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 barrier. 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