Page 20 of Interior Design for Demons
“We’re only judged on how well we assist your projects, lovely,” Slate hisses, her eyes going black from corner to corner. “Our behavior in off-duty hours is ours to control.” She pulls a long, thick needle from her hair and presses one powerful hand across my breastbone. “Now feel free to scream all you like. This will certainly hurt.”
Rusala cackles, tugging my bra aside to bare one of my nipples. He licks it, coaxing it erect. “Go on, Slate. Right through the tip.”
“No!” I yell. “Please—”
“Please,” moans Slate, her inky eyes glistening. “I do love that word. Say it again, love.”
“I’ll tell Rath you hurt me.”
“Rath?” Rusala’s grin stretches his lip piercings. “Why should he care? He likes human pain as much as the rest of us.”
“Then—then maybe we should invite him to watch,” I gasp. It’s all I can do not to cringe away from the glittering needle poised so close to my breast. “He might give you extra points or privileges if we include him.”
Slate tilts her head, considering. “Not a bad idea, little sweet thing.” She sticks the needle back into her hair and hops off the bed. “One minute.”
She pulls a phone from her back pocket and taps a message on it. Rath will come, I know it—he’ll appear out of thin air, like he did in the library, or he’ll burst through the bedroom door and save me from these overly enthusiastic devils. I think they like me, in their way. I think this is meant to be enjoyable for all of us, but it’s not. It’ssonot. I don’t want needles and rods and staples stuck through any part of me.
I buck upward on the bed, frantic to get away, but Rusala shoves me down and straddles my hips. “You’ll thank us later, my little enchantress,” he croons. “Lie back and relish the sweet, sweet agony.”
“Humans don’t like pain, as a rule,” I tell him.
“Oh, but you’re wrong, nugget. So many of them enjoy it. Why do you think they keep returning, again and again, to the things that are not good for them? Why do you think they bind each other in bedrooms? Chains and cherishing, pain and pleasure—they are inextricably linked. Even your human concept of love is wound up with hurt, entangled so tightly that no one has ever discovered how to unravel it.”
He’s right, of course. Love is pain, as someone says in one of my favorite old movies. Leaving aside that esoteric truth, I know there are also people who like weaving physical torture with titillation. But that’s not me.
“I’m not into the BDSM stuff.” My voice is a plaintive whine instead of the cool confidence I want to project. I’m exhausted, and I’m terrified. I can’t fight these two wretched hell-beasts, and I can’t think of another way out of this situation. Rath is my only hope.
“Many a man has told me the same thing.” Rusala’s lashes droop languidly. “I soon showed them otherwise.”
“You’ve had human lovers?”
“Too many to count.” He lays a finger over his lips. “Hush, though, snackling. It’s a secret.”
“Rath told me demons aren’t allowed to have casual sex with humans.”
“Not with their targets, no, unless it’s part of that soul’s prescribed path to destruction. However, hooking up withotherhumans while on a mission—that’s a gray area. If you accomplish a task quickly, and you have a little time left on the clock before you have to get back to Home Sweet Hell, enjoying some carnal pleasure with a human is a nice treat. A bonus, if you will.”
This is an interesting bit of information. Apparently other demons have no problem working around Hell’s rules. It seems that Rath is a bit of a legalist, if such a thing can exist in Hell. He’s a rule-follower—except for the other night, when he offered to pleasure me. He seemed eager enough to take advantage of a loophole in the very rulehesuggested.
Maybe he really wanted to taste me.
Maybe he wanted to put his mouth on me, and lick me gently, and kiss that sensitive spot, the one that throbs whenever he’s around. Maybe he wanted to slide his tongue along my folds until I was wet and quivering, aching to be released.
Great, now I’m aroused from imagining it—and these creeps will probably think it’s because of what they’re doing to my body.
I need Rath to come save me. Where the Hell is he?
“Bad news.” Slate tucks the phone back into her pocket. “I don’t think Rath is in this astral plane, lovely. He’s probably on some Earth errand. Oh well. We can tell him all about our fun at the gala tonight!” She hops back on the bed, extracting the needle from her hair again, her forked tongue gliding across her purple-painted lips.
So this is it. I’m getting pierced, all over apparently. Maybe Rath can heal me later. There will be scars, but at least I won’t have to live with bits of metal stuck through me in odd places—oh god. Oh god, it’s going to hurt so badly.
I want to close my eyes, but I can’t. I can only lie, weak and panting, pinned in place as Slate brings the needle closer and closer to my breast.
The door to my room flies open, bringing with it a whirl of sweet-scented wind. I lift my head, Rath’s name on my tongue.
But it isn’t Rath.
Apollyon stands in the doorway, his long scarlet hair billowing around his bare shoulders, his mouth at a sardonic angle. He’s more beautiful than I remembered.
