Chapter 2
Blue and red neons reflected rays of purple into the atmosphere of Luscious, mixing with the putrid stench of cigars and body odor.
Sweat coated my palms as the smell hit my nostrils, and I had to fight the urge to freeze.
Echoes of the past whispered in my ears.
Drunken laughter. The ghost of fingers tracing down my arms, and the burn of alcohol as they forced it down my throat.
“Stop it,” I hissed. “Not now. Not ever again. You are a strong bitch, and you stomp on men like bubble wrap.”
“Come ‘ere sweetheart,” a man slurred from a distance.
I whipped my head around, ready to tell him to fuck off in every color of the rainbow, but snapped my mouth shut when I realized he wasn’t talking to me.
“Keep your paws off,” teased my coworker, Caramel.
The soft, sticky squares of sugar she kept in heavy supply on her vanity determined her stage name before she ever got to pick her own.
What endeared me to her from the start was why she kept them: concern for our blood sugar when we came off stage.
Caramel was southern sweet down to her core.
“Don’t be that way,” another man laughed and smacked her ass from behind. The sound reverberated against the stage music and bounced around my head, each ping making my eye twitch.
Body glitter glinted off of Caramel’s cleavage. It didn’t shine nearly as bright as the budding spark of discomfort in her amber eyes.
Then men closed in, their touches more persistent, and I’d seen enough.
An audible growl accompanied my sneer as I stomped toward them.
“Last I recall sweetheart, it was you taking my money, and you’ll do as I say while I’m paying you,” said Dickhead Number One.
He was the first I shoved.
“Do we have a problem over here, asshole?” I squared my shoulders and stood toe-to-toe with him. I didn’t care that I was two heads shorter; by the time I was finished, he’d be feeling like the small sack of shit he was.
“The problem,” he said as he squared up, “is that I’m not getting what I‘m paying for.”
His easy smile and looming stature told me just how much he underestimated my abilities.
Good.
“You’re in a classy joint,” I gestured around the sub-par strip club.
“If you wanna get handsy you’ll have to find a pay by the hour down the street.
Be careful which corner you stand on, though.
Some of those pimps make you audition.” I winked, he sneered, and Caramel’s giggle was the cherry on top.
The other girls were closing in on us, watching, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Raven crossed her arms, wearing a scowl as intense as the aroma of the hairspray cloud that followed her everywhere. Trinity and Lola, newbies who were twins, stopped dancing on stage and walked to the edge.
“Maybe you’ll just have to take her place, toots.” The smell of stale beer and periodontal disease warmed my neck when Dickhead Number Two finally found the courage to approach me.
Nova silently rounded the bar, her silence more scary than any shouted word. Cherry stood up from her private lap dance to walk closer, the sweetness of her cherry flavored body butter teasing my tongue.
“You wouldn’t have the balls.” I didn’t deign to face Dickhead Number Two because I refused to lose the stare-off I was having with Dickhead Number One.
“Thanks, Ivy,” Caramel mouthed as she slipped away. I gave a short nod, but kept my focus grounded on the asshole sandwich I was a part of.
Sapphire approached them from behind. I knew this because the sheer size of her Jessica Rabbit style tits were hard to miss. They all had my back. Not that I needed it, but it bolstered my confidence.
I was going to make an example of these two assholes so that the remainder of the night was smooth sailing for the rest of them.
The air shifted as the men tightened the cage with their bodies. It was a threat. One that lit the first small flame of bloodlust in my belly. I wouldn’t kill them.
I’ll just have a little fun.
My smirk was the only warning they got before I sent my hands flying and fisted both of their pathetic, shriveled balls in an iron grip.
“Your mothers would be so disappointed,” I yelled above the music, dragging both of them screaming behind me toward the alleyway exit.
Disrespectful children got pulled by the ear.
Disrespectful men got dragged by the balls.
They shoved against my wrists and screamed as we went, though it was in vain. Being dead had its perks. Preternatural strength was one of them.
“Miz’ Ivy,” smiled our enforcer, Jamal, as I approached with the offenders.
“Bruiser,” I stopped and bowed as low as my hold would allow. “How’s my favorite doorman tonight?”
Dickhead’s One and Two had stopped screaming and proceeded to stage two of man meat trauma: gagging.
“Not as good as my favorite full time stripper, part time club cooler it would seem.” Brisk air rolled in through the door as he held it open for me.
I tipped my head in thanks before throwing both men down the four steps. Their broken cries as they laid on the filthy pavement was the biggest dopamine boost I’d had all night.
My heels echoed off the decaying masonry as I hit the steps and stooped down to their level. “The next time you come into my club, make sure you have both your manners and your behaviors in check before paying the door fee.”
My words didn’t feel like they carried enough weight to convince them how serious I was. So, in a shocking display of lewd behavior, I gathered all of the saliva I could muster and spit on them both.
Okay, so maybe not so shocking. I was born with manners, but I wasn’t reborn with them.
I went back inside and closed the door behind me, patting myself on the back for a job well done.
Good job, Dany. You showed so much restraint by making a scene instead of killing them!
“Did it have to be the family jewels?” Jamal asked with one hand cradling his own rubies.
“Play stupid games,” I shrugged, searching for a shred of remorse for their balls on Jamal’s behalf to no avail.
“Win stupid prizes,” Jamal finished with a laugh.
A scratchy, sarcastic voice repeated that phrase in my head and it was hard to contain the fondness that followed it.
“I knew an old Cajun bat once who said that men who test boundaries don’t have any.”
“Oh yeah? Is she single?”
I had to hide my smile as I walked away.
“You couldn’t handle her, Jamal.” The idea of Barb, my ancient undead neighbor with a knack for psychological torture, courting our twenty-something, sweet as pie bouncer disguised as a bruiser was as comical as Virgin Mary, Joseph, and God starring on the Jerry Springer show.
I didn’t look back as I rejoined the chaos inside.
The girls had returned to their stations and the strip club was running in full swing. Erections in every direction, booze and body butter floating on the rackety air conditioning breeze, and—
A deep, rolling laugh sent electricity crackling over my skin and seized the breath in my lungs. It was a laugh that haunted the entirety of my afterlife, invaded my dreams, and clouded my goddamn thoughts in the most unsolicited manner.
“Dearest, Dany,” he hummed my real name with a lilt. “I thought you’d never come.”
My pulse spiked, anticipatory exhilaration laced with a healthy dose of fear and a humiliating hunger he’d bred into my bones long before tonight.
I don’t know why my body reacted that way. I knew I’d be seeing him soon.
Every year on my Death Day, Lucifer Morningstar rode in on a frost-thickened fog to wrap his hands around the soft parts of my will and twist until I ended up on my knees in front of him. And not even for fun shit. More like kissing his perfectly shined shoes.
I steadied myself with a slow inhale before turning to face the Devil.
He was seated in a corner booth where the lights never quite touched with one hand draped elegantly around a lowball glass.
I forced bravado into the sway of my hips as I approached, like maybe if I could convince myself I was unfazed by his surprise visit, I could make him believe it too.
“Luci,” I said with an exaggerated cheer as I sat beside him. “If you worked a little harder, maybe it wouldn’t take so long for me to get there.”
Whatever, spoke a traitorous voice inside. He’d have you panting like a bitch in heat and ready to come before he’d loosened the top button of his freshly ironed shirt.
Lucifer’s lip quirked.
Fuck. Did he hear that?
He ignored my taunt and instead slid a napkin with three cherries over in front of me. “You look lovely as ever.”
The complement was small. Hell, it probably wasn’t even sincere. That didn’t stop my stupid horny heart from falling over itself like a star-struck groupie.
I popped the cocktail fruit into my mouth, hopefully the epitome of unfazed, and savored the fresh burst of flavor. “You flatter me,” I said as I chewed, perhaps a bit too obnoxious. He didn’t seem to mind, though.
I think I hated him even more because of it.
“No,” he tsked and tapped a finger on his glass. The chill of his body crept into my side and it was hard not to give in and scoot closer. His icy presence was the only thing able to soothe the constant heat flushing my skin. “I save flattery for those I dislike.”
“And what do you save for me?” The question was out of my mouth before I could stop it.
He watched me for a long moment, thought reflected from behind intelligent eyes before he shifted in the seat.
My brain buzzed, the smell of woodsmoke and embers on a winter’s night filling my nose as he leaned conspiratorily, like he was preparing to whisper his darkest secret in my ear. He answered, “Your life, of course.”
My stupid heart fell to the stupid floor. Where it got the audacity to think it was special enough for a secret was unknown to me. It didn’t numb the disappointment though.
You’re not special to him, Dany.
“Of course.” I shoved another cherry in my mouth. “Your generosity is endless, Luci.”
“Eternal,” he corrected.
“And you’ll never let me forget it.” He was always quick to remind me that my being here was by the sole power of his will, and that he could take a baseball bat to my knees any time he wanted. Like a fucking loan shark.
I chewed on the cherry stem as I watched the patrons of Lucious revel in debauchery. Women on poles, cocaine on the table, and men swarming like bees in every direction. Trying to think of literally anything other than the Devil at my side.
He wasn’t having any of that, though.
“Look at me, Dany.”
The empty hole where my soul used to be twinged, eager to do as he said. I fought to tame the pounding of my heart while looking as uninterested as possible. Maybe he’d believe it this time.
We both knew I was a fucking liar.
That baritone laugh vibrated the air around me, sending a sinful lick of heat to pulse between my thighs. It was the type of heat that only that chill of his touch could tame.
“Dany,” he taunted, drawing my name out like the last note of a symphony. The weight of his presence pressed upon my being before I ever felt the ice of his breath on my ear. With one wicked lick on my cheek, he whispered, “Look. At. Me.”
Compulsion coated his words like molasses. My muscles wanted to give in, and so against my better judgement, I let them. The patrons of Luscious disappeared, nothing more than an afterthought as he twirled a strand of my hair.
When I finally met his gaze, I could have wept. Black, slit pupils scanned my face, the liquid emerald surrounding the left shone like a neon flame against the milky white of the other where a scar marred him from forehead to cheekbone.
”That’s a good girl,” he crooned.
I was enraptured. Caught in those devil eyes just as Eve had been in Eden.
“We have a deal, Dany. Your ledger opens once a year for twenty-four hours on your Death Day. Three souls of your choosing in exchange for immortality.”
He didn’t bring up the red band burning my wrist, and I didn’t either.
“I haven’t forgotten,” I whispered through parted lips.
“Good.” He leaned back against the booth, the movement so abrupt it felt as if it sucked the air from between us. I both yearned to have it back and feared being caught in its web.
I swallowed, searching for some of the impudence I wore like armor so he couldn’t see how off-balance he made me. This man, though…
He left me bare.
I shivered as he grasped my hand. When we touched, the air chilled. Frost crept up the glass. My breath clouded between us. He rimmed the lowball glass with my index finger, sliding it through the honey that was ever present with his whiskey.
The ashen hue of his skin was so at odds with the red lights as he leaned forward with a devilish grin and sucked the sugar from my finger. A moan caught in my throat as his tongue swirled around the tip, my legs squeezing together like they were capable of taming the fire between them.
With a final lick, he withdrew my finger and dropped my hand.
“I’ll be expecting you,” he said pointedly, and the red ring around my wrist struck fire like a match.
My lethargic fucking brain wanted to tell him that the clock had already started, and I’d collected the first soul before I got here.
It couldn’t though, because it was still stuck on the feel of his tongue twirling around the tip of my finger like a suggestion I was both eager and terrified to accept.
“Until then, dearest Dany.”
Between one breath and the next, he was gone, and so was the cloying cloud of lust that clung to him. I sat back and concentrated on quieting the chaos he left inside of me.
It was a near impossible task, however.
I knew the script. I played it over and over for thirty years.
Lucifer appears, gets me all hot and bothered while simultaneously trying not to piss myself, and reminds me what’s owed-–three deaths, their souls, and no excuses.
The deal never changed. I rubbed at the raw ache left behind on my wrist as I grew more unsettled, incapable of shaking the feeling of change.
I told myself I wasn’t surprised, that this would be like every other time: a command, a deadline, and then he’d disappear as if he never existed.
I swallowed and glanced down at the red ink circling my wrist. My stomach twisted, and I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that tonight might rewrite the rules.
The thirty-third year was approaching, and I was running out of time.