Page 95 of The Dark Lord Awakens
“Mm-hmm,” I managed, staring fixedly at a point over his shoulder because looking at his face right now would be like staring directly at the sun—painful, potentially damaging, and impossible to look away from once you started. “Very persuasive. I mean, he needs persuading. Yes.”
Wow, Beau. Shakespeare is weeping with envy at your eloquence right now. They should put that on a greeting card: ‘Very persuasive. I mean, he needs persuading. Yes.’ Right next to ‘Get Well Soon’ and ‘Happy Birthday, Grandma.’
Azrael’s fingers deftly worked their way down my shirt, each button revealing more skin that immediately pebbled in the cool air—or possibly from the way his eyes darkened as they followed his hands’ progress. When he reached the last button, he slid the shirt from my shoulders with agonizing slowness, his cool fingers trailing down my arms in a caress that was definitely not standard butler procedure unless “How to Seduce Your Master” was a chapter in Butler School that I’d somehow missed.
My heart was pounding so hard I was surprised it wasn’t visibly deforming my chest like something from an alien movie. Each breath felt shallow and insufficient, like my lungs had decided oxygen was overrated compared to the scent of cedar and midnight that surrounded Azrael.
When his hands moved to my belt, I watched in a sort of fascinated horror as those elegant fingers worked the leather free. The subtle brush of his knuckles against my lower abdomen sent a jolt of heat straight to my groin, and I bit my lip hard enough to taste blood.
“I—” My voice cracked embarrassingly, and I cleared my throat. “I can handle the rest!”
Azrael paused, his fingers still on my belt buckle, his face close enough that I could feel his cool breath against my cheek. His eyes met mine, and what I saw there made my breath catch—hunger, raw and barely contained, like a predator deciding whether to pounce.
“Are you certain, my lord?” he asked, his voice a low rumble that I felt in my chest more than heard. “It’s no trouble.”
No, the trouble was that I was about two seconds away from grabbing his stupidly perfect face and finding out if those sculpted lips felt as good as they looked. The trouble was that I had exactly zero experience with actual sex despite being technically twenty-two years old, and I was pretty sure fumbling like a virgin wasn’t the way to seduce your immortal demon butler. The trouble was that my body was currently experiencing a rebellion against my brain’s authority, and if he moved his hands any lower, he’d encounter evidence of that rebellion that would be impossible to explain away.
“Very certain!” I squeaked, my voice hitting notes that would make a soprano jealous. “Super certain. The most certain anyone has ever been about anything, ever. In the history of certainty.”
His eyes dropped to my mouth as I babbled, his pupils expanding until the crimson was just a thin ring of fire around bottomless black. For a moment—one heart-stopping, breath-catching moment—he swayed forward slightly, close enough that I could feel the coolness radiating from his skin, close enough that the slightest movement from either of us would bring our lips together.
My heart threw itself against my rib cage like it was trying to escape, and time seemed to stretch like taffy, each second lasting an eternity as we stood frozen in that almost-embrace. His gaze was so intense I could practically feel it like a physical touch, tracing over my face, lingering on my lips in a way that made them tingle in anticipation.
Just when I thought he might actually close that infinitesimal distance, a log shifted in the fireplace across the room, the sharpcrack shattering the moment like glass. Azrael straightened, stepping back with visible reluctance, his perfect composure reassembling itself like armor being locked into place.
“I shall return shortly with your evening attire,” he said, his voice rougher than usual, the only indication that he’d been affected at all by whatever had just happened—or almost happened—between us.
The moment the door closed behind him, I practically tore off the rest of my clothes, my fingers fumbling with buttons and clasps in their haste. I was hard enough to cut diamonds, a condition that wasn’t going to resolve itself through sheer willpower, and I needed to be submerged before Azrael returned or suffer the most mortifying moment of my admittedly short life as a demon king.
I practically dove into the bath, sending water sloshing over the sides in my haste. The hot water did absolutely nothing to calm my overheated body—if anything, it only heightened my awareness of every nerve ending currently screaming for attention. The black rose petals swirled around me like they were performing some kind of synchronized swimming routine, their scent rising with the steam to fill my head with images that definitely weren’t helping my current predicament.
I scrubbed myself with unnecessary vigor, as if I could somehow wash away the memory of Azrael’s fingers on my skin, the heat in his eyes, the way he’d looked at my mouth like it contained the secrets of the universe. It wasn’t working. My mind kept conjuring increasingly vivid scenarios involving those elegant hands doing things that definitely weren’t in any butler manual I’d ever heard of. Scenarios that were making certain parts of my anatomy stand at attention like they were auditioning for the royal guard.
A soft knock at the door made me jump so violently I nearly drowned myself.
“Enter,” I called, making sure I was sufficiently submerged to hide the evidence of my continued interest. The water might be steaming, but it wasn’t quite transparent enough to reveal the full extent of my embarrassment, thank whatever dark deity was in charge of bath opacity.
Azrael returned with a stack of neatly folded fabric. “Your evening attire, my lord.”
I squinted at the pile. “That doesn’t look like my usual pajamas.”
“You requested something more suitable for the warmer nights,” he reminded me, setting the stack on a marble bench. “These arrived today from the void realms.”
I vaguely remembered adding some sleepwear to one of my OpenSesame orders, but I’d been so focused on relief supplies and construction materials that I hadn’t paid much attention to the details. Based on the small size of the stack, I was starting to regret that lack of attention.
“I’ll assist with your hair, my lord,” Azrael said, picking up a small crystal bottle of what I assumed was shampoo. Before I could protest, he was kneeling behind me at the edge of the tub, his sleeves rolled farther up to reveal more of those unfairly distracting forearms.
“That’s really not nec—” I began, but the words died in my throat as his fingers slid into my hair, applying gentle pressure that sent shivers down my spine. The sensation was so unexpectedly pleasurable that I had to bite back a sound that would have been deeply inappropriate for a butler-master relationship.
“The essence in this wash will enhance your natural luminosity,” Azrael explained, his voice closer to my ear than I’d expected, his breath cool against my skin. “It also strengthens magical pathways.”
I made a noncommittal noise that might have been agreement or might have been the sound of my brain short-circuiting. His fingers moved in slow, methodical circles across my scalp, each touch sending waves of tingling pleasure through my body. If this was how he washed hair, I couldn’t imagine what he’d do with more intimate activities. Actually, I could imagine it all too well, which was exactly the problem.
“You have such beautiful hair, my lord,” Azrael murmured, his voice pitched low enough that it felt like a secret between us. “Like moonlight given form.”
My cheeks heated at the unexpected compliment. “It’s just hair,” I mumbled, feeling weirdly vulnerable under his ministrations. “Nothing special.”
“On the contrary,” he said, his fingers sliding to the nape of my neck in a way that made my toes curl, “everything about you is exceptional.”
