Page 50 of The Prospect's Succubus
“Still nervous?” she whispered, her mouth at my ear.
“Terrified.”
She kissed me, slow at first, then hard enough to leave a mark. I felt the edge of her teeth, but she was gentle, almost reverent.
When she pulled back, her eyes were wet. “Don’t let me go,” she said, voice barely audible.
I wrapped my arms around her, hands tracing the spine beneath the thin shirt. “I won’t.”
She kissed me again, softer this time. Then she slid off my lap, pulled me up, and led me toward the bed.
We left the fire burning, the rest of the world held at bay by wards and whiskey and the memory of what it was like to finally be free.
And for the first time in years, I didn’t dream of Hell.
***
The first thing I heard when I woke was the sound of glass clinking. Jasmine sat cross-legged on the floor in front ofthe fireplace, a bottle of Old Forester in one hand and two mismatched mason jars on the rug. The fire was down to red embers, but she kept prodding it with the iron poker, watching sparks drift up the flue. She was still in my flannel, though the buttons had come mostly undone in her sleep, baring one perfect shoulder.
I sat up, stretching until my spine popped. The hangover was mild compared to the ones I’d survived with the MC, but it came with a bonus, a phantom ache running the length of my arm, like the brand had decided to take up bodybuilding while I slept.
Jasmine glanced over her shoulder, then crooked a finger. “C’mere, Torch. I need a drinking buddy.”
“You know it’s not even noon?”
She shrugged, poured two fingers into each jar. “Never stopped you before.”
I joined her on the floor, the boards cold under my legs. She handed me a jar, and I raised it in a half-assed toast. “To the end of the world,” I said.
“May it never come before dessert,” she replied. We drank.
We sat in silence for a minute, the whiskey burning a clean line down my throat and into my gut. Jasmine’s eyes reflected the fire, weird and beautiful and not quite safe.
She nudged the bottle toward me. “You ever think about what you’d do if you weren’t… this?”
She tapped my forearm, right on the new black line.
“Not really,” I said, and meant it. “I was born for the job.”
She snorted. “Nobody’s born to be a weapon. That’s just PR.”
“Maybe not. But I can’t picture myself pushing a lawnmower or grilling in the backyard. I’m shit at normal.”
She grinned, leaning in. “That’s the only thing we have in common.”
I eyed her. “You could’ve picked anyone in Hell, but you picked me. Why?”
She chewed her lip, considering. “Because you’re the only idiot who thinks he can save me.”
I let that hang for a while. The fire flickered, painting her face in moving stripes. I reached for the bottle, refilled her jar, and kept my own topped off. “You’re not broken,” I said, surprising us both.
She laughed, but there was no venom in it. “You liar.”
I caught her wrist, held it tight enough to feel her pulse, the old soldier’s trick for checking if someone is really alive. “No, seriously. You’re just… different. Not the same as before. That’s not a failure.”
She tilted her head. “What if I want to go back?”
“Do you?”
