Chapter 18
Chapter
Eighteen
A knock at the front door echoed through Ethan's small apartment. Reluctantly, Ethan lifted his head to listen.
"Ethan?" Noah's voice carried through the walls. "You home?"
"No. No way." Ethan buried his face against Mal's shoulder, his pants still halfway down his ass. "He cannot be serious right now."
"We could pretend we're not here," Mal murmured into his hair, but the tension in his body betrayed his unease.
"I saw your lights on," Noah called. "Come on, I just want to return that book I borrowed."
"He's here to return a book?" Ethan pushed himself up, already missing Mal's warmth. "That couldn't wait until—" He froze. "The papers. We left them all over the living room floor."
Mal's eyes widened. In a flash, he darted out of the bed and into the living room.
"Just a minute!" Ethan called out, pulling up his pants as he approached the door. "I'm, uh, getting dressed!"
"Oh." Noah's voice took on a different tone. "Sorry, were you sleeping? It's only seven."
"No, it's..." Ethan sighed, running his fingers through his thoroughly messed up hair. "Give me thirty seconds."
He turned to watch Mal shove the papers under a couch cushion as if that were a good hiding spot. The demon's shirt was buttoned up the wrong way.
Ethan gestured for him to fix it.
Mal let out a soft curse and hurried to unbutton his shirt again.
Ethan suppressed a sigh, waited a few seconds, and finally opened the door to find Noah standing there with a battered copy of "Pride and Prejudice and Demons" pressed to his chest, his bowtie featuring tiny dragons breathing hearts instead of fire.
"What are you doing here?" Ethan greeted his friend.
As much as he loved Noah, this was not the time.
Noah's eyes swept over Ethan, taking in his disheveled appearance. A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"Like I said, returning your book." He held up the paperback. "I finished it last night and thought you might want it back."
That made no sense. "Why didn't you give it to me at work this morning?"
"I wanted to, but I forgot." Noah peered past him into the apartment. "Oh, hey Mal."
Mal had managed to fix his shirt, but his hair still stuck up at odd angles. He gave an awkward wave from where he stood next to the couch.
"You two weren't in the middle of something, were you?" Noah's innocently concerned expression didn't quite match the knowing glint in his eyes. "Should I come back another time?"
"Yes," Ethan said, at the same moment Mal blurted, "No."
They exchanged a look. Mal's tail coiled around his leg.
"I mean..." Mal cleared his throat. "You're already here."
Noah stepped inside, and when he looked at the couch, he must have spotted the corner of paper peeking out from under the couch cushion, but if it puzzled him, he didn't say anything. "Everything okay? You seem a bit... tense."
"Everything's fine," Mal asserted. "Perfectly normal evening. Nothing unusual happening here."
Ethan pressed his palm against his forehead. He'd told Mal he appreciated how terrible the demon was at lying, but right now he didn't.
Noah shot Mal an amused look and settled into the armchair. "So, what have you two been up to?"
Ethan felt his face heat up. "Just... hanging out."
"Hanging out." Noah's eyes flickered between them. "Is that what the kids are calling it these days?"
"Noah!"
"What?" Noah's innocent expression wouldn't have fooled a toddler.
Ethan crossed his arms in front of his chest. "Why are you really here?"
Noah's features softened. "Can't I be concerned about a friend who's had a lot on his plate recently? A friend who's literally living with a demon?"
"I'm fine." Ethan's voice came out sharper than he meant it to. "And Mal's not—" He stopped, glancing at the demon who still hovered by the couch like he expected the papers to leap out and attack them.
"Not what?" Noah's gaze followed Ethan's. "Not a demon?"
"Well, he is a demon." Ethan moved to stand beside Mal, close enough that their shoulders brushed. "But he's the worst one Hell's ever had."
Mal flinched.
Oops. Ethan took his hand and turned to him. "You know how I meant that."
"I guess." Mal looked only mildly placated.
Ethan resolved to make it up to him later.
Meanwhile, Noah studied them both. "And what about Hell? Are you not worried what they're going to think about all of this?"
It would have been a lie to say that Ethan wasn't worried. He just wasn't worried enough to stop.
"I'll be okay," he tried to reassure his friend.
"Are you sure?" Noah leaned forward. "Because from where I'm sitting, it looks like you're getting very close to someone who's contractually obligated to deliver your soul to Hell."
"My soul isn't going anywhere." Ethan squeezed Mal's hand. "We've got it figured out."
"If you say so." Noah twisted the book in his hands. "Hey Mal, can I ask you something?"
Mal's tail twitched. "Sure?"
"Are demons capable of love?"
The question landed like a stone in still water. Ethan felt Mal's hand go rigid in his.
Why was Noah asking such a thing?
Of course Mal was capable of love!
"Sorry," Noah said, seeing the effect his question had had. "Reading this book just had me wondering." He gestured at the worn copy of Pride and Prejudice and Demons .
"That's just fiction," Mal said, evading the question.
Noah let it slide. "You're right. Just seems like reality is stranger than fiction lately. I never thought I'd meet a demon." He eyed Mal's horns. "Makes one curious, but maybe I should go." He got up.
"Yeah, maybe you should." Ethan moved toward the door, hoping to hurry his friend out before things got more uncomfortable.
"Right, right." Noah lingered in the doorway. "Just one more thing…"
"What?"
Noah's eyes flickered to Mal, then back to Ethan. "Be careful, okay? Both of you."
Something in his tone made Ethan pause. Before he could question it, Noah disappeared down the hallway.
Ethan looked after him for a moment before closing the door. "That was weird, wasn't it?" Ethan asked, turning around to find Mal still frozen in place, a strange expression on his face.
"Hey." Ethan touched his arm. "You okay?"
"I..." Mal gave a slight shake of his head. "What are we doing, Ethan?"
"Well, before Noah interrupted, we were?—"
"That's not what I mean." Mal pulled away, running a hand through his already disheveled hair. "You read all those romance novels. You work in a library. You believe in true love and happily ever afters and…" His voice caught. "And I'm a demon."
"We've been over this."
"Have we?" Mal paced across the small living room. "Demons don't fall in love. Your friend was right about that."
"But you do lots of things that regular demons don't do," Ethan pointed out. "Like all the times you help people instead of corrupting them."
Mal stopped pacing. "That's different."
"How?" Ethan demanded.
"That's just a behavior problem I have, but it isn't physically possible for a demon to fall in love."
Ethan wasn't so easily deterred. "Magic isn't physically possible either, and yet you cast a few spells on me."
Mal licked his lips. Lips Ethan had kissed only a little while ago. It hadn't felt like he was kissing someone incapable of love. "You need to have light in your soul to feel love," Mal explained. "By definition, a demon's soul is completely dark. The opposite of yours."
"And this is a rule?"
"It's how it is."
"Who told you that?" Damn it, why did Noah have to come over and confuse Mal? Things had been so good between them!
"No one had to tell me. It's a fact of the universe." Mal's tail lashed behind him. "I can't give you what you need. What you deserve. All those stories you love—the grand gestures, the declarations of undying devotion, the..." He gestured helplessly. "The feelings."
"So what was this?" Ethan's voice came out softer than he meant it to. "What just happened between us?"
Mal's gaze darted away. "Lust. Demons are good at that part."
"Bullshit." Ethan crossed his arms. "You think I can't tell the difference?"
Mal's eyes fixed on Ethan. "I think you may not have the necessary experience to tell the difference."
"Really?" Ethan's face flushed hot. "You're going to throw my virginity into my face?"
"I'm trying to make you understand my own inadequacy."
"Your inadequacy?" The words tasted bitter in Ethan's mouth. "You're not inadequate. You're just afraid."
"I'm not afraid." Mal's tail whipped behind him. "I'm being realistic. About what I am. About what I can and cannot give you."
"But you want to give me things." Ethan took a step closer. "That's the part you keep skating around. A proper demon wouldn't care what I need or deserve."
"So I'm not a proper demon?"
"Do you want to be one?" Ethan reached for Mal's hand again. This time, Mal let him have it, his fingers twitching in Ethan's grip.
"I don't want to hurt you."
"Then stop putting yourself down."
Mal's tail lashed again, agitated. "You don't understand. What we just did..."
"Was amazing?" Ethan challenged. He'd felt so good until Noah had interrupted. But his friend had forced them both to face the reality of their situation once again.
"What we did was dangerous." A serious expression settled on Mal's features. "We said we'd be careful. Keep Hell from noticing. And then we just…" He broke off, but there was no need for him to continue; Ethan knew exactly what they'd just done.
"Nothing happened that would trigger the contract."
"This time." Mal's voice came out rough. "But that's not the point. We just proved we can't stick to our own rules. What if we get carried away next time and go too far?"
The question hung between them. Ethan wanted to argue, to say they had everything under control, but the lingering warmth in his body reminded him how easily control could slip. How much he'd wanted more.
When they'd been in bed together, his soul had felt like a small price to pay for getting closer to Mal.
And now the demon let go of his hand. "You need to understand the consequences of what we're doing." He turned to the couch and fished the papers out from under the cushion.
"We already know the consequences." Ethan stepped closer, reaching for him again. "My soul goes to Hell if we?—"
"No," Mal cut him off. "You don't know. I didn't know until today." He looked conflicted. "What they do to souls like yours in the Inner Sanctum..."
Something in Mal's expression made Ethan's stomach twist. He'd never seen the demon look this haunted before. "What do you mean?"
The Inner Sanctum… He'd mentioned that before, hadn't he?
Mal held out the papers to him. "Hell sent me this file. I don't know why."
The official Hell letterhead caught Ethan's eye first, complete with flames that actually flickered across the page. Then the words started to register. Phrases like 'soul-stripping apparatus' and 'systematic extraction of radiance' jumped out at him.
"I can't." Mal's voice was barely audible. "I can't let them do this to you."
Ethan's hands shook as he read on. The clinical tone made it worse somehow, reducing torture to statistics and progress notes even when talking about 'maximum pain levels' and 'soul-death.'
And then he saw the picture of the soul being processed and he couldn't suppress the tremor of fear that ran down his back.
For the first time since the summoning, he was afraid, and he was realizing now that he should have been afraid all this time.
But he hadn't been. Even though he'd just had a literal demon's cock in his mouth, he'd only thought of Hell in the abstract. None of it had truly seemed real until he held these papers in his hand.
This was what would happen to him if things spun out of control between him and Mal.
"You understand now, don't you?" Mal asked.
Ethan put the papers down on the coffee table, not wanting to look at them any longer. "I understand that we need a better plan," Ethan said.
He did not want to end up in Hell's Inner Sanctum.
But neither did he want to part from Mal.
"A better plan…" Mal shook his head. "You say that like it's easy."
"Things don't have to be easy to be worth doing."
Mal didn't seem to have a response to that, and when he remained silent, Ethan pressed on.
"Just promise me that we'll do this together."
"Ethan…"
"You know the only reason you're dangerous to me, right?"
The way Mal looked at him, he did not know, so Ethan reiterated the terms of their contract to him. "For you to collect, I need to lose my virginity to someone I love." He stressed the last word. "If I didn't care about you, you would pose no danger to me."
"Oh." The demon seemed so stunned, Ethan couldn't help but smile at him.
Despite everything the world, or rather, despite everything Hell was trying to throw at them… Mal was still Mal. The charming, slightly inept demon who'd fallen into Ethan's life and carved out a place for himself in Ethan's heart.
He wasn't what Ethan had wished for.
And yet he was.
Ethan stepped up close to Mal. Close enough to feel the heat radiating from his body. "We'll find a solution, okay?"
"There might not be a solution." Even as Mal said it, though, his hands came to rest on Ethan's hips as if he couldn't stop himself from reaching out.
Clearly, he wanted to stick together just as much as Ethan did.
"I know it looks like there might not be a solution," Ethan said. "But I've read enough romance novels to know that the best love stories are about beating impossible odds."
Mal's breath hitched. "You can't compare this to your books. This is real."
"You're right." Ethan lifted a hand to cup Mal's cheek. "This is real. You're real. What I'm starting to feel for you is real." He traced his thumb along Mal's jaw. "And I'm not going to let Hell take that from me."
Mal made a sound, something between a growl and a whimper, and closed the remaining distance between them. His tail wrapped around Ethan's waist, pulling him closer as his lips found Ethan's.
For all his protests about demons being incapable of love, Mal kissed like a man drowning. Like Ethan was air and light and everything he'd been told he couldn't have.
Ethan melted into him.
This was everything he wanted.
Almost everything.
Mal's hand rested over Ethan's heart, and Ethan wondered if the demon could feel how it raced beneath his palm.
"You won't leave me?" Ethan murmured against Mal's lips.
"I would hurt you if I did."
Ethan grinned. His man was capable of learning.
After another moment, they settled onto the couch together. Not on top of each other this time, but close together nonetheless. The Hell documents still lay on the coffee table, a stark reminder of what they faced.
"I'll think of something," Mal promised, noticing Ethan's gaze. "There has to be a way to keep you safe."
Ethan watched the demonic flames flickering across Hell's letterhead. "You know, there's always been an obvious solution."
He never liked to think about it, but now was the time to consider all his options seriously.
"What do you mean?" Mal asked.
"I could just sleep with someone I don't love." The words felt wrong in his mouth, especially after what they'd just shared. "That would break the contract."
Something flickered across Mal's face. "You've thought about this before."
"Since the beginning," Ethan admitted. "But I couldn't bring myself to do it. I wanted..." He thought of all his romance novels, of the stories of true love he'd collected over the years. "I wanted it to mean something."
"And now?"
"Now the thought feels even worse." Ethan pressed closer, breathing in Mal's scent. "But it's probably not worse than Hell."
"No, probably not worse than Hell." Mal sounded reluctant to agree, and then even more reluctant when he muttered, "Oh shit, not now!"
"What's wrong?"
Mal shook his head. "They're… seven hells, they're summoning me." A pained look crossed his features.
Ethan felt his own eyes widen. Damn it. This was such bad timing. "Who's summoning you? Hell?" He dug his fingers into Mal's arm, but it was no use.
He couldn't hold on when Mal dissolved into smoke.