Chapter 7
7
CAHUANI
“ W here is Anthony now?”
Cahuani didn’t ask because he particularly cared but because he was suddenly acutely aware of what he’d just asked her. To say his prior question was inappropriate would be an understatement, but worse than that, he didn’t know if he meant it to be or not.
She made him nervous. To what extent, he did not know, but he could no longer deny it. It was best he at least show his full hand to himself before this continued, lest he find himself in deeper trouble than before.
He set down his drink and rested his arm across the back of the couch, trying to bury the lust that had begun to sprout like weeds along the inner lining of his skull.
“Upstairs,” she said slowly, her eyes downcast. “Or... downstairs? Who knows. I didn’t stick around to find out, remember?”
“Where do you think he would be?” he attempted, but she huffed.
“Cahuani, I don’t care where he is. Why do you?”
“I just wanna be prepared in case he decides to come up here—or down here—looking for you. Not that I?—”
“Uh-uh, don’t try to change the subject.”
He blinked, and she was standing much closer than should have been possible, her glass left upon the coffee table.
“You asked me what I was willing to do.”
“And you failed to answer.”
“I was trying to quantify.”
“And are you done quantifying?”
“I can’t stand you.”
“Yet you’re still here.”
“I can see where your son gets his ‘charm’ from.”
“And you fell for that ‘charm,’ didn’t you?”
“I bet he got everything from you.”
He stood, too, abruptly, and her eyes widened in surprise. He tilted his head back enough to look at her, his eyes climbing up the slender column of her neck on the way there. Hell, what was he doing? Was he really so weak as to fall into this trap, knowing damn well how it would end? Even if he could convince himself he was the one setting it, the outcome would be the same. He would wind up choking on the blood.
Yet he could not find the will to care.
“My son got many things from me, but don’t get it twisted.” He stepped impossibly closer, and yet somehow, there remained the barest break between their bodies. “He is not me. And I am not him.”
She searched his face. For what, he had no clue, but her eyes were diligent in their observation, though he gave nothing more away.
“Then show me.” Her voice was breathless, the words brushing his lips before they dissipated.
“What do you want me to show you?”
Her lips twitched. “That you’re not him.”
He stared at her for a long while, and she stared right back; neither betrayed their intentions or intuitions. How far was she willing to go? How far was he ? And where had this been going to begin with?
These were questions he always collected answers to before he stepped in a room with someone, and certainly long before he stepped into business with them. Yet this improvisation did not scare him the way it should. Instead, it enticed him. It had been a long time since he’d been enticed.
Nonetheless, he had to be responsible, if not entirely respectable. Because he was not his son. He was still good.
“You do not need my forgiveness to be deserving of escape, Tlalli,” he stated, the silence shattering so fast that he nearly jumped. “I already said I would help you. I don’t go back on my word, and I will not?—”
“If I wanted you to take it easy on me, Papa Bear, I’d ask.” Her eyes darted toward his lips and back again. “And I haven’t asked.”
He swept his tongue along his bottom lip, unable to suppress the act. “So you want to earn my forgiveness then.”
“I do.”
“But you never answered my question.” His hands brushed hers. “What are you willing to do for it?”
She accentuated every word. “Whatever you feel is the necessary level of punishment, I want you to give it to me, and I will gladly take it.”
“Mm.” He tilted his head, and he could feel her breath on his lips again. “Are you sure you want all that tonight?”
She hummed and looked up in thought. “It doesn’t all have to be tonight, but if you want it to be, it will be. If not, then...in the next two days at least.”
Right. Before she disappeared and he returned to his empty home in the desert until he was needed once more. Another reason this was a bad fucking idea on top of all the other reasons it was a bad fucking idea. He cared too much. He had already cared too much. Long before they saw each other again. As deep as he’d tried to bury that, the fact remained. If he fell on this sword, it would cut him all the way through and hurt twice as much coming back out.
And that was if this wasn’t still some elaborate plan his son had put together to get rid of him. It wasn’t as if Anthony would care if it started a new war as long as he won his.
But what did it matter anyway? War was coming one way or another, and Cahuani’s fate was sealed. Hell had his soul on layaway, and once he shed this human vessel, he would be remade into something else. The only things he would have left to mourn were his ancestral magic—exchanged for the magic of the demons—and his home with no heir, but once he made peace with that, there was nothing else to fear. Until then, he might as well embrace his fragile human existence and do as he pleased. Anthony certainly had.
“You’re serious about this,” he said slowly.
Though this time, he did not merely take her word for it. His hand was around her throat before she had the chance to inhale, pressing into the hollow, then adjusting until he found her pulse. She gasped but did not move, her hands remaining stiff at her side.
“You aren’t setting me up.”
She met his gaze, her eyes blown wide. “No, Cahuani, I am not setting you up.”
It wasn’t foolproof. To lie was built into her training. But in times like this, in a gravity like hers, he was only a mortal man. He let that be the only thing that mattered now.
Releasing her, he took a step back. “Then get out of that dress. Quickly.”
He waited patiently for the pushback, for the realization of what she had just agreed to, for the panic. He should’ve known better. She had traipsed through his house unbothered, knowing very well what she was getting into, and she had never once let him catch on. What would be so different now?
“I do have a condition,” she said instead.
“And what condition would that be?”
“I want you to film it.”
... He had not been expecting that. Not in the slightest. Anything but.
“Do you?” His tone was a bit too weak for his liking.
“I do.” She slid the single strap of her dress from her shoulder. “I also want a copy.”
“Is there any particular reason?”
She rolled the dress down to her hips, then her knees, where she released it. It fell the rest of the way on its own, leaving him with a near-unobstructed view of her gentle curves and thick thighs. Only a sheer red thong and two pasties stood between him and the fruit of Eden.
Then those barriers magically began to fade into nothing.
“You will have evidence of my double-crossing in case this really is a setup, because we both know even if Michael was in on it, Anthony never would agree to this .” She went on, “And I’ll have a souvenir.”
“I told you?—”
“I know what you said.”
Yet she still wanted it on tape. He had no qualms beyond the legitimacy of her consent. After all, he’d already crossed his own boundary. There was really no use lying about that now.
And though he did wish to ask why she wanted a souvenir, he thought better of it and turned his focus to the task at hand. Because it was at hand. And now that it was, he needed a game plan. He had to try to fit everything he wanted to do to her into three nights.
“I got the tripod, Papa Bear, don’t worry.”
He had no clue where his mind had been when she said that, but it was right here bouncing off the walls now. He was unable to evade the shiver that moved down his spine at the name. In its wake, everything clicked.
Because fuck it. What did it matter that she’d dated his son? She wasn’t dating him anymore, and she wasn’t dating Cahuani either. This was what it was: something to do, something to keep them both from letting the situation overwhelm them.
As for Anthony, he’d made it clear the day he joined the Dominion that blood meant nothing to him, and Cahuani would be a fool to believe that anything he himself did or didn’t do in this room tonight would change that. Anthony had made his choices. And Cahuani was free to make his.
With that, any apprehension he’d held fell to the floor beside her dress.
All at once, a tripod the same height as Tlalli materialized beside her. She gestured to it, and he made quick work of positioning his phone upon it while she collected her dress and placed it on the chair.
“You are completely overdressed,” she pointed out.
He turned around and took hold of her face so fast that she gasped and her eyes sharpened. He could feel her body come alive, her divine form boiling just beneath this thin skin, waiting to be unleashed. He did not relinquish his hold.
“Let us be clear about who is in control now,” he whispered against her lips, watching her glance down at his. “You want to escape? You do everything I say outside this room. You want my forgiveness? You do everything I say inside it. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Papa Bear.”
“Do you have a safe word?”
Her tongue moved over her lower lip. Then she met his eyes. “Apostate.”
He couldn’t help but smirk. Then he claimed her mouth with his, burning away the last barrier standing between them and discarding the ashes like confetti. She sagged against his body, and he curled his other arm around her waist in time to keep her upright, but the world was spinning faster, and the air was growing thin. Soon, they would both be nothing but dust.
He welcomed it.