Page 96 of Devil Bound
Without conscious thought I reached out, but at the last moment, I pulled back.Those wings were nothing a mortal should touch.They were something more, something greater.Too perfect.My touch might ruin them, taint them.
“It’s all right, babe,” Lucifer whispered against my hair.“You can touch them.”
“No…no, it’s fine.I really didn’t mean to.”
Lucifer growled.“Touch my damn wings, you thick-headed man.”
“I don’twantto touch your wings.”Honestly, the words just came out of my mouth without my brain giving the okay.Had to be the adrenaline.
“Nelly, so help me.Just touch them already.I know you want to.”
No.No and no.He was not taking that tone with me.I’d just been abducted, chained up, about to be tortured or possibly murdered, and I didnotneed Lucifer’s fucking attitude just because I wouldn’t do what he wanted me to.
“I am not touching your wings, Beelzebug, so get over it.”
Laughter echoed toward us from behind that screen of perfect starlight woven into feathers and bone.Lucifer pulled his wings back, but only slightly, and he made no move at all to let me go.
“I do not see what is funny about Nelly being obstinate, Trony,” Lucifer said.
The angel stood on the lawn in a pink sweatsuit and heels.
“If you don’t see that, I really cannot help you.Tiamat called and said you were on your way.Why didn’t you chain the human to your bed to begin with?”
Here.I was right fucking here, and they were talking as if I wasn’t.The two of them could just shut right the fuck up.
I pushed myself away from Lucifer and left them standing there with his magnificent wings shimmering like something made from dreams and starlight.
“You’re not tying me up, and I’m going home now.I’ve had a night.Don’t try to stop me.”
I raised a finger at the Devil.The gesture would’ve made for a better warning if I hadn’t been trembling.From the adrenaline.
Trony turned to look at me.“Did you get hit in the head or something?”
“Enough.”
The magic Lucifer laced his voice with was exquisite.I could sense the control behind it as well as the power, power the likes of which I had never felt…unless I counted earlier in the night, that glimpse of whatever had happened when Crazy Motherfucker Mitch had pressed his clammy lips against mine.
My legs trembled as a result of that one word out of the Devil’s mouth, but that didn’t matter, because he strode toward me, wings out, and picked me up so I was in his arms and pressed against his chest.Again.
He looked me right in the eye as he spoke.“No one is tying you up against your wishes.You had a night indeed, you are home, and do not ever run away from me again, or I will have to think of creative consequences.”He bumped the tip of his wing against the back of my head and smirked when I gaped at him in disbelief.
“Can I go break into his apartment and get a few clothes?”Metatron asked.“Wearing the clothes you got abducted in a second time really ruins your style.”
Lucifer waved a hand at her in a regal gesture.“Go right ahead, Trony.Feel free to throw out his mismatched pajamas.He’ll sleep naked from now on.”
He proceeded to carry me toward the house.The next chance I got to look back over his shoulder, Trony had vanished.She wouldn’t really break into my place…or would she?
“For your information, my pajamas are not mismatched, the matching pieces were just in the laundry.And I’ll sleep clothed, thank you very much.”
“No.”
I ground my teeth.Oh, the nerve of him.“Why did you show up in Crazy Motherfucker Mitch’s basement to begin with?And also, I have to give Christine a statement and I need to make sure the smith’s okay.Fuck.I didn’t even ask the guy his name.”
Lucifer growled again, then made his wings vanish in awhooshof air as we reached the front door.
“That would be a hard no, because you are not going back to that place again.I’ll consider accompanying you to the police department in a day or so.”He pushed the door open and carried me across the threshold like a bride in an old movie.I eyed the doorframe.“Lionel, you are not grabbing that doorframe.”
Well, now I had to.As soon as my fingers connected, they slid right off.“What—did you enchant the doorframe to be slippery?How mature.”
