Hellishly Ever After (Infernal Covenant Book 1)

by Nadine Mutas

  The door had barely fallen shut when he had me pinned against the wall, his kiss a bruising thing of passion. Arousal flared in my core, rolled outward in lush waves of lust as I slung my legs around his hips.

  He broke the kiss, breath heavy, and laid his forehead against mine. “You’re here,” he rasped. “You stayed.”

  For me. He didn’t add that last part, but I heard it clearly, understood how much it meant to him.

  “You’re mine.” I stroked his cheek, tunneled my hand through his hair. “I’ll never give you up. You’re stuck with me now. I’ll cling to you like that glitter.” I nodded at the pink dust covering him.

  His husky laugh did all sorts of sinful things to me. “I’ll be finding glitter on me fifty years from now.”

  “Try a century.”

  His eyes full of lightning, he murmured, “How about forever?”

  “Are we still talking about glitter?” I bit my lip.

  A sensual smile snuck onto his face, his energy a caress over my skin. “No.”

  “In that case,” I said, booping him on the nose, “I want a ring.”

  “A ring.”

  “Don’t make me quote Beyoncé!”

  He grinned as he kissed me. A ring it is, he spoke into my mind.

  And then his kiss turned into a firestorm of urgency.

  Licking and nibbling, he took my mouth with the kind of desperate hunger of someone who’d tasted the threat of starvation. I shivered, arched into him, and held on tight as I let him devour me. I was just as hungry for him.

  He could have lost me today, and his kiss was testament of how much that had rocked him. A thousand words were packed into that kiss, the ones he’d spoken to me as he asked me to stay, and so many more that were yet to be said.

  Tasting them on his tongue was enough for me right now.

  I met him lick for lick, nip for nip, my blood afire. His hand on my hip made me suck in a sharp breath. With clear intent, he pulled the material of my dress out from between us.

  I broke the kiss to protest. “I’m a bloody mess!”

  He tilted his head. “Are you hurt?”

  “No.”

  “Then I don’t bloody care.” Holding me in place with one hand under my ass, he slipped his other hand between my legs and found me wet and swollen.

  “Azazel!” I gasped. “Your bathroom is right there. We should take a shower first—”

  “I need you,” he said, his gentle strokes over my intimate flesh in stark contrast to the harshness of his tone. “I watched you be pulled into a hole by a filthy hellrat and spent the next hour thinking you’d died.”

  I exhaled roughly, my chest squeezing at the pain in his words.

  “I need to feel you,” he continued, his finger circling my clit. “I need to catch your breaths with my mouth, hear you cry my name when I make you come. I need to feel you hot and wet and ready when I take you so hard that I’ll be stamped into every cell of your body.”

  My toes curled, and I arched into his touch.

  “And, no,” he said with a growl, “this can’t wait. Not even five minutes.”

  “Okay,” I wheezed, my pulse thundering, his caresses a firebrand on my skin. “Okay.”

  I surrendered to the heady sensation of his fingers parting my lips, grazing my entrance. A moan tore itself from my throat as he slid two fingers inside me while pressing his thumb to my clit.

  He was right. This couldn’t wait, and I needed this as much as he did. I didn’t want to imagine my life without him in it, without his touch, his laughter, his love. The thought alone hurt as much as a physical blow, and I clung tighter to him, pushed into his caress and caught his lips with mine, needing to drown out pain with pleasure.

  He pumped his fingers in and out, stroking over my clit, until I rolled my hips with frantic need.

  His mouth at my ear, hot breaths on my skin. “Come for me.”

  I tipped over the edge with a drawn-out moan, losing myself in the explosions of bliss, the feel of his lips on my neck. The waves of my orgasm were yet crashing over my senses when the blunt head of his cock pushed inside me.

  He stretched me with a delicious edge of pain, the movement as he sank home stoking the fires that had barely begun to simmer down. His throaty moan did me in completely. I came again, my head falling back against the wall, my hands buried in his hair.

  “You feel perfect,” he groaned.

  I clenched around him, sought his mouth, and found him eagerly meeting my lips. His kiss was demanding, possessive, greedy, and I gave him my breath, my heart, my all. Whatever he desired, it was his for the taking.

  And take me he did.

  Slinging one arm behind my back to cushion me against the wall, he grabbed on to my thigh with the other hand—and fucked me. Hard.

  All I could do was hold on to him with my hands around his neck as he slammed into me again and again, claiming me more with each powerful stroke. His energy pushed and pulled on my skin, and the exquisitely raw friction of his body meeting mine coiled the tension in me tighter and tighter.

  I felt him everywhere, inside and out, his words proving true. He really stamped himself into every cell in my body, and I reveled in the sensation. I wanted him imprinted onto my very soul.

  Clutching my thigh, he plunged into me faster, harder, until my teeth rattled with the force of his thrusts. Not that I cared. Not when I needed his ferocity with a relentless greed of my own. I clenched my legs around his hips, dug my nails into his back, bit the curve of his neck. I’d never before held on to anything as desperately as I did to him.

  His energy licked over my clit, and that was it.

  Pleasure burst in my core, coruscant explosions of bliss that stole my breath.

  “Azazel,” I moaned, riding the cresting wave of my orgasm, riding him.

  He clamped me tight with his one hand around my back and buried the other in my hair. Tugging my head back, he exposed my neck, placing a hot kiss on my racing pulse, while he continued pumping into me. One, two, three more thrusts, and he followed me over.

  Hearing his husky moan as he found his release made me shiver with delight. I could become addicted to that sound, to the feeling of him inside me when he groaned like that, knowing I gave him this pleasure.

  Well, to be honest, I could become addicted to him.

  Chests heaving with our fast breathing, we shared the air between us, lingering in this moment of blissful intimacy.

  My hand on his cheek, my heart on my sleeve. “I love you,” I whispered.

  Raw and open, I bared myself to him more than to anyone. I’d never said these words before, not to someone who wasn’t family or my best friend. And yet now they seemed barely enough to express what I felt for him.

  It was enough for him. His eyes flashed lightning, his energy a cascade of heat over my skin, his touch reverent as he traced my mouth with his thumb. “Tell me every day.” His hand was warm where he cupped my cheek. “Tell me again and again, until I kiss the words from your lips.”

  With a smile, I murmured, “I love you.”

  His hand on my throat.

  “I love you.”

  His fingers gliding over the swell of my breasts.

  “I love you.”

  His thumb flicking my nipple.

  “I love you.”

  His lips on my jaw.

  “I love y—”

  His mouth on mine, stealing the words.

  I love you too, he spoke in my mind, and I melted into his kiss.

  Chapter 21

  “Ready?” Azazel’s eyes met mine.

  I blew out a heavy breath—or would have, if I hadn’t been in ghost form. Even though my body was incorporeal, I could have sworn sweat still slicked over my skin, my pulse fluttering.

  We stood in the backyard of my father’s house in Gresham. The wind rustled the leaves in the tree above us, yet I didn’t feel the air in my spirit form. Sunshine glinted off the water drops from the most recent rain shower, and
somewhere a block over kids were laughing and squealing. The world went on about its business, oblivious to the demon and the ghostly human in their midst.

  We’d come here soon after our return from Lucifer’s palace, and now I clenched my hands at my sides, my emotional state somewhere between numb and uproariously agitated. This was it. We were about to release my father’s soul here on Earth.

  I nodded at Azazel and braced myself. “Do it.”

  He pressed a button on the small box in his hand, it sprang open…and with a bright flash of light, it spat out its content. A shape appeared on the ground—a man on all fours. Trembling, he let his head hang between hunched shoulders. When he looked up, his eyes were unfocused, but their color was a shock of familiarity. Hazel, a mirror image of my own.

  Brown hair cut short, his face an aged version of the one I once knew so well, my father stared unseeing at his surroundings. My chest squeezed tight. I hadn’t seen him in so long, I’d almost forgotten the details of his features. Time had deepened the lines around his eyes, his mouth, had sharpened his cheekbones and jaw.

  But he was still the man I’d looked up to as a child, the one who held my hand until I fell asleep when I was scared, who always slipped me extra candy when mom wasn’t looking.

  Heart heavy with too much at once, I raised a shaking hand to my throat. He was here, truly here.

  He blinked, squinted, and glanced around.

  “Dad?” I ventured softly.

  His eyes landed on me, and he jerked. His face contorted in agony. “No,” he said, his voice plaintive. “Please, not again.” He clutched his head in both hands and rocked on his knees. “Not her again. I can’t take it anymore. Please stop. Not her. I can’t take her pain. It hurts too much. Not again, not again, not again—”

  “Dad…” My voice broke. “What—”

  “Torture,” Azazel murmured from beside me. “They tortured him with you.”

  I startled, turned to him. “What?”

  “We punish not just physically.” He put his hands in his pants pockets. “Emotional torture often causes even more pain, especially when there’s guilt involved.”

  “But—how—”

  “He was likely shown scenes where you confronted him about his abandonment and either cried or yelled at him.” He cast me a sidelong glance. “Or both at once, since you’re an angry crier.”

  “That is horrible,” I whispered.

  My father was still rocking in a panic on the ground, and it broke my fucking heart to see him this way. There was a time when I would have thought I’d relish watching him feel the weight of what he did to me, knowing that he suffered from guilt over his actions.

  The bleak reality was, it gave me no satisfaction at all.

  Sick to my stomach, even in my spirit form, I sank to my knees in front of him and laid a hand on his shoulder, able to touch and feel him since we were both spirit.

  “Dad. Stop. This isn’t a hallucination. I’m real. This is real.”

  He stopped rocking.

  “You’re not in Hell anymore.” I squeezed his shoulder, shaking inside and out. “It’s over.”

  Haltingly, his eyes met mine. “Zoe?”

  “Yes.” I felt the threat of tears in my eyes, knowing they wouldn’t fall. Not while I was here on Earth. “It’s really me. I’m not in your head. I’m not here to hurt you.”

  His features slackened. “You’re really real?”

  I nodded.

  “Oh, my God.” He rubbed a hand over his face, then stilled. “Why don’t I feel my—” His gaze fell on Azazel, and he flinched as if whipped. “He’s one of them. He—he’s a—” He scrambled backward. “Zoe, get away from him!” Reaching out to me, he grabbed my arm and tried to pull me behind him.

  My heart broke a bit more. “It’s okay,” I said soothingly, laying my hand over his. “He’s with me.”

  My dad’s startled gaze swung to me. “What?”

  “Um…” This was going to be awkward. “He’s my husband.”

  A blank stare.

  “We’re married.”

  His mouth moved, but no sound came out.

  “I think you broke him,” Azazel muttered from behind me. “Weeks of torture in Hell, but this is what did him in.”

  “Shush,” I shot back over my shoulder. To my dad, I said, “This is Azazel, and he’s not like the others. He won’t hurt you. He’s the one who got you out for me.” I squeezed his hand. “He saved you.”

  My dad’s eyes flicked to Azazel, but he still winced. I grimaced in sympathy. Yeah, it took some time to get used to his powerful presence.

  “I don’t understand,” my dad rasped. “What happened? What’s going on?”

  Oof, where to start?

  While I was still pondering how to explain everything to my dad, Azazel said, “Call me if you need me,” and retreated to the front of the house, giving us some privacy.

  I looked at my dad and bit my lip. “Well,” I said, “so I made this deal…”

  And I told him. Starting with the séance, to the moment I’d found out about his soul in Hell, to our reckless rescue mission, to this instant right here, leaving out any details that were Not Safe for Parents.

  My dad listened through it all, his eyes growing wider by the minute, and when I finished, he shook his head. “This is amazing.” His face full of wonder, he added softly, “You’re amazing.”

  I ducked my head, foolish, childlike pleasure at his praise blooming warm inside me.

  “Thank you,” he said hoarsely. “You got me out, when you had every reason to watch me burn.”

  I shook my head, my voice hollow. “I don’t want to watch you burn. It’s not—” I broke off, pressed my lips together. “Seeing your pain doesn’t lessen mine.”

  “Zoe,” he began, then stopped, seeming to gather himself. “I said this a thousand times to you back in Hell, to that image of yours they kept sending me. You weren’t real, but what I felt was.” He paused, his features trembling. “I’m sorry.”

  I hadn’t known how much those two words would make me feel.

  “I’m sorry for the pain I caused you,” he went on. “For how I left. It wasn’t right, and I should have shown you that I still loved you.” He grimaced. “It’s no excuse, but back then I was…not in a good place. My life was upended—”

  “By your own damn fault,” I interjected quietly.

  “Yes.” He nodded, his expression resigned. “That’s on me.” A deep sigh. “I don’t regret having a family with Olivia, because I love the girls. But I should have done it right.”

  I stared at him, my heart twisting. “Why didn’t you? Why did you lie to us, for years?”

  His shoulders slumped. He looked at the ground. “Because I was a selfish coward. When I fell in love with Olivia, I didn’t stop loving your mom. It’s not like turning off one switch and turning on another. I cared for your mother, deeply. And I didn’t want to hurt her. I knew that if I told her…it would cause her so much pain. So I didn’t.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “That’s the worst load of bullshit I’ve ever heard.”

  He uttered a dry laugh. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.”

  “If you really loved her and didn’t want to hurt her, you wouldn’t have gone and done something you knew would hurt her in the first place. And you would have told her, if only just out of respect and to give her the choice what to do about the situation.”

  He nodded again. “I know that now. I know how reckless I was. How selfish.” His eyes met mine. “Even before my time in H—down there, I’d come to realize my mistakes. Your mother is a good woman, and she didn’t deserve how I treated her. She deserved a stronger man, and you deserved a father who was there for you. I wish I could take it all back, the lies, the hurt, the years of distance. But I can’t. I can’t make amends. This pain and regret are mine to carry, for the rest of my l—” He broke off, shook his head. “Well, I guess that’d be for all time, then.”

  He looked down at his han
ds in his lap. “I just want you to know that I’m sorry. Even if it doesn’t change anything, even if it’s too late. You deserve my apology, at the very least.”

  I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. I might just start crying without being able to shed tears.

  “I’ve heard you yell at me so many times,” he said quietly. “But that was…there. It wasn’t you, so if you want to, you know, rant and rail at me, go ahead. I’ll take it. If you need to let it all out, I’m here now, and I’m listening. Your pain is valid. I deserve to feel it.”

  Pressing my lips together, I looked to the side, focused on the play of light and shadow underneath the tree. I’d had so many things to say to him, but they all seemed to have been sucked away now. What was left was simple, and yet so complicated.

  “I don’t think I can forgive you yet,” I said, “and I don’t know if I’ll ever get there.” I brought my gaze back to him. “But I still love you.”

  Simple, yet complicated.

  “I understand.” He nodded, his eyes full of emotion. “I’ve missed you, kiddo. And I’m so proud of the woman you’ve become.”

  My soul hurt in too many places at once. Quiet, my voice was so quiet. “I’ve missed you too.”

  “I wish…I wish I could have seen you live your life. See you happy and thriving.”

  I picked at a blade of grass, not feeling it in my fingers. “I could come visit.”

  He stared at me for a long time. “Would you?”

  I was silent for a moment, thinking of the keening sense of loss I’d felt after I found out he’d died, the regret about time lost and opportunities forfeited. “Yeah,” I said eventually, my eyes on the grass. “I think I’d like that.”

  “So what now?” he asked after a minute of companionable silence. “How do I go on? Do I?”

  Right, there was that. Azazel and I had talked about it on the way here, and I told my dad what we’d agreed on.

  “You can stay here, as a ghost,” I said, “and you’ll be good for a while. However, there will come a time when your spirit will…degenerate. You’ll become something like a poltergeist, violent and aggressive. At which point you’ll lash out at the living, and you’ll hurt the very people you loved in life.”