Page 60 of Midnight with the Devil

“I need you.” She arched her hips.

“Tell meexactlywhat you want,” he commanded.

She was going to have to say it. He was going to make her.

“I want you to fuck me.”

Lucien’s arrogant smile only made her burn hotter.

He pressed his thumb over her clit, caressing it so she exploded with a hard and fast climax.

As she drifted down from the explosion of pleasure, she watched him through hooded eyes as he pulled her shirt up to her collarbone, exposing her breasts. He played with them, pinching her nipples and cupping and kneading the heavy, aching mounds. Then he unfastened his pants and dropped them to his knees. He hadn’t worn anything underneath, so his cock jutted out, thick and long. The sight made her whole body quake with new hunger.

“I can do whatever I want to you, and you like that idea, don’t you?” Lucien’s voice was dark and rough. The sweet, playful man was gone, and he was the devil she’d seen that first night. The devil who’d scared and thrilled her had returned.

“Answer me.”

“Yes,” she whimpered, trying to lift her hips, hoping to entice him to enter her.

Lucien’s grin widened, and he gripped his shaft, pushing the tip inside her. She held very still, trying to be good and patient. It seemed to amuse and please him. He rewarded her with a sharp, hard thrust. He filled her completely, stripping away everything but her need and his. Lucien bent over her, gripping the headboard, and fucked her. The tendons on his neck stood out in sharp relief, and he breathed hard and erratic as he plunged into her over and over.

In that moment Diana was truly wrecked. In the last few weeks, she’d become a prisoner of his desires and hers. There was no going back to normal life, not after this, or him. She locked her legs around his waist, making him as much a captive as she was to their mutual desire. The pupils of his eyes were still red with an inner fire. She stared deep into them, searching for the angel, not the devil.

All the while, he stretched her, his shaft relentlessly thrusting into her, bringing them together in an ancient dance of flesh and sounds of ecstasy. The delicious friction and the heat of their bodies finally overwhelmed her. She climaxed, making a soft moan of half pleasure, half pain. He came seconds later, a feral brutish cry leaving his lips as the madness between them dissolved into a lethargic mutual exhale. He collapsed on top of her, his face resting on the mounds of her breasts as he panted. Sweat fused their bodies together, and Diana didn’t want to move ever again.

“Diana,” Lucian murmured her name, that unexpected tenderness coiling tightly around her heart.

“Yes?” She barely had the strength to talk, yet she had never felt so wonderful in her entire life.

He lifted his head so their eyes met. “You aren’t like any human I’ve ever known.” There was a bewilderment on his face that made her heart flip.

“Is that bad?” she asked.

He shook his head slowly. “You’re the only truegoodthing I’ve ever had since the fall.”

His eyes were that soft, warm shade of brown she loved so much, and she couldn’t help but wonder if what he’d said was as close as she would get to a declaration of affection.

I will take it and him any way that I can.

He freed her, kissing her bruised wrists before he cuddled her against him on her bed. His pants were still down, her shirt up, and she would’ve laughed at the ridiculousness of it, but she couldn’t find the strength to care.

“Will you stay?” she asked, rubbing her cheek on his chest. His white dress shirt smelled like him, dark, exotic, with a hint of pine.

“I’ll stay.” There was a softness in those words, as though he meant far more than just tonight, but she was too afraid to hope that was true. She couldn’t have a life with him, not the one she’d dreamt of having. But she could have this, and perhaps a few more midnights and mornings like it before it ended.

She closed her eyes, surrendering to sleep, Lucien’s body providing all the warmth she needed. Everything was simply perfect. She wouldn’t think about the future or the contract. She would only think of this moment. That was all that mattered.

17

For so I formed them free, and free they must remain. - John Milton, Paradise Lost

The seventh midnight

Diana admiredherself in the full-length mirror, loving the knee-length midnight-blue dress that Lucien had sent her in her box tonight. It was like something Grace Kelly would have worn, with a full skirt and an understated elegance.

It’s something I would wear if I had a choice, and he knows it.

So much had changed since that night they’d made love her in bed. Things were full of light in a way she couldn’t explain. Each kiss they shared, each touch, seemed to ignite her soul with a blinding cosmic light that sent her rushing headlong into his arms, searching for that taste of heaven again and again. Even though there were moments of darkness in his eyes, the brown hue was stronger now, the black receding. She’d learned since then that the brown was his more angelic side. That was the man she loved, not the black-eyed creature who’d bought her soul all those weeks ago.

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