“Either way.” He shrugged, as if he was indifferent to it. “Answer my question.”
“Then the answer doesn’t matter.” Her next retreat brought her against a wall of the room, and Gali pressed her palms against it. He didn’t look human as he prowled toward her, and she shouldn’t havelikedit so much. “Stay where you are. I’m not gonna hurt you.”
Lucifer ignored her command until he was a breath away from her. Up close, the gold in his eyes shimmered against the consuming black.
“What if I want you to?” he whispered, and air skimmed over his tongue to lick against Gali’s skin. She dragged in a breath and closed her eyes, forcing her hands to stay still on the wall even as she felt herself get wet. God, he was making this so hard, and he wasn’t making sense.
“What if youwantme to hurt you?” she asked.
“Yes, Galilee.” His voice slithered with amusement, sending goose bumps flickering over her flesh. “What if I crave it, what if I touch myself remembering it, what if I think I might die for it?”
Gali shook her head, refusing to open her eyes. She wasnotgoing to think about him stroking himself. He had lost his mind, whatever fragments of it were left after how long he’d lived. “You’re being dramatic.”
“I’m the fucking Morningstar, Galilee. Of course I’m dramatic. It doesn’t mean I’m wrong.” Lucifer’s scent felt like a caress, like he was touching her with everything else but his flesh, forked tongues of smoke dancing at her neck, the insides of her elbows.
“Why would you want that?” Gali asked, opening her eyes. She watched hungrily as his jaw clenched, cutting harsh lines through his skin.
“Because I’ve spent an eternity feelingnothing, Galilee.” The amusement in his voice was gone, leaving it stark and heavy. “Measures of time you can’t even imagine, with nothing but numbness haunting me like some relentless penance. Don’t diminish the gift that your fire is to me, little demon. Don’t deprive me of it either.”
He sounded so lonely, it made her chest clench in a harsh fist. It made her want to make it better. Was this temptation? Was this what Nana Darling had warned about, the ways the Devil could lure you into his camp? Gali could feel Lucifer’s breath against her ear as he brought his face in closer. He braced a hand above her head, framing her against the wall, and heat rolled off his body like a wildfire. Gali wanted to plunge her hands into him even if it meant her skin would crackle and peel, charring from his flesh. How was she the one burning him when it felt like his body was constantly aflame? She closed her eyes and tried to breathe.
“Let me touch you, Galilee,” he begged, sliding the plea against her skin. Gali gasped as the memory of his forked tongue around her clit brushed against her, a phantom touch. “Let me burn for you, whatever you are.”
She didn’t dare open her eyes, because the second she did, Gali knew she’d be lost. “You said I was a threat,” she reminded him. “I can hurt you. Iwillhurt you.”
“I don’t care,” he replied immediately. “Galilee, I don’t care if you’re here to destroy me.”
“You should,” she complained. “This is a terrible instinct for self-preservation.”
Lucifer growled, and the vibration of it rang against her skull, sending delicious tingles down her spine. “Fine, then. Why did you cut a deal with me so quickly in that hallway, little demon?”
Gali did open her eyes then, mostly in surprise. “That’swhat you’ve been wondering about?”
Lucifer stared back at her. “I would’ve let your spoiled friend in eventually. An unnecessary deal is a highly suspicious thing to offer so easily to the Devil.”
A laugh bubbled up inside her, and Gali covered her mouth to stifle it. “I didn’t know who you were! I certainly wouldn’t have offered a fucking bargain if I’d known.” She shuddered. “Nana Darling would kill me for being so stupid.”
He was still staring at her like he couldn’t really believe what he was seeing. “So why offer the bargain then?”
Gali blushed deeply, but she didn’t look away from him or his black eyes. This felt important, what they were bargaining for: trust, understanding, light in abysses that only spoke darkness.
“I wanted you,” she confessed. “The dance was an excuse to have your attention. I wanted a reason for you to hold me. For you to touch me.” Her cheeks were flaming with heat, and then she realized what she’d just said. “I didn’t know it would hurt you!” she backtracked quickly. “I wouldn’t have done any of it if I’d known it would hurt you.”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, they made her cringe. God, she sounded desperate for his belief, and it wasn’t even about him. Gali just hated when people forced motives on to her that she’d never had, like itchy coats stitched with lies. She hadn’t meant any harm; she hadn’t evenknownwhat her touch did to him, and yet she was here fighting against whatever version of her Lucifer and his princes had conjured up. A dullness settled over her, muting even the anger, and the ache inside her chest stung loudly. It had been softening ever since Lucifer had stepped through her window, but now all she felt was unseen, even with him so close to her. He might as well have been hovering in the clouds a thousand miles away. He might as well be the stranger that he was. Gali pulled her mouth into a tight line and folded her arms.
“You have no reason to believe me,” she bit out. “We don’t know each other. Just tell me how to get home from here so I can make sure my friends are okay. I’ll leave you alone.”
If she got home in time, she could head off the Kincaids, probably go back to the big house with them. That was the only way she was going to convince them she was okay and distract them from going after Lucifer. She shouldn’t have wanted and rushed and bartered. She shouldn’t have been so desperate that she’d thrown her lot in with a monster, and for what? A cheap orgasm in a hallway that he’d walked away from like it was nothing? Trying to get him to believe she was onething when he’d already decided she was something else? This was just fucking pathetic.
“Galilee.”
She wouldn’t look at him because then she was going to be so furious she could cry and he didn’t deserve that much of her. It wasn’t even about him. It was the ache she’d had all her fucking life and the persistent, heartbreaking knowledge that even Lucifer, as inhuman as he was, even he couldn’t really see her. She was as illegible as she’d always been—to her family, to her friends, toeveryone. Just an aching ghost wandering through a life, smiling and pretending while people slapped whatever stories they liked on top of her, fragile or cruel, it didn’t matter.
“Galilee, I believe you.”
“You don’t have to say that.” The words marched flatly out of her mouth, drained of feeling. The ache inside her was stinging so loudly, and all of a sudden, Gali just wanted the woods, the water, and even Celestial being smug and right about everything. Maybe the land was what could see her, the house that had raised her. Maybe it was never about people in the first place—or devils.
“Fuck, Galilee. Will you look at me!”
