Page 40 of Wicked Believer (Original Sinner #2)

“You are immortal, not invincible,” Lucifer growls. “And starting today, so help me God, Charlotte, I will ensure that you learn the difference.”

The shadows at the edges of the room shift at his will, the tension changing from tense to punishing. I know where this is headed. I know this feeling.

I remember it perfectly.

A sharp pain forms in my throat.

“What do you mean?”

He doesn’t answer me.

“Lucifer, what do you—?”

He curses under his breath, the look he gives me one of furious resignation, like I’ve somehow forced him to do this for my own good, but he pushes through it, baring his teeth.

“You want to test my boundaries? To be a brat? For me to instruct you? I’ll give you instructions, darling.

” He laughs, though there’s no amusement in it.

“As of today, you will go nowhere without my permission. Your schedule will become my schedule, every aspect of your day, of your life within my control. Where you eat, when you sleep, where you go, who you fuck, and who you fuck with, all of it will be mine , until you start to behave like the immortal queen you have been chosen to be, do I make myself clear?”

Sudden panic rises in me. A feeling of vertigo.

All at once, his collar at my throat feels too tight.

This is more than what I bargained for. More than I—

“You can’t do that. You can’t—”

“I can and I will. Watch me.”

Abruptly, he casts an all-too-familiar document onto the desk in front of me, and I know without looking what it is.

My employment contract.

The same one he used to trap me all those months ago.

Only this time, I walked right into it willingly.

My heart seizes.

The devastation inside me is immediate. The pressure building inside my chest from where I forget to breathe.

My life. My father. My choices.

And now . . .

My privacy. Both inside my head and out.

Every part of me—everything I am—stolen from me.

This is all I’ll ever mean to him.

If I don’t start fighting for something different.

“So, you’d let that be the crux of us?” The words come out as a statement, so low and injured and broken that if it weren’t for his supernatural hearing, I’d be surprised if he could hear them.

“The pretty little dove. The weak bird you keep in a cage. Not a true partner. Not someone worthy of your respect, your honesty. Just a toy made from one of your bones.” I shake my head.

“Well, I won’t. Not anymore.” I look at him then, meeting his gaze head-on.

“It’s you you’ve been trying to protect this whole time, not me. It always has been.”

Lucifer’s jaw clenches like I’ve just seen past all his defenses.

He reaches out, and his thumb slowly traces over the diamonds at my throat.

“I will not lose you to whatever foolhardy teenage-immortal rebellion it is you’re waging, Charlotte.

” He stares at me, his dark eyes so full of worry that for a moment it stills me, until his gaze softens slightly, and he whispers, “I cannot bear to watch you die in my arms again.”

The words cut through me, nearly causing me to falter.

He loves me. Of course he does.

He wants to protect me.

In his own cruel, twisted way.

But I’m done fighting him.

And for the first time since he remade me, I’m going to start fighting for us . I lift my chin as he drops back down into his chair. “I wouldn’t have taken you for a coward.”

A spark of fury lights in Lucifer’s expression. Barely there, but present. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

But I don’t stop there. I won’t stop until I’ve forced out whatever fear, whatever vulnerabilities, have been holding him back.

The same way he did for me.

Who better to remind the devil of who he is than his vicious queen?

I turn up my nose like I’m disappointed in him. “First you allow your Mother to dictate our lives, our fate, and now this?” I scoff. “Why even bother calling yourself the devil?”

Lucifer remains unnaturally silent for a beat. “You are treading into very dangerous territory.”

“Maybe I want dangerous.” I thrust my chin forward, my expression full of defiance. “Maybe I want what only the devil can give me.”

Lucifer comes up out of his chair, and I stand, meeting him at the edge of his desk.

“Be careful what you wish for.”

“Do your worst.” I eye him up and down, taunting him. “Lucy.”

Abruptly, Lucifer clutches me by the throat, sending me staggering back onto his desk. The desk’s contents crash to the floor as he drags me by my collar to the center of it, but he doesn’t so much as blink.

His eyes never leave mine, his expression darkening. “Careful now, little dove. My hellfire doesn’t know the meaning of mercy.”

Then make me burn, I purr through our connection. Light me up, Daddy .

Without warning, Lucifer shoves me down onto the desk so hard, he knocks all the wind out of me, and the next thing I know, my hands are being roughly pinned above my head and my panties ripped from beneath my dress as he buries the full length of his cock in me.

But I won’t let him pin me down that easily.

He thrusts into me, growling in approval at how wet and slick I already am for him, but I maneuver my leg up between us and use my high heel to nail him straight in the chest. He eats it, taking the blow without so much as a wince, as he’s knocked a few feet back into the wall of his office.

Apparently, I don’t know my own celestial strength.

Lucifer throws back his head and laughs wickedly, the sound crazed, unhinged. But I don’t stop there.

“What’s wrong, Lucy?” I taunt, hopping down from his desk and rounding the far side, so that he’ll have to chase me. “Don’t like being bested at your own game?”

“Minx,” he purrs. “Witch.”

Before he dives for me.

I barely manage to skirt his grip, but just when I think I’ve gotten away, he snatches me out of midair, throwing us both up against the glass wall of his office so I’m pressed flat against the cold glass.

“I’m going to be punishing you for this for weeks,” he snarls.

“Worth it,” I sass back.

The sound of his belt buckle follows, and the next thing I know, the snap of the leather hits my ass painfully. I yelp, unprepared for the blow. But the subsequent ones come so quickly, I don’t get any reprieve. Over and over until I’m keening.

“You’re lucky I don’t put you over my knee.”

The sting of my ass heightens, my pussy growing infinitely hotter until I’m gasping, aching for it. Suddenly I hear his belt buckle hit the floor before Lucifer spits into his hand and—

He takes my ass in one hard thrust, causing me to cry out in a mixture of pleasure-pain. My hands press flat against the window, the heat of my breath fogging my view of the city as I whimper. Holy fuck, he feels twice as huge back there.

We’ve been slowly building up to this for weeks, but this is the first time he’s—

I let out a choked sound, my collar feeling tight against my throat as he slides home, bottoming out.

His balls slap against my ass cheeks as he pushes past the last of my resistance, while meanwhile my pussy continues to ache.

Somehow, the throb at the apex becomes impossibly worse as he digs into me, wrapping his hand in my hair to use it as leverage.

I moan greedily. “Please, Daddy.”

Put me out of my misery.

But Lucifer has no intention of showing me any mercy.

“Do you have any idea how furious I was when you first showed up in my boardroom? How fucking angry I was?” He pulls my head back, growling, each stroke of his cock harder than the last, until his pace is unrelenting. Until I can hardly see straight.

I shake my head. “No, no, sir.”

He palms my breasts. “I couldn’t eat. Couldn’t sleep. You have no idea how much I hated it, how much resentment I felt for—”

“Me?” I gasp, whimpering.

“For fuck’s sake, Charlotte, no. Don’t you see? The vulnerability you created in me.” He says it out loud, but I feel the weight of it inside my skull.

The full extent of what it cost him.

For the devil to admit he’d fallen in love with a human.

My heart stutters painfully.

“And there you were, no less weak and vulnerable than a trembling bird in my palm. And what was I to do? Turn my back on you? Forget the way my stomach pitched into my feet whenever you looked at me? How I would have given up everything I’d worked for, everything I’d built, just to know the feel of you in my arms?

Or worse, tell you? If I’d have told you, you’d have fucking run. ”

My breath catches in my chest, my throat constricting from the tears that gather in my eyes.

“I will never forgive my Mother for the choice she took from you, but I will not apologize for wanting you. For claiming what’s mine.

Don’t you understand? Nothing you could ever do, nothing you could ever say, nothing will ever change that.

I’m a bloody lunatic when it comes to you, don’t you see?

I’ve been lost, obsessed from the very start.

Fuck fate. Fuck free will. Fuck my family.

Fuck everything. You are mine , and that’s all that matters. ”

“Lucifer, I—”

“Quiet, Charlotte,” he snarls, and I smile as a single tear slips free. “If you’re going to behave like a filthy whore, then you will stay silent while you milk my cock like one.”

The next thing I know, Lucifer’s hand is on my throat, and I’m being hauled up against him until ...

He bites me.

I feel the length of his fangs sink into my neck, like a viper’s strike, and something comes apart inside me.

I shatter, Lucifer’s hand that’s now over my mouth the only thing that muffles my screams. I pulse and pulse, the warm gush of him finishing coupling with the heat, the pleasure of his venom coursing through me, until I can barely hold myself upright.

I don’t think I’ve ever come harder in my life.

Lucifer releases me, his mouth and teeth coated in blood from where he drank from me, as he spins me to face him, and I collapse into his arms.

He holds me upright, pinning me between him and the cold window at my back, both of us panting as we share breath.

“You bit me,” I whisper.

“Marked you.” He gives me a roguish smile.

His eyes fall to my wrist, and I follow his gaze there as he lifts it, gasping at the sight of the angelic light that snakes its way over my skin. It pulses, then fades, revealing the image of a black serpent. Like a tattoo.

“To remind you that you will always be mine,” Lucifer whispers as he cups my cheek. “Saying I love you is an understatement. You are my soulmate. Every part of my tattered existence bleeds for you.” He kisses me, the harsh, punishing brush of his lips making me melt.

We stay like that for a long time, lost in one another, trading breath.

“I wouldn’t have run,” I whisper.

Lucifer eases back, staring down at me incredulously. “Even though you fear me?”

The hurt at what he thought I was going to say at dinner a few weeks back flashes through me, a brief glimpse into his mind through our connection.

“I don’t fear you, Lucifer. I fear how much you mean to me.” I place my hand on his chest, feeling his heartbeat. “Our love is the apple. One bite and I was gone.”

He smiles, leaning in to lay a gentle kiss on my forehead, before he steps back, forcing us to separate. “That’s enough of your spellcasting for now. Best run along now, little dove. I have a meeting.”

I smirk, righting my clothes. I pick my torn panties up off the floor, and I press them into his waiting palm. He grins appreciatively.

No way would he ever allow me to leave here with them.

I brush my hand over the stubble on his face.

“You can’t shield me from every danger we’re ever going to face, you know.

Even though I know you wish you could. If we’re going to do this, you have to be honest with me.

About everything. You wanted me to embrace being immortal, and I have.

Now you need to let me make my own choices, my own mistakes. ”

Lucifer grumbles, swearing under his breath like that idea doesn’t exactly thrill him, but then finally he gives a reluctant nod. “Only after you’ve had the proper training.”

A slow smile spreads across my lips.

A compromise. Our first.

I give a curt nod. “I can live with that.” I rise onto my toes, kissing him on the cheek before I turn and head toward the elevator, calling over my shoulder, “But don’t think I’m not still furious with you about this whole Michael business.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less.” He places his hands in his pockets as he leans against his desk.

I watch him as I go, smiling to myself as the elevator door inside his office closes, and I glance down at my new ink. Soulmates. With the devil.

It has a nice ring to it, if you ask me.