Page 18 of The Devil and His Goddess (Sinners Do It Better #2)

Harper

EVERYTHING WAS A MESS.

My thoughts were a mess.

My feelings were a mess.

My wants were a mess.

And it was all thanks to that stupid golden-haired man.

I’d left Perseus’s house, but instead of heading home, I’d stopped to walk around downtown, hoping that the fresh air and potential retail therapy would help clear my mind.

Because what was happening?

I was letting Perseus weasel his way into my life, and when he said things like I was his favorite thing about ballet … It wasn’t fair. I couldn’t fight against the fluttering in my chest, a problem that was becoming more apparent as I spent time with him.

That was a major problem.

At the end of the day, he was still my boss. He believed that a sexual relationship between us didn’t have to be complicated. Part of me understood what he was saying, but I still wasn’t convinced. I mean, the guy was famous. How could it not be complex?

I let out a deep sigh and trudged along the sidewalk, breathing in the cool November night air. The streets and sidewalks were fairly empty. Some shops had already closed for the night. I passed a music store, and from the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of gold. I stopped and turned back, and with a small laugh, I realized it was Perseus.

Perseus and the rest of the members of Sinners Do It Better were on a lifesize poster that hung in the shop’s window. I quickly pulled my phone out and snapped a photo to send to the group chat I now shared with Aiysha, Iyla, Addie, and Eden.

Harper: Look who I found

Addie: Not me drooling

Aiysha: Not me cumming

Eden: Not me gagging

Iyla: That’s a big poster

I chuckled and shook my head at everyone’s response, especially innocent Iyla. I nearly sent the same photo to Perseus but immediately thought better of it. Texting him would not help my current mental dilemma.

Putting my phone away once more, I fixed my attention on the Sinners Do It Better boys, though they didn’t look as they had when at my house party.

They were demons.

Perseus, Zagan, and Dante each had black eyes with a red vertical slit, short black horns standing amid their hair, and black claws. Perseus, who smirked in the photo, even had sharp fang-like canines.

Moving my eyes down the poster, I came to Xander. His eyes were gold, and his horns were taller and ribbed.

And Coldin—

All of the air got sucked out of me in an instant as a thousand boulders filled my stomach. I stumbled closer on shaky legs, staring up at Coldin, or more specifically, the mask he wore. Black with a white skull design over top of it, it could’ve been an identical match to the one my demon wore.

My heart raced as I studied Coldin’s horns, which were nothing like my demon’s. Coldin’s horns were large and curved like a ram. No, my demon had horns like … I took another shaky step back as I stared at a demon-looking Perseus, frozen in time with a snicker.

“There’s no way,” I whispered to myself.

It was just a coincidence. A really, really fucking weird coincidence. Perseus and my demon being one in the same was impossible, if for no other reason than my own refusal to accept it.

My eyes drifted back to the mask on the drummer, and right then, the image tilted its head. I gasped and jumped back, realizing it wasn’t the actual mask of the poster moving, but a reflection in the window.

I spun around faster than any pirouette I’d ever done and found my masked demon standing a few feet away at the edge of the sidewalk.

He regarded me silently from behind the mask, and he stood perfectly still. Despite his frozen posture, I could practically feel the tension coiled tightly in his body, from the set of his shoulders to the clenching of his fists. At any moment, the cord keeping him rooted in place could snap, and he’d come pounding after me.

I took a step back and bumped into the window behind me, right in front of the band poster. I held my breath, now reeling from the new question in my mind.

Was this Perseus?

Was my masked demon, my boss, and the guy I loved to banter with the same person?

I couldn’t find the courage to ask any of the questions burning my tongue. I was too afraid to hear the answer, because if it was true …

My heart began to pound, and I released a shuddery breath, suddenly picturing what face could be just beyond that cloth. The body that could be confined beneath those fitted black clothes.

The thought made flames lick at my middle, and that was when I knew that I couldn’t stand here any longer.

I pushed off the wall and sped down the sidewalk. Harsh frosty air hit my face as I ran, and the cold funneled into my throat, making it raw as I panted. Despite the cold of the night around me, I’d never felt hotter . My entire body practically thrummed with heat from the inside, lighting me up like molten lava. I turned a corner and dared a look behind me, but instead of seeing him, all I managed to glimpse was a blur of black right on my heels.

I whipped back around and made a sudden right onto another street and then another right. After already being worn-out by the intense work day, my limbs ached and fought me now, yet I ran on, too afraid of what would happen if he caught me.

Or rather, too afraid of what I’d feel if he caught me.

I cut down another street, and as I darted past an alleyway, hands reached from the darkness to snag me. A black-clawed hand covered my mouth while the other hugged my arms to my sides, pulling me against a hard torso. I struggled to catch my breath as I fought futilely against the demon’s hold, all while he pulled me deeper into the darkness of the alley.

“You should know better than to run from me,” he purred against my ear.

I tried prying my face and arms free, but no amount of strength in my body was a match for his. Suddenly, he fell backward, taking me with him. Only after we settled did I realize he’d been sitting down on some metal stairs that climbed the side of the brick building beside us. My petite body rested between his legs as he continued to hold me against him.

“I think you should be punished for running. What do you think?” he questioned, sliding his arm down my frame to hold me near my lap.

I tried shaking my head beneath his hand, but the gesture merely made him chuckle. The sound of it and his voice weren’t Perseus’s. The demon’s was deeper and smokier. I tried telling myself they couldn’t be the same, even as my heart rebelled slightly at the notion.

Abruptly, shadowy wisps filled my vision, and the arms that had been restraining my limbs and mouth were replaced by cold, airy ropes of pure shadow.

The masked demon stood in front of me, leaving me bound and settled on the steps to stare up at him. I attempted to break free of the shadows he’d created around me, because they were just shadows. Yet the material seemed to be stronger than any duct tape or chain shackles.

He plucked my fallen bag off the ground with his black-clawed hands, and, after only a second of consideration, began rummaging around in it.

“What do we have to play with, hmm?” he asked me, and even with the mask obscuring his face, I could hear the smile in his gravelly, distorted voice.

He pulled out a pair of pointe shoes from my bag. Maybe he’d find it strange, but I always carried a pair with me. Just like readers always had a book, regardless of the occasion, I always had pointe shoes.

His wide shoulders shook as though he were laughing, though the blood rushing in my ears made it too hard to hear. Turning his skull-like face in my direction once again, he beckoned me with a crooked finger. The shadows wrapped around my body lifted my arms out toward him like a dinner being served on a silver platter. He gripped my wrists hard, and with a quick wrap and tug, he had my wrists tied with the ribbon of the pointe shoes. He yanked my arms over my head, and I gasped behind my shadowy gag as he tied the dance shoes around a railing of the stairs.

My heart lurched as I shifted more onto my side to alleviate the strain of the new position of my arms, but he quickly grabbed my ankle and forced me to roll completely over onto my stomach with my bound hands tied to the stair railing above me.

“Who knew pointe shoes had more than one use?” he chuckled darkly, the sound coming right by my cheek.

I turned my head in that direction to confirm how close he was, only to find plump lips stretched into an intoxicating and fanged grin. He’d pulled the mask up enough to expose his mouth, and the second I looked in his direction, the shadowy gag vanished so he could crush that mouth to mine.

I moaned into his parted lips, relishing in the electric shiver that swept through me and came to land between my thighs. My body strained as he hovered above me with one arm braced near my head and the other by my hip. His massive frame bent over the steps to cocoon me in place. I instinctively fought against the way my ribcage pressed into the stair edge or the way my hip bit into the metal, though I really couldn’t give a damn about the discomfort. Not when the demon kissed me so fiercely.

His lips claimed mine as though he were a dying man, and I was somehow his salvation. His tongue tangled with my own in a need so raw, it had my blood igniting and stars dancing behind my eyes.

His clawed hand slipped beneath the band of my leggings and underwear, sliding down my crease and between my thighs. I gasped into his mouth, and he devoured the sound as two digits plunged into my soaked pussy. I tensed, expecting to feel a burst of pain from his claws, yet no pain came. I couldn’t confirm, but it was as though his fingers lost the talons before entering me, and as he curled those two fingers to stroke inside of me, I went slack-jawed and nearly came.

“You love being dominated in this decrepit alley, don’t you, slut?” he asked, letting his tongue flick my ear before he bit down on the lobe.

I pulled reflexively against the ribbon restraining my arms and pressed my back further into his chest and groin, which still caged me in. “Why?” I croaked between moans. “Why are you here? Why now?”

He chuckled. The rumble vibrated my back and made my core throb even hotter with want. His fingers were divine, but I wanted so much more.

“Because my human hasn’t been showing my cunt any attention since my last visit. I can’t have you constantly denying what it wants.”

His cunt.

A new wave of hunger blasted through me, settling right where his two fingers continued to work my entrance. Even more than that, I honed in on what he’d said and could only think one thing.

Perseus.

I’d been ignoring this desperate desire I had for Perseus, his charms, and his body all in the name of fear, and my body certainly felt deprived. It wanted release, but not just any release.

My body craved golden skin lining up with mine.

My nipples hardened with the need to have heavily ringed fingers tweaking and pulling on them.

My pussy weeped for the man who kept it on fire with his mere gaze, sensual smirk, or brief touch.

“Fuck,” my demon hissed, suddenly pumping his fingers harder into me. “Who are you thinking about that has you so damn wet and clenching around my fingers, hmm?”

I bit my lip to stave off the breathy groan that built in my chest. Instead of answering him, I shook my head.

His hand abruptly slipped free of my pants. His slick fingers gripped my cheeks hard, forcing my lips to pucker, and he yanked my head toward him. His claws had reformed, and they pricked into my skin. The slight bite of pain only made me wetter.

“Answer me,” he commanded in a snarl, which made his fang-like canines flash in the moonlit alley.

Despite not being able to see the majority of his face or eyes through the skull mask, I felt his gaze searing into me with the demand.

“I want him,” I relented in a string of breathless words.

I shifted, pressing my ass against his cock, which was confined in his pants. I shamelessly ground myself against the hard length, uncaring about the circulation being cut off in my fingers or about our very public surroundings. All I wanted was to get the truth off my chest. I wanted release. I wanted him .

“Who?” he queried with a voice like gravel.

To punctuate the question, he rolled his hips, dry-humping me where I pressed down on him. I gasped and opened my legs wider so he could settle between them on the steps, my knees and upper torso bracing my body against the cold metal.

“Perseus,” I finally answered. “I want Perseus.”

He groaned and ground the thick mass in his pants right against my throbbing clit. I couldn’t contain my moan of delight. My fingers gripped the ribbon securing my hands as though holding onto it would allow me to hold onto the sensation funneling through my center.

“You want him?” my demon rasped, not letting up on the rolling of his hips. His body touched me right where I craved it most. “Shout his name. Tell the world who you want filling that dirty cunt.”

“Perseus!” I moaned into the frigid night air. I bucked my own hips to match the friction my demon applied to my covered clit. “Perseus!”

I’d finally said it aloud—the name of the man I desired most—and the confession was like floodgates releasing a too-full lake. Now that the truth was out there, I couldn’t stop the name from continuously pouring from my lips as I let this masked demon dry-hump me closer and closer to the brink of no return.

“Perseus!” I practically screamed. “Perseus!”

“That’s right,” my demon growled as he gripped my hair in one clawed hand and held my hip with the other. His confined and straining dick rubbed against me relentlessly as he finished, “Cry out for the one you really want.”

“Perseus!”

My voice came out desperate and shaky as the heat between my legs reached its breaking point. My bound arms and spread legs shook as a blissful release crashed through me in a dizzying rush. I couldn’t catch my breath, and when my masked demon didn’t stop his attention to my clit, I feared I’d never breathe right again.

Just as I opened my mouth to beg for mercy, a hollow metallic crash sounded at the other end of the alley. I screamed and looked that way, but it was far too dark to see the other end of the long stretch. Also seeming to realize that we weren’t alone, my demon gave one small tug of the pointe shoe ribbon. It snapped as though made of nothing, freeing me.

I quickly righted myself and spun around to make a break for it only to find I was alone. The demon had vanished, leaving me alone on the stairs with cum soaking my underwear and panic drenching my veins.

The crash sounded like someone running into and knocking over metal trash cans. It could’ve very well been an alley cat or a large rodent, but it also could’ve been a person drawn down here by the sounds the demon and I had been making.

Shaken and embarrassed, I fumbled to grab my belongings and raced out of the alley the way I’d been dragged in. I didn’t care how weird I looked running down the sidewalk with my ruined pointe shoes still tied to each wrist or my crazed hair.

I didn’t slow until I reached my car, and I didn’t stop to think until I was safely across the threshold of my home. I leaned against the front door and took my first calm breath.

It was fine.

I was fine.

I hadn’t been caught in a sexually compromising position with a demon.

I wasn’t getting arrested for having sex in public.

All was fine.

My phone vibrated in my bag, and with my thoughts still spinning, I dug it out mindlessly, expecting to find more messages in our girls group chat. The unknown number had all prior panic draining from my body, replaced by icy apprehension.

Mine. NOT Perseus’s.

I swallowed hard as my hands began to shake. This could only be one person, and the timing of their text couldn’t be a coincidence. Texting that right after I’d been screaming Perseus’s name while getting pleasured? No way.

He’d been watching us. He’d been right there .

He was getting closer.