Page 39 of A Match Made in Hell

I’m already reaching for him, wanting to strip him bare, to smooth my palm over the planes of his chest, when his hand snaps up to ensnare mine. ‘Best you don’t, love.’

‘But –’

‘Willow.’ His voice is raspy. ‘Please. My self-control is hanging by a thread.’

I can’t help but be a little gleeful about that. ‘Really?’ I tighten my thighs around his hips, and he closes his eyes, grinding his teeth. ‘Who’s tempting who here?’ To annoy him, I add, ‘If anything, I’d say you’re going easy on me.’

His eyes flash open. They’re pure molten now, ablaze with power and heat and want, and I’ve almost certainly made a mistake. He smirks. ‘Challenge accepted.’

I’m picked up and thrown on the bed. My dress rides up my thighs, far too high to be decent, but Sath is already kissing a path up my legs, his mouth on my calves, the backs of my knees, my lower thigh, higher and higher, until his head disappears beneath my dress.

I gasp as his teeth graze the sides of my underwear – I can’t remember what I put on, I was busy worrying about my dress, and oh my God, please tell me I had the sense to choose something lacy – but then his head re-emerges, which is simultaneously upsetting and wonderful, because as much as I liked where it was heading, he’s .

. . adorable. His hair is mussed up, sticking out at all angles, and his cheeks are flushed pink.

As if on autopilot, I sit up, leaning towards him, towards that mouth, because I have to kiss him, I have to –

He dodges me, pushing me down and settling on top of me.

I writhe beneath him, almost out of my mind with want and need and emptiness ; I say his name as he moves his mouth over my neck, sucking and kissing and dragging his tongue over my skin.

It’s not enough. This is never going to be enough.

He cups my breasts through the fabric of my dress, and I gasp, arching towards him.

The ache is too much to bear. Ignoring his orders from earlier, I set to work undoing the buttons on his shirt.

He doesn’t stop me this time, shifting position to help a little, allowing me to slide it free from his shoulders.

I run my hands over his chest, the ridges on his abdomen, the line of dark hair below his navel, before tucking a finger under the top of his waistband.

He hisses, pressing against me, allowing me to feel what this is doing to him.

My mouth goes dry. ‘Sath . . .’ I remove my hand and curl it behind his neck instead, dragging his face to mine. ‘I want –’ I break off, frustrated, desperate to say the words. I was wrong before – I’m not the saint to his sinner, I’m simply the damned.

He stares at me, panting heavily. His gaze is unfocused and his hair is plastered to his forehead.

The sheen of sweat gleams on both our chests.

I’ve no idea how we got like this, grinding like teenagers, but the sheer force of restraining from this never-ending want is an exercise in itself.

We’ll be Olympic medallists in not having sex at this rate.

Except, having sex is all I want to do, and I’m not bothered about winning gold.

His head lowers. My pulse rockets – apparently there are no limits to how fast it can get down here; I can only presume in the real world I’d be having a coronary at this point – because he’s finally going to do it, I’m going to have him, I am I am I am, but then he drops his head on to my shoulder and practically growls, ‘Fuck.’

I want to scream with frustration. How important is this concession of his that he’s willing to forgo this ? ‘I’ve basically failed already. You might as well make it official.’

‘I told you.’ He nips at my shoulder. ‘You haven’t failed unless I fuck you.’

The thought makes me grip the sheets tighter. ‘So, we could kiss –’

‘What do you think would happen if we kissed? Would you be able to stop?’

He has a point there. I squirm. I need something . I’m aching and empty, and he’s right here, and I can’t remember a single one of the reasons why I’m trying to succeed in these tasks.

I roll over, balancing my head on my elbow and drinking in my fill of Sath, shirtless by my side. I cannot comprehend how I’m not naked at this point. It says more about his restraint than mine. I trail one finger down his chest. ‘If we didn’t stop,’ I say, ‘what would you do to me?’

Shadows flicker in every corner of the room. Sath has turned predatory, a cobra poised to strike, every inch of him taut. ‘Think very carefully about whether you want me to answer that question.’

I shuffle closer, close enough for our noses to graze, our mouths inches apart.

His breathing is steady now, no longer out of control.

Probably because he knows I’ve lost it. He could do whatever he wanted to me and I wouldn’t stop him.

We wrap our arms around one another, one of my legs tucking between his, but this isn’t a frenzied grope-fest, not any more. It’s sweet. Tender.

‘Tell me,’ I say.

His smile informs me it won’t stay sweet and tender for long. He draws a slow, lazy path up my arm. ‘First, I’d kiss you until you couldn’t remember your own name.’ He rolls on top of me. ‘Then I’d remove this ridiculous dress.’

I frown, affronted. It’s a perfectly nice dress.

‘I can’t think straight with you in it.’ He presses another kiss to my neck. ‘Then I’d . . .’

He shifts, tilting to one side to allow his hands access to the hem of my dress, to what’s underneath.

One finger tucks inside my underwear, and I want to flinch away, knowing he’s going to recognise how badly I want him – as if he didn’t already – but when that finger pulls my underwear to one side and strokes up the core of me, he swears. Profusely.

‘Then you’d what?’ I ask, trying to sound casual. It would help if I wasn’t panting heavily.

Sath takes a moment, as though he too is struggling to form coherent sentences – personally, all I can think is more more more – and then he dips that finger inside me.

It takes every ounce of willpower I have not to cry out.

I bite my lip, fingers clutching the bed sheets, my entire focus going to the feeling of that finger filling me finally, finally, but it’s not enough, not nearly enough, not when I can feel him hot and hard against me and I know how much better that would feel instead.

‘Then I’d do this,’ he answers. The finger slides out. In again.

It’s slow, and it’s torturous, and I take back everything I’ve said before. Now is the point I combust.

‘Then I’d go down on you,’ he murmurs, his finger still moving at a snail’s pace – I move on him, urging him faster faster faster, and at this point I can only assume he’s ignoring me on purpose, the bastard. ‘Taste you with my tongue. How do you think you’d taste?’

Attempts at propriety lost, I mutter both obscenities and his name repeatedly; I’m going to break apart, splinter in two, explode into a million little pieces that he’ll have to put together again.

I’m on the edge of a cliff, but this time when I go over I’m not going to fall to my death, I’m going to fly, and he’s going to give it to me –

He withdraws. I gasp. ‘What are you –’

What the fuck is he thinking. He can’t stop now .

‘Did you want to ask me something, Willow?’

Yes. A thousand times, yes. For once, it’s my voice urging me on. I don’t need any encouragement from disembodied voices in this situation.

‘Willow?’ Sath’s finger teases me once more.

I bite my lips before forcing one word through them. ‘No.’

‘Hm.’ He presses down on a point that makes me see stars. ‘Looks like I’m not trying hard enough.’

‘How –’ Forming sentences is proving difficult. ‘How much longer do we – ah – have left –’

Tracing lazy circles around that same spot, he says, ‘Thirty minutes.’

I groan, although I suspect the meaning behind the sound is murky. ‘Thirty minutes, Sath, I can’t –’

‘You can.’ His mouth finds my neck, sucking and nibbling the flesh there while I clench around him, arching off the bed. ‘Ask me,’ he whispers. ‘Just ask me.’

His lips move upwards, brushing my jaw, my cheeks, my mouth. Feather-light. I chase after them, needing more of him, and he darts out of the way, forever unobtainable. ‘Ask me.’

I want to.

I want to so badly it hurts. But –

What about Sath? What parts of you will he end up hating?

As loath as I am to admit it, the Sorter’s right. I always disappoint in the end. I don’t want to stick around and watch him make that discovery.

‘I can’t,’ I tell him. ‘We can’t.’

A second finger joins the first. ‘Are you sure?’

No. Yes. I whimper. ‘Sath, please –’

‘What was that?’ He’s moving far, far too slowly. ‘Did you need something?’

What I need is for him to stop this torture. Pressure builds again as he finally increases the pace; the bed sheets tear in my hand as I twist them too hard, my breaths quickening with every move he makes. I throw my head back, mouth parted, grinding against him, I can’t get enough and –

He pulls away.

I could scream.

‘Well? Did you need something?’

‘No.’ I throw an arm over my face. ‘Go away.’

He chuckles. ‘Look at me.’

I acquiesce. Reluctantly. While pouting.

As soon as our eyes meet, his fingers slide into place.

Holding my gaze, he moves in and out once more; our chests rising in time like we’re puppets held on each other’s strings.

I’m lost in his stare, sinking into its golden depths as my body matches his rhythm.

I touch his face, trailing a path down skin as hot as coals, my thumb resting on his lower lip.

It builds faster this time, the threads tying us together tugging me onwards, upwards; I’m floating, reaching for release –

He stops again. Starts. Stops. He doesn’t protest when my eyes flutter shut.

It happens over and over, bringing me closer every time but never close enough.

I wriggle and writhe. Curse him under my breath.

Curse him loudly when I’m denied what I want.

I suspect nothing is coherent. He whispers that I should ask him, and I cling to him just as hard as I do the thought that I mustn’t .

I wish it wasn’t so hard to remember why.

His face hovers over mine, lips dangerously close, as I tighten once more, the inferno trapped inside me threatening to rage at last; I cry out, clenching around him and –

He stops. Of course he does. I kick the sheets with frustration.

‘Sath.’ It hurts to speak. My throat is raw; my eyes are filled with the threat of tears. ‘You have to . . . I can’t . . .’

‘You can have everything you want.’ He unsticks my hair from where it’s plastered to my neck and tucks it behind my ear. ‘All you have to do is ask.’

No wonder I always put off doing the right thing if it feels like this. Like my ribcage has cracked open and bone shards are digging into my organs, burrowing inside until there’s nothing left but pain and longing for all the things I want but can’t have and don’t deserve.

‘No,’ I whisper. ‘No, I won’t.’

On the dresser, one of the broken clocks ticks, the hands moving into a new position before going still.

Sath exhales and drops his head, burrowing it into the crook of my neck. His heart pounds against my skin, and for a moment it’s not enough to feel it there; I want to reach inside his chest and fuse it with mine.

I let out a shaky sigh of my own, although I’m not sure mine is out of relief. I’m trying not to be too offended by his – he’s still pressing insistently against me, so he can’t have been too desperate for me to say no – and assume it was out of delight that I’ve passed another task.

But.

Wait.

‘Have I passed?’ My mouth is so dry the words crack on my tongue. ‘Is that it?’

‘Mm.’

‘Could we –’

‘Willow . . .’ He says my name like a groan, and not in the pleasurable sense.

Not at all. He lifts his head. There’s no playful smirk on his face now, or fire burning in his gaze.

No Devil left in him. His eyes have returned to chocolate brown, and they brim with sympathy when our stares meet.

I don’t like the look of it. ‘We shouldn’t. ’

‘Oh,’ I say in a small voice. ‘Okay.’

Once again, I was so caught up in him that I forgot tempting me was his sole purpose in this.

The Sath in front of me clearly doesn’t feel the same as the Sath with the Devil’s cloak wrapped around his throat.

And I almost let him trick me into failing .

My cheeks burn with embarrassment. Now the haze has passed I can see where his one finger glistens with moisture, with me and – oh, God – the noises I’d been making –

Fresh tears well in my eyes. I can’t let him see.

I scramble to rearrange the straps of my dress; I don’t know why I wore a dress, why why why did I wear a dress when it didn’t matter, when he had to do this anyway, when it’s literally his job, and he’s done it with tens or hundreds or thousands of people before me?

‘Look at me.’ Sath reaches for me, but I slap his hand away. ‘Please. You have to know I –’

He grabs my wrist before I can jump off the bed, because I can’t look at him, I won’t; not when I’d just been splayed out and vulnerable before him and now I’m not sure if he even liked it.

‘ Willow ,’ he says, and this time I do turn my head. His voice has taken that tone again, the commanding Devil voice that sends his demons to their knees. My own legs tremble. ‘I want you. Believe me. But if you knew . . . There are things I . . . We just can’t.’

I hate how plaintive I sound when I ask, ‘Why not?’

He opens his mouth. I wait with bated breath, convinced he’s going to answer, but then he clamps it shut, a muscle in his jaw ticking, and it’s obvious he’s not going to tell me anything.

Fine.

Fine .

I’ve passed. I’ve got one task left, and then I never have to see him again. Which is good. Perfect. All I’ve ever wanted since I got here.

This time, when I make an ungraceful exit from the bed, he doesn’t make a move to stop me. He doesn’t say a single word.