Page 52 of Midnight with the Devil

“Right.” She honestly had no idea what to say to that. Sometimes when he talked about things like prophets, angels, and demons, she still on some level couldn’t wrap her mind around it.

“So… What are you doing here? I don’t come to see you until tonight.” She was pleased,reallypleased that he was here, but he’d been absent all week, and she’d feared she might have succeeded in boring him.

“I thought we could take a little trip to London, or maybe Shanghai, grab some food and see how quickly I can strip you of those clothes.” He said this all with such a seductive, flirty grin that her knees buckled.

“That sounds great, but I have class until twelve thirty.”

“Are you rejecting me for some boring old economics class? Me and an exotic foreign destination?” He cupped her chin and crowded against her a little, making her blood pound with excitement, but she had to remember that class was more important, no matter how much she wanted to run off with him.

“Umm…yes?” She tried not to laugh at the mock wounded expression on his face.

“Dammit. Outfoxed by schoolwork.” He frowned, then jerked his head toward his car. “Well get in, I’ll drive you to class.”

“Seriously?” She stared at the Aston Martin roadster.

“Dead serious. Now get in.” He hopped into the driver’s seat, and she got in the passenger side after tucking her backpack in the space behind her seat. Then she buckled herself in, and he gunned the engine. Soon they left her apartment complex behind.

By the time they reached campus, she was laughing and trying to hold her hair back from the wind whipping around her head.

“See you after class. I’ll be right here.” He nodded at the curb facing her building.

“You sure? I mean, I can imagine you have lots of things to do, run hell and all that.”

He snickered. “Run hell and all that… Yes. I certainly do, but right now you’re my priority. Being with you pleases me, and as long as that holds true, you won’t be rid of me.”

She almost corrected him that after three months the relationship would be over, but she didn’t want to think about that.

“See you in a few hours,” she called over her shoulder and headed inside.

“Still with your ‘not boyfriend’?” Jim asked when she stepped through the glass doors of the building.

“Yeah.” She blushed.

“I still think that the whole situation is iffy.” Jim held open the classroom door for her, and she went in ahead of him.

“Our relationship is unique.” That was all she was going to say on the matter.

Jim seemed to realize he’d overstepped the boundary and offered her a polite smile. Professor Belkin came into the room, his face pale and his eyes a bit glassy.

“I’m sorry, I’m not feeling very well today. I’ve posted the lesson online. I will be around this weekend to answer questions. You are dismissed.” The professor removed a handkerchief and wiped his brow.

“He doesn’t look good,” Diana whispered to Jim.

“He definitely doesn’t. I heard the flu is going around.”

“Is it?” Diana blanched. The last time she had the flu she’d been a wreck for six days.

“Yeah.” Jim gathered his books and nodded politely at their professor before he exited the class.

Diana returned all her note materials back to her bag. Just as she was starting to leave, Belkin sneezed as she passed by him. He apologized profusely, but she told him it was nothing to worry about.

When she left the classroom building she expected to have to wait for Lucien, but he was there, the red roadster drawing admiring looks from the guys in her class and Lucien himself drawing hungry looks from her female classmates.

“Done already?” Lucien was surprised as he opened the passenger-side door for her.

“You didn’t give my professor the flu, did you?” she asked. Getting a poor man sick so she didn’t have class seemed exactly like the sort of thing the devil would do.

He raised one brow in a mute, unamused challenge. “I haven’t and would never in future do anything so amateurish. If I wanted to make you skip the class, the reason would be far more dramatic, I assure you.”

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