Chapter 43 #2
“Oh, for the love of the fires below,” Malachi sighs, the sound dripping with long-suffering exhaustion. “We literally just walked through the door. Can we have five minutes of dry, non-hysterical reacquaintance before you start secreting fluids onto the carpet?”
I ignore him. I can’t help it. I’m a snot-nosed, sobbing mess of relief.
A massive, wet nose shoves itself into my ear, followed by a low, rumbling whine. Chain-Chewer. I reach out blindly with one hand, my fingers sinking deep into thick, silky fur. I pull back, blinking through the blur of tears to stare at the beast.
“He has a shell too?” I sniff, wiping my nose on my sleeve.
“It’s a Great Dane,” Malachi says, picking a piece of lint off his knee. “I picked it. He can still fit comfortably but the jowls give him a deceptive air of approachability. Great for ambushes.”
Chain-Chewer barks—a sound that‘s ninety percent dog and ten percent tectonic plate shifting—and licks the salt off my cheek with a tongue the size of a dinner plate.
I’m laughing, a wet, hiccuping sound that hurts my chest, scratching the soft spot behind the monster’s ears.
“I see how it is,” Malachi sighs, the sound heavy with theatrical neglect. “I tear through the fabric of reality, yet the creatures get the first base? Do I get any love from you? Or am I just the transportation service?”
“You’re jealous of them,” I chuckle wetly.
“I am insulted by the hierarchy.”
I loosen my grip on Vesper and she immediately takes the opportunity to launch herself out of my arms, landing on the carpet with a soft thud before delivering a sharp, warning bap to Chain-Chewer’s massive nose. The hellhound-turned-Dane just wags his tail, delighted by the abuse.
I don’t wait to see the outcome of the interspecies negotiation. I scramble up from the floor, abandoning all dignity, and practically launch up onto the couch.
“Oof—careful, you menace,” he grunts, but his arms are already there.
He catches me easily, pulling me right into the cradle of his lap, his hands spanning my waist with a familiarity that makes my head spin.
I bury my face in the crook of his neck.
He smells different—no longer just smoke and burning spice.
He smells like cedar, expensive wool, and something distinctly, warmly alive.
“You’re here,” I whisper into his collar, my hands fisting in the lapels of his jacket. “You’re actually here.”
He brings a hand up to my face, brushing a tear from my cheek. “Have you slept at all? Have you been eating adequately? You don’t feel as soft.”
“I missed you,” I choke out, leaning into his touch like a plant seeking the sun. “I thought... I thought Veraxia and the Wardens and those guards in the Archives… I thought I’d never see you again.”
“Hm, yes. Well, it’s a rather long, boring story,” he scoffs, though his thumb keeps stroking my cheekbone. “I was involved in a dramatic tram crash, was tortured rather boringly for quite some time, and then met Satan. It was a whole thing. Lots of shouting. Very noisy.”
“You... you met the Devil?”
“Yes,” he says casually, adjusting his collar. “She was a delight. We hit it off immediately. Turns out, my particular set of skills were exactly what the management structure of Hell was missing. So, I received a job offer.”
He shifts, settling deeper into the couch, looking for all the world like he’s discussing a transfer to a new cubicle rather than a full-blown promotion in Hell.
“A job offer?” I whisper.
“Direct report,” he says, a dangerous, sharp grin cutting across his handsome human face. “I work for her now. I operate between both realms. I’m a... Headhunter, of sorts.”
He smooths a hand down my back, sending a shiver through me.
“You remember what I did to that Harvester in the back alley?” he asks.
I shudder. “Vividly.”
“That,” he says, his voice dropping an octave, dark and rich with promise.
“But on a corporate scale. Satan has her eyes on the rogue elements. The ones parading as higher-power mortals. My job is to find them, audit their existence, and remove them from the board. Permanently. It comes with excellent benefits. Flexible hours. And, most importantly, a residency permit for the mortal realm.” He leans in, his nose brushing mine.
“Which means I don’t have to leave. Ever. ”
The words bounce around the inside of my skull, too big to fit, too good to be true. I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“You don’t have to leave?” I whisper.
“I don’t have to leave,” he confirms, his expression shifting to reveal something that looks dangerously, terrifyingly like devotion.
He leans in further, his forehead resting against mine.
“Hell was boring without you. Nobody there appreciates my humor. It’s all wailing and gnashing of teeth; very little banter. ”
He pauses, pulling back slightly. “Ah. Wait. I almost forgot the narrative protocol.” He shifts his weight, reaching into the inner breast pocket of his suit jacket to reveal a single, slightly crushed, velvet-soft, dark red rose that looks like it’s been snapped straight from a bush.
“Chapter nineteen of Shattered Desires,” he says mockingly, twirling the stem between his fingers. “He presented his love with a flower.”
He tucks it behind my ear, his fingers lingering on my jaw. “Consider yourself wooed. I stole it from your neighbor’s window box. Chivalry may be seen as dead, but theft is thriving.”
I let out a wet, shaky laugh, my hands clutching the lapels of his jacket so hard my knuckles turn white.
“Now,” he rasps against my lips. “Stop crying on my expensive suit and kiss me, you catastrophic woman.”
I collide with him in a desperate crash of tongues and teeth and reclamation.
He growls against my lips, sending a buzz all the way down between my legs. His arms lock around me like iron bands, crushing me against his chest, holding me close enough to bruise.
“Out,” he growls—a command meant for the animals, not me. I hear the pad of paws as Chain-Chewer and Vesper scramble to vacate the room, but the sound’s distant, muffled by the blood thundering in my ears.
My hands are frantic, clawing at his suit, hating the fabric that separates skin from skin. I want to peel him out of it. I want to tear him open and crawl inside his ribcage.
“Impatient, aren’t we?” he murmurs against my jaw, his teeth scraping the sensitive skin of my neck. “We’re apart for three weeks and you turn into a feral little thing.”
“Shut up,” I hiss, abandoning all dignity as I rock my hips against me. “Shut up and touch me.”
He chuckles darkly against my pulse point. “Make me.”
I shove him back against the cushions, the springs groaning under our combined weight as I straddle his hips.
“I need you,” I beg, my hands fumbling uselessly at his belt. “Now, Malachi. Right n—”
“I’ve got you,” he snarls.
His large hands grip the waistband of my jeans, fingers digging into my hips with bruising force. There’s a sharp pop of rivets giving way, followed by the rip of denim being torn apart.
“There,” he grinds out. “Problem solved.”
Without preamble, he shoves two fingers past the ruined fabric and underwear, straight into my already-soaked pussy.
“Fuck,” he hisses.
His free hand clamps onto my hip, fingers digging into the bone to force me down onto his hand, setting a punishing, grinding rhythm that sends heat rushing through my blood.
“Hands on my throat,” he commands, his voice rough with a dark, twisted need. “Now, Eden. Squeeze.”
My hands fly to his neck, thumbs pressing against his windpipe.
“Nope,” he rasps, leaning into the pressure. “Harder.”
He matches the pressure of my grip with the unyielding rhythm of his hand between my legs. He fucks into me, stretching me wide as his thumb attacks my clit until my hips are snapping forward to meet him, desperate for more.
“I can feel you,” he murmurs, his eyes dropping to his invading hand. “You’re going to squirt all over my fingers, aren’t you?”
I can’t speak. I can’t breathe. I just nod, a desperate jerk of my chin, tears pricking my eyes as the pressure coils tighter and tighter.
My hips buck against his hand, a strangled groan tearing from me as the pleasure spikes, wild and blinding. I come hard, a brutal, drenching release that coats his hand and wrist in a hot, clear flood.
The most delicious moan I’ve ever heard rips free from him. “Fuck. Look at you. You’re a mess. But we’re not finished.”
In one fluid movement, he withdraws his slick hand and hauls me from his lap, standing above me. With one boot, he shoves the coffee table across the carpet, sending my mug and a stack of books crashing against the far wall.
Then his hands wrap around my ankles, and with a demanding tug, he drags me off the cushions.
I gasp, the rose dropping from my hair, limbs flailing as gravity takes over.
But his hand snaps out, catching the back of my head just inches from the floor, lowering me the rest of the way with careful control.
He looms over me, blocking out the light, a silhouette of tailoring and raw hunger.
He kicks his boots across the room and rips his belt out of the loops with a sharp hiss of leather.
The ends of it dangle down, brushing against my chest as he hooks it around his neck, drops to his knees, and plants his hands on the floor either side of my head, caging me in.
“Wrap your hands around it,” he commands, nodding at the leather strap around his throat. “Pull it tight. Anchor yourself.”
I scramble to obey, grabbing the leather to choke him just as he frees his cock and drags the cold, unforgiving metal of the piercing right over my swollen, over-sensitive clit.
Thank God he kept the piercing.
He slams his hips forward, burying himself to the hilt in one devastating thrust.
Fuck.
The sensation is incandescent. The heavy silver barbell drags against the soft, sensitive inner walls, a beautiful intrusion that makes my toes curl.
“The belt,” he snarls, the veins in his neck straining as he holds himself deep inside me. “Pull it tighter.”
I yank harder, strangling him, using it to haul my upper body off the rug.
He grins—a terrifying, feral thing—and starts to move.
Wet, slick sounds of skin slapping against skin echo through the room as he pounds into me.
“Three weeks,” he grits out, his face twisted in pleasure. “Three weeks of silence.”
He snaps his hips, grinding the piercing against my g-spot.
“Do you have any idea?” he growls, driving deeper, harder, trying to fuse his skeleton to mine. “I was starving for you. I was ready to tear the soul out of anyone who looked at me the wrong way.”
He leans down, pressing his lips to mine in a searing kiss.
“I’m never leaving your side again,” he pants against my skin, the words tearing out of his throat between strokes. “I’m staying right here. Buried in you. Mine.”
A guttural groan rumbles out of him as he thrusts one last, ruinous time, spilling deep inside me as my pussy clenches around his length.
The tension drains out of him and he drops like a controlled demolition, his dead weight pinning me into the cheap fibers of the rug. He buries his face in the crook of my neck, inhaling deeply.
“You smell like peaches,” he murmurs into my skin.
A small, disbelief-laden laugh bubbles up in my chest as I stare up at the ceiling, my fingers idly stroking the sweat-damp hair at the nape of my demon’s neck.
I run the mental tape back, just to make sure I haven’t finally snapped. The botched summoning ritual with the mass-produced spell kit. The terrifying reality of accidentally dragging something ancient into my one-bedroom apartment just because I couldn’t handle the silence.
And now I’m lying on the floor with Malachi, a literal entity of the Pit, using me as a mattress. In my bedroom, there’s a Hellhound in the shape of a Great Dane, and Vesper’s gained at least five pounds from what I can only assume is from weeks of being spoiled with flank.
I wanted a ghost. I wanted a flicker. Instead, I got an ancient demon who likes the way my shampoo smells and a household that defies every law of physics and theology.
Fucking bargaining.