Chapter Six
Awave of heat warmed Remi’s back. He turned as Skye walked out from the flames, an evil little smirk tugging at her lips.
He almost told her to fuck off just to wipe the smug expression off her face, but he had to swallow his pride.
Taking a deep breath, he brushed past Skye and pulled out the chair under his desk. He found an old bill—the word OVERDUE in big red letters in the corner—and flipped it around, then wrote out everything he could think of asking for.
He’d seen the movies and heard the stories about deals with the Devil. He wasn’t going to get fucked over by missing something.
“Is now really the time to write your grocery list?” Skye quipped. She leaned over him. Her long brown hair tickled his shoulder. The scent of her momentarily overwhelmed his senses. Something like vanilla and burnt marshmallow. A sweetness that was slightly bitter.
He gripped his pencil tighter and refocused, finishing off the list. When he finally felt that he’d gotten everything, he turned around in his chair.
“These are my demands,” Remi said, thrusting the page at Skye.
She stared at him for a long moment, lips pressed together as if fighting a smile, before plucking the page from his hand.
She snapped her fingers, and a pair of black-framed glasses appeared from a burst of flames.
Clearing her throat, she slid them on and straightened out the paper as she perused it.
Remi wanted to look away, but the glasses made her look like some sexy librarian or a strict teacher who was going to punish him for being a naughty boy, and fuck if he wasn’t getting aroused at the thought.
She was in a short red leather skirt and a black corset halter, her cleavage bursting out of the top. A lace choker wrapped around her throat with a teardrop diamond hanging in the center, and her silver septum piercing accentuated her rosy cheeks.
Skye snorted a laugh. “A one-year record deal with one of the five top record labels that includes five one-year options to renew, complete creative freedom on all albums produced, a sold-out cross-country stadium tour, a billboard number one album for at least thirteen weeks, and streaming numbers in the millions on at least three singles from that album.”
She rolled her eyes and flung the paper over her shoulder. “Well, is that all?” she said. “You don’t want a fucking Grammy or two?”
Remi scooped the paper off the floor and added to the list three Grammys over a five-year period, before handing it back over.
Skye smirked. She took the paper and ripped it in half, then quarters. “It’s cute how you think you have any leverage here.”
Remi wanted to blow up. It was his default reaction, but he forced himself not to visibly react. He needed to stay levelheaded here. This was a negotiation.
It was just…Remi had never been levelheaded about anything in his life, ever.
This is for West. For the band.
A derisive laugh echoed in his head. It’s for your ego.
Skye kicked a pile of his dirty clothes out of the way and walked to his bed, plopping down with her arms extended behind her. She crossed her legs and looked around the room.
Remi followed her gaze, and shame pitted his stomach. He resisted the urge to run around the room and clean up the disaster it was almost always in.
This was his fucking room. This was his fucking house. Well, West’s house, but whatever. He wasn’t going to be embarrassed. He didn’t want to impress her. He didn’t need her to feel any kind of way about him.
Her gaze made its way back around and settled on him, taking her time to trail from his socked feet to his bare chest since he hadn’t bothered to find another shirt after ripping his off in the store.
He couldn’t be mistaking the way Skye’s eyes hooded as she followed the path of his tattoos up his chest and along his neck.
A flare of heat sparked in his groin from her appreciative gaze.
She looked so fucking good on his bed. Her tight skirt showed off her plump, sexy thighs.
The corset top had tiny lace straps that Remi wanted to curl his fingers under and slowly slide down her creamy shoulders to reveal the expanse of her collarbones.
He’d suck on her skin until she was bruised from his mouth, until her perfection was marred, marked by his teeth for all to see.
He wondered what she’d taste like. If she’d taste like how she smelled. Bittersweet and mouthwatering. A sweetness that would punish him with a bitter aftertaste, but he’d keep coming back for more anyway.
He shifted on the desk chair as his pants grew tighter, flashes of memories from his dreams flickered alive.
Remi refocused on the moment—to Skye smirking at him as if she knew exactly what he was feeling.
Fuck, could she? Could she get into his head? She’d gotten into his dreams.
“I don’t have unlimited access to enough devil magic to make you the king of the world or some shit, alright?
So I’ll give you the stadium tour,” Skye said.
“But no sell-out guarantees. A record contract with Sprites Records. No one in the industry gets complete creative control unless you own the label. No Grammy. No billboard guarantees.”
Remi worked his jaw. “You want me to sell my soul for no guarantees?”
While he didn’t think spending his afterlife as a trophy for the Devil sounded all that appealing, it wasn’t the loss of his soul that concerned him. He’d become numb to the risk of eternal damnation from his mother’s threats as a child. Apologize, Remington, or you’ll burn in Hell for this.
He figured his soul was just like anything else—something that could be threatened and exploited by some outer authority (parents, preachers, society’s moral police) or a resource he could use to his advantage if he handled this negotiation right.
Skye got off the bed with fluid grace. Remi stood too, crossed his arms over his chest, and leaned against the desk, hoping to project indifference.
She closed the distance between them. Even in her heeled boots, Skye was still shorter than him, but just barely, and any leverage he might have gotten from that extra height didn’t seem to be doing him any good.
Skye reached out and ran a finger down his neck, along the tattoo of a snake that swirled from his collarbone and down the column of his throat. To his abject horror, he tilted his head to expose his neck to her touch.
“If you truly believed in your band’s abilities, you wouldn’t need those guarantees,” Skye said. “Are you doubting your bandmates or yourself?”
Remi snatched her wrist, squeezing the delicate bones. He wrapped his hand around her little wrist, his fingers and thumb overlapping. “Tilted Haze was offered one record contract,” he said. “I know we’re good enough to make it big.”
“Hmm.” She cupped Remi’s cheek with her free hand and jutted out her bottom lip.
“Do you think getting a couple number ones, a couple of Grammys, will quiet the voice in the back of your head that reminds you that you’re worthless and untalented?
That you weren’t good enough to make your dad stick around, for your mommy to love you.
Even your own twin hated you. Why would the world feel any different? ”
Remi’s nostrils flared. “How do you know about any of that? My dad? My brother?”
Skye smirked. She pulled her wrist free from Remi’s loosened grip and pressed her palms to his abs. His stomach quivered at her touch. She traced up his chest, fingers curling around the back of his neck as her lips brushed against his ear.
“I’ve been in your dreams,” she whispered. “I know your fears. I know your deepest desires. Every moment you’re most ashamed of. You’re an open book for me, Remi, and I’ve read every page.”
His chest caved in as her words landed their mark.
The humiliation only grew as she shifted and pressed her hips against his, grinding against his growing erection.
Fuck. Why was he hard? In some twisted way, he liked this, wanted his vulnerable underbelly torn open, her fingers combing through his entrails and laughing at his misery.
He was so fucked up.
He didn’t want to like it. Didn’t want his body to react this way. He wanted to crawl away and hide—or lash out—anything but this. This. This standing here pinned to the desk by a devil woman who knew exactly how to get under his skin.
“I know how much you want me. How much you need me,” she said, echoing his thoughts and making him feel unsafe even in his mind.
Remi clenched his jaw. He needed to get control back, to wrestle it from her if he had to. She was right. He didn’t have much leverage, but he did have something to use against her.
He grabbed her hips, spun her around, and lifted her onto the desk. Her legs spread, making room for him between her knees, her skirt riding up.
He didn’t care anymore that she knew how much he wanted to fuck her. For all he knew, she was using her magic to get him aroused.
His hand swooped under her hair, and his fingers twisted around the strands at the nape of her neck. He yanked her head back so she was looking up at him. Her hands rested on his forearms and then rubbed up his biceps in a way that seemed unconscious.
“That goes both ways, Skye,” he said, disgust in his tone.
“Maybe I can’t rummage around in your head like you did mine, but I know more about you than you think.
I know you need me. My soul is valuable to you.
You told me you’ve spent more time with me than any other, so there is something about my soul that is worth all the bullshit you’ve put me through. ”
“I…I did not. I never said that.”
“You did,” he said. It was his turn to smirk.
“You don’t remember? You don’t remember all the promises you made me before you got to your knees and sucked me off?
” Her smile faltered just a bit. “Like how you’d give me whatever I wanted.
That you’d make me feel so good. Where’s that Skye? She was slutty and easy.”