Chapter 42
Forty-Two
As soon as the words left her mouth, I tensed. Dani wanted to take Raphaela and me and Eros and, heavens, everyone here to a Lust Room? I wanted to ask if she was crazy or if she was jealous, but I knew the reason she had done it.
Dani hadn’t said it because she wanted to do anything with Raphaela.
She had said it to prove a point, and that point was how Raphaela didn’t belong in the Kingdom of Lust. She didn’t belong in Pride either.
She would be cast out, unaccepted in both kingdoms because she froze like one of the statues in the Garden when Dani said it.
Her eyes got all big and wide, bugging out of her head.
Dani brushed a finger up the side of her neck and smirked at her. “Sin with me, Raphaela,” she whispered in her ear from behind her, flickering her gaze to meet mine.
To say I was turned on was an understatement. That woman didn’t need to do anything, and I would be ready to take her to bed any night. Dani didn’t have to try like Eros did sometimes. It came so naturally to her that I knew deep down that Raphaela was scared shitless.
Raphaela swallowed hard and pushed her shoulders back. “Where?”
Dani looked surprised for a moment. She glanced at me, her smirk widening even more. I tensed as I watched them, knowing that this would not go over well. Dani would try to take Raphaela’s soul, kill her without mercy, and enjoy every moment of it.
I didn’t like Raphaela anymore … but I didn’t want her dead. She could be a useful tool when Hell rose from the ashes and we fought the angels and Mother.
Dani sat on one of the couches, crossing one leg over the other, her dress riding up those damn sexy legs, and patted the seat next to her. A look of fear crossed Raphaela’s face. All that confidence from last night totally disappeared.
Did she fear Dani because she was powerful? Or did she fear Dani because she was both angel and demon, an anomaly in Heaven and Hell?
But Raphaela sat next to her, letting Dani run her fingers down her arm. I cleared my throat to try to empty my mind, my head feeling like shit after all those drinks, but … I was too gone to think straight. All I could feel was the hardness in my pants at watching Dani work her magic.
“Don’t push it, Dani,” Eros said from beside me.
Dani giggled and reached for Tonia’s hand. “Oh, it’s fine, Eros. Don’t be so good.” After snatching up Tonia’s hand and pulling her down onto the couch with them, Dani leaned back against the backrest, her finger curling around Tonia’s hair. “You love taken women, don’t you, Tonia?”
Tonia smirked and nodded her head, yet didn’t say anything. Heavens, nobody did.
“Raphaela is taken,” she said, grabbing Raphaela’s hand. “She still has a ring to prove it.” Dani drew her finger against Raphaela’s wedding band. Why the heavens did she still have that thing? “Taken by the most powerful man in Hell.”
Tonia swallowed hard and glanced up at me. Raphaela sat there, unmoving. And Dani smirked like she had the entire world in her hand. She could bend this to go any way that she wanted, and she would if nobody stopped her.
“It would be the greatest sin of them all,” Dani said to Tonia. “I bet Raphaela tastes so good.”
I pressed my lips together. “I think that’s enough,” I said after gathering all the sense I had left.
I inhaled the scent of cinnamon deeply and groaned to myself. Why’d Eros smell so good all of a sudden?
I glanced over at him, the muscles in his arms flexing through his shirt, the way his full lips parted into the smallest of smirks, the way his eyes lingered for longer than they should if he was still angry with me.
I didn’t know what the fuck Raphaela needed, but I knew exactly what I needed.
A good fuck to push all this nonsense away.
And he would give it to me later tonight.
Raphaela tensed next to Dani, placing her hands in her lap and rubbing them relentlessly—as if she couldn’t do or think of doing anything else. I eyed her and wondered just what kingdom she’d end up in.
Not Lust.
Not Pride.
Maybe Tartarus, where all the rejects went.
“This is Hell, Angel,” Dani said, eyes teetering between white and black—a deadly combination. She stood up, brushed out her dress, and threw Raphaela a smirk. “If you don’t like it, you shouldn’t be here.”