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My eyes snapped open, meeting the darkness of my bedroom.
This wasn’t a dream. I wasn’t alone.
I shoved the heel of my hand forward and connected with something hard at the same time my teeth clenched onto something chewy.
Leather. A glove.
I thrashed and screamed. The clamp on my mouth tightened, muffling my cries.
A large body sprawled over me. I was overpowered. Trapped.
“Willa.” Lucifer’s voice vibrated against my ear, and all the fight drained away.
I mumbled his name and a few curses into his palm.
“Aye.” He removed his hand and replaced it with his warm lips. “Forgive me for scaring you,” he murmured, then deepened the kiss, sweeping his tongue over mine.
If he kept this up, I might consider it.
Then I remembered that Raphael was somewhere under this same roof, and I pulled back.
“What are you doing in here?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he climbed off the bed and turned on the lamp. He stood illuminated in the soft glow, hauntingly sexy and formidable in his leather jacket, gloves, and motorcycle boots. His posture was rigid, and weariness lined his face. He’d been working. It was almost hard to believe that this was the same man who’d spent last night and all of this morning making tender love to me.
The devil and his nymph, as he chose to call me.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” I said, my voice cracking. I spoke the truth, but that didn’t mean it felt right.
He nodded, looking slightly crestfallen, and my heart lurched.
I’d spent the afternoon and evening trying to come up with realistic solutions for my very real dilemma: justice or a chance at love?
Did I still believe Raphael deserved to die? Yes. Was this love growing between Lucifer and me? I thought so.
Could I have both?
I’d taken a break from my mental deliberations after I’d managed to give myself a panic attack trying to answer that question.
At least I wasn’t craving a drink or a pill. A silver lining, if I could call it that. The very thought of getting drunk or high churned my stomach. It wasn’t that I’d swapped one addiction for another. Lucifer didn’t numb my pain, he helped me face it.
I’d made peace with some inner demons in the last twenty-four hours, and apparently there was therapeutic value in that. I wasn’t naive. One night with him wasn’t a quick fix. I knew my sobriety would be a lifelong journey, but I’d acknowledge my progress along the way.
If Raphael caught his brother standing in my bedroom looking at me like he was about to say or do something that resembled a romantic grand gesture, that lifelong journey might not be that long.
“Lucifer . . .” I warned.
He nodded in understanding a second time but stretched out his arm anyhow. “Come. Please. Just sit with me. We need to talk.”
I ignored the alarm bells ringing in my head and took his hand.
He sank into the overstuffed chair stationed near the walk-in closet and drew me onto his lap. I wrapped my arms around his neck, and he held me close, massaging my hip with one hand and stroking my hair with the other.
“Did you speak with Raphael today?” he asked.
I shook my head. “I stayed in here. He never asked to see me.” I knew my place and that I needed to tread carefully. I wasn’t one of Lucifer’s men. He didn’t owe me any answers. But it wasn’t just his life on the line. He had to understand that. So, I asked, “Did you?”
“Aye.”
