6. Izzy
SIX
Izzy
W hat have I done?
I knew playing with fire was a mistake, and now I’ve brought it into the Carvers’ house and endangered Maeve. Even if I live through this, Lennox Carver is going to crucify me.
So why are you running toward the attic instead of the exit?
My frantic pace slows as it registers that I’ve done exactly that. Instead of rushing down the stairs and toward the front door, I unconsciously head in the opposite direction.
Not away from danger but toward it.
A slow glance over my shoulder verifies my complete loss of any shred of sanity. I’m standing at the end of a long, windowless hallway tucked deep in a dark corner of the third floor. I tell myself what I’m doing is more sacrificial than stupid. Saving myself would leave Maeve in here alone with Lucifer. At least if he’s chasing me, he can’t hurt her.
That’s what I tell myself.
The dampness between my legs tells a different story.
Swallowing, I open the door in front of me and climb a narrow set of stairs. The uneven floorboards creak as I step into the complete darkness of the attic. While the only other sound is my ragged breath, I know he’s here. I feel the weight of his presence. It fills every corner of the room, stealing all the air. I should fear for my life. But the moment Lucifer touched me, it felt…familiar. As if all the world’s a stage, and we’re simply embracing the roles we’re meant to play.
“You know what they say to do about mice trapped in the attic, don’t you, love?”
I stiffen. I have no clue where the voice is coming from. He could be right next to me or clear across the room. Being surrounded by darkness is throwing off my spatial awareness. “No.”
“Seal off any means of escape, then set a trap,” he offers, that low, rhythmic cadence sending a shiver up my spine. “Now that I’ve caught one, what shall I do with it?”
“Let it go.”
His laugh is like a rumble of ominous thunder. “Not tonight.” I feel him move closer, circling, watching, taunting. “Not ever…”
“Why are you doing this?” I ask, repeating the same words from earlier.
“Why didn’t you run?” he challenges.
“I—”
“It’s because you wanted to get caught,” he says, laying my darkest truth out like an offering. “You’re just as immoral as I am, but that good girl image you hang onto won’t let you fully embrace it. But that’s all right. I like to chase just as much as you like to run. I knew the real you before you typed that first message. You were born to dance in flames, Izzy. What you need lurks in the shadows of a dark and sinful place where the line of consent is frighteningly thin.”
I clench my fists as his breath heats the back of my neck. “How do you know that?”
“Because you’ve belonged to me a lot longer than five days. I’ve always owned your mind, Izzy. You willingly gave me your soul, and tonight, I’m taking your body.” The breath on my neck turns into a hand, then I’m barreled into from behind and slammed into a wall. I’m fighting to draw a breath when he takes my chin in a rough hold and turns my head over my shoulder. Demanding lips crash onto mine for a kiss that’s as fiery as it is harsh, then drag across my cheek and settle near my ear. “You have a whole room. Find your way out. I dare you.”
And then he’s gone.
Common sense says run, so that’s what I do. But two steps in the dark and I’m tripping over something low and metal, my knees hitting the ground with a thud. I clench my teeth in an attempt not to cry out, but a muffled grunt is the best I can do.
Get up. Keep going.
Once again, I listen, only this time, it’s not common sense in my ear. It’s something darker. Something that whispers the blood rushing through my veins isn’t from fear but anticipation.
That’s when I feel him behind me, walking slowly like he has all the time in the world. It gives me a sick shot of adrenaline that propels me toward what I think is the door. I frantically run my palms across it searching for the knob, finally landing on it. I wrap my hands around it and turn, only for two strong hands to grab me from behind.
“Time’s up.”
A scream rips from my throat as I’m crushed between the wall and Lucifer’s hard, muscular body. There’s no time to breathe or fight before he reaches under my dress and rips my panties off my body. The moment the tattered remnants flutter down my legs, he pins my arms above my head and drives his thick fingers inside me over and over until tears roll down my cheeks.
“Accept it, love,” he murmurs, in a voice more soothing than it should be. “Take it all and say thank you because this is nothing compared to what’s coming.”
More savage thrusts draw another piercing scream.
“Say it.”
“Thank you, sir,” I whimper.
A low growl of approval rumbles in his throat. “Such a good girl.” My eyes roll back in my head as he pulls his fingers out and attacks my clit. He offers no mercy, only an unholy manipulation that siphons an orgasm out of thin air.
There’s no warning, no time to scream. I come in a violent spray of color and light, my body bucking and convulsing against him.
I have no voice and no soul.
I’m his vessel, just like he said.
I’m slowly regaining use of my limbs when I’m spun around and shoved to my knees. “Open your mouth.”
For some unknown reason, I do. I know he can’t see my submission, but somehow, he knows because his hand comes around the back of my head, then I feel the smooth head of his cock breach my lips. I hollow out my cheeks and suck as he drives his hips toward me, my jaw straining around his massive girth.
“He’s just a man,” I tell myself.
But our late-night conversations have my mind playing tricks on me. The more I struggle, the more unhinged he becomes until both hands grip the back of my head, his thrusts coming harder and faster. Just when I’m sure I’m going to black out, he pulls out and moves behind me.
There’s a breath of stillness.
Then his hand is on the back of my neck, and he pushes my head to the floor. I’m on my knees, ass in the air with my cheek pressed against dusty, unfinished plywood when I feel my arms being tugged behind me and pinned at the base of my spine.
“I’m taking what’s owed to me, love,” he says, then slams into me, impaling me from root to tip.
My body protests each manic thrust. It’s as if he’s trying to devour me from the inside out. Sin chases reality away as the pressure on my neck disappears, only to return to my hip. Digging his fingers deep into my skin, Lucifer jerks me to him and forces himself deeper.
“You’re mine,” he groans, his movements becoming frantic. “This pussy is mine. Your mouth is mine. This ass is mine. It’s all mine. Say it, Izzy.”
The words flow naturally. “They’re all yours. I’m all yours.”
“Then come for the Devil, love. Come for your dark lord.”
Another slam of his hips, and I’m lost, sinking into another realm of chaos and bliss, my body clamping around him as it obeys his command. My release triggers his. He stiffens behind me, his grip becoming almost inhuman as he comes with a throaty roar.
Tension fills the room as we kneel trying to catch our breath. Out of nowhere, the rough, almost hate-fueled air around Lucifer changes. His touch while still strong, slows and softens. He pulls out slowly, then slides his hands under my arms and gently lifts me to my feet.
I expect that to be it, for him to disappear as quickly and silently as he appeared.
Instead, he turns me around and crushes his lips to mine, possessing me as deeply and completely with his tongue as he did with his cock. He tastes like sin and expensive bourbon, a heady combination that reminds me of…
I freeze.
No, no, no, no, it can’t be.
I stumble backward, my fingers pressed to my lips. “Who are you?”
“You know who I am, lo?—”
“No!” I shout, my voice breaking. “You’re not the Devil. Tell me right now.”
There’s a heavy moment of silence.
I hear the zip of his pants, then there’s a click, and the room floods with the dim, muted light from an overhead bulb. The man I know as Lucifer stands before me, those icy blue eyes boring into me. There’s a weighted beat, then he removes his hood and drags the sleeve of his coat across his face. The black and white paint wipes off, revealing salt-and-pepper, stubbled cheeks and chin. Another swipe removes the skeletal smile, leaving two full lips with the overarched cupid’s bow that has played a starring role in my steamiest dreams. One final swipe turns those otherworldly blue eyes into the stern, pissed-off ones I’ve spent years avoiding.
It’s Lennox Carver.
Maeve’s father.
My biggest crush and worst nightmare wrapped in one terrifying package. I’m shocked, but at the same time, I’m not. I don’t know how to even begin making sense of that.
“Izzy, let me explain…”
But I don’t. I stand there with my best friend’s father’s cum running down my legs and throw out the most asinine words ever. “I thought you were in Chicago.”
“No,” he says quietly. “There was never any trip to Chicago.”
My mind is spinning. Lucifer is Lennox. Lennox is Lucifer.
He was lying in wait this whole time.
He approaches like I’m a skittish pony. “My company is the primary financial backer for ClickBait. I have an all-access pass behind the scenes, so I took advantage of it. I’m the one behind Lucifer.”
“You don’t say.” I fold my arms tightly across my chest. I don’t know what that’s supposed to accomplish considering the man was balls deep inside me less than two minutes ago.
“I heard you and Maeve talking about it that first night, and I couldn’t help myself. After you chose me?—”
“You mean, after I chose Lucifer .”
He sighs. “Right. After you chose Lucifer, I shut the profile down for everyone but you. I swear, I was just going to let it be an online thing, but I became even more obsessed.” He closes the distance between us, his hand sinking into my hair. “I’ve wanted you for a long time, Izzy.”
“I’ve been friends with Maeve since we were in college.”
The implied accusation has him gritting his teeth. “It didn’t start until after you graduated. I was always protective of you, but then, you got yourself mixed up with that piece of shit, and it turned into something…different.”
His confession makes sense of all those years of one-word grunts and hard glares. He was never an ice-cold bastard who hated me. He was fighting something that was inevitable.
I cock my chin. “You bought Fletcher’s company and destroyed him.”
The scowl that peels across his half flesh, half skull-painted face is almost more terrifying than when he was in full Lucifer form. “I made that asshole everything he was, so yes, I fixed my mistake. He didn’t deserve you. It killed me to watch you with him…to know you were withering away.” A spark ignites in his eyes. “I always knew this side of you existed. It just needed the Devil’s touch to coax it out.”
The last of my defenses crumble, and my arms drop by my side. “I had a crush on you, too.”
He arches an eyebrow, his grip on my hair tightening. “Even though I scared you?”
“I think it was because you scared me. I could never look you in the eyes because of all the elaborate fantasies I’d created in my head. I’d play it off by telling Maeve…” I trail off, her name hitting me like a bucket of ice water. I forgot all about her. Oh my God, she’s passed out on the couch, and I’m up in the attic fucking her father. I stare up at him in horror. “What about Maeve…?”
He shrugs. “What about her? We both know she’ll be out cold until tomorrow.”
“I’m not talking about tonight. How’s she going to react to this…?” I wave a hand between us.
“Who says she has to know anything?” he says, calmly and casually, as if we aren’t tiptoeing around a landmine. “What you and I do is our business. If we ever decide to redefine the terms of what we are, then we’ll find a way to tell her.”
I don’t know if it’s him, the attic, or my post-coital haze, but what he’s saying makes more sense than it should. It means I get to have Lucifer on the surface and Lennox in the dark.
We can have the best of both worlds, and nobody has to know.
“Do you think she’ll be mad?”
For the first time, I see Lennox Carver smile. “I think she wants to see us both happy.”
It’s not a definitive no, but I’ll take it.
“So, what happens now?”
“Whatever we want.” He gives me a hard stare, a lethal gleam brewing in those bright blue eyes. “What does your heart desire, Izzy?”
Everything. It desires the light and the dark, the good and the bad, the allowed and the forbidden. I want my mind free to wander to a wildly dangerous place where I’m draped on a massive onyx throne with the prince of darkness at my feet. A place where there are no rules and no judgment. A place where our secret fantasy world comes to life in a dusty attic.
Lennox was right when he said my true self has always lurked in shadows and danced in flames. All it needed was a push in the wrong direction…
And a deal with the Devil.
I lick my lips and offer my most innocent smile. “What else would you expect, sir? Your soul.”
The End
Like Lennox and Izzy?
You’ll love mysterious Johnny and strait-laced Becca in the Marchesi Empire.
Check out their volatile love story, starting with Torched Spades .