15. Chapter Fifteen

"What do you want from me?" I tried to keep my voice level, but it cracked. He had a firm grip on my fist, magic preventing my other hand from moving, but it was probably a good thing. If not, I would have kept swinging and pissed him off even more. If I wanted to live, I probably didn't need to go attacking the one who got to decide if I lived or died. "Please, just let me go."

He tsked his tongue, running his thumb along my bottom lip again. The touch set sparks of electricity shooting through me, setting my insides on fire. I hated how much I loved the feeling. I shouldn"t have been enjoying any of this, but the throb between my thighs begged to differ.

My pussy was a dirty fucking traitor.

"Your mouth says one thing, but your pheromones say another," he said, clearly amused. "I bet you're dripping with arousal right now at the thought of me tying you up and fucking you senseless, aren't you mortal?"

I scoffed. "You wish."

He was wrong. Dead wrong.

I hadn't been thinking about that at all.

Now, however, my knees turned to water at his words, and I tried my best to keep the shock off my face. How had I gone from being deathly afraid to turned on in a matter of moments? Was I really that desperate to get laid after being single for so many years? Or was I just that fucked in the head?

My gut said the latter.

I decided to change the subject, hoping to distract him. If I kept him talking, I'd buy myself more time. To what? I wasn't sure. It wasn't like I could escape or run away.

"Why have you been following me all this time?" I asked, trying to jerk my hand out of his hold again. My fingers were starting to cramp. "You've been stalking me for years. Why? What did I ever do to you?"

His head tilted to the side in response, but he said nothing at first, which only made my blood boil. Instead, he released my hands, which instantly fell in relief, my muscles aching. I quickly massaged the feeling back into my fingers, my gaze never leaving the dark place beneath his cowl.

"I need some fucking answers," I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

I was slightly annoyed by his refusal to answer my questions, and even more annoyed that I was still standing inside an empty closet, trying to interrogate a faceless demon. It was probably the most bizarre thing I could have imagined happening.

He"d hunted me across the city, cornered me, but he wasn"t trying to hurt or kill me? What the hell was going on? "Can you at least let me out of the closet?"

A pregnant pause hung between us, but then, without a word, he stepped back. He must have thought I intended to run again, but it would have been pointless. Instead, I stepped forward and slipped around him, stopping a few feet away. I stared up at him through the dim light, struggling to find the right words.

There were too many questions coming too quickly, making it hard to form a coherent thought.

"You want answers," he said, his low voice sending tingles skittering down my back. "I'll give you three."

"Only three?" I gaped. "What are you, a fucking genie?"

He didn't laugh. Instead, his head bobbed up and down slowly in a nod. "Three. Then, it's my turn to get what I want."

I opened my mouth to ask what he could possibly want from me, but I snapped it closed again right away. If he was only giving me three answers, I wanted to make sure I was asking the right questions. I didn't want to waste a single one, and as much as I wanted to know what his intentions were, I'd find out soon enough.

"Are you a demon?" I finally asked, my muscles tensing at the word. It was one of the questions weighing on me most heavily. I"d never been religious, but after the things I"d seen, I fully believed there was a Hell. What else could explain how he faded into shadows and wielded such dark magic?

"Technically, no, though some would disagree." His tone was low, casual, like I was asking him about the weather, but I didn't let my guard down. I knew there was a monster lurking behind his calm demeanor, ready to pounce. "I'm not from your world, but what I once was isn't what I am now."

I stared up at the darkness concealing his face, at a loss for words. How could he say so much without giving me any new information? My brow furrowed in annoyance.

"I was cursed, trapped for a thousand years," he went on when I said nothing. "And thanks to you, Jovie, I'm free."

"Me?" I blanched, taking a half-step back reflexively. "But I didn't…How did that happen?"

I remembered the exact moment he first appeared three years ago. It wasn't like I'd been studying demonology or trying to summon an otherworldly being. I'd been laying in bed, gripped by insomnia. How the hell was any of this my fault?

"One moment I was suffering in the darkest depths of Hell, trying to kill myself without regenerating. Tougher than you might think when you're immortal," he explained. "Then, I sensed you from somewhere in the void. I could feel your despair, such an overwhelming sadness, but it gave me a new purpose. I knew if I could sense you, I could find you. If I could find you, you could, in turn, set me free."

My despair? Sadness?Was this demon seriously telling me I'd summoned him with my depression?

I blinked up at him, his words processing slow as molasses.

"I..I don"t understand. You found me and then just...followed me all this time?" My thoughts were spinning out of control as I grasped for straws. I no longer feared for my life—at least not for the moment—but this entire situation was still so strange, it didn"t make sense. "Why not choose someone else? Why me?"

He took a step toward me, shrinking the distance between us, and his low, steady voice swept over me again. "It"s not that simple. Crossing realms is difficult, nearly impossible. Lucifer is the only one to have ever crossed the veil, and he"d never share that kind of information. Prisoners escaping and fleeing to earth? There"d be a celestial war like no one's ever seen."

My head swam, and I felt light-headed. Fainting would just be the cherry on top of this ridiculous situation.

"I fed on your energy, slowly nursing myself back to health from the rotten shell of a corpse my curse made me. To choose someone else would undo years of hard work. You, Jovie, drew me out of Hell by giving me your energy, by fueling me with your thoughts and fear, but it was the pathetic male that broke my curse." He took another step closer, making my heart skip a beat. His closeness set my limbs on fire, an inferno burning me up from the inside out. "You see, my plan was always to take everything from you, to use your soul to sever my ties to Hell, but things changed. I've decided that you're much too precious to destroy. I will keep you for myself, instead."

I opened my mouth to tell him he couldn't just claim me, but shadow tendrils shot out of nowhere, wrapping around my wrists and hoisting my arms over my head. I screamed, fighting against the restraints, but they held fast.

"Wait," I pleaded, as he took another step forward, eliminating the space between us. "Please, I have more questions."

"Sorry, but you're all out of time, precious mortal." He shook his head slowly. "Maybe, if you behave, I'll humor you after I've had my way with you."

My stomach backflipped, my knees shaking as he reached toward the neckline of my shirt. My eyes fell to his hand, surprised by how human it looked. He had long, pale fingers decorated with silver rings, and as he dragged one of them down the front of my shirt, black magic sparked around his skin and sliced the material in half.

The shirt fell open, revealing my lacy black bra beneath.

"A-are you going to hurt me?" I stammered, my heart crashing against my ribs.

"Only in ways you"ll like."

Heat scorched my cheeks, quickly sinking through my body and settling between my thighs.

Only in ways you'll like. The words echoed in my mind, his voice replaying over and over. The rest of my questions dissolved, replaced by a different type of curiosity.

I wondered what kind of pleasure-laced pain he had in store for me, wondered what those robes concealed…

"Show me your face," I blurted, goosebumps pebbling over my skin as his fingers worked their way back up my torso. Another crackle of magic severed the front of my bra, and as it fell apart to expose my breasts, a growl rumbled in his throat. I was hardly in a place to make demands, but I refused to be fucked by a man I'd never seen.

"You want to see…my face?" His tone was curious, like I'd asked something strange.

"Yes." I shivered as he traced over my collarbone. I thought about the glimpses of his jawline I"d gotten before, the longing to see what he looked like beneath the swaths of black fabric eating me from the inside. Was he horribly disfigured? Ashamed of what he looked like? "You've seen mine—and probably every other part of me, for that matter. I at least deserve to see you before you have your way with me. Or are you hiding something?"

"My face is a reminder of where I come from," he said. "The place I was banished from. It, in itself, is a curse, but if you insist…"

My stomach knotted as he reached for his cowl, the air catching in my lungs. Slowly, he lowered the fabric to reveal his face.

A sharp jawline appeared, followed by a spill of black hair that had to reach well past his shoulders. He had flawless pale skin, chiseled from ash-colored marble, and vibrant gold eyes that nearly glowed in the darkness. I"d be damned if he wasn"t the most beautiful man I"d ever seen.

"I-I..." I stammered, my brain refusing to fire on all cylinders. I was speechless, my eyes tracing over his features, committing them all to memory. He was nothing like I'd expected; he didn't look like a demon at all.

He looked like a goddamned angel.