Chapter 4
four
OPHELIA
I woke up before Dante did, lifting my head and peering around the solitary confinement room.
My body was still wildly relaxed. My wings had curled around Dante, one of them sandwiched between him and the wall so tightly that it would've been painful if he hadn't wedged his fingers under the most sensitive part of it.
The other wing was wrapped around his shoulder and arm. The feathers must've been tickling his face and neck, but he didn't seem to care.
Maybe I had missed physical contact more than I realized.
My sleepy gaze trailed over the closet-sized room.
It was still tiny and empty. Just us, my backpack, and a toilet neither of us had used. My bladder was screaming, and something told me I was going to have to swallow my pride long enough to pee in the same room as the sexy vampire who had gone down on me the night before.
That was going to be awkward. Sex would probably never happen after it, but it was fun while it lasted.
I focused on my wings long enough to fold them away, and stretched my shoulders to adjust to the lack of their weight again. I could always feel a ghost of them there, but it was easier to cope with when they hadn't been tucked away for too long.
Dante's hand that had been cradling my wing closed slowly around nothing. His smooth forehead creased. Then, the creases deepened. His nose wrinkled, too. He moved his head a little, and when he realized my feathers were gone, he finally cracked his eyes open.
I stared into them.
Holy fuck.
They'd been dark before, but now they were a deep, rich chocolate shade. There were golden flecks through his irises that definitely hadn't been there before he fed from me.
He looked... more alive.
Healthier, too.
"You look good," I said, without thinking.
He blinked. "It's the blood."
My blood.
I had done that.
I had done something good, for the first time in so long.
My chest ached. My fucking soul ached.
"You should bite me again," I said.
I wanted more of that feeling.
"Why did you put your wings away?" he asked instead.
It was kind of weird that he cared enough to ask, but I answered anyway.
"We're in a tiny room. I figure we're probably leaving here soon, too"
He nodded slowly.
"Did the pixie you were with sleep with her wings out?" I asked.
It was kind of a low blow, bringing up his ex. Hopefully they hadn't been engaged when he went to prison.
"No. We were only together for a few months, a few decades ago.
Unmated demons in leadership positions are seen as unstable, so I was always trying to find a mate.
Never worked. She and I only fucked a handful of times, and never spent the night together.
She never trusted me enough to bring her wings out, and I never particularly wanted her to. "
Ah.
Maybe I shouldn't have trusted him that much either. It was more of a necessity thing than a trust thing for me, though. Sleeping with my wings put away was painful.
"Were you dating anyone when you were sent here?" I asked.
"No. I was taking a break from the mate search."
"Why couldn't you find anyone? You seem fairly... agreeable?"
He lifted an eyebrow. "You say that like a question."
"Technically, I've only known you for a handful of hours. It is a question. And I'm supposed to be getting you out of prison, so you have to be agreeable."
"I guess. In dating, I usually am agreeable. There's just a big difference between being agreeable and being interested in being mated to someone for the rest of my immortality. It's a big commitment. I get… bored." He sounded reluctant to use that last word.
I nodded.
"You're not looking at me like you think that's stupid," Dante said, now studying me.
"Why would it be stupid?"
"I've been told plenty of times that getting bored isn't a reasonable thing to feel in a relationship."
I shrugged. "I disagree, but I'm a fallen angel. I don't think my opinions on the topic are healthy."
"What does falling have to do with your opinions on relationships?"
"More than you'd think."
Dante didn't look convinced. "I want to hear them anyway."
"I—"
An alarm buzzed just outside our room, and I jerked my head toward the door. Dante pressed his hand lightly against my lower back. "It buzzes to let us know that the doors will open in ten minutes. They're only open for one minute. The prison doesn't give us much time for transitions."
Guess I hadn't planned that well. We could add it to the list of ways I'd fucked up the intricate magic. It was becoming a long list.
"You need to bite me," I said.
"Ten minutes isn't long enough for me to make it pleasurable for you."
"Haven't you ever heard of a quickie?"
"We're not having a quickie the first time we—" Dante cut himself off with a growl when I slid into a much more effective position, lining his erection up with my core. He was really fucking hard. I was only a little turned on, but it was enough for me.
"I'll be safer if we smell like sex, right? There's an easy way to accomplish that. And a quickie is a fabulous way to jump into being temporary friends who fuck."
I assumed it was, anyway.
I'd never really done it before. That would've required having friends, even temporarily.
I met his gaze. "It's now or never, Dante. Take it or leave it."
He clenched his jaw slightly. "I'm a demon."
"I'm aware, and I've been knotted before. Win-win situation."
Demons shifted into their other form, sometimes. During sex, usually. When they wanted to, or when they lost control.
In their demon forms, male demons' cocks had a bulge at the base that they called a knot. It would swell when they got off, and made both parties feel really fucking good. Assuming your anatomy could handle it.
Knotting was considered extremely kinky, and if you weren't a demon, it did require a certain willingness to take risks.
I'd taken those risks, a long time ago. They paid off.
His eyes darkened. "Who the fuck knotted you?"
"That's a story for another time. When we're not less than ten minutes from needing to leave our closet."
His chest rumbled. One of his hands dragged over my ass. The other one slid beneath the hem of my panties, brushing my clit from behind. "You're already slick for me."
"You're nice to look at. And even nicer to touch."
He slid a finger inside me without warning, and my head tipped back as a soft breath escaped me.
Damn, that felt good.
Dante adjusted my position enough to free his cock. "This isn't how I would usually start a relationship," he said in a low voice.
"Thank god this isn't a relationship, then," I managed, as he added a second finger.
"We don't have time for me to knot you."
"Obviously."
"We're talking about how you tested that, afterward." He pulled his fingers free of my body and lined the tip of his cock up with my entrance.
He was fucking huge.
Thrill raced through me.
I sank over him, taking in a staggered breath while I stretched around his length. Dante cursed, grabbing my hips tightly while the base of his cock swelled.
His horns appeared on his head, thick and curved.
His tail wrapped tightly around my thigh.
He was already close. Really close.
Twelve years in prison, without sex, would do that to a man.
I couldn't get pregnant at the moment, and STDs weren't a thing for immortals, so there was nothing to worry about on that front.
Based on the bulge I could feel hitting my g-spot perfectly, he had a really big knot.
The pressure of it made my world spin as I neared the edge of my pleasure, quickly.
"Go easy. It's been a long time. I'm not going to last," he gritted out.
"You're not supposed to last. It's a quickie. Bite me already."
"I'll come the moment I have you on my tongue."
"That's the point. Just pull out enough that we aren't tied together if you lose control."
He swore viciously when I moved my hips. "You haven't even—fuck, Angel," he snarled, as I rocked my hips again, taking him deep and pulling out quickly so his knot wouldn't catch inside me.
Dante's teeth sank into my throat while he came. The way he lost control and the press of his knot to my clit sent me over with him, and I moaned through my own climax, gripping his shoulders as he drank deeply.
I was dizzy when he finally released my throat, licking the wounds slowly until they were completely healed. His horns and tail vanished.
"Are you okay?" he asked, his chest rising and falling heavily. There was an edge to his voice.
"Yeah. Fine. Just a little dizzy."
"Fuck. Don't move." Dante pulled out too quickly. He cleaned me off with a swipe of the blanket we'd slept with the night before—gross—before fixing my panties and grabbing my overalls.
The alarm buzzed again, and the door opened before I could put them on.
We only had a minute when it opened. That was what he said.
Dante clearly hadn't forgotten.
He dropped my overalls, scooped me up off the bed, and grabbed my stupidly heavy bag like it didn't weigh eight thousand pounds before striding into the hallway.
"You sacrificed my overalls," I mumbled against his shoulder.
Yeah. Wow. The world was definitely spinning.
He slowed down as soon as we were in the hallway, apparently not in a hurry to leave solitary confinement. "They were a poor choice in clothing anyway."
"Walking around in my underwear while dripping your cum seems like a worse choice, Inferno."
"The laundry room isn't far. We're getting you a jumpsuit."
"Oh, good. I was worried I'd never be cool enough to wear one," I said sarcastically.
"I felt the same way before I was locked up in here," he drawled. There was no bite to the words. Maybe the sex had taken the edge off too much for that.
I grimaced anyway. "Sorry about that, by the way. I didn't know the prison was being used like a weapon."
"It's not your fault."
"I designed the magic. You don't need to baby me; I can admit that I fucked up. I've barely slept since Merrily told me I landed you and Jazz in here."
"Merrily Fall? The fae queen?"
"Yeah. Didn't I mention her?"
"No. What does she have to do with any of this?"
"She's mated to Grayson Darke, and she's the one who asked me to come in here. No offense, but I wouldn't have answered the door if the incubus king had shown up alone."
"Holy fuck. Are you serious? He's been in love with her for a century." Dante sounded surprised.
"Yeah. They're soulmates. You should've seen their auras." I shuddered at the memory. "Blinding."
"You see auras?"
"Yeah. Some angels can. Riv—Shiv—can't, though."
"Wow. Shit. Even if we're stuck down here for good, I'm glad things worked out for Gray." Dante's words sounded genuine.
"Don't curse us," I murmured, as he stepped out of the hallway. I could feel a million eyes on us, and all I could do was hope that none of them belonged to River.
Dante carried me into the laundry room without pausing to say hi to anyone. He was right. It wasn't far.