JEGUDIEL: A Deadly Virtues Novel

by Cole, Tillie

  Groaning savagely, Diel pinned her harder against the wall. Noa smiled as her breath hitched at the contact. Her cheeks burst with redness, and her wet tongue licked her slightly parted lips. Then she leaned forward, and, clutching the back of his head, threading his messy dark locks through her fingers, she flicked out her tongue once more and traced it over the ruined skin where his collar once sat.

  Diel roared at the maddening feel of her hot tongue lapping at his biggest scar, then he wrapped her hair in his hand and crushed his mouth to hers. He didn’t overthink it. He just took and took and tasted Noa in his mouth, his tongue thrusting against hers.

  He’d never kissed anyone before. Never known how to even do it correctly. But instinct took the lead, and he devoured her mouth with the same intensity as he would make a kill—completely, thoroughly, and with blood swelling his cock and darkness thrashing in his veins. Inexperience didn’t matter at that moment—it was lust and the magnetic pull of her and him and all the soul-scalding fire that raged like an inferno between them.

  Noa’s responding moan swirled around them, and Diel’s hips thrust forward, searching to take her further, deeper, to swallow her whole. Noa shifted her body closer still. Jumping high enough to wrap her long legs around Diel’s waist, she threaded her arms around his neck, yanking him as close as she could.

  That was the breaking of the floodwall, the dropping of any barrier the old Diel had failed to destroy.

  Using his chest to keep her pinned against the wall, he smashed his lips to hers, unable to stop ravishing her mouth, and moved his hands to the hem of her leather shirt. Noa’s strong thighs kept her hooked to his body as he reluctantly reared back and peeled the leather shirt over her head, tossing it to the floor behind him. Then he looked down and stilled, just taking in the sight of this woman against him. His quick breaths were crashing waves in his ears, drowning out anything but the two of them suspended in that surreal moment.

  Diel looked into Noa’s eyes, and he saw something new in her stare. Now that his vision was unclouded and the ever-present fog had cleared from his mind, he caught Noa swallowing deeply. Color dropped slightly from her lips and cheeks. She found him watching, and her chin lifted high, bravado concealing the subtle flicker of fear.

  Something unknown pulled in Diel’s sternum. His head tipped to the side as he tried to search for what it was … a piece of string. A piece of invisible string that sprouted from his chest and pierced through Noa’s. As she breathed, he felt it move. As she shifted, it twisted and turned. And then it twanged. Beat after quicker beat. Twang, twang, twang.

  Diel’s eyes narrowed on Noa, studying her features to find what was wrong. Something was really fucking wrong. Then he saw it. Felt it. The string twanged again. Shaking. Trembling. Terrified.

  Diel saw his hand rising to her face, like some outside force was controlling his body. But he lived every second of it. Felt Noa. She was nervous. She was scared. Her brown eyes were glistening, but she wouldn’t let it show on her stoic expression. Diel’s fingers reached her cheek and skirted over her skin. It was cold. Then his hand stilled. He stared down at his own fingers.

  They were shaking too.

  As if a hidden trapdoor had been wrenched open inside him, thoughts of the last time he had been touched flooded his brain. Diel gritted his teeth, fighting to chase them back. Trying to repel the memories of the rough hands of the old priests as they pushed down his shoulders. As they forced open his mouth, as they held him down to the ground and lowered themselves between his spread legs …

  His eyes flew open at the sound of Noa’s gasp. Her steely gaze was locked on his. And on a deep inhale, she reached for his hand and slowly placed it on her left breast. Diel went to wrench it away, too fucked in his head to do this, fingers shaking too much, but—

  “No,” Noa said, her voice the commander to his soul once again. Her voice shook, and the sound sliced his heart in two. Noa was strong. She was unbreakable. She had faced both the man and his monster head on and, like a necromancer, brought them back to life as one strong, unyielding being—who they were always meant to be.

  Noa’s lips were pale, but she kept her head high, cradled his cheek and whispered, “We won’t let them take this from us.” Diel’s eyes closed momentarily, and that invisible string between them twanged over and over as their tarnished memories bled out from their old Brethren-inflicted wounds onto the floor between them.

  “We can’t …” she said, voice breaking. The sound crushed something in Diel too. But it wasn’t him breaking down, succumbing to the Brethren’s evil that still tried to drag them back to hell even years after they’d fled. It was the chain of that part of his past shattering into a cloud of metallic splinters before crashing to the ground, discarded, useless, irretrievable.

  “Touch me,” Noa said, a commandment once again, her voice growing in strength along with his own rebuilding will. Diel looked down at the hand over her breast, his scarred fingers cupping the full but soft flesh. And he touched her. He felt her. Felt her body’s heat under his palm, her tight pink nipple under his fingers.

  The material of her bra was thin, but it wasn’t the act of seeing her almost naked that was the victory. The victory was in taking pleasure from an act that had been forced upon them and sullied by the Brethren. Diel’s mouth grew dry as Noa’s inhales became stuttered, her eyes fluttering shut as he rolled her nipple between his fingers, and a glorious pink color flooded back into her pale cheeks.

  Diel’s hips rolled as Noa’s ground against his hard cock. Like storm clouds clearing, the agony of their tortured pasts was cast out of the room, and it was just the two of them again. Diel and Noa. An accused witch and a fallen angel. Both dark and light, and each needing the touch of the other—destined, split souls matched …

  … found.

  “Take me,” she said. Diel’s body stilled at the request. He searched her eyes for any sign of hesitation, but her autumnal gaze was solid and strong, and he once again saw that Noa had returned. The pink-haired witch who tamed monsters. The fucked-up heart who had been made to match his.

  Noa reached up to the straps of her bra and pulled them down, pushing the cups aside until her breasts were freed. Diel’s heart boomed like thunder. She was perfection. Scarred and branded perfection. She clutched the back of his head and, following her silent instruction, he brought his mouth to her nipple and ran his tongue around the tip. Her sweet taste burst on his tongue, and he never wanted to taste anything else.

  Diel groaned loudly as he lapped at her skin. Noa’s strong legs tightened around his waist and her head fell back, a high-pitched moan soaring into the domed ceiling above them. A motherfucking ecstatic war cry against the evil men who had tried to keep them pushed down. This was an act of rebellion, and the thought only drove him on further. Noa’s hands clutched at his hair, and Diel treasured the burn, the pain and the pleasure and the throbbing of his cock.

  He sucked her nipple into his mouth, then released the flesh and moved to her other breast. Noa’s head lowered as he looked up, his hips bucking forward in need. Her eyes were half closed, filled with need too. Making sure he heard every word, she repeated, “Take me.”

  This time there was no doubt, no fucked-up past causing them to pause or shake or tremble. It was just them. Noa loosened her legs from around his waist and placed her feet on the ground. He looked down as she unbuttoned her leather pants. His breathing was labored, but he was transfixed. Her long fingers pulled down the zipper, slowly, driving him fucking insane.

  Diel lifted his hands and placed them on the wall on either side of Noa’s head. The world didn’t exist right then. The folly faded away to nothing. This was their small piece of paradise, and Diel never wanted to leave it.

  She pushed down the leather, taking her panties with it. Her boots came off next, and she stood back up and faced him. The minute her pussy was bared to his eyes, a long growl tore out of his throat. He had wanted this so badly. Ever since the monster had se
en Noa in the tunnels, he had wanted to own her, possess her, fuck her. The monster had recognized the determination and grit that existed inside her when the man had been blinded by fear and self-preservation.

  Noa pushed her pants to the floor, kicking them away. She held her head high, naked in more than flesh before him, her ruined skin a roadmap of survivor beauty.

  It was the most beautiful sight Diel had ever been privileged to see.

  Noa’s chest rose and fell as she waited for him to act, to respond to her revealing all of herself. He lowered his arms from the wall and wrapped them around her waist. Noa’s breath caught in her throat at the skin-on-skin contact, and Diel had to pause. He splayed his hands on her back, his fingers roving over her body.

  His head ticked to the side, the habit too ingrained to shake. Noa lifted her hands, and with the softest of movements, she pressed them onto his chest. His muscles jerked under her warm palms. His eyes rolled closed and he took in several deep breaths. She was touching him. Noa was touching him. He never thought he could have this. He never believed he could want this.

  But … Noa.

  Noa had come along, and his wrecked and split soul had allowed her to tear him apart and rebuild him into something stronger. Someone stronger. Who he must have been before Purgatory. No memories before that hellhole had resurfaced, of his childhood before Holy Innocents. But this … this whole and entire being was who he must have been before that. Before they tore him in two in the name of a God Diel was sure would despise them.

  Noa’s hands journeyed down his torso, taking him out of his head, until they landed on the waist of his jeans. Diel opened his eyes. Noa was watching him. She leaned forward and rested her forehead against his. He breathed in her lavender-and-sweet-musk scent, letting it seep into his bones. An elixir. A tonic for any nerves that threatened to rise.

  Then she unfastened the buttons of his jeans, one by one. He wore no underwear. Noa pressed a soft, fleeting kiss against his lips. As she broke away, she eased the jeans down his thighs, letting go only when they pooled at his feet.

  The air between their bodies rose in temperature, as if they had entered the hearth that blazed with soaring, climbing flames across the room. His boots were removed next, discarded in the pile along with her clothes.

  Noa ran her hands across Diel’s tapered waist and around to his back, then down to the cheeks of his ass. He groaned as she moved her touch to his hips, then finally to his hard cock, which was already leaking against his stomach. He noted the slight shake of her hands as they ghosted past his lower abdomen. When she took his length in her hand, he slapped his hands against the wall again, just to keep himself standing.

  “Noa …” he growled, thrusting into her tight fist.

  “Diel,” she said, for once using his name. It sailed into his ears, piercing his brain and driving him fucking insane. Noa placed her mouth at his ear and whispered one more time, “Take me.”

  His body tensed. He drew his hands back from the wall and studied her face. Nothing in the fucking world had ever made him feel the way she did right then. No fucking sunset or sunrise could ever match Noa’s beauty. She lifted one of her bare legs to his waist, her thigh brushing against his as it passed. The friction was like a live wire being dragged across his skin.

  Using his wide chest, he pushed Noa back against the wall. His dick twitched when she moaned at the contact. He lifted her other leg to wrap around his waist, pulling back his ass enough to place his cock at her entrance. He ran his fingers down her pussy, groaning at the warmth that greeted him, the wetness, her readiness for him. Noa’s hands threaded behind his head, her fingers locking together like a clasp.

  She didn’t want to let him go.

  Diel met her eyes; she was already waiting for him. The moment hung suspended between them. It was like the pause before he made a kill. The tension that built between him and his victim, before Diel’s pleasure would be met by the sacrifice of their soul. By their spilled blood. By his stealing their life with his knives and bare hands.

  But he wasn’t stealing anything from Noa. She was giving herself to him freely. He had already given himself over to her. She might not have known it yet, but he was all hers, and he’d fucking tear anyone apart who ever dared tell him it wasn’t the case.

  “Take me,” Noa said again, her voice barely above a whisper. Diel took hold of his cock and pushed inside her. His jaw was clenched to the point of aching. But this was a good ache. Noa threw her head back as he tunneled inside her, inch by inch. A long moan fell from her lips, and her forehead fell forward to rest against his. Diel’s arms shook as he took hold of her thighs around his waist, and he pushed himself to the hilt, a growl slipping from his mouth when he was fully inside her. He panted, trying to just fucking breathe. Noa’s hands were iron around the back of his neck. Heat rose between them.

  “Noa …” Diel said through gritted teeth. He was inside her. He was finally inside her … and he became acutely aware that he hadn’t known. He hadn’t known fucking could ever feel like this. He hadn’t expected it.

  His chest expanded and made room for her in its space. Noa stepped inside, and Diel knew that she would remain there forever. He was inside of her and now she was inside of him, welded like two melted metals fused into one indestructible compound.

  Then Noa rolled her hips, and he fucking saw stars. Her eyes were dilated and her skin glistened as she rolled her hips again, her eyelashes fluttering to touch the top of her cheek. As she went to roll her hips again, Diel thrust forward, catching her off guard. She moaned and gasped and dug her fingernails into the top of his neck.

  His pulse soared and he stilled, waiting for the collar’s warning shock. But none came—none came because it had gone. The collar had fucking gone. As if reading his mind, Noa ran her fingers along the deep scar the collar had left behind, one that would remain.

  He drove into Noa deep and fast, his pulse firing into a sprint. It pounded and thudded faster and faster, and Diel’s eyes closed at the twin ecstasies of taking Noa, sinking into her pussy, and the fact that no shocks would take him down. He was free and fucking and it felt so good.

  He gripped Noa’s thighs and stared into her brown eyes. They were molten and heavy-lidded, and a smile played on her lips. “Harder,” she cried, and he drove into her deeper, quicker, over and over, until he was sure that not only had his monster and man merged but that Noa was one with them too.

  Darkness and light swirled around them. The heat built and built, and their skin was slick as they slid against each other, her nipples dragging over his hard chest. Noa’s pussy began to clench. With her nails in his neck and her forehead against his, eyes trapped in one another’s hold, her lips parted and she screamed out her release.

  Thighs shaking and balls tightening, Diel pressed against Noa harder, wanting to crawl under her skin and into her mind. He roared out into the folly as his orgasm rushed through him like rapids, crushing any fucked-up Brethren experience from his past, any hand that had ever been laid on his body.

  It was all Noa—her scent, her taste, how he felt locked inside her. Diel’s hand raked into her hair, and he clutched the strands as he thrust the final remnants of the orgasm from his body. Noa’s back scraped against the wall, his chest crushing her between him and it. But her smile was wide and her tight body jerked in the aftermath.

  Diel dropped his head against the crook of her neck, fighting to regain his lost breath. And as he did, something washed over him. He didn’t recognize it. Hadn’t ever experienced it.

  But he wondered if it was … peace.

  In that moment, he believed he had found some morsel of peace.

  A droplet of sweat ran from Noa’s neck and past his lips. He flicked out his tongue, and the salty drop burst into his mouth. He sighed, replete. Maybe even happy. Noa’s arms moved to cradle his head, and his chest pulled tight as she dropped a kiss on his hair.

  Diel finally drew back and met her eyes. Her face was flushed,
but he saw the same happiness he felt reflected back at him. Noa smoothed his hair back from his face. She searched his eyes, then pressed her lips to his. Diel wanted her again, his cock twitching as it still lay inside her. When she broke away, she held his cheeks with her hands, keeping her thighs tightly wrapped around his waist.

  “You’re finally free.”

  Diel’s stomach rolled. Noa ducked down and kissed along his scar. He leaned his head to the side, allowing her access to his neck. Shivers exploded along his body. When she pulled back, he held her by the legs and walked across the room to the fire.

  He dropped to his knees on the cold hard ground, gently placing Noa on her back. He lay above her, unwilling to let her go, and combed his fingers through her hair. She ran her hand down his cheek, his neck, and placed it on his chest, right over his brand. She stared at the angel wings, at the upturned cross now fashioned into the Fallen’s sword.

  When her eyes met his again, they were shining. “They took so much from us,” she whispered. “So fucking much.”

  Diel’s anger was quick to rise. It was instant. Just the thought of the Brethren fucking Noa as a child—at any age—sent his darkness spiraling, the need to kill clawing to the surface. “Breathe.” It was Noa’s voice that helped him cap his fury. Where once it had been the crackling heat of the collar’s voltage, now it was her.

  He breathed deeply, calming. When his pulse had slowed, Noa shifted, making him groan. “You’ll get used to controlling the bursts of rage.”

  He tipped his head to the side. “Your voice stops it.”

  Noa brushed her fingertips over his lips. His cock was iron again inside her, and he began to rock forward, slowly, softly. Her eyes fluttered, but she managed to say, “You will stop yourself.” She moved her hands around his neck again, and he towered above her, increasing his thrusts. Noa moaned but, ensuring Diel was looking at her, said, “You control the darkness within you, no one else. It doesn’t control you. No one will ever control you again.” Diel thrust faster and faster, needing to feel her pussy tighten around him. Needing her moans to hit his ears and her nails to scrape along his back.