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“You haven’t had any professional training then?”
Did he sound slightly impressed?
I pushed myself to a seated position, tucking my legs under me so I sat directly in front of him and could look him in the eye. “I had my da ... then I had myself.” My voice weakened as doubt crept in. “And now ...”
Lucifer’s gift for blank expression could give a girl an aneurysm.
My shoulders grazed my ears. “You?” I squeaked. “Yes? No? Hell no?”
The prolonged silence was torture. Another rejection.
I scrambled to my feet. “Forget it—I’ve changed my mind. I don’t want your help. Consider my application for your monster club retracted.”
Lucifer was like a ninja, on his feet and curling an arm around my waist before I’d taken my first step. He pulled me to him, my sweaty back kissing his slick front.
His chest lifted and fell with a shudder that I felt shimmy down my spine and turned my knees to rubber.
My head and my heart struggled to make sense of what was happening, but before they each had a chance to argue their side, I’d already melted into his embrace. At some point since I’d returned to Boston, the dark and mysterious allure of Lucifer Flynn had burrowed under my skin and refused to leave. My body hummed with a warmth that made me drowsy, and I swayed on my feet as my lids fell shut. Despite the wrongness of the situation, I wanted to stay right there in his arms.
It was the most intimate experience I’d ever had.
Lucifer’s cheek pressed against my temple, lighting every nerve ending on fire as his scruff brushed my ear. “You’ve got me, Willa,” he whispered, his arm tightening.
A whimper vibrated in the back of my throat, and then he pulled back, releasing me.
Seconds later, I found myself alone once again.
Willa
In Ireland, horses were the voiceless therapists who helped me through my darkest times, but since the Flynn estate lacked a stable full of well-bred equines, I’d been left with only one option—the man everyone presumed to be my future father-in-law.
But Lachlan Flynn and I knew that wasn’t entirely accurate.
My arms banded around my shins as I tucked my knees to my chest. The antique chair beneath me groaned.
Over the past few days, I’d found myself falling into a pattern that consisted of mornings training with Lucifer, followed by napping, avoiding Cillian like the plague, reading, ridding the Flynn home of mind-altering temptations, dining alone or with Grifin, and ultimately settling into this same spot, spilling my guts to an unlikely confidant who couldn’t talk back.
“The deplorable lump of testosterone will be home tonight.”
I updated the patriarch on his oldest son with my back to the single security camera in the room. I kept my voice low enough that if the paintings on the wall were trying to eavesdrop, they’d be shit out of luck.
I studied the elder Flynn like I did every time I said something that I knew would elicit some sort of reaction if he were conscious.
Nothing.
The only sound was the soft hum of the essential oil diffuser on the nightstand. The only movement was the faint rise and fall of his chest. A better person would have felt sympathy for the frail man who was gradually wasting away, but I was not that person. I hadn’t been for many years.
“I woke up from my nap this afternoon to find two presents,” I continued conversationally.
It was no surprise I’d slept through the delivery. Lucifer wasn’t cutting me any breaks when we trained. Not that I was complaining.
“A cell phone and a shiny red apple. The phone has one number in the call log. How much do you want to bet it’s a direct line to hell?”
A subtle wave of tingles flowed through me, and I smiled like a fool at nothing in particular.
Lucifer had been warming to me—and I was a raging inferno every time we were in proximity to each other. My failed attempts at talking myself out of this fatal attraction were stacking up, ready to crash in an unavoidable blaze of glory.
Falling for the devil was bloody inconvenient.
