Page 53 of Midnight with the Devil

She studied him, not really believing for a moment that she could trust his expression. He was the devil, after all, but he did seem to make sense. The devil would definitely go for something big and dramatic if he wanted to cancel class.

“So my plans are back on then?” he asked hopefully.

“I guess they are.” She smiled a little. “But if you plan for us to stay anywhere overnight, I’ll need my—”

“Bag, yes I know. What do you have in that bag? The Holy Grail?”

“Ha ha.” She snorted. “I’m a girl. We need things if we stay overnight. Guys have no clue what it takes to not look like crap the next morning.”

Lucien chuckled as he started his car. “Women have always been high maintenance. Even Adam’s wife, Eve, in the garden of Eden was always fussing about her hair.”

She stared at him. “Eve was real?”

“Of course. Well, she wasn’t actually named Eve, nor was the first man named Adam, those names came later. It was really before men had a defined language. Much of the Bible is allegory and metaphor, you see. Except for the stories about me. No exaggeration there.”

Diana put on her seat belt and tried to digest everything he was telling her.

“If I spend the rest the day with you, I want to ask a bunch of questions, and you need to answer them.”

“Oh.” He laughed darkly. “Getting all demanding. I like this side of you. Maybe you can demand that I pull the car over and fuck you right here.” He licked his lips in a way that made her body quiver with longing. She had to fight very, very hard to not do exactly that.

“We have time for that later,” she reminded him.

He threw back his head, sighing dramatically. “Very well, but I have questions too, about you. You answer mine, I’ll answer yours. Fair deal?” He offered her one hand.

“Deal.” She shook his hand.

“See? Making deals with me is quite easy.” He winked at her, and then they hit the road.

“What is something you’ve always longed to see?” Lucien asked as they got back to her apartment.

“Um…I don’t know. It’s a huge list, really.”

“Then pick one and we’ll start there.” He grinned mischievously.

“I guess the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, but that’s in Mexico.”

Lucien rolled his eyes and curled an arm around her waist as they walked up to her apartment door.

“Snap of my fingers, remember? I can take you anywhere.”

Diana couldn’t believe he actually wanted to do this for her, but she wasn’t going to look that gift horse in the mouth.

“We will go where you wish today. And at midnight, I get to dowhateverI want to you.”

A delicious shiver of longing rippled through her as her imagination ran wild at the thought of what he might want to do to her.

“Okay. I think that sounds like a good trade,” she teased, but her heart was racing. She wanted midnight instantly, yet she also wanted to spend the day seeing amazing things with Lucien.

She unlocked her apartment and went inside to make sure Seth had plenty of food, and then she returned to her living room. Lucien had closed her apartment door but was still holding on to the doorknob.

“Ready for Mexico?” he asked.

She nodded and walked toward him just as he turned the handle. When he opened the door, she gasped. There was a massive forest spread out all around them, and the trees were…moving. No, not the trees—the butterflies covering every inch of every trunk for miles. The black-and-orange wings of millions of butterflies flapped as they took refuge in the trees in the reserve. Sunlight spilling through the canopy illuminated patches of monarchs here and there in spots of gleaming, rippling gold. Small clusters of monarchs took flight, dancing in circles before resettling on another tree.

Diana swallowed hard as she fought to control her emotions. She had never seen anything so beautiful in her life.

“Why here?” Lucien asked as he came up to stand beside her. “Why butterflies?”

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