14 Trivial

Lily

Lily stood in her underwear, staring into her closet.

“It’s just trivia night,” she explained to Max, who continued grooming himself on the bed. “So I don’t need to go balls to the wall fashion-wise.” She squinted. “Right?”

The cat ignored her.

How helpful.

She riffled through the seemingly endless array of clothing that appeared and disappeared from the closet at will, pausing on a slinky black cocktail dress. The silk was so fine that it almost looked sheer but seemed to be fully opaque when she held her hand underneath it. The cut of it would bare plenty of skin while draping and pooling over the curves and hollows of her body.

A “fuck-me” dress if ever she’d seen one.

She pushed it aside, along with the flushed curiosity of what clawed hands would feel like skating across the skin the dress would reveal.

Not what I’m here for. Truly.

It really wasn’t. She had always craved connection and had always been a naturally tactile person. Despite the raging sex drive she’d had in her life, she had usually preferred the ease and convenience of a vibrator to the potential of a heady physical release and the quietly emotionally shredding nature of a casual hookup or fling. She hadn’t been built for hookup culture, but it had been the only real option she’d had at the time for something more fulfilling than silicone.

Nothing about you feels temporary.

She knew she’d be hearing those words in his warm, rumbly, sexy as hell voice in her head for a long time. Her fingers stilled on the long sleeve of a shirt in such a dark shade of purple it was nearly black.

Permanence.

That was what she really wanted, wasn’t it? She didn’t just like the new desk, she loved it. She didn’t just want mind-blowing sex, she wanted mind-blowing sex with someone who wanted her . Not just the orgasm, or fulfillment of a redhead fantasy, or a way to kill time, or whatever else she, or more accurately her body, represented.

So, yes, she wanted to have sex. But she wasn’t going to immediately ruin a perfectly good—possibly great—new friendship based on burgeoning mutual trust and connection and humor just because she wanted to climb him like a tree.

Bel was a friend. Maybe someday he could be more, but she would not make them fuck buddies.

There. Decision made. Problem solved.

She pulled on a pair of buttery soft leggings, then tugged the purple shirt over her head. Simple and sexy, with a touch of elegance, the shirt’s V-neck just showed the upper swell of her breasts and fitted her torso without being too tight. She headed to the bathroom to add a touch of mascara to her lashes and fiddle with her long fall of hair. Surveying her efforts in the mirror, she happened to catch her own eye.

You fucking coward.

She blinked. Scowled.

You push everyone away. You always push everyone away, just like you did when things were fine, but you were scared of being seen, just like you did when you were sick. It could be more. You’re just too scared to let it.

“Shut up,” she snarled at the mirror. Max, dozing on the heated tile floor, startled and stared at her with wide eyes. “I’m fine,” she snapped at him.

Max blinked slowly at her, then flopped onto his back, purring hard enough to be mistaken for a small engine and clearly begging for belly rubs.

“I’m fine, you little shit.” She’d aimed for pissy, but it had come out rather sad. She sighed, crouching down to give him the attention he wanted and smoothing his soft fur in apology. “Sorry, buddy. Not even Paradise can fix some things, huh?”

Paradise was supposed to fix everything.

Max just purred.

* * *

Lily hurried through the field of doors towards the Hallway, hand curled around the phone tucked in the pocket of her leather jacket. A taller-than-most-mortals figure with the telltale shape of wings looming behind him lurked just outside the stone arch.

He squinted up at the arch, hands in his pockets, tail swishing idly behind him. His clothes had barely changed from the day before: boots and black pants—on the slightly distracting side of snug— over his powerful thighs. As she got close enough to pick out more detail, she realized that in place of his sleeveless tunic, a faded black Metallica T-shirt stretched over his broad chest and hugged his thick biceps. His hair was haphazardly half pulled back and looked slightly damp.

He looked less like a demon general and more like a normal man who happened to be a demon.

“Trying to figure out if you could fly through it?” she called, grinning when his eyes snapped to hers.

He snorted. “Of course I could fly through it.” He threw one thick arm around her shoulders in a side hug, then left it draped there. “I was just trying to figure out if I could do a barrel roll through the narrowest part.”

She glanced up at the arch, leaned back to peer at his wings, which, even folded, seemed massive, then dragged her gaze up his athletic body to look at his rugged face. “I’d put money on you.”

“And you’d win,” he said cheerfully, steering her down the Hall and letting his arm fall to his side. She matched his pace, delighted to not have to shorten her strides, keeping just enough distance between them to be friendly.

“Did you deal with any interesting souls today?” he asked.

Lily wrinkled her nose. The details of the soul files always faded, but sometimes the broad strokes of their actions would linger in her memory, like a movie she saw once and only vaguely remembered the plot of.

“There was a guy who hunted and ate people’s dogs…for twenty years.”

Bel stopped in his tracks, gagging, horror scrawled over his broad features. “He what ?”

“Yeah, he got off on seeing how desperate they were looking for their dogs, and then how heartbroken they were when they were never found. All while eating— ugh . Creepy fucker. He did some other stuff that doesn’t bear repeating, but yeah, his ass got sent down to Level Six.”

“Good.”

Lily shivered at the memory of touching the soul’s file. She’d kept going to the breakroom to scrub at her hands, but her skin had still felt greasy. “Hope the drinks are good at Luckyleaf. I’ll need one to get over that particular encounter.”

“They are,” Bel murmured, tail lashing as he started walking again. “Yuck. I mean, I’ve heard and learned about some shit, so hunting people’s beloved pets for sport isn’t the worst thing I know of, but what gets me is the complaining about it. Did he honestly try to convince you that he shouldn’t be there?”

“Nah, he tried flirting his way into a lighter assignment. If leering at my tits and telling me he had a ‘Jessica Rabbit fantasy’ counts as flirting, which, for the record, it does not.”

“Duly noted. So how many pieces did you leave him in?”

“Just the one. Oh, wait, two if you count the finger, but that was an accident. The sword is great, by the way! Very sharp.”

“Brigid does beautiful work. It used to be Lucifer’s, but he didn’t need it anymore.”

Something in his tone made her look up.

A self-satisfied smirk looked good on him. She made a mental note to make sure his gift of her new favorite weapon wasn’t going to cause problems for him at some point.

She stole glances at him as they walked. He seemed happier than the day before, but beyond that, her memory hadn’t really done him justice. Sure, she remembered the lines of his face and the color of his hair, skin, and eyes, but the more she looked, the more fine details sprang out at her. His horns were neatly polished and unchipped. There was a little scar that cut down by the curve of his jaw and below his pointed ear—an ear that had vaguely geometric tattoos on the shell and tip. The bulge of his ridiculously muscled arms, which also had some meat on them, and—

“What’s this?” She hooted, touching the pair of aggressively glittery beaded bracelets that seemed to barely wrap around his wrist. Bel beamed and struck a pose like a woman showing off an engagement ring. “These are the masterful creations of two of my nieces, Nimué and Lezabel. They’re twins and had a bracelet-making competition. I was the judge.”

“And?”

“Well, Nimmie’s is the purple one. She said that she thinks my skin is a pretty color and wanted to make a bracelet to match.” He pointed to the bracelet of neon purple glittery beads interspersed with shades of lavender and pink that looked wildly out of place on his dusky, purple-gray wrist. “Lezzie decided that matching was for lames and wanted to take an avant-garde approach.” The other bracelet had no discernible pattern and was composed entirely of lurid colors and enough sparkle to put a diamond to shame. “I couldn’t pick, so they both won. Naturally, being my sister’s children, they weren’t satisfied with that, so they demanded that I wear both bracelets and whoever’s bracelet falls off first is the loser.”

Lily nodded, impressed. “Smart kids. I like the way they think.”

Bel smiled down at the bracelets with such tenderness and obvious pride that Lily’s empty chest ached . She slid her hand into her pocket and dug her nails into her palm.

“I do too. Though it turns out they’re better bracelet makers than I originally anticipated. It’s been almost a year,” Bel said wryly, dropping his arm. His glance turned into a look, a little furrow appearing between his thick brows.

Oh no you don’t. Don’t try to get a read on me like that. You won’t like it.

“I don’t know if I’m more impressed with the durability of the bracelets, or your commitment to wearing them,” Lily said, aiming for light and carefree and almost nailing the bullseye. “Do your nieces have wings too?”

“Nah,” he drawled, flaring those wings slightly. “Kasdeya, my sister, their mom, is technically my half sister. We have different dads. Our mom isn’t one for monogamy, and none of her partners are either.” He said it factually, with no hint of judgment or shame, only love and pride. “I’m the only one of my siblings with these sweet, sweet wings, and thus, am usually in the running for the title of favorite uncle. As long as I keep taking the kiddos for flights, anyway.”

Bel loved his family. Openly. Unapologetically. Enthusiastically. She might not know much about him in the grand scheme of things, but she suddenly knew that with complete certainty. There was a big old softie under that hard warrior’s physique. Sexy and sweet, a dangerous combination. Hopefully, she prayed to whatever powers were listening—the Universe, she supposed—hopefully he wasn’t nearly as perceptive as she suspected him to be. Because if he was, and he really got to know her, really saw her, he probably wouldn’t like what he saw. No one else who’d ever gotten remotely close had.

But what if he did?

Well, she wouldn’t have the first idea how to handle that.