Page 10 of The Devil and His Goddess (Sinners Do It Better #2)

Perseus

I DOWNED A GLASS OF Hell Fire, welcoming the burn of the demonic liquor as it slid down my throat and settled in my gut. Glancing at the time, I noted it was nearly ten. It wasn’t quite as late as I wanted it to be for me to pop over to Harper’s.

After leaving the restaurant, I got a message from Dante to meet all of them at Hell’s Gate, a club we frequented in Hell. My band mates sat around the table in their demonic forms, nursing their drinks of choice and smoking the red-rolled cigarettes that let your whole body loosen up.

Zagan had brought his human bond, Iyla, tonight, but the brunette was currently out on the dance floor with Eden, our good friend and Mischief demon. Iyla was the reason our world had changed. Zagan got stuck in a demonic bond with her, forcing our daily lives to shift. I wasn’t annoyed by it like Dante was, but admittedly, I was irritated with the situation at first. I had an established routine in New York with so many amazing productions to watch. Once I found Silverlight—and by extension, Harper—I had mellowed out.

I still liked to poke at Iyla about it as if she annoyed me, though. It was fun ruffling her feathers, which I’d been doing this evening. She believed Zagan helped her because of his kindness, and I quickly corrected her silly assumption. The human woman didn’t understand that we demons only operated to benefit ourselves. We didn’t truly care about them. At least, most didn’t. I was starting to wager that Zagan was the exception, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. It would ruin the fun in messing with her, which I’d planned to continue doing until Eden stole her away to dance.

“Uh-oh,” Xander said from my right. His golden Mischief eyes looked past Zagan, who sat at the other end of the table across from him. “Here comes trouble.”

I followed his gaze just as Babette placed her manicured hand on Zagan’s shoulder and sank down onto Zagan’s lap. The Bargainer demon was the owner of Hell’s Gate, and she’d been chomping at the bit after Zagan for centuries .

“I finally caught you,” Babette purred to Zagan, running her hand up his chest. Her back was to me from this angle, but there was no missing the smile in her sultry voice.

“We aren’t good enough for you, Babette?” I teased.

She glanced over her shoulder, making her red hair shift to expose her bare shoulder in the green dress she wore. Her violet Bargainer eyes lit in amusement as she regarded the rest of us. “You boys will be next. I want to sample the leader first.”

Xander laughed with a low whistle. I rolled my eyes and sipped on more of my drink, not actually interested in what Babette did in her free time. Dante scoffed, and Zagan’s face remained completely blank.

“Touch me, and I’ll carve your insides out,” Coldin threatened flatly, his features never changing from his ever-bored expression.

I sputtered around my drink and hid my mouth behind my fist as I fought against my laugh. The Letum demon wasn’t anyone’s fan, but he at least tolerated us. Anyone outside of our little group—which Babette was—wasn’t safe with our drummer.

Babette’s face drained of color a bit, but she just turned back to Zagan and murmured, “Your pet is as friendly as ever.”

“He’s a good boy,” Zagan responded, his lip twitching in an effort to not smile.

The Bargainer demon stood, and she leaned down close to Zagan, nearly hitting him with her black horns that curved behind her head. The woman whispered not-so-subtly, “ I’ll be a good girl for you. You know my pussy is always ready for you, Zagan. Come see and have a taste. Maybe we can make a little deal while you show me how well you fuck.”

Babette stood with a salacious smirk and sauntered away.

“Her fucking arousal has stunk up the table,” Dante grumbled as he waved a clawed hand in front of his face.

Zagan turned in his chair to glare his black-and-red slitted eyes at Babette’s back. “As if I’d ever make a fucking deal with her. Nothing is worth being her fucking sex toy.”

“Just keep ignoring her, Z,” I suggested. “I’m sure she’ll eventually get the message.”

The five of us shared a look before declaring all at once, “Nah.” We chuckled over our unanimous decision.

The mood instantly changed when Dante’s dark arm nudged Zagan, and he nodded at the dance floor. “Looks like someone’s having fun out there.”

We all turned, and I immediately spotted Iyla grinding her ass on some Mischief demon. The guy was practically drooling, and even at this distance, I could see the demon’s hard-on.

The energy around the table immediately thickened with venom, and when I glanced at Zagan, he bared his fanged teeth and curled his clawed hands into white-knuckled fists. He shot to his feet, knocking his chair over in the process.

“This’ll be good,” I said with a laugh as I completely turned my chair around to watch the show that was about to unfold.

Iyla was oblivious to the murderer heading her way, as she danced against the Mischief demon. The second Zagan reached the stranger, he grabbed each side of the blond demon’s head. His claws dug into his scalp right before he gave a quick twist. The demon’s head snapped and engulfed in flames, falling to the floor as nothing but ash. Without hesitating, Zagan stepped over the remains and pressed into Iyla’s back.

Shaking my head with a grin, I glanced over my shoulder at my other band mates. “We all agree he’s in love with her, right?”

“Yeah,” Xander laughed at the same time Dante snarled, “No.”

I leaned an elbow back on the table to hold Dante’s scowl. “You think Zagan killed an innocent demon for no reason? Zagan , who doesn’t give a shit about sharing his toys or getting violent, just killed a demon for the Hell of it?”

“Yeah, this is Zagan, man,” Xander chimed in. “It’s not Coldin.”

I glanced at the demon in question, who stared at the ceiling as he took a deep drag of the red cigarette. His skull neck tattoo stood out with his head stretched back as he exhaled a cloud of pink, hazy smoke through his pierced lip. There was no need for him to comment. We all knew it was true.

“Look,” Dante growled as he rested his arms on the table and pointed a dark-clawed finger at us. “All I’m saying is we can’t fall in love. We’re fucking demons, not humans. Stop being fucking idiots just because Zagan decided to monopolize this one human.”

I shrugged, not bothering to argue with my fellow Incubus. Did I believe demons could fall in love? Sure, under the right circumstances. I’d seen it happen before for different demons, and I was fairly sure it was happening right in front of me with one of my closest friends.

I faced the dance floor and realized I’d missed something good, because Zagan had Iyla in his arms with her legs around his waist. His tattooed hands gripped her underside tightly as he pumped his dick in and out of her. I let out a low whistle, watching him fuck her senseless. Their mouths and tongues crashed in hungry desperation, and Zagan’s thrusts matched that need.

Watching them made my own cock thicken in my jeans, and I groaned with another glance at the time. It was still probably too early for my goddess to be in a deep sleep, but I didn’t give a damn. I’d been pent up with a need for her for weeks now, and I couldn’t take it anymore.

I needed her.

Fucking now .

I turned my seat back around as Eden appeared at the table. Her strawberry-blonde curls had come loose during her erotic dance show, appearing slightly mused around her tall, ribbed black horns. Her nipples poked at her pink bra, and she adjusted her black leather shorts like they were suddenly too tight.

“Shit,” Eden gasped as she fanned her cheeks. Her golden Mischief eyes flicked back to Zagan and Iyla before sweeping around the table. “Do you guys see those two? Fucking hot. Now I’m horny, so who wants to fuck? Pers?”

Her big eyes practically pleaded with mine, but I stood with a shake of my head. “Sorry, doll. I’m about to get off elsewhere.”

Her glossy lips stuck out in a pout, but she immediately turned to the next closest demon, which happened to be Xander. “Xany?”

“Hell, yeah!” Xander beamed, his own golden eyes brightening at the prospect of getting laid. He opened his arms, and Eden fell into his lap as they immediately started to kiss like two horny fucking teenagers.

“Later guys,” I said to Dante and Coldin.

“Night, man,” Dante said mindlessly as he continued to watch Zagan and Iyla on the dance floor.

Coldin merely tipped his chin in lieu of a goodbye.

Conjuring shadows, I stepped through them, and the loud sounds and flashing red lights of the club immediately faded. When I came out on the other side, I stood in the hallway outside of Harper’s bedroom door. There was the soft chatter of a TV coming from down the hall in the direction of her friend’s room, but I heard nothing beyond the wooden door separating me from my prey.

I stepped through the door and entered the room as if the barrier didn’t exist. Harper was already tucked in bed, laid on her side. I smirked at the vision of her lying there, completely vulnerable to me. My goddess had no idea a demon hovered by her feet, a monster lurking in the darkness as he waited to make her his. The thought made me bite my lip to stave off an eager growl.

I moved in her direction, and at the same moment, her body twitched. I froze mid-step. Had I judged wrong and she was actually awake? Even if she was, I hadn’t appeared in her world yet, so there was no way she could know I was here. No sooner had I questioned all of this than the intoxicating scent of her arousal hit me. I inhaled deeply, letting my head fall back on a breathy groan as I palmed my thickening dick through my jeans. The smell of her desire was fucking divine , and I ached to sink my face into her folds to get even closer to it.

I quickly held my hand out and conjured Coldin’s mask that I’d borrowed to pay Harper these visits. I slipped it on, careful to pull my black horns through the holes on top and mindful of not ripping the bottom with my claws. With the skull mask securely over my head, I stepped out of the shadows and stalked toward Harper’s side just as she whimpered softly.

“What are you dreaming of, filthy little creature?” I asked gruffly.

I settled on the edge of the bed, and I hovered my palm over her closed eyes. Instead of reading her desires, I sank into her dream to watch her fantasy play out like a movie on a screen behind my closed eyelids. The images nearly made me cum right then and there like a fucking teenage human who couldn’t hold his load.

Dream Harper, in nothing more than a white tank-top and black panties, panted on her knees with half-lidded eyes as a masked demon— me —held her arms behind her back with one clawed hand and gripped her tousled black hair with the other. The demon in her dream licked a slow trail up the side of her neck as though the mask didn’t obstruct the freedom of his mouth. He bit down hard under her ear, making her nipples poke through the tank and her body to squirm where she rested on her knees.

Another figure appeared in the corner of the empty room, and when he stepped out of the shadows, I nearly lost my grip on her dream.

It was me . Or rather, the human version of me.

Her cloudy eyes followed my human form as I got on my knees in front of her, pulling her center close to hover over my crotch. The demon yanked on her hair while my human form ripped her underwear off as though it were paper. She bit her lip to keep her moan contained, and the human me reached forward to squeeze her cheeks hard, forcing her lips open and the gasp out. The sound became achingly desperate as my human form freed his cock and shoved it inside of her. He fucked her slow yet fiercely, all while the demon at her back kept her held hostage and sucked on her neck.

“Goddamn,” I gasped as I came out of her dream.

Already, my chest rose and fell hard, and beads of precum gathered on the head of my dick. I knew she was into me. That was no secret. But to see her dreaming of both versions of myself—even if she didn’t know the masked demon was me —made me want to make her mine even more.

Mine to fuck.

Mine to claim.

She was mine .

And it was time I showed her that.