so fucking hot that I feel myself getting wet again. “Fucking hell. I love you, woman,” he says as I collapse on top of him, his cock still inside of me.
I love you.
He said those words to me. Did he mean them? Were they just a product of a mind-blowing orgasm?
Did I want to say them back?
What does this mean for me and the other Devils?
And why am I even thinking about them now?
I can feel his cock growing hard inside of me again, and I can’t help but laugh.
“Already?” I joke, pushing on his chest to stare down at him. He bites at my breast with a teasing grin.
“What can I say? You make me insatiable.” He rolls us over until I’m on the bottom, the hard planes of his body flush against mine. “Round two? And three? And four? And five? I did promise you that I’ll get you to come.”
“But we never gave that a specific number,” I jest breathily as he begins to move inside of me. His smirk is pure sin.
“Who says orgasms need a number?”
The answer—they don’t. They really, really don’t.
Chapter 36
After a few more rounds with Elias, I finally wear him out enough to sneak into the bathroom and dial Nana.
“Peony!” she exclaims as soon as she answers. “Thank God. I’ve been so—”
“I’m still pissed at you,” I warn her, pressing my back against the bathroom door and staring up at the ceiling. Water stains are beginning to discolor the white paint, and the fan is in desperate need of a dusting. “But there’s something I need to tell you.”
Quickly, I recap what transpired on my way home from school. I describe each of the Bloods in detail before assuring her I’m alive and well. Still, that doesn’t stop her from panicking, her voice becoming more and more frazzled with each new snippet of information.
“You need to come home,” she declares adamantly, her breathing shallow. “Peony—”
“I’m fine,” I assure her for what feels like the millionth time. I twist my body, so my forehead now presses against the wooden door. It’s almost as if I can see Elias on the other side, see his naked body still sprawled across the bed. The thought sends a smile to my face before I can curb it. “I’m with a…friend.”
Nana promises me that she’ll talk to the triplets before reluctantly hanging up. Do I like being mad at the one relative who has always been there for me? Not at all. But she lied to me. Maybe the triplets aren’t psycho murderers or evil, blood-crazed warlocks, but they’re still Bloods. They still drank the blood of defenseless witches on an altar, whether said witches were willing or not.
Shoving those thoughts aside, I tiptoe back into the room and crawl into Elias’s monster bed. His arm comes up to wrap around me, pulling me snuggly against his chest. I’m not even sure he’s awake. It seems to be pure instinct driving him, even when he nuzzles my hair and plants a tender kiss to the back of my neck.
For the first time in forever, I allow myself to smile and relax.
I allow myself to believe that everything will be okay.
I should’ve known that my happy ending would turn out like this. Fairy tales have it wrong. There aren’t magical wands you can wave to make all of your problems dissipate like paper in a fire. No handsome princes wait around, waiting to save you on large, white horses.
There are only demons and more demons. Darkness and more darkness. Pain and more pain.
When I wake up the next morning, I feel sated and content. I stretch my taut muscles, feeling very much like a lazy house cat, and reach for Elias beside me. My hand touches nothing but sheets, still warm, and I drowsily pull my eyelids open.
“El?” I query, the nickname falling from my tongue before I can think better of it. And…it sounds right. Natural. As if I was always meant to call him that. “Elias?”
“What is this?” Elias’s voice is clipped, darker than I ever remember hearing it. I twist my head to see him standing at the end of my bed, still naked from our tryst between the sheets. His hair is tousled, giving him that just fucked look I find so irresistible in men, but his purple-brown eyes are hard and jaded. I don’t even have the time to trail my eyes over his naked body appreciatively.
My focus is reserved for the items