Page 31 of Wicked Believer (Original Sinner #2)

Chapter Twenty-Six

Charlotte

Lucifer wakes me and carries me into the shower sometime later, where he takes slow and deliberate care to clean me.

This is another favorite. The aftercare.

The way he soothes us both. He settles us into our bed after that, once we’re both thoroughly dried and clean, his hand brushing over my stomach when he spoons me.

But he’s uncharacteristically quiet tonight.

“Do you really want children? With me?” I whisper, breaking the silence.

Lucifer goes still. “Would you ? Would you want that? For me to make you mine in every way?” He’s deflecting, evading answering first, but I’d like to think that this would be an area of our life where he could be fully honest with me.

“I would.” I nod. “Eventually. You?”

He’s quiet for a long moment before finally he says, “Yes, Charlotte, I would. I would wish for that very much.”

The confidence in his words warms me, though there’s something about the way he says it that sounds almost ... pained. Like he’s keeping something from me.

Like it’s yet another thing that he believes he could never possibly deserve.

I arch against him, grinding my ass into his now semihard cock.

He chuckles, playfully palming my breasts. “Shall I carry you back to the playroom for another round?” He trails a line of kisses down my neck until I groan softly.

“Not tonight.” I shake my head, clocking his temporary disappointment. “For now, I just want you to hold me.”

That’s the only thing I’ve truly wanted all week.

For a moment, he seems a little put off by that, like he can’t believe such a simple and vanilla request could be what sates me, but he doesn’t say anything as he turns me toward him.

We lie in our bed together for a long time, my arms and legs wrapped up with his body until I feel his breathing start to slow from where my head rests lightly against his chest.

He almost never holds me like this.

Except during aftercare. And never when he’s asleep.

Lucifer sleeping is a rare and fleeting occurrence. Sleep isn’t something he needs, and it doesn’t seem to come easily to him. It’s an indulgence. A refuge. Which means whatever he has to tell me now that he’s back home must be, well, pretty damning for him to be holding on to me.

For now, I try my best not to think of it, to pretend like the world doesn’t exist beyond the walls of our bedroom.

I drift off to sleep in his arms and then wake again sometime later, feeling him stir beside me. “You’ve been gone a lot lately,” I whisper into the dark.

“Is that why you were hurt?”

I nod. “After what happened to Olivia, it ... felt like the whole world was crashing down, and I needed you, but you weren’t there.”

“I wanted to be,” he says, giving me the reassurance I need. “Trust me when I say I hate being apart just as much as you do—perhaps more, if you fully understood what I’ve been up to—but someone needs to protect you. Who else, if not me?”

“I don’t need you to protect me ...” I mutter, the rest of the thought trailing off.

I just need you to love me.

As if he heard the unspoken words inside my head, he goes still beside me. It’s the one thing he’s still not fully certain how to do. Not completely.

Love requires vulnerability. Honesty.

A vulnerability that’s hard to come by when you’re the fallen angel.

We both fall quiet then.

“Have you been in Hell?” I ask a few moments later.

“Mostly.”

“Will you take me?”

“To Hell?” he asks, his voice holding a bit of confused disbelief at the end, like he can’t possibly understand why I’m asking.

I nod vigorously, and he chuckles at me before smoothing a hand over my hair.

“I think I need to see it, your kingdom. If I’m supposed to be its queen,” I say.

He lays a soft kiss on my cheek, my shoulder. “Soon, little dove. Soon.”

“And your siblings?”

I’m not sure whether it was one of them or someone else who killed Olivia, who sent that anthrax to hurt me, but if they did, I’d imagine he already has an idea which one of them was behind it by now.

“They’re curious, you see.”

About me. About my newfound powers.

The memory of how Azmodeus cornered me last week is still fresh in my mind.

I frown. “Well, they’ll just have to put up with me.”

“Charlotte.” Lucifer grips my chin, turning me in his arms so he can look at me. We’re skin to skin. “You are bone of my bone. Flesh of my flesh. I’ve been waiting for a more opportune time to present itself, but I think you might prefer something more private these days anyway.”

Before I can understand what he’s getting at, he’s out of bed and down on one knee in front of me, pulling a medium-size jewelry box he must have stashed beneath the bed. Immediately, I sit up, my hands flying up to cover my mouth.

Lucifer kneels for no one.

No one except for me, it seems.

An unexpected tear slides down my cheek, and the desire to throw myself into his arms and tell him “I will” a thousand times over—before he’s even officially asked me—is nearly overwhelming. He opens the box, and I can’t help the sharp inhalation of breath that escapes me.

A Tiffany diamond collar.

His collar.

Not my training collar or the one I wear in the playroom.

One to wear for all the world to see.

Lucifer takes my left hand in his gently, grinning at the sight of the sixty-carat black diamond that’s already there.

“Charlotte, my dove, will you be my collared sub? Will you marry me? ‘For real,’ this time?” He smirks irreverently, teasing me with the words I said to him back at The Rainbow Room.

“Will you spend your immortal life with me? For now, and the rest of eternity? The choice is yours this time.”

I nod vigorously, suddenly unable to speak as I watch in shock while Lucifer’s eyes get a little misty.

I launch myself into his arms with such divine force, we’re both nearly knocked back onto the bedroom floor.

But Lucifer catches me, lifting and spinning me in his arms before he pulls us back down onto the bed together.

I climb on top of him eagerly.

He laughs, the sound uncharacteristically light and unguarded as he holds me. “Darling, eventually you’re going to have to—”

“Shhh, I don’t want to talk about that.” I shake my head, kissing every part of him I can reach.

My newfound powers. My abilities. I know that conversation is coming.

Lucifer’s bound to have noticed the minor damages around the penthouse by now.

He notices everything . It’s one of the many things I admire about him, actually.

But I want to hold on to whatever tiny bit of my human self I can salvage a little longer.

“None of that,” I mutter as I trail my lips across his chest, down the thin trail of dark hair below his navel to the muscled grooves of his hips.

He chuckles. “All right. Have it your way. For now. Though who exactly do you think is in charge here?” He grips my hips, his fingers digging into me in warning.

We both know this conversation is far from over.

He never gives in to me this easily. Not on something as important as this.

I mean to end the discussion there, to not push my luck and ruin the moment, but somehow, I can’t stop the next question that escapes as I roll to the side and settle my head onto his chest, where he holds me. “This changes everything, doesn’t it?”

He lifts a brow, glancing down at me.

“The apocalypse. Getting married. Olivia’s death. All of it.”

He nods slowly, his expression turning grim. “The spear that was used to kill your actress belongs to my Father. It can end an immortal life, yours included. Mine and my siblings, too, I’m afraid. It will aid its possessor in winning any battle, even Armageddon.”

“Why does that not surprise me?” I sigh, rolling onto my back beside him and staring up at the ceiling. “You weren’t kidding when you said you didn’t know why He released you and your siblings, were you? Until now I mean?”

Lucifer’s grip on me tightens, his voice gravely serious. “Do I look like I would kid about something as important as your safety?”

I turn toward him.

No.

No, he doesn’t.

In fact, now that I take stock of him, he looks ... more tired than I’ve ever seen him before. Dark circles have formed under his eyes, and there’s a haunted, almost gaunt quality to his face that concerns me.

Like the weight of the whole celestial world sits on his shoulders.

“What happens now?” I whisper.

Lucifer glances away as he swallows. “Now, we go to war, darling.”

Though he doesn’t elaborate on what that means before he rolls over on top of me, unexpectedly pinning me in a way that causes me to squeal and silences all the worries that bubble up inside my head, until I have no choice but to smile and wrap my legs around him as I give in to our own perfect brand of infinity.