Page 53 of Crescendo (Beautiful Monsters #1)

Without another word, I turn and stagger toward the bathroom.

There’s only a sliding wooden door to fasten shut with a metal latch.

Then, in private, I reassemble myself the only way I know how.

I wash my face with my hands and scrub at my teeth with my thumb and a streak of bar soap.

Using my wet fingers, I comb through my hair.

When I finish, I eye my reflection and try to find some semblance of my old self lurking beneath this stranger’s gaunt features.

I’m still not sure who this new Daniela is when I finally turn to the door, my fingers fumbling with the latch.

By the time I get it open, I am too distracted to notice the heat wafting from the other end.

One tug on the sliding door and Lucifer’s presence fills the narrow gap.

I stagger back instinctively, and just as my back strikes the glass surface of a tiny shower stall, he’s already wrenched the door fully open.

One of his hands goes to the buckle on his jeans, wrenching on the fly and revealing the shape of his cock through his boxers.

I swallow hard, my fingers catching against the frosted glass behind me.

I should look away when he steps up to the toilet and blocks the doorway in the process.

I should force my way past him. I definitely shouldn’t stare as he tugs his boxers down his hips, revealing his semi-hard cock and.

..blood. Sloppy streaks of it paint his hips, obscuring the row of his scars.

Some drugged worshipper left her scarlet fingerprints all over the priceless statue in the church garden.

Gritting my teeth, I start forward and snatch a wad of toilet paper from the roll.

Before I can even touch him, Lucifer catches my wrist with his free hand, still guiding a stream of piss with the other.

He shakes out the few last drops but doesn’t let me go while he shifts over to the sink.

He wets that one hand beneath the faucet and then shuts it off.

His pants are still down around his ankles while he eyes his reflection.

The devil isn’t alarmed by the bruises earned during his battle.

He wears victory like just another scar, and my stomach twists while I trail my gaze over him.

The places where I touched him during the night glow more vibrantly than the bruises or cuts left over from his fight with Mack.

They adorn him like the medals on a general, but my blood.

.. It clashes with his olive skin. My fingers twitch, aching to wipe it off, but his grip tightens, and he turns, steering me back against the shower stall with every step he takes.

When I have nowhere left to go, he herds me inside it, watching as I press myself beneath the showerhead.

Once he’s just inches away, he lifts my hand by my captive wrist, his eyes on mine. “Drop it.”

His tone is jagged glass. I obey, and the wad of toilet paper strikes the tile with barely a sound to its name.

Lucifer doesn’t release me, however. He merely shifts his weight to block me in, his gaze unreadable.

I don’t know what to think when he reaches down, pulling my hand along with him, and rummages through the puddle of his jeans, eventually withdrawing a knife.

It’s the dull kitchen one he let me keep.

Rising fully, he waits until he’s sure I’m watching—so that I don’t miss a single detail when he holds the flat of his hand out and starts to cut.

With barely a wince to show for it, he gouges out a single line similar to the mark he made on me.

Once finished, he lets the knife fall, its blade gleaming beneath my blood and his.

I don’t react when he reaches for my hand and presses our bloody palms together.

Clasping our fingers, he raises them both above my head, his expression penetrating me deeper than any knife ever could.

“You wanted me to promise,” he says gutturally.

Apparently, this is how unowned men cement said promises. Not with handshakes or simple words...but this. Blood against blood. Eternal.

The muscles in my arm burn as I force my grip to tighten, grinding my open wound against his despite the sharp throb of pain it triggers.

Droplets of red escape, striking the cracked tile beneath my bare toes.

A drop lands on my ankle, and I shiver, but not out of disgust. Only Lucifer could turn blood into a weapon.

The tiny droplets sizzle, searing his claim into my skin.

My veins hum, surging with the hazy memories of violence—him down in the arena, fighting for me. Punching, kicking, striking for me.

My body is a fool, still thrumming on the edge of the high.

I haven’t fully come down when I feel searing heat creep between my legs or when my nipples tighten against the coarse fabric of my sweater.

I blame the heroin for the need that makes me shudder and clench my thighs together.

I blame...everything and anything but him .

Those eyes don’t affect me. Not the way they narrow over my throat as if he can sense every reaction sparking beneath my skin.

When he finally releases me, I can’t silence a sigh of relief.

I want him to leave. I need him to drag the wooden door shut.

I need to shove my own hand between my legs and ignore the things my fingers will have to do in order to ease this ache.

I wait, shame a painful ball at the back of my throat, eager to be swallowed down. Lucifer makes me wait.

Then he takes a step back, and air trickles into my lungs in one greedy breath only to escape just as quickly when he raises his uninjured hand and.

..he palms his cock. No. My head falls back against the stall, hard enough to make sparks appear before my eyes.

I squeeze them shut. I don’t look. I don’t listen to the slick, wet sounds as his own fingers glide up and down the ridge of his shaft.

I don’t let myself dwell on the fact that he’s pleasing himself right in front of me, completely unashamed by the act.

He’s a beast, after all, merely giving in to a beastly, primal urge.

The devil is selfish and bold in fulfilling his own needs, and I need. .. I need ...

I shove my blood-stained fingers into my mouth and bite down while my other hand bolts to the front of my jeans.

I attempt to suck in my stomach and shove them beneath the waistband, but in the end, I have to undo the clasp one-handed and kick them down, leaning against the glass behind me for leverage.

Any embarrassment flies out the window as I take two fingers and.

.. yes . My gasp nearly drowns out the sound he makes: part inhale, part growl.

It reverberates off the glass, adding a delicate chime to the harsh slick of his stroking hand.

He’s moving faster , I think. Tightening his grip, getting off on watching me listen to every sordid little sound. ..

And then even that isn’t enough. My eyes open, boldly drinking him in.

His cock is thickened steel. His eyes are an inferno; I swear I can even see sparks of orange mingling with the bright-blue flames now.

Less than a foot apart, we watch each other.

We touch ourselves. Daring. Taunting. Drips of silvery fluid weep from the tip of his cock when I finally crook a thumb and force it inside me.

My bloody fingers aren’t enough to smother a cry.

I have to bite the inside of my cheek and choke down a gasp while my hips buck, unsatisfied by the partial fullness.

With a terrible sense of desperation, I know I’d have to use my whole hand to mimic the fullness of his cock—and even that would be a poor imitation.

It’s like the bastard reads my mind. He grits out a broken sound and gives up, his hands falling open at his sides, his stance predatory.

I’m still stroking sensitive bundles of flesh when he approaches and gathers up the material of my sweater in both hands.

One harsh yank and the wool parts, revealing my breasts, which are already swelling, aching for his touch.

Lucifer is a cruel tormentor. He stands there and merely waits for me to arch my spine and present myself to him.

He doesn’t touch me until I do, and only then it’s to drag a thumb over one nipple while he clenches his jaw at the sharpness.

My fingers cease their maddening circles—it’s oddly more satisfying to watch him.

To see him devour my body through his vision alone.

He shows me no mercy, the same demonic creature he was in the ring, searching out every weakness to exploit.

He finds one in the letters of Vinny’s brand, and he vandalizes the mark with a single bloodied handprint that presses me back against the wall of the stall.

His finger returns to my nipple, teasing it into a throbbing point before he turns to the other and gives it the same brutal, lavish attention. Then he tugs on my hips, spinning me around until I have no choice but to brace both palms against the frosted glass while he muscles in behind me.

He doesn’t bother to be gentle with the first thrust. He slams into me, forcing my hands to inch higher and higher above my head, leaving a bloody streak that dribbles down while he pulls back and enters me again.

Again. More . He doesn’t stop until he’s in to the hilt, his balls slapping the backs of my thighs with the final harsh jerk of his hips.

Then the devil switches tactics, and he goes slow, consuming me in tendrils of hellfire that lick at my spine.

Back and forth. Harsher. Slower. Like a true sadist, he takes time to build up friction I can taste as each carnal sensation ricochets through me, drawing out whimpers from my lips.

Heat. Hot. Fire. My nails rake the glass, my breasts swaying with the steady rhythm, my body at his mercy.