Page 28 of Demon with Benefits (Hell Bent #3)

THE END’S BEGINNING

I RIS FROZE IN PLACE, MOMENTARILY STUNNED . S HE HADN’T seen her ex in months, had blocked his damn number, and now he was turning up on her doorstep? Unfortunately, her momentary hesitation was all the invitation a pushy bastard like Antoine needed, and he let himself right into the house.

She was forced to back up into the hall to make room for him in the entryway. His muddy boots immediately tracked dirt over everything, and she wanted to punch him in the teeth when she saw him step on one of Faust’s leashes.

She despised having him in her space. She’d done an absurd amount of cleansing rituals after she’d kicked him out to purge his toxic energy. Grimalkin had been traumatized for weeks, and she was convinced her cat still hadn’t forgiven her for letting him move in in the first place.

Faust didn’t seem happy about his presence either. He stood at her feet, growling softly.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“Why haven’t you answered my calls?”

“I blocked your number.” And I wish I’d done it sooner. The last thing she wanted was to have this conversation in a towel. That was supposed to have been for Meph’s eyes only.

He held his hands up. “I just wanted to talk, that’s all. I swear.”

She studied the self-important idiot in her house and cringed. What the hell had she ever seen in him? Okay, yeah, he wasn’t hard on the eyes—tall and attractive with a gym membership he made regular use of—but he also had that look on his face that told you he was just a dickhead.

Some people had that. One glance in their eyes and you knew the only thing they cared about was themselves. It was in the smug set of their lips, the arch of their brows, the dullness of their eyes.

Antoine was a dickhead, and that was never going to change.

She’d once thought that about Meph too, but the more time she spent with him, the less she saw the dickheadedness he tried to project and the deeper she was drawn into her newfound fascination with trying to uncover who he really was.

With Antoine it was the opposite. The closer she’d gotten to him, the less she’d liked what she saw. And now that she knew the worst parts of him, there was nothing left that appealed to her. She looked at him and her skin crawled.

“You need to go,” she told him. “I don’t know why you suddenly think I’d want to talk to you after all this time, but I don’t.”

They glared at each other. She felt the moment Antoine caved under her stare, and his gaze flicked away. “I just wanted to get my stuff.”

A pathetic excuse. He’d left that rotting bag of work clothes in the back of her closet like an insurance policy. As if he’d show up at her door saying he “just wanted to talk” if he was only after a sack of dirty laundry.

“I donated it three months ago,” she snapped.

“What the fuck, Iris? I told you I wanted it back. If you hadn’t been ignoring my—”

The door opened suddenly behind him.

“Honey, I’m home!” a familiar voice called from behind Antoine’s back. “You’d better be face down on the bed like I—The fuck?”

Iris’s heart started to pound at the same moment she felt her shoulders relax. Safe , she realized. She felt safe knowing he was here.

Antoine spun around, revealing the tattooed demon in her doorway with a dangerous glint in his red eyes. Stepping inside and closing the front door behind him, Meph peeked around him to frown at Iris.

“Who’s this clown?” he asked, jerking his head at Antoine.

“This is Antoine, and he was just leaving,” Iris said with false calm, arms crossed over her towel. God, she wished she’d put on clothes before answering the door.

She was simultaneously relieved Meph was here and nervous because she had no idea how he would react in this scenario. Maybe he wouldn’t care. They were just fuck buddies, after all. Maybe the presence of her ex-boyfriend meant absolutely nothing to him.

But maybe he would care. She knew Lily’s demon was extremely possessive of her, to the point of violence. If she had an asshole ex show up at her house, Iris had no doubt Mist would make the poor sod regret being born.

Were all demons like that? Why did she suddenly hope Meph was? She hated that shit.

But she also really wanted Antoine gone.

“Who you calling a clown?” Antoine said to Meph, and Iris groaned at his sheer stupidity. She was honestly embarrassed at herself for ever sleeping with him, let alone allowing him to live in her flat for a short time.

The shortest of the demons, Meph didn’t loom over Antoine the way Belial or Mist would have, and maybe that was what gave Antoine the false illusion of dominance.

It didn’t matter. It was still an illusion, and a thinly veiled one, as far as Iris was concerned.

“You.” Meph grinned like this was all great fun to him. “You’re the clown.”

Antoine took a step forward. “Watch your mouth, asshole.” And then he spun around and pinned Iris with a glare.

“You were always a bitch, Iris, but I didn’t think you’d stoop this low.

I mean seriously, where’d you find this guy?

The Bordeaux fucking Prison? I knew you were a slut, but this is a new—”

“Hey, fuckass,” Meph interrupted. He was still smiling, but suddenly, it wasn’t a fun smile anymore. It was menacing, malevolent.

Antoine spun back around. “I wasn’t talking to you, so I suggest you shut—”

Without warning, Meph drew back a fist and punched Antoine square in the face.

He moved so fast his arm was a blur. The sound of flesh colliding cracked through the air, quickly followed by a resounding thud as Antoine’s body hit the floor.

It happened so fast, Iris didn’t even have a chance to scream. She’d barely leapt out of the way in time to avoid being flattened by the toppling deadweight.

For several moments punctuated only by the sounds of her ragged breathing, she stood there staring with her mouth open. At her feet, Faust had stopped growling as if he was equally stunned.

“Oh my god, Meph,” she choked when she finally found her voice. “You knocked him out.”

She probably should have shouted the words, or at least exclaimed them with some degree of emotion, but she was too shocked to summon the will.

Or maybe she just wasn’t that upset?

“I know. It was awesome.” Meph’s playful grin was back like it had never left. “I wish I could punch people out all the time.”

“He’s fully unconscious,” she restated, staring at the prone man on her floor with blood trickling from his suddenly crooked nose. “Should I... call an ambulance or something?”

“Nah, I can move him no problem.” Meph stepped around Antoine’s unconscious body, crouched behind his head, and then lifted him by the armpits like he weighed nothing. “I’ll just toss him outside, and we’ll be good to go.”

Did Meph think that was what ambulances were for? To dispose of people who were in the way?

Iris sputtered, unable to believe her eyes as he dragged Antoine around—banging his head rather savagely against the wall—threw open the door, and quite literally tossed him outside.

Iris dragged her hands down her face. “You can’t—You just—”

But Meph had already closed and locked the door again, dusting his hands off for a job well done. “Problem solved.”

Finally, she gathered her wits. “You can’t just knock people out and chuck ’em around like sacks of bloody potatoes, Meph! And you can’t leave an unconscious person outside in this weather. He’ll freeze to death!”

“What’s the big deal?” Meph rolled his eyes as she moved past him and opened the door again. “You’re the one that’ll freeze to death if you go outside in that tiny towel.”

The big deal was that Antoine was lying face down on her doormat like a sot who’d lost his house keys. She leaned outside into the biting cold and glanced around to make sure no neighbors were watching. If anyone saw this and called the cops, she was in deep shit.

“He called you a slut,” Meph said from behind her. “And a bitch. Nobody calls you that but me, and I only do it when I know you like it.”

She turned back around and met his gaze. He was frowning now, and she felt herself soften. Maybe that was why she felt safe with him. Words like “bitch” and “slut” were almost terms of endearment coming from his mouth because she knew he would never use them to hurt her.

Turning back toward Antoine, she stepped outside and crouched beside him. The frozen doormat stung her bare feet. Gripping his shoulder, she shook him a little, nearly fainting with relief when he groaned and rolled onto his side. The last thing they needed was for Meph to have put him in a coma.

“See? He’s fine,” Meph said from behind her.

“Iris...” Antoine mumbled groggily. “You’re such a... bitch.”

She shook her head. Seriously?

Sitting back on her heels, she had a moment of clarity. Or maybe it was the opposite. Maybe Meph’s demonic influence had finally corrupted her. Whatever the case, she suddenly didn’t give a flying fuck what happened to this lousy excuse for a person.

She stood up again. Her stinging feet were already numbing from the cold, but she barely noticed. “Yeah, I’m a real bitch,” she spat. “Which is why, if you ever show up at my place again, I’ll tell Meph to toss your sorry arse off the balcony instead of just watching him kick it.”

She stepped back inside and slammed the door.

“Can I really toss him off the balcony?” Meph looked like Faust before she set his food dish down. His eyes were positively gleaming.

She shook her head at him. “I can’t believe you did that.”

Except she could believe it, and whatever had happened to her made it so she didn’t care. Worse, she found it hot. The way Meph had knocked him flat with one punch—no hesitation, no male-posturing bullshit, keeping his cool the whole time... Damn.

And he’d done it to defend her. Because Antoine had insulted her and he didn’t like it. The thought created a funny stirring in her chest that she was in no way ready to acknowledge.

“I think you’re corrupting me,” she told him, shaking her head.