Chapter 33
Lionel
I was sober-ish enough to realize I’d had two cocktails on a nearly empty stomach. This meant I was also sober-ish enough to realize that Lucy, the fucking Devil his own damn self, was here to ruin me getting laid by Sexy Mitch several times tonight.
This, I knew, had to be prevented. I needed Mitch and me to bump nasties because I needed to get Lucifer out of my head. I could smell woodsmoke, cloves, and cardamom blended over a fire, imagine hands lined with cinnamon running over bare skin… No.
Just no. I needed to get Lucifer out of my system, not let him worm his way deeper with his spicy scent. Had no one ever given him boring cologne he could use to mask his musk?
Mitch cleared his throat. “This is a friend of yours?”
Mitch was obviously taken aback by Lucifer’s arrival, because of course Lucifer’s hair was perfect.
That just wasn’t right. How did he do the perfect hair all the damn time?
Did he have a stylist imprisoned in his Devil Mansion?
Maybe he sacrificed baby kittens as a regular styling routine.
I didn’t want to know, because I was as interested in the Devil’s personal grooming as I was in the immortal himself.
And that was not at all, I reminded myself.
“Nope, no. Not a friend,” I told Mitch.
Lucifer paused his rose smelling. “Nelly’s my—”
The tequila had amped up my reflexes. I had become, while in the pleasantly drunk zone, my own superhero guarding my plans for this evening, and guarding my dragon fins as well.
Metaphorical dragon fins. I was guarding my virtue against the Devil.
And there were dragon fins. And I was drunk, but that was secondary. First was getting laid. By Mitch!
I jumped to my feet, ignoring the fact that the world was spinning, just a little, took Lucifer by the arm, and dragged him with me.
I considered the restrooms, but that would give the entirely wrong impression.
If I was going to drag anyone to the restroom tonight, it would be Sexy Mitch.
I veered left, to the exit. Veering was a bit difficult on account of the tequila dancing around with the champagne, but I managed.
Outside, the cool air hit me squarely in the face. I turned, and when I stopped turning to jab a finger in Lucifer’s face, the world kept on moving, which was just rude.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing? I’m with someone.” The world was still turning. Damn it, world.
“You’re with me, Nelly. I told you. And you came last night from just my touch.”
Smug, fluffy-haired ass that he was, he reached out, but I slapped his hand away, stumbling slightly on account of the world still moving more than it should.
“No, thank you.”
Lucifer chuckled. “Nelly, if you think you can have that man’s cock inside you, you are sorely mistaken. The only one who will have you that way is me.”
Oh, damn him. He had no right to regulate whose cock I put where. He wasn’t the damn cock police.
“I am not your boyfriend, Lucy. Get that through that thick, pretty hair of yours.” Fuck, wait, what? “Head. Thick head.”
I saw Lucifer smile and run the petals of his rose across his lips. “I liked having your fingers in my hair, but I think I’ll also enjoy you grabbing the sheets when I’m behind and inside you.”
Oh, gods no. Was I getting hard? I couldn’t reach down and check, not while he was still here. I turned. I couldn’t let him see any sign of arousal. That was important. For some reason. Had I ever ordered that third cocktail?
The world still wasn’t stopping, and the darkness and the lights were sort of disorienting, and I felt like a goldfish being flushed down the toilet, and thinking about that made me think of smelly things, which made me think of the white tent in the salt marshes and that severed head, and—
I bent over, throwing up my dragon fins. Damn it, they’d been good. They didn’t look jade colored at all this time around.
An arm fell across my back and cool fingers brushed the hair out of my face. “You shouldn’t get drunk without me, Nelly. And not during a juice cleanse you apparently broke if your stomach contents are any indication.”
That fucker and his fucking juice cleanse. I would have said that, but I was too busy bringing up the dragon fins and working my way back through the coffee to the stir-fry. My legs felt shaky.
“Is everything okay out here?” Sexy Mitch. Oh, good heavens, no. Sexy Mitch could not see me like this. Throwing up was not sexy, and I needed his cock!
“He had a bit too much to drink.” Lucifer, his voice like a silk scarf tightening around a neck. He was rubbing my back and keeping me steady while I retched into the gutter. “I’ll take him home.”
I made a disgusting noise while my stomach did its best impression of a fire sale. Lucifer was not going to take me home, and I wanted to tell him that, but here came the stir-fry.
“I can do that,” Sexy Mitch said. “I’m a cop, and I work with him.”
Sexy Mitch was protecting me! From fucking Lucifer, who was stroking my back and holding my hair back as if he never did anything else. I wanted to go to Mitch, but I could barely keep standing as I vomited with all the grace of a failed performance artist.
Lucifer chuckled, but unless I was mistaken, there was zero humor there. “He’s my boyfriend, and I’ll be taking care of him. Feel free to run along.”
“He never mentioned you. I thought he was single.”
Mitch was trying to stand his ground against Lucifer. That a man like Mitch was attracted to me seemed surreal. Or maybe that was just the surrealist puddle of food forming in front of me. How long was this going to take? I really hadn’t eaten all that much.
“Why should Nelly mention anything to you? Leave.”
I heard the power in that one word, and Sexy Mitch would have felt it too. Over my retching, I didn’t hear his footsteps as he left, but there was no way a human like him wouldn’t have, not with fucking Beelzebub flexing his magical muscles.
“What a bad boy you have been to get cozy with that,” Lucifer said while he kept on stroking my head and neck. “You really cannot be left to your own devices for long, Nelly.”
I stopped throwing up long enough to take a few steadying breaths and lifted my head. That didn’t do much good. The world was still spinning.
“Please just fuck off,” I managed, my voice raspy from all the retching.
“I’m taking you home.”
Lucifer’s voice was smooth and soft, like the baby cat fur feel of his stupid, perfect hair. He put his arms around me after he’d brushed a strand of hair off my forehead, and I felt magic rattle and rise all around me like thunder and pouring rain.
I was momentarily disoriented, and the world spun even more than it had before.
My sight darkened for a second, then the lights came back, but they were not city lights.
I looked around. Before I could really get my bearings, I bent forward again to noisily bring up sour bile that tasted of tequila and soy sauce.
Lucifer, fuck him very much, had gone back to stroking my back and holding me.
When I was done, he put an arm around me and walked me toward…
his house. Damn. He’d teleported me. I’d never had that experience, and I hadn’t really got to experience it properly on account of the vomiting and the general intoxication after only two cocktails.
The walk was a chore. My legs felt rubbery, my head was stuffed full of smelly cotton balls, and my body wouldn’t do what I needed it to, which was run. What it did was keep up that erection I had somehow acquired.
Lucifer pushed the door open, and we were in the white hallway of his Devil Mansion. There were far fewer lights on than yesterday, and I heard the sound of a movie playing on a nice home setup, which explained the flashes of brightness against the walls up ahead.
Lucifer walked me to the fireplace room, where I could make out Metatron, her hair up in a ponytail, watching something that strobed with the explosive color of CGI action scenes.
“Are you kidding me?” she asked upon seeing me. “I just cleaned those shoes. Lucy, did you really have to make him throw up before dragging him all over my floors?”
Lucifer groaned. I could feel the sound vibrate through his chest. The world was still spinning, but that was hot. No, wait. It wasn’t hot. Lucifer was a jerk, and it was important that I remained focused on that.
“He’s drunk, and that’s not my fault, but as his boyfriend, I have to prioritize putting him to bed when he’s like this.”
He sounded reasonable. I hated that. He also sounded a little more defensive than usual. I liked that.
“Whatever you say.” Metatron narrowed her eyes at me and my sorry state. “Just please get his clothes off him so I can soak them.”
Fuck, no.
“That I can promise,” the Devil said.
“Get off me.”
My words came out slurred, even to my own ears. I pushed against his chest, but damn, that was a solid chest. Would it taste of woodsmoke and spices? Fuck. I couldn’t be thinking about fucking tasting Lucifer’s chest.
“Shush, Nelly.” Lucifer walked me past Metatron to the ballroom and the fancy staircase. “I’ll carry you upstairs. Let me know if things start turning too badly and you need to throw up again.”
He what-the-fuck?
Apparently, he meant it. He lifted me bridal style as if I weighed nothing and started up the stairs.
“Put me down,” I slurred. I sort of wiggled my left leg for emphasis.
That got no reaction whatsoever. Lucifer’s chest was warm, and his scent was stronger this close to him. I needed to get away from him. I needed to never see him again, and I needed my cock to understand that. My cock was currently having a disagreement with my brain.
With a jolt, I remembered. I needed amnesia, amnesia of the nether regions, apparently.
The Devil walked me through the darkness of his house, the darkness that hung like a deceptive veil around the upstairs where his bed was. And his bed was too soft, too seductive. I struggled in his arms, but it made my stomach and throat pinch painfully.
“Stop that, Nelly.” We were just outside his door.
I couldn’t let him do this to me. Seduce me.
Charm me with his sexy smell, which wasn’t sexy at all.
The door was ajar, and he kicked it open farther with his foot.
I reached for the doorframe as he walked me through it, holding on with everything I had.
“Really, Nelly, you will just make yourself unwell again.” He turned quickly—not quite quickly enough to make me dry heave with vertigo, but quickly enough to make me lose my grip.
My tequila-addled brain made me see liquid shadows moving around the room, and the spinning overtook me just before Lucifer put me down on the bed as if I were a breakable porcelain doll.
“Stop,” I said to Lucifer and the world in general. Like two conspiring criminals, neither obeyed.
I wasn’t sure what I had done to deserve the Devil treating me like this, but he wasn’t going to win, not this time. This time I would…
Everything was moving so damn much, and I wasn’t really sure what I would do, but I’d definitely figure it out. Soon.