thickness in the air, that made him break the contact sooner than he normally would have. It was a bit unnerving, especially since she seemed unaware that anything was different.
Although he'd never admit this to Harley, or Az, Luc had worried that he would actually find his soul mate, but she wouldn't return his feelings. Wouldn't that just be one big karmic kick to the nutsack?
"I am, Yes, Mr. Morningstar. Good to meet you."
"Please, call me Luc."
She blushed, and the pink in her cheeks brought out her freckles, making her even more adorable.
"Of course." She sat back down and motioned for him to join her. "I'm sorry about being early. The bus that runs this way from my house has a lot of stops, so it's either early, or very late. I could have waited, if you have other things you need to attend to."
"No, no. This is fine. I'm all yours for the week now."
The pink in her cheeks turned to scarlet and she swallowed so hard he could hear it. He wanted to laugh, but he held it back.
"For the article, I mean, of course," Luc said and fought to contain his growing smile.
"Right, of course. So I'm not sure how much my editor told you, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask them."
"To be honest," Luc said, just as Harley appeared with two drinks, then excused herself. "My associate set this whole thing up, so all I know is that you work for City Life Magazine, and you'll be following me around for a week, to see what it's like to run a club."
"That pretty much covers it." She pushed her hair behind her right ear and nibbled on the top of her pen. "I mean, it's not quite that simple. They picked you because you're kind of a big deal, I guess."
"Something like that." Luc chuckled.
Only the King of Hell.
"I guess you're new around here?" Luc asked her, picking up on the faint Midwestern accent, just the slightest bit.
"I've been here a few months. What about you?" She flipped over her notepad and poised her pen above, ready to write down whatever he said. It wasn't exactly how Luc wanted to get to know her, but he had to work with what he had.
"A bit longer. Why don't you put away the notebook and let's do this a little more casual?" Luc almost wanted to try Valerie's drinking game with her, just to loosen her up, get her out of professional work mode. Of course getting her drunk didn't exactly help him get to know her either.
Annalee slowly set her pen down and pushed her notebook aside. "Whatever you prefer, Mr. Morningstar."
"Luc, please. If you're going to be following me around for the next week, I need you to at least feel comfortable enough to use my name."
She pressed her lips together for a long moment, then nodded. "Of course. I'm sorry." Before he could tell her not to apologize, she grabbed the drink in front of her and drank the whole thing down.
She was nervous and at least a little attracted to him. Luc had no trouble picking up on the cues a woman gave off, even when she tried her best not to, and Annalee was trying her best.
Luc picked up his own drink and tipped it back with one gulp.
"Now that we have that out of the way, tell me something about you."
"Like what?" She ran one finger around the rim of her glass, then slowly rose her eyes up to meet his.
"I don't know, how about something no one else knows about you?" Luc motioned to Harley to bring them two more drinks.
"Well, that would be just about everything," she said with a nervous laugh. "Maybe you could narrow that down a bit?"
Harley appeared with two new drinks and a bowl of grapes. She placed everything down and left without a word.
"Hmm," he said, popping a grape into his mouth. "How about, a secret dream?"
"Sure, don't make it hard,
or anything." She tucked her hair behind her ear and took a gulp off her drink. "Let's see… okay, well it's stupid, because it's not possible."
"So? I didn't say it had to be something that could happen, just something that's secret, and a dream."
"I'd like to fly."
"You've never been on a plane?"
"No, I have, I mean fly, as in like a bird or something, with wings, ya know?" Her face turned pink again and she shook her head. "I told you it was stupid."
"It's not stupid at all."
Luc wanted to grab her by the arm, drag her outside, and take her up into the sky right that minute. He might not be able to tell her, but it was completely plausible that she could fulfill that dream one day. If she was the one. Not with her own wings of course, but with his, while he held her tight against him. He imagined just that for a moment and it brought a smile to his face.
"Your turn."
"Hmm, okay, but you have to promise to keep it secret."
"I think that's a given." She took another gulp off her drink. "Especially now that you know mine."
"Well, my secret dream is that… someday, I'd like to go home, like to my family, to live."
Luc had never told anyone that before. He was good at convincing even himself that it didn't matter that he'd been cast out, that he was fine living on Earth, or in Hell, but the truth was, when he was really honest, he missed home. He missed his family and the way things used to be.
"Are you estranged?"
"Mostly, yes. I have one brother, and just recently, a sister, back in my life, but I have a very large family, and the rest have cut me out of their lives."
"My family isn't big, but I can understand that."
Luc raised one eyebrow and she continued.
"I've dreamed of living here since I was a little girl. I wanted to be a writer, live in the city, and have some big important life. Now I'd settle for a full time job at the magazine, but even that wasn't going to happen back home." She paused and took a sip of her drink. "My parents didn't want me to come here. I guess being their only child, they wanted me near them. When I left, they basically told me not to come back."