Days of New: The Complete Collection (Serials 1-5) (59 page)

“Don’t go,” she said quietly. Her voice was a revelation to her. It sounded thick with lust and longing, womanly, and so very different from her normal cadence. Knowing everything was about to change, knowing the very cells that made up her being were about to be altered forever, she stepped inside the room and closed the door, turning the lock.

“I want you to stay,” she continued and took another step into the room. The room itself was similar to Lucifer’s office: dark panels and thick curtains over the windows. Her eyes were only on him, but she registered the thick, nearly black rugs at her feet that crisscrossed and overlapped each other, forming a web of carpeting that muffled her steps as she crossed closer to Lucifer. The bed was a behemoth of a thing that took up over half of the room. A canopy of red silk fell from the ceiling and spilled around the bed, cocooning it like it was a world unto itself. Maya shivered at the thought of lying inside that world with only Lucifer to keep her company. Hundreds of black and red candles filled the room, adorning every flat surface, with some of the taller ones on sturdy iron candelabras on the floor. Only a few were lit, causing shadows to flicker and dance.

“I want you to stay,” Maya repeated, “with me.”

“Maya.” Lucifer finally spoke, her name like a vow of forever on his lips. In his voice, she heard his madness, like a feral beast simmering just below the surface. It made her skin tighten and her nipples harden. The rigid set of his shoulders and the flexing of his jaw told her that he was forcing himself to be still, to wait, to gauge her intentions. From his fiercely schooled breath, she knew it was taking every ounce of control he had not to take her right there, in the middle of the room, on his ancient rugs. She smiled, the expression slow and knowing. Lucifer growled.

“Stay with me.” She was in the middle of the room, only a few steps from him. Close enough to smell him—a rich, spicy medley with slight undercurrents of smoke, like she alone was setting him on fire—and the scent of warm candle wax.

“Maya.” Another vow. This one, Maya wasn’t so certain of. She wondered what he was promising her with that word. “Maya,” he said again.

Another knock rapped across the bedroom door. The knob twisted. A hiss of frustration met Maya’s ears. Twin hisses. “Master, are you…”

“…Ready to start our search?” Emim finished.

“With me,” Maya whispered so only Lucifer could hear. She still wore only her robe and nightgown. Her hair was ruffled from sleep. She wasn’t nearly as glamorous as the first night she’d dressed in a beautiful gown. But she reached for the sash on her robe, her fingers slipping the knot loose. Lucifer watched every motion as she unbelted her robe and let it slide free from her shoulders and pool at her feet.

“Master?” Irin and Emim asked together from the other side of the door.

Maya stood in her gown, which brushed against her knees. She knew it was slightly see-through, but it wasn’t overtly sexy. The pale pink complimented her skin and hair, but the neckline wasn’t revealing. There was no lace along the edges; the straps were thin and delicate on her shoulders, her hair cascading down her back. She knew she wasn’t the most beautiful woman in the world, maybe not even the prettiest to stand in this room. She wasn’t a fool. But she watched Lucifer, her eyes unblinking, as she waited for him to decide.

“Lucifer,” she vowed.

His name broke the spell. A breeze from his wings’ fluttering sent the candles’ flames trembling before extinguishing. In the new darkness, Maya could see parts of Lucifer illuminated from his wings. He started toward her. Her.

“Leave without me,” he commanded, his words directed toward the door without taking his eyes off Maya. “And don’t disturb me again.”

“But Master—”

“
Don’t
.” The word was a deep, guttural growl. Lucifer’s eyes flashed to the deepest black that Maya had ever seen; they were bottomless. For a moment, the blackness stretched into the whites of his eyes, and she glimpsed the fallen angel, who had first sinned and was cast out of Heaven and into the pits of Hell.

His voice sent a lick of fire spreading from her belly to her core, alighting her with a desire so blinding that she swayed. She smiled, reveling in the deliciousness of her arousal.

She knew when the twins were gone because Lucifer’s head cocked as he listened to their departure, ensuring the fallen angels were leaving as he waited for every step that sent them from the house. Maya heard the front door slam. Lucifer turned his full attention to her.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Lucifer said, the whites of his eyes returning, but his voice stayed just as deep. There was a rasp to it that Maya had never heard before. All his careful politeness was gone. “When I took you from Clark, this wasn’t what I intended. I just wanted you near me. You are collateral. You don’t have to be here, doing
this
. I don’t want you to feel like you have to.”

Maya dipped her head, letting a few locks of her hair fall over her shoulders and around her face, hiding the small smile that pulled at the corners of her lips. She reached for the bottom hem of her nightgown and slowly pulled it up, the silk material sliding over her thighs, past her simple white underwear, skimming up her narrow waist and ribcage, revealing her small breasts, and over her head. She dropped the gown beside her robe, and tossed her hair back over her shoulder.

“But I’m afraid,” he said quietly, so that his words glinted and danced like the black feathers of his wings, “that you can’t leave now.”

She blinked and he was in front of her, a breeze pulling through her hair and causing the hairs on her arms to stand on end. She shivered, her fingertips trembling. Lucifer touched her waist, his hands nearly encircling her. He trailed his fingers down the slight swell of her hips and brushed them across her front, along the sensitive skin below her bellybutton. His index finger hooked on the delicate band of her panties and pulled. His knuckle brushed down the center of her core, making her gasp, as he eased her panties down until they fell to her ankles.

“You’ve been with no other.”

“No.” Maya’s voice cracked.

“I can smell all the parts where you’ve never been touched. Never been explored.”

Maya trembled, unable to speak. His hands were back on her, drawing up the sides of her hips and ribcage, until his thumbs were brushing and back and forth beneath the swell of her breasts.

“Those parts are mine now,” Lucifer continued. “I get to claim them.”

Maya jerked her chin in what she hoped would pass for a nod. Lucifer thumbs circled her nipples, playing across them with feather-light touches.

“But I’m worried for you.”

“Why?” The question was almost too breathy to make out, even to her own ears. Her head fell back as Lucifer kept toying with her breasts.

“Because I don’t think I will be able to let you go now. I don’t think,” Lucifer said, cupping her breast in one hand and lowering his mouth to the other. Stars, white and flashing, danced across Maya’s vision, and she sagged on liquid knees. Lucifer’s arm went around her waist, catching her against his muscular, riveted chest. His skin was ice against her fevered body. “I don’t think that I can allow anyone else to have you after I take you. I’m worried that you’ll be mine forever.”

“Yes,” Maya pleaded. His hardness pressed against the tender point of her hipbone. Something had happened inside her at Lucifer’s touch; something had left her. Something that would never feel whole again without Lucifer inside her.

Now, she understood why Camille hated Clark so much. To need that completion was a wildly reliant, vulnerable, desperate desire. To never feel whole again was a horrible, wretched weakness. But Maya was human enough to love it, to swell and ache with it.

“You shouldn’t belong to a devil,” Lucifer whispered into her ear, his lips brushed against her earlobe, his tongue flicking out and tasting her.

Maya moaned. Heaven help her, she wanted nothing more than to belong to the devil.

“But it’s too late to save you now.”

The words were a ripping growl before Lucifer swept her up in his arms. They half-flew across the room, his wings parting the red silk canopy of his bed. Maya’s back was on the mattress before she’d even had time to blink, to gasp. Naked and open, she looked up at Lucifer and watched as he drew back, hands undoing his belt and his zipper. His wings were spread wide, taking up all the space above her so that she was enveloped completely in his world, the red silk canopy her air. Her moon was his black wings; there was no sun in this world. Only night. Only darkness. Only a devil.

Propped up on her elbows, her hair against the pillows behind her, she watched him reveal himself to her. On his knees, he made his way to her, wingtips brushed against the canopy so that it shifted around them on an invisible breeze. She inched her ankles apart, let her knees fall wide, to make room for him. He took up every inch.

He became her world, and Maya finally understood her disbelief in a greater good, a greater evil. There was no holy or fallen. No right or wrong, good or evil. Love was her god, her great holiness. And she loved Lucifer.

His weight laid down on her; his mouth consumed her. Maybe it was his madness that took her, but she felt just as mad as she took him back, claimed him like he claimed her.

And when she was complete once more, whole once more, she knew without even a glimmer of doubt that she belonged to this devil.

Her devil.

Forever.

Chapter Six

T
ime doesn’t pass here
, Maya thought, her eyes on the apex of the red silk canopy above her. The material swirled upward, twisting above their heads, and was pinned to the vaulted ceiling with a gilded medallion. She looked closer and saw that the medallion was bronze and ancient, depicting Hades, the Greek god of the underworld, with his love, Persephone. Maya’s smile stretched lazily across her face. Happiness. She was happy here with Lucifer. Her devil. And she, Persephone.

“What are you smiling about?”

Maya turned toward the sound of Lucifer’s voice. He was sprawled beside her, one arm tossed over her stomach, tugging her closer to his side. Half his face watched her, grinning back, the other half was buried deep into the plush fullness of the pillow. The sheets were twisted around their legs; their skin slick with a fine layer of sweat.

“Everything,” Maya answered.

“You’re smiling about everything? You should be too tired to smile.” Lucifer shifted closer to her when he couldn’t pull her near enough and buried his nose into her hair, his lips trailing kisses up her neck.

“It’s an exhausted smile.”

Lucifer grunted his approval. His kisses spurred his hands into action, and soon he was touching all of Maya’s parts, claiming them once again, even though he’d spent all day marking her as his. She’d loved every moment.

“Maya?”

“Hmmm?”

Lucifer rolled on top of her, his face blocking her view of the beautiful medallion. “I want to tell you something.”

“Okay.” She ran her hands up his chest, feeling the way his muscles quivered beneath her touch. Just as she responded to him, he answered just as quickly to the siren call of her hands. She loved the way his eyes darkened, the way his breathing turned slow and deliberate, like he had to forcibly hold himself away from her.

“You’re not paying attention,” he scolded, grasping her hand and nipping the tips of her fingers.

She laughed. “Sorry. I am now. What do you want to say?”

Lines formed between his dark brows, his smile disappearing. “I’m not good at things like this. Before you, I never had someone who tried so hard to understand me, who cared enough to. The fact that you’re here with me, and you’re so…” Lucifer frowned. He sat back on Maya’s hips and raked a hand through his tousled hair. Maya propped herself up on her elbows and waited for him to finish what he was saying. “…So perfect. And I’m…not.” Lucifer growled, frustrated. “What I’m trying to say is that I know I’m not good at things like this. I won’t treat you very well. I don’t deserve you. But I’m glad you’re here with me. You make me feel…not so insane. You make my madness feel like something I can handle again.”

Maya leveraged herself up so that she could cup Lucifer’s face and pull him close. She placed a soft kiss on his lips, already smiling. “I love you too, Lucifer.”

His nostrils flared, his eyes wide with surprise. A small breath escaped his lips. Beneath her hands, his shoulders relaxed, and he sighed. “This is love?” he asked.

His innocent confusion warmed Maya’s heart. “Yes,” she said. “It is.”

“I had no clue. I’ve never felt this way before.”

“You deserve to feel this way, Lucifer.” He opened his mouth to argue, but Maya pointed above their heads toward the medallion. “Even Hades got to love Persephone.”

Lucifer scowled. “That’s a silly fairy tale made up by people who clearly didn’t know me that well. Besides, Hades kidnapped the poor girl. She suffered at his hands.”

“Not in my version. If it’s a fairy tale, then it has a happily ever after. And that means that she loved him. And together, they were happy, even though they couldn’t spend every day together.”

“If Hades loved her, he would have gone to Earth to be with her. Not made her stay in the underworld. I would never do that to you. Hell is no place to live.”