by Liz Meldon
He realized then that this wasn’t fucking.
Not even close.
This was how a couple in love danced—surely.
So, he forced himself to open his eyes, to not get lost in the fall, and watched her breasts bounce, her stomach clench, her eyelashes flutter. He drank in the spiderweb pattern of blue veins, the darkening hue of her eyes, the pure white halo around her head.
On Earth, his mind was so fucking loud when they were together, always awash with what he wanted to do to her, for her, with her. Wondering what she might do to him. Imagining, daydreaming, lusting.
In Hell, his mind was quiet. It had found its peace—and that peace was her. Her and him. Moira and Severus.
There was no need to imagine the what ifs, to plan ahead. He didn’t need to give himself over to the beast within; Severus was the beast, and the beast adored her. The beast longed to be in the moment, enjoying every fucking second of it.
“Severus…” Moira fell forward, bracing her hands on the shag rug, and he took that as his cue to take charge. He set the pace now, an arm wrapped tightly around her waist, dragging her to him as his hips bucked against hers, hard and fast. As he fucked her.
As he loved her.
Moira came with a hoarse cry, mouth right next to his ear and cunt rippling with pleasure all around him. He choked back a cry of his own, the sensation more overwhelming here than it was above. As she clung to him, her arms managing to thread their way around his neck, her face buried against him, he didn’t slow—not even a breath. He kept time, pounding into her as she mewled and whimpered and tightened around him, milking her climax of every last ounce of delirious pleasure—until she went limp on top of him, panting beside his ear. Panting and moaning and murmuring incoherently.
With a response like that, it was difficult not to have an ego.
As she stilled on top of him, taking a moment to catch her scattered breath, Severus brushed her hair over her shoulder, finding her skin coated in a thin sheen of sweat. He nuzzled up the curve of her neck, smiling again when she giggled, his nose tickling at her ear.
“How is your hand?” he rumbled. He might have been positively bursting inside, desperate to pick up where they’d left off, but he had no qualms in taking the time to tend to her. If she was finished, then they were finished.
Please don’t be finished.
“Doesn’t even hurt anymore,” she murmured back, shaking her head a little and smiling that sweet sort of sleepy smile he wished he saw more of.
“You aren’t done with me yet, are you?” He tucked her hair behind her ear now, their heads resting together on the carpet, face-to-face, his cock pulsing inside her. Her smile grew.
“No.”
“Good.”
His gaze drifted down her face, soon followed by his mouth, touching everywhere his eyes did; her nose, her cheek, her lips. Severus lost himself in her again, in their kiss, in the way she gasped when he sat up—then pushed onto his feet. Her legs snapped around him, ankles locking, but Severus held her there in the kiss, his hand on the back of her head, his tongue teasing hers. She was light as air; someone he would never let fall.
His trousers slipped down the moment he stood upright, and Severus kicked the lush fabric off with his first few steps. Eyes closed, Moira clung to him, and he carried her swiftly across the sprawling, empty bedroom, straight to the balcony door.
She broke the kiss at the sound of the handle, her forehead pressed to his. Surrender still played across her features—surrender to the moment, to the pleasure of her climax. However, as soon as he stepped outside, their naked bodies assaulted by Hell’s frigid night, all that hazy, lazy sweetness sharpened, and she gripped him tighter, eyes wide and wild as she took in her surroundings.
The storm was moving east, billowing across the grey wastes, the dead forests, the marshes of molten red. Moira had referred to the downpour as glass, and in a way, she was right; it was glass-like, with all its jagged edges, able to slice through thick demon hide like a knife through butter. Hell knew its inhabitants, and it responded accordingly, pummeling the landscape with debilitating storms to keep the demons in check. After all, nighttime was when they were most brutal. Darkness. Shadows. Even with all of Lucifer’s rules in place, there needed to be a little something extra to keep everyone in line.
“Severus, what are we…?” Moira looked over her shoulder, her breath quickening, suddenly panicked. “No, I don’t want… Take me back inside.”
“Hush now, darling,” he cooed, peppering her with kisses—until he had her seated on the edge of the balcony. The storm was no longer within reach, but they could still see it tearing across the landscape—still hear the melody of the downpour. Satisfied that she was safe, relatively speaking, Severus then eased out of her, his body physically aching at the loss of hers. As she tried to protest again, he spun her, easily bending her over the thick railing, her naked torso pressed to the smooth marble, and then thrust back into her.
She moaned and quivered in his grasp, hands reaching back—to push him away, to drag him closer, he wasn’t sure. Her long fingers merely wrapped themselves around his wrists, and his body hummed with need, eager to move again, to fuck her into sweet oblivion.
Out here. Beneath the storm. Here, where he had so often hidden as a child, fearing the disdain of his family. Here, where he could prove that he wasn’t the same demon today—and that she needn’t fear any of it either. That she was stronger than this, than the howling winds and the biting rain, that Malachi couldn’t get under her skin. Moira was strong. They both were.
“No, no, don’t look away,” he murmured, freeing one wrist from her vise-grip and wrapping it around her throat. Severus forced her upright, her cunt tightening around him at the shift in positions, her back arched and her gaze leery. Mouth hovering next to her ear, he steeled himself, forcing his body not to shake, beating back the mind-numbing lust threatening to take over. No. He had better control here. The beast was stronger than that. “Moira, look at it.”
Tears glistened in her eyes. “I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s beautiful,” he whispered, brushing her hair back, his lips caressing the shell of her ear. “It’s…exquisite. You needn’t be frightened of it. Things here can hurt you, scare you, but when you stop and really look, you see…” He shook his head, running his lips down her neck and back up again, slowly starting to pump in and out of her. “You see their beauty.”
Hesitantly, she lifted her gaze back to the retreating storm, then flinched at the latest boom of thunder—followed swiftly by a dozen lightning bolts cracking across the red and purple sky, slicing through the oppressive cloud cover. Moira watched the squall roll out, then looked to her bandaged hand—and back to the storm. Severus felt her swallow hard, his hand still wrapped around her delicate throat, and he couldn’t stop himself from kissing her again, this time nibbling at the crook of her neck.
“You’ve been my hellstorm from the moment I saw you on the other side of my hotel room door,” he admitted gruffly, first against her skin, then into her ear, murmuring it as faintly as he dared. Moira leaned into him, her legs widening as his pace quickened. His breath hitched, but he forced it all out, every fucking word, his skin prickling when she reached back and cupped his cheek. “If I can overcome the fear of what you’ll do to me, the ruin you’ll reap upon me, then you can too. Don’t be frightened of the storm. Don’t be frightened of any of it. You’re stronger than some fucking glass and my brother’s taunting words. You’re stronger than Diriel, than the threats of your father. You’re stronger than all of this. Look at it. Look at its beauty, its power, and embrace it.”
As I’ve embraced you. Every part of her. Just as she was. Moira could leave him utterly destroyed—and she still might one day—but in the meantime, he was all in. He’d ride out this storm, her, to the bitter end, and love every second of it.
Growling, he released her throat and settled for her hips instead, gripping them hard with each s
avage thrust. As he buried his face in the nape of her neck, he felt her wandering hands drift upward, heard her crying out each time their bodies pounded together.
Suddenly she grasped his horn, tightly, firmly, dragging him closer. Something inside of him burst, her touch, the raw acceptance of it all, drowning him, and he soon had them both bent over the railing, a hand between her thighs as he took her. She came once more, soundlessly this time, her body tightening around him. One hand around his horn, the other buried in his hair. In her pleasure, there was pain; she twisted his hair as she shuddered, as her legs tried to clamp down, to still his torturous hand while he dragged every last bit of that climax from her, fingers on her clit, teeth at her throat.
Only when she slumped forward, her hands falling away, did Severus straighten, clutching her to him, and allow himself release. Pleasure bloomed throughout his body, blurring his vision as he spilled himself into her heat. He snarled against her neck, but pressed his lips to her palm when her trembling hand reached up for him, and they rode out the spasming of his body together, breathing, moving, acting as one.
Moira yelped when a booming, bone-rattling bout of thunder bellowed above his home, followed swiftly by a near-blinding lightning display that splintered around them; a stray bolt even singed the creeping vine along the outer wall. Her heart hammered, pulse racing—until she laughed. It was the sweetest sound he’d ever heard, eliciting a tired smile across his lips, and Severus joined in on her giggles with a few satisfied, spent chuckles of his own.
“Should we consider that a round of applause, a roaring ovation demanding of an encore?” he rasped, mouth drifting listlessly against her palm. She glanced at him over her shoulder, cheeks flushed and gaze fearless.
“I think the performance was worthy of something like that,” she murmured, and he only then noticed her teeth chattering. Nights in Hell were positively frigid, but the heat of their bodies, their desire—swelling, swelling, swelling to a crescendo—had sustained them. Until now. So, Severus eased out of her, relishing the flutter of emotion across her features, and then unceremoniously threw her over his shoulder and carried her off for a piping-hot bath.
And maybe, just maybe, a much-needed encore.
Chapter Nine
“I’d never have thought Diriel would own a place in this neighbourhood,” Severus muttered, squinting out the window of the family’s grandiose black carriage, the hooves of skeleton horses clomping along outside. The mist that had plagued Hell’s depressing landscape had lifted since he, Malachi, and Moira had left the house some hours ago, giving way to an annoyingly bright overcast, heat rising off the cracked earth in waves.
“For a Lutum, he’s done rather well for himself, hasn’t he?” Malachi mused. Out of the corner of his eye, Severus spied his brother recrossing his long legs, one ankle over the other, his leather-clad feet just a breath away from Moira’s.
“I didn’t know he was a Lutum.”
“Low class status, no notable parents to speak of, no wealth, no special abilities.” The chaos demon uttered something between a scoff and a snort. “Of course he’s a Lutum.”
While nearly every middle- and upper-class clan of demon had a family name, a branding that would carry them through this world, lower-class creatures of no real significance all shared the same last name: Lutum. Dirt. Severus might have been looked down upon by his peers, but every Lutum bastard would be sneered at by the upper echelons of demon society. Still, at least a lowborn Lutum had the chance to ascend. They could change their circumstances, just as Diriel somehow had. Severus would be a leech for life.
“I’d thought to look in the slums first, but one of my men insisted the wretch had been spotted here, of all neighbourhoods,” Malachi continued as he examined his claws, noticeably bored now. Severus couldn’t blame him; this ride had been mundane to an almost painful degree. With the heat outside and the stale conversation inside, Moira had fallen asleep almost two hours ago. Severus couldn’t blame her for that, either—it wasn’t like they’d gotten much sleep last night.
What had bothered him, however, was the way Malachi had offered his coat for her to use as a pillow. It seemed Severus’s jacket hadn’t added much padding, which she’d insisted was fine—and then there was Malachi, slipping off his blood-red trenchcoat and offering it to her. The plush material cushioned her head far better, untouched by whatever moths had dug into the outfit Severus had seen yesterday, and Moira had been out like a light within minutes.
Sighing, he stroked her hair, tucking it behind her ears, refusing to budge so much as a hint lest he wake her prematurely. With her head on his lap, she looked so peaceful, and given her nerves about facing Diriel again, she deserved the rest.
“When you’re through with him, I’d like to interrogate him a little myself,” Malachi said, his voice raised—petulantly, as if to steer Severus’s attention back to him. Dressed in a freshly pressed beige dress shirt, black trousers that had seemingly never seen the light of day they were so pristine, and their father’s old gold and ruby cuff links, the demon actually looked presentable.
“Oh? And why’s that?” He had been questioning his brother’s motivations behind all this since their talk last night. Malachi had never been one to help before, especially if it was Severus who was doing the asking. All that bullshit about being a better brother and fuck our terrible father and blah blah blah—Severus didn’t buy it.
For now, however, it seemed he’d come through. He’d had Diriel’s location in hand as soon as they concluded the most uncomfortable breakfast of Severus’s life.
Apparently, Malachi had heard him and Moira on the balcony last night.
And he enjoyed bringing it up.
A lot.
Much to Moira’s embarrassment.
“I want to know how some Lutum fuck wormed his way into the Periculum borough,” his brother insisted with a roll of his eyes. Periculum housed demons who just missed the mark—the ones who were so close to elite status they could taste it. Riddled with greedy, dangerous, narcissistic climbers of Hell’s social ladder, the borough was adjacent to Severus and Malachi’s own crème de la crème suburb, and the more Severus thought about it, the less it surprised him that Diriel had settled here.
“He’s made a name for himself in Farrow’s Hollow over the last two decades or so,” Severus told his brother after a moment’s consideration. “A slow, gradual climb, but I’ve always wondered where he acquired all that influence.”
“And wealth, surely.”
Severus nodded, absently looping and unraveling a lock of Moira’s coarse white hair around his finger, his gaze drawn back to the window. Although he wouldn’t say he had devoted an obscene amount of time to thinking about Diriel over the years, he had wondered, here and there, how the demon had managed to rise through their society. He hadn’t come from money, yet, out of the blue, one day he had cash to burn and minions at his heels.
And now he was living in the second-plushest demon suburb in Hell. Severus’s frown deepened as he watched the houses pass by. While still large, still surrounded by towering walls and impenetrable gates, they weren’t quite as substantial as the homes in his neighbourhood, and they were planted much closer together. Every ten minutes or so, they would pass another property, as opposed to the half-hour to forty-five minute gap of barren nothing between estates in Severus’s neighbourhood.
Still, it was far better than the Lutum slums where he’d expected to find a coward like Diriel.
“Nearly there,” Malachi told him, nudging at his foot. “Wake her.”
Severus shot his brother a scowl, then gently roused Moira, the backs of his knuckles brushing against her cheek. Her eyes snapped open, breath catching, but she settled quickly, as if realizing where she was, and sat up. One of the jacket’s thick gold buttons had left an indent on her cheek, and as she rubbed at it, she sheepishly handed Malachi’s coat back.
“Thank you.”
His brother shot her a quick smile befo
re slipping the garment back on. Clearly he was far more accustomed to this outrageous heat; Severus had grown soft on Earth. Dressed to impress in his priciest black suit—a three-piece Alexander McQueen number with silk lapels and skull buttons—Severus was positively roasting and they hadn’t even done anything yet. He couldn’t imagine how Moira fared either; her dark grey slacks had very little give, but at least her frilly white blouse was thin. The bright red bra underneath all that refinery was a fucking tease, however.
“How are you feeling?” he murmured, smoothing some of her wild, staticky hair down as she righted her clothes. His little hybrid shrugged, and he pretended not to see the way her fingers trembled.
“Fine. Ready to get this over with.”
“Now remember, I will do all the talking,” Malachi drawled, sounding bored already. “Just stay out of sight until I’ve confirmed he’s there.”
“We know, brother.” If Diriel had people watching the hell-gates, news would have reached him that Severus was in the underworld again. The demon would be on the defensive, and they had all agreed it best to let Malachi approach his hideout first. Malachi carried more prestige than Severus. He commanded respect, even if privately the family home had fallen to ruin. Perhaps Diriel would think he had come to talk terms—when really, Malachi intended to drag the coward back to the carriage, wherein he and Severus would drive him out to the wastes and torture him into talking.
And Moira would…watch. Severus cast her a wary look, still uncertain of her response. She hadn’t offered to lend a hand, nor had she inserted herself into the planning of today’s events. In fact, she had been oddly quiet the entire time, merely nodding and agreeing whenever Severus checked in with her.
He wasn’t sure where her head was at—and he didn’t like it.
