my breath away. His beauty was dangerous, it was alluring. Like those brightly-colored poisonous frogs, with looks that begged to be touched but would kill you with one brush of your fingertips. But I touched him anyway, caressing my fingers over his face.
“It was a good distraction,” I said.
“Hopefully I’ve fucked those anxious thoughts out of your head. Don’t waste that sweet fear on vile beasts, not when I’m here.”
But how long will you be here?
We couldn’t lay there forever. He told me not to be afraid, but I knew he was still on alert: he was still listening for footsteps, his eyes still darted toward the window, the door. He was anxious, so I didn’t have to be. But for another minute, it felt good just to lay there, just to breathe, just to feel his fingers play in my hair.
“I’m surprised a demon would use a safeword,” I murmured, staring at the chandelier overhead. The bed was absurdly comfortable, but the painting of the woman behind me was giving me the illusion of eyes looking down at me.
He sniffed, shaking his head. “We demons value free will above all else. We may play with the illusion of being forced, but what fun is it if your victim doesn’t desperately want you? We don’t call it that in Hell, a safeword. We all know to call mercy if the play needs to end. It’s a more polite, and rather more intimate, way of saying, Stop or I’ll make you stop.” He shrugged, then after a moment, shoved himself up off the bed with a grin.
“I’ve always wanted to desecrate this bed,” he said, holding his hand out to me to help me up. “Finally got to make it properly filthy.”
“Kent may have to burn it,” I said, as he wrapped me up in his arms and held me close again. His lips pressed against the top of my head, and I whispered. “I missed you.”
I meant it, but it set my heart pounding to say it out loud. He tensed, his grip on me tightening slightly. “Why?”
Because you make me feel safe, warm, wanted, and you have a monster dick that gives me the best orgasms of my life.
I wasn’t quite able to meet his gaze. “I like having you around.”
When I did finally look up, his brows had drawn together as if my words were confusing. He let me go to rub the back of his head, ruffling his hair. “Well, you’re certainly one of the first humans to say that.” He awkwardly cleared his throat. “We’ve spent enough time here. Let’s get down below.”
I’d never seen Kent open the way down to the basement; given that my binding circle was down there, I could simply teleport to it at Kent’s command. I could only leave the circle with his permission, and he’d usually phrased his commands in such a way that I had to immediately return to it when my tasks were done. The basement was a place I’d never wanted to step foot in again, never wanted to see nor smell nor come close to.
But here I was.
I knew the entrance was somewhere in his master bedroom, and I suspected it had something to do with the massive bookshelf against the far wall, with a strange gap at the bottom as if there was a track underneath. That was what I inspected first.
Playing with Rae, taking out my nervous energy on her as she did the same to me, had calmed some of my unease at being in this damned house. But it still lingered, a prickling of anxiety on the back of my skull. I hated this room. I hated the smell of it. I hated the perfectly clean carpets and white walls, and that there was still a faint smell in the air of those cigars Kent loved to smoke. I didn’t want to stay here for a moment longer than I had to, hearing Jeremiah and Victoria distantly in the house as they got drunker and louder. The temptation to go out there and slaughter them was strong, but Hell’s royals-in-charge frowned upon demons making spectacles of themselves in front of humans.
Slaughtering the Hadleigh siblings in front of a crowd of drunk college students sounded fun, but wasn’t worth the ensuing fall out from Hell.
“I take it you didn’t find the grimoire?” Rae asked from behind me, watching me as I felt along the underside of the shelves.