Page 16

Chapter 15

Sordid Bathroom Romps

SJ

“M ouse?” I murmured, pushing the door tentatively open. My chest thudded strangely.

“Hurry up and get inside!” she hissed. “And lock the door behind you!”

“Bloody bossy female,” I muttered, but nevertheless complied. When the latch was safely keeping the other humans out, I turned to her, where she leaned against the wall next to the white lavatory.

She had her arms folded, one hip cocked defiantly, and brows furrowed accusingly at me.

I grinned smarmily. “You do realise that your brother thinks we’re having some sort of sordid bathroom romp, don’t you?”

She let out a very unladylike snort. “I don’t give a flying fuck what my brother thinks about me right now!”

My brows flew up. “And here I was, assuming you were in a melancholy mood today, but there’s the feisty Jemma Bliss I’ve come to know.” My grin widened of its own accord. “Do you save all your snark just for me, Mouse?”

“Oh, spare me your flirtatious nonsense,” she stormed towards me, giving me no time to ponder the fact that apparently, she believed me to be flirting with her, of all the ridiculous notions … but thoughts flew out of my head when her body pressed up against mine. “Did you orchestrate this?”

She was very worked up, her breasts heaving with angry breaths, squished up against my chest, her warmth seeping into me. My fingers twitched. I wanted to step away, to get some all-important distance between us.

I wanted to do other things, as well … things that would be even worse for my sanity. And either way, it was giving into an urge that I shouldn’t feel. And it would be showing weakness, which was not something I could allow myself to do with Jemma Bliss.

Not even when her perky little body was making me think very wicked thoughts about sordid bathroom romps.

“Well?” she demanded, poking me in the stomach with a very pointy finger. I hissed, and I did take a step back then, weakness be damned.

“Well what? That hurt, by the way!” I complained, rubbing at my stomach.

“Did you somehow make it so that my brother would force me to sit across a table from my lying, cheating, thieving ex-boyfriend to tell me I should be more like him? Is this my next task? To get through this ordeal without being the one to storm off? Because if it is, that’s … well it’s fucking unfair! You can’t sneak this up on me! You can’t just start a task without laying out the rules first!”

My hands snaked out, gripped her waist and spun her. She let out a little squeak as her back bumped against the wall.

“What are you?—”

“I might be a devil, Mouse, but this was not my doing. Your brother managed this all on his own.”

“You …” she bit on that pink bottom lip, her eyes wide behind those big glasses. “You didn’t set this up as a FiendPay task?”

My thumbs skated over her waist. She was so soft. I shook my head slowly, some unnamed feeling bubbling up from my stomach. “I promise, if I am here on FiendPay business, I will always be honest with you about it, Jemma.”

I blinked. What was wrong with me? That was far too tender a sentiment, and while yes, it was true, I needed to temper it with another, less savoury truth. For my own wellbeing …

I let my mouth curve into a lopsided smirk. “It’s far too much fun to negotiate the terms of your tasks with you … to watch you squirm as you try to work out a way around what I require of you.”

“That’s so magnanimous of you!” she replied, voice loaded with sarcasm. Her body moved against my palms as she wriggled, her own lips tilting upwards at the corners, her eyes glinting with that calculating gleam that … damn it, I enjoyed eliciting in her far, far too much.

“What do you think you’re doing?” I asked, clawing my fingers into the giving flesh of her waist just enough to still her.

“You just said you like to watch me squirm,” she breathed, arching just enough that her breasts brushed against me. My cock stirred. I gritted my teeth.

Maddening female!

“Tell me about Ratty-Man,” I growled, and thankfully, those words stopped her in her tracks.

“Ratty-Man?” she asked, mystified. Then her face broke into a delighted grin. “You mean Chad? Oh my God, he does have a rat face, doesn’t he?” A giggle erupted from her. I fought against the muscles in my face that longed to mirror her delight back to her.

“Yes, Ratty-Man. I am assuming he is the … ex-boyfriend? The ‘lying, cheating, thieving’ one?” She nodded, the smile slipping. Chad was very rapidly moving up the list of humans who would be first in line for a phone message from FiendPay when I went wide with it.

“What did he do to you?”

Her eyes darted between mine and then away. “It was such a long time ago, I …” Her words broke off when I tightened my grip on her, leaning closer, putting my mouth next to her ear.

“And yet, whatever he did is still raw enough that the Soul Token was practically vibrating out of my pocket with your unhappiness.”

“You can … that thing lets you know when I’m …”

“Tell me what he did to you,” I rumbled.

She sighed. “I was a stupid, na?ve girl, and I let him trick me into thinking he loved me … but it turned out he actually only loved my art.”

My brow furrowed. “Is that what he stole? Your art?”

She shook her head. “No … well, not exactly.” She gnawed on that plump lip, and suddenly, words were spilling out of her.

“We met at university and dated for a year. We were both studying for a Bachelor of Fine Arts. For our final class, we had this complete arsehole of a professor. The entire grade hinged on us developing a gallery-worthy collection.”

She unconsciously plucked at one of the buttons on my shirt, making my stomach muscles dip when her fingers brushed me.

“Chad was struggling to come up with ideas, and a fail on the concept stage was an automatic fail of the subject. I tried to help him.” She laughed bitterly. “I seriously tried to help the ungrateful jerk. I sat up past midnight every night for the week leading up to it, brainstorming ideas with him, when I should have been polishing my own submission.”

She sighed, releasing my shirt button and smoothing the fabric. “The night before the assignment was due, he apparently had an epiphany. He was soooo grateful for all of my help that he had to thank me with … well, you know the kinds of things a boyfriend might thank his girlfriend with …”

A low growl rumbled up from my throat, quite without any permission from me. Her eyes found mine, wide and … surprised.

I cleared my throat. “Keep talking.”

“Then he waited until I was asleep, and … well, I don’t have any solid proof, but I’m almost positive he stole my visual diary, the one I was planning to hand in.

“Anyway,” she continued with a little shrug. “What he handed in was an exact copy of my notes, my sketches, my concepts. While I was begging our professor for an extension because my diary had gotten ‘lost’, Chad was getting a high distinction for my ideas.

“My sketchbook miraculously reappeared a week later, and I turned it in. The professor called me into his office, accused me of plagiarising Chad’s work, and failed me on the spot. No questions asked. Told me I wasn’t welcome in his class again. Which meant I couldn’t complete my degree.”

None of this made much sense to me. Hell didn’t have universities or any learning centres. It wasn’t like one needed a degree in torture to work the Pit, and all other Hellish occupations were in serving the royal family. Serving my father and my sister. Serving me.

But what I could understand of it was tingeing my vision with blood red fury.

“So, he wooed you,” I rumbled. “He … he fucked you. He stole from you … and you were punished for this?”

She nodded. “Oh, and he cheated on me,” she added with a bemused chuckle. “That girl serving us at the table? I went to his dorm to confront him about stealing my diary, and they were …” She shrugged again as if this was all silly. Meanwhile, I was filling up with murderous intent. “Well, I think you can probably guess what they were doing.”

I inhaled slowly, my nostrils flaring. I was the merest thread away from razing this entire eatery to the ground with ‘Chad’ and his little wench inside.

“And your brother thought it a fine idea to sit you down and force you to listen to a lecture on how to be successful as an artist with that … that anal smear of a human?”

A guffaw burst out of Jemma.

“Anal smear? That’s … creative.” She smiled half-heartedly as her eyes met mine.

“Your brother?” I prompted darkly.

“My brother doesn’t know any of this. Ezra—that’s my best friend—is the only person I’ve told. Until now.”

Heat bloomed in my chest, even as I glowered down at her. “Why the fuck would you not confide in your brother about this?”

She hmphed. “Let’s just say we don’t have that kind of relationship.”

“What kind of relationship do you have?” I pressed.

“A shitty one.” Her eyes flitted away, and she wrinkled her nose. “Why do you even care about this, anyway? If you had nothing to do with … today, and you’re not here for FiendPay, then why are you here at all?”

She suddenly twisted, ducking under my arm and backing away. I turned, flexing fingers that felt suddenly cold without the press of her flesh.

“I …” I shoved my hands into my pockets because the stupid things wanted to reach out, to grab her closer again. “I am still learning about the capabilities of the Soul Token, so when it was filling with energy this morning, I decided I needed to investigate the … ah … root cause.”

I scuffed a toe against the floor, the way I had when I was a naughty little devil making up lies about why I’d been down in the impery petting the imp cubs when I was supposed to be with my governess learning about the seven deadly sins … and how to use them against humans.

“Are you telling me …” she began, her tone promising violence as she stalked towards me, eyes narrowed. “That you put a piece of my soul into some … some Hellish relic that you don’t even know how to work properly?”

Her anger was like heat, pulsing between us.

“I’ll have you know I invented that ‘Hellish relic’. And I do know how to work it properly. I was just … curious, about the level of misery it was harvesting from you today.” I met her accusing glare with a piercing one of my own. “And given everything you just told me, my curiosity has been thoroughly satisfied.”

She opened her mouth. Closed it again. Scowled at me. I fought a grin, and only half won, a lopsided leer pulling at my mouth instead.

“Well,” she muttered, leaning back against the wall, her arms folded once more. “What do you intend to do with all my emotions once you’ve sucked them into that thing?”

Her question caught me completely off guard. I’d never once given thought to the humans getting curious about the process of their souls being harvested.

I hadn’t accounted for the insatiable curiosity of Jemma Bliss.

“I am as yet unsure about the use for it,” I hedged. Not entirely a lie. “You’re the first person I’ve used it on.”

Her eyes widened, then narrowed. She tightened her arms across her chest, which squeezed her breasts together, amplifying her cleavage. I had to look away.

“I’m an infernal guinea pig?” she asked, incredulous. “I’m not sure whether to be flattered or horrified right now!”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. Why had I chosen this particular woman to be my test run? Clearly, I was the one who should have been horrified, because my experiment seemed to be going spectacularly sideways.

Except I wasn’t horrified at all. I was … intrigued.

Yes, that was as good a word as any for this need to know more about her. And I had other things I really needed to be doing. Things related to a certain Ratty-Man, who was, by current accounts, well overdue for a visit from the Devil … well, a devil, anyway.

“Do you wish to return to your brother and your breakfast?” I asked, hoping that would distract her from further interrogation about the Soul Token or anything else she might decide to start questioning me about.

She blew a strand of pink hair out of her face. “You promise that you’re not keeping score with my soul today?”

“I promise,” I said sincerely, meeting her eyes with what I hoped was an earnest expression of my own. I’d never tried to be earnest before.

I had no idea why I was starting now.

“So, I can leave … I don’t have to go out there and pretend everything is okay with Joe? I can just walk out of this place, and it won’t count as points against me?”

I dragged a hand through my hair. “That’s not how this works, Mouse. There are no points. There are only tasks passed and tasks failed.”

She nodded, pinching her bottom lip. “And today isn’t a task.”

It wasn’t a question, but I shook my head anyway.

“So … I still have three more to go?”

“Indeed,” I muttered. I wasn’t sure I would survive three more tasks with her. “If you want to slip out without your brother … or Ratty-Man noticing … I can take care of things here.”

Her lips parted. “Really?” Then her brows lowered into a glower. “What are you up to?”

I bridled at her suspicious tone despite the fact that I was, most certainly, ‘up to’ something. “What makes you think I am up to anything?”

She pointed an accusing finger at me. “Because you’re Satan, and your favourite game is tricking people into selling their souls to you.”

I couldn’t help the smirk that tilted my lips then. “It’s only my favourite game when I’m playing it with you, Mouse.”

“Ugh! You’re the worst!” she snarled, throwing her hands up in the air.

“I believe you have told me this before. More than once.”

She glared. “I’m going to leave, and hope that you aren’t up to anything nefarious in my absence, SJ.”

She went to push past me, but I blocked her exit, looming over her. That thrumming, zinging feeling was back in my stomach at the sound of my name on her lips. I needed to remind us both what this was all about.

“Today might not have been my doing, but I will come to you again very soon … and when I do, it will be to call in your next repayment.”

Her eyes glinted behind her glasses, and she lifted up onto her tiptoes until her mouth was very close to mine. I held my breath.

“I can’t wait,” she purred, and fast as a flash, planted a tiny, chaste peck on my mouth, then slipped under my arm and ducked from the bathroom.

I touched the spot where her lips had been. She’d kissed me far more passionately at the hospital yesterday. But this one hadn’t felt like an act.

I waited until I was sure she would have slipped out of the place, and with a renewed spring in my step, I set out to manage her brother, discover what my Hell Hounds had overheard … and most importantly, plot the reaping of the soul of one Chad Ratty-Man … the old-fashioned way.

But firstly … I needed to organise a delivery …