A Love Song for Lucifer: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romance (Leading Ladies)

by Willa Lively

  “Oh, Mel. You have no idea,” I say flatly before throwing more cheap whiskey down my throat.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Melody

  “This is really where you live?” Lucien’s figure is hulking when we’re not sitting on barstools. And I’m a little drunk, but is it possible that he’s the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen? No, of course it can’t be possible. Yet, when I look at him, it’s like I get a hit of dopamine every time. His face is actually pleasurable to observe. The curved lips set under a regal nose, and those dark eyes that I spotted from the stage. One of his symmetrical, dark eyebrows cocks at me. I seemed to have stopped working my keys in the door in order to stare at him.

  “Listen, Mel,” those lips start, “you don’t have to pretend to live here. I mean, who in their right mind would choose a place next to a bar. We can go back to my place.”

  I almost forgot that for the amount of pleasure that his face produces in me, those lips seem to form an equal amount of annoyance when they’re actually used for speaking.

  “Remind me, why am I letting Lucifer himself into my apartment?” I say as I finally get the key to jiggle just the right amount to unlock my door.

  He looks at the door as if impressed that I actually have a home. “We’re going to make beautiful music together, of course.” He says with a glimmer in his eye that lights my insides on fire.

  Of course I remember why we’re here, but I need any excuse to remind him I think he’s the devil. And maybe to remind myself.

  “This better be one hell of a performance,” I say.

  He told me at the bar that he can play the guitar and I didn’t believe him, so after the band refused to let him use their guitar, I told him that my apartment next door has plenty of instruments that he could prove himself with. The friend Lucien had come with was busy making out with Ryan after he got off his shift, so he agreed. I’m not sure what it is about this infuriating man that makes me not want to part with him. I chalk it up to him being the perfect distraction from a shitty day.

  We make it up to my apartment and through the door, which goes straight into my living room. I see his eyes scanning over the space. My apartment is tiny and not luxurious by any standard, but I love it. I’m pretty sure Lucien is the type of wealthy that has never even stepped in an apartment this small. But it's also always hard to tell in New York. He could pour all of his money into the appearance of looking rich, but crawls back to an apartment he shares with 5 other guys two hours away from Manhattan. I don’t really care either way about his money situation. He could be as poor as me, but if he spends all his money on stupid expensive things instead of experiencing life, that would be the true turn off, not his bank account.

  But I have to admit, I do like the fact that he dresses differently than the guys I usually see hanging around after my shows. No ironic t-shirt, or wearing a beanie inside. Nope. Lucien looks nothing short of elegant in his tailored pants, dress shoes, and dress shirt with rolled-up sleeves that expose his muscled tan arms and a light cast of dark hair. I wonder what he thinks of me, in my thrift-store 80s leather skirt that is completely inappropriate for this December weather but fine for angrily walking the 3 feet to Bowie’s from my apartment.

  He walks up close to my wall of instruments to inspect them and then looks back to me, as if I am a stranger who just walked into the room. The expression on his face is curious, as if he is taking me in all over again.

  “You’re obsessive,” he states. Not as a question, but almost as an approval. As if I passed a test I didn’t know I was taking.

  “You don’t pursue one thing you’re entire life because of a passing interest,” I add.

  He grazes his finger over my flute, to my violin, and then the steel drum as if he is checking for dust. He won’t find any. I have all of them laid out and mounted on the wall like this so I am reminded of them anytime I create a new song. It’s the same thing my mom does with her spices, so she doesn’t forget to use them. And for me, it’s effective. None of my instruments go untouched for long.

  His fingers hover over my most used ingredient, the salt of my songs- my acoustic guitar.

  “May I?” he says.

  My heart flutters a bit at this. Mostly because he asked. I can’t count the amount of times some self-entitled Tinder date has taken her off the wall and starting strumming her without asking.

  “You may. In fact, I demand it. You have something to prove to me, remember?” I take a step closer. “And if you’re lying, now is the time to fess up because I’ll be seriously pissed off if I let you play her and you don’t know what you’re doing… She deserves more than that.”

  He smirks and I remember the cocky devil I’m dealing with.

  “I won’t play her exactly the way you play her, but I’ll pay attention to every brush of my fingers so I learn what it takes to make her really sing,” he says with a glint in his eyes. I’m not so sure we’re talking about my guitar anymore.

  “Stop delaying,” I say, avoiding his gaze out of fear of what my face might reveal right now.

  I sit in the wooden chair across from my grey couch that he’s lowered himself into.

  He clears his throat and settles my guitar into himself. He looks comfortable with it, and I’m starting to believe he might actually know what he’s doing. His striking face turns back up to me and I experience that dopamine rush from seeing him head on all over again.

  “I dedicate this to you, dear Mel. Even though you won’t tell me why you’ve had a bad day.”

  He strums a familiar tune, and I swallow hard because I recognize it immediately. One of my favorites.

  He whispers the beginning of the song, which is a series of “la-la-las” and for a second I wonder if he’s shy about his singing voice.

  Then he sings the first lines of “Wild World” by Cat Stevens simply and confidently.

  There’s not a single thing in this world that’s more of an aphrodisiac to me than a song well sung. Now here I am, in my apartment alone with a man who looks like that and happens to be singing one of my favorite songs to me. It’s like I’ve created my own perfect honey trap to catch myself in.

  He gets to the chorus and I cross my legs in an attempt to look composed even though I can actually feel myself swooning.

  Suddenly he does something sexier than I could have ever anticipated. Something that shows this man plays dirty and with no mercy. He switches the damn lyrics to French.

  I practically melt into a pool onto the floor, hearing how seamlessly he switches to the language. The specks of his accent that now infuse the song turn the sentimental lyrics into something that sounds utterly dirty to me.

  I let my eyes meet his and the way he is looking at me scares the hell out of me. His stare is unwavering and greedy, and I don’t think I have the power to not give him what he wants, if what he wants turns out to be me.

  I swallow deeply and I see his tongue dart out of his mouth to wet his red lower lip as he strums the chords. That’s the last straw.

  I stand up. He immediately places the guitar next to him as if on command, and joins me standing.

  “You proved your point,” I say in a low breathless whisper.

  “You know that’s not why I really came here,” he answers gruffly.

  He steps towards me, and my chest constricts in nervousness about what I think is about to happen between us, two complete strangers. He moves his long fingers along the edge of my cheek. His gentle touch traces down my neck and twists around the strap of my camisole as my sweater slides off of my shoulder. My heart races at his forwardness, debating what I want.

  But the answer is obvious. I want to get lost in this man. I pull both my sweater and camisole over my head in a quick motion so I am standing in my powder-blue lace bra before him. His eyes trace the contours of my body and I like the fire I see in them.

  I unbutton the top of his shirt and he helps by starting at the bottom. When it’s done, I trace my fingers down his muscle
d arms to slide his shirt off him. I follow the lines of his muscled chest and abdomen down to the small tuft of hair leading down under his expensive looking belt. The sight sends pure, instinctual lust through me.

  We both paw at each other to remove our bottoms, him struggling with the old, stiff zipper on my skirt.

  Finally, we are standing in only our underwear, baring ourselves to each other. Somehow this feels right, like we need to make ourselves vulnerable to each other before we start whatever it is we’re about to start, because we’ve been throwing barbs at each other all night. By stripping down, we concede that we’re both willing to be at the mercy of the other.

  I trace my eyes up his body. He is built lean and tall but has enough muscle to have a thickness to his tall frame. I like him even more without all the pretentiousness of his nice clothing.

  He seems to like me too, as he reaches down into his boxer briefs to reign in the large bulge that is growing between us. I don’t comment on the thick outline that I’m pretty sure I’m staring at, but I want to. I want to shake his hand and congratulate him for being so deliciously proportioned all over.

  “You’re beautiful, Melody.” Of all the times this evening, he chooses now to use my full name. I swallow hard at the earnestness in his face. He moves his fingers under my chin and coaxes my face to his.

  I close my eyes, expecting a kiss, but when it doesn’t come, I look to see what is taking so long. Lucien’s face is lowered as if he moved in to kiss me, but froze. I see now that his face is twisted in pain.

  Instead of explaining what the hell is going on, he runs to the kitchen garbage. And there my naked, erect, beautiful guest throws up all the picklebacks he so enthusiastically shot back in the hours before.

  I take a deep sigh of resignation. This fits exactly with the day I’ve been having. I’m not sure why I let myself expect anything more.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Melody

  “Lucifer!” I try yelling at the hulking man fast asleep in my bed. When that doesn’t even cause him to stir, I resort to pushing at him. My sheets barely cover his long, muscled body and I have to resist the temptation to stop and admire how effortlessly sexy he is even when in a hungover coma. He groans but doesn’t even try to open his eyes.

  Desperate times call for desperate measures. I run to the kitchen and let the faucet run on the coldest setting while I fill up a glass with ice. I add water and rush back to the bedroom.

  Bombs away. I throw the water over him.

  “Merde! Fuck! Shit!”

  Mission accomplished.

  Lucien’s hulking body sits up in attention, ready to fend off the evil creature attacking him, a.k.a. me.

  “What the hell are you doing?” He growls while holding his head. Apparently his jerking reaction was too rough for his liquor-soaked body.

  “You wouldn’t wake up! My family lives nearby and they are insisting on coming over. They’re going to be here in ten minutes tops,” I say frantically while searching for his clothes on the floor.

  I’m not sure why I thought drowning my sorrows in whiskey, pickle juice, and this man was a good idea. Usually whiskey and pickle juice work just fine. Did I really have to throw him in as an extra ingredient?

  And do I really hate that I did? This morning is a more sober reassurance that this man is sexy as hell. His long muscled body, dark hair, and dark stubble make it as if the Wikipedia entry for “tall, dark, and handsome” is curled up in my bed.

  But it isn’t his looks that make him still, admittedly, interesting to me. It’s the hunger I sense burning in him. A hunger that allowed him to be my partner in abandoning the world for at least one night and along with it, the normal and polite ways of society.

  And, oh man, were we about to abandon all politeness before he tossed his cookies for about an hour straight. There was that one moment, before it all went downhill, that even the alcohol couldn’t fog up. The moment that made it clear how badly he wanted to get lost in me, like I wanted to get lost in him.

  Yet, the cost of picklebacks demanded to be repaid.

  Luckily for me, after his puking, he wasn’t the slightest bit shy about staying in his boxer-briefs only. But I don’t blame him. If I were him, I would walk around naked all the time. It seems only fair to let people know he is no ordinary man; he is an ideal specimen. The kind of man you wouldn’t have believed existed without proof- long, lean, and thick where it counts.

  But in the harsh light of the morning, any dream of getting lost in this man is over. Very over, as the loud ringtone this morning of my mom calling made clear.

  Lucien rubs his eyes and smirks when he sees me. I have a towel on from my shower and I am standing a foot away from the edge of the bed with the glass full of ice water still lifted in position to attack at any moment.

  With a quick movement, he grabs the glass out of my hand and places it on my nightstand table. He grabs me by the waist, flings me back onto the bed and lays his body over mine, slipping his fingers into mine.

  I can smell the whiskey on his breath, but it’s mixed with his cologne and somehow the scent fills me with pleasure rather than disgust. That probably also has to do with the fact that he brushed his teeth with a spare toothbrush about five times after his little episode.

  “Well, I can’t wait to meet the family,” he says with a mischievous smile.

  “Hell no.” I slip out from under him, despite the heat I feel rushing through me from being under his body.

  I stand up quickly and go back to the glass of water, which has proven to be a very effective tool.

  “I’ll do it!” I warn.

  “I’m not a dog,” he says, glaring at me. But to my relief, he gets up and begins putting his clothes on.

  Not quickly enough, though. My doorbell rings and I curse. I frantically pull some clothes on and ignore Lucien’s smile as I am half-naked again.

  “Don’t look!” I scold him.

  He rolls his eyes and finishes pulling up his pants as I throw a sweater over my bra.

  I push him out of my bedroom, and the doorbell rings again.

  “Okay, just pretend you’re a neighbor or something as you walk down the stairs,” I direct him as he finishes pulling on his cognac leather shoes. I practically shove him out the front door as my hand lingers on the buzzer to let my family in.

  “Is this any way to treat a one-night-stand?” Lucien says with an eyebrow cocked.

  “You don’t get to call me that,” I cross my arms. “You have to not spew in someone’s apartment to call someone that. Oh, and actually have sex.” I add, in case he doesn’t know what happened last night, which is possible given the amount we drank.

  I think I detect a slight look of surprise at this, but rather than addressing it, he leans in and kisses me on the cheek and lingers, his face close to mine. “Thanks for last night. And whatever drove you to be my partner in self-sabotage, I have every confidence that you’ll be fine. With that voice and that attitude, you’ve got the world at your fingers, Mel.”

  I pause at this, observing his face. His demeanor surprises me. We’ve been jabbing at each other since we met, but his tone now is gentle and sincere. Then my heart drops at the reality of what he’s saying. The whole reason I had gone down this rabbit hole with him was to block out the fact that I don’t have a future in front of me anymore. At least, not the future I thought I had.

  With him leaving, I officially can’t hide from it anymore. My family is about to be here to console me over the fact that my dream of getting a record contract was in the palm of my hand, before being ripped out by some overeager heir trying to prove himself as the new head of his family business. It only took one nepotistic douchebag to stomp all over my dreams.

  “Yeah, thanks.” I shrug. “And I have every confidence you’ll meet either a nice lady with an actual soul soon or the gold-digger of your dreams when your 87, depending on what you want.” I give him a weak smile at this, because I’m really not sure which one he woul
d prefer. He doesn’t look so sure either.

  “Alright, remember to pretend you’re my neighbor when you pass my family on your way out,” I say pushing him out the door again.

  He nods and pulls himself back. He pauses for a second to look up at me. My face silently asks him what the hell he is waiting for, but before I can, he turns to go down the stairs.

  I take a big breath of relief and ignore the nagging feeling of disappointment that he’s actually leaving.

  I buzz my family in and I hear them opening the big metal door leading into my apartment building.

  “Hello,” Lucien’s voice echoes up the stairway. Oh, god. “I’m Mel’s neighbor and I’m headed out for a walk,” he says as if reading from a script, no doubt intentionally meaning to sound as suspicious as possible.

  “Uh, okay.” I can hear my mom answer with confusion. “Well, enjoy.”

  Really nice, Lucifer. Of course, he couldn’t resist one last jab at me.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Lucien

  I settle into my leather chair at my desk, freshly showered in my office shower without bothering to go home this morning. Even though I could have come in late as I’m the boss, there are inevitable fires that need putting out at work because of the harsh measures I had to take yesterday. Last night was not meant to be an all-nighter in some beautiful pink-haired stranger’s apartment, and it especially wasn’t meant to be spent puking rather than fucking.

  Yet, I feel good. Considering yesterday started as a shitty day at work, progressed to me getting dumped humiliatingly, and ended with me spewing my guts ingloriously, I would even say I’m fucking fantastic. I can’t remember the last time I sang in front of someone. I can’t remember the last time someone made me so god damn horny. And I certainly can’t remember the last time someone was so combative with me. Somehow that last part makes me even more horny.

  Before I get started, I need to make sure I see this girl again. Even if she ends up like every other woman who just wants something from me, at least for a brief moment, she might make me feel like this again. Or relieve this aching erection that hasn’t been able to calm down since the bar.