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Ella shivered with cold.
Clients preferred the room cool, because they usually worked up a sweat. But Ella wasn’t working up a sweat now. It was hard to do that while naked, with her wrists tied to her ankles. Why oh why didn’t I study forensics instead of undercover work? Ella lamented to herself.
Then she remembered.
Because I thought I wasn’t smart enough for forensics, but was street-smart enough for undercover work.
Boy had she been wrong. She wasn’t smart enough for either kind of work.
Oh, she’d discovered the secrets of the crime ring alright. She’d even collected evidence that could bring them to justice.
The problem that had proven too much for her was getting herself away from them with the evidence.
Ice Tony had gotten suspicious when he’d caught her using her phone behind his back. She’d deleted the text, so he didn’t know that it had been intended for the LVMPD, that she’d been this close to ratting him out. If he’d known that, she’d already have been fed to his dogs. As it was, he’d merely treated her behavior as an infraction of his rules. The punishment was being locked in this room and whored out to his rough trade clients.
“Rough trade client” was the phrase he used. She just called them sadistic fucks.
She’d even used the term to his face. Mouthing off to him normally earned her a beating, but this time he’d just chuckled and told her “whatever gets you through it, bitch.”
That’s when she started to feel really scared.
He’d tied her to the fuck bench, ankles to wrists, and thrust a ball gag in her mouth. There she stayed, hour after hour, awaiting her next client. Or clients. Sometimes there were three or four of them at a time.
Then, miracle of miracles, she heard his voice through the door.
That cheerfully sardonic, buttery English accent. Her mind’s eye conjured a memory of his face. Handsome, arrogant, confident. Seductive, whenever someone gave him an opening. Soulful brown eyes — that turned cold when he was angry, faster than a bug turned dead when it blundered into an electric zapper.
She wondered why she could even hear him. The last attendant had left the fan running.it was quite noisy, intended to drown out the screams.
Ella realized he must be speaking loudly to let her know he was there. Tears spilled down her face, and she wished she hadn’t started feeling hope that her ordeal might be behind her. It would only be harder to bear her next client. Lucifer knew her mission but didn’t know where she was. Nor did the rest of the team. The pimp they’d originally planned for her to spy on had sold her to Ice Tony, who’d immediately taken her phone.
But Lucifer might have sources of the team didn’t know about. Given his avocation of exchanging favors (she’d called him a freelance Godfather once, to which he’d sniffed and haughtily retorted that the Godfather was a two-bit knockoff of him), he could lay his hands on a lot of information others couldn’t.
Or he could simply be making the rounds of every house of ill repute in the city. Lucifer was often easily distracted, but when he had a goal, no one was more tenacious. Could his goal really be — her?
“I desire an introduction to a young woman who can provide me with an unusual experience,” Lucifer Morningstar was saying.
She couldn’t hear Ice Tony’s reply.
“Yes, that’s the type of thing I’m thinking of,” Lucifer said. “Now, understand: I would want to take her off your hands permanently. My appetite is quite prodigious…”
Tony interrupted, still speaking too quietly to understand.
“Oh, really?” Lucifer replied sardonically. “As much as that? Ah, but for the right one — as the advert says, ’priceless’.”
A key turned in the lock, and Ella didn’t dare breathe. Would it be the rescue she so desperately needed?
Ice Tony came into the room with her…her Lucifer. They were friends, fuckbuddies, something continually evolving. Lucifer could never be still, and Ella had so far loved where they’d traveled together, on Earth, in the Celestial realms, in their minds and hearts and bodies.
“Six foot three of sex on two legs,” she used to call him to her friends. Until she realized that made them want to make him their friend. He’d become their friend if he was so inclined anyway, of course. She knew better than to expect fidelity from him, or moderation in his sexual pursuits. But she did prefer having a little of his time for herself.
Only, now, if she came out of this alive, she didn’t know if she’d ever want to have sex again. With anyone.
She kept her head down, her face hidden by her long dark hair. Her pimp had let her keep that, even in her disgrace. Ella’s hair was a useful tool — for leverage when they fucked her from behind or throated her, or just to pull until she cried in pain.
“She is quite lovely,” Lucifer said to Ice Tony.
He tried to sound casual, but she knew him well enough to detect the slight tremor in his voice.
“I would certainly like to take her home with me,” he continued. Through the curtain of her hair she saw his hand slip into his jacket pocket. “Now, do you prefer a check or…”
“Not quite yet, Mr Morningstar,” Ice Tony said. “I’m sorry, but I must insist you sample the merchandise first. We have from time to time had an issue with the federales attempting stings.”
“Sample the merchandise.” Lucifer’s voice had gone dark with what Ella recognized as suppressed anger. “And how do you wish me to accomplish this?”
“You’ve got two choices,” Ice Tony said. “You can do it while I watch, or you can do it alone with her, but in that case we’ll record it. Just a little insurance for us, you understand. Oh, and you’ll need to take all your clothes off. So we can make sure you’re not wearing a wire.”
Ella saw Lucifer step closer to her pimp. “I don’t wish to perform sexually for you or your recording equipment, Mr Tony. But perhaps we can come to some other arrangement. Tell me — what is it you truly desire?”
She knew he was fixing Tony with his inescapable stare, pulling the truth out with his mysterious ability to know anyone’s deepest wants and needs.
But Ice Tony’s mind could hold only one idea at a time. “I would like nothing better than to watch you use this troublesome bitch and use her hard. I really get off on seeing her get hurt. And you, my friend, seem like someone who really enjoys hurting people.”
Ice Tony popped back to reality, released from Lucifer’s mesmeric gaze. Ella had the satisfaction of watching fear bloom on his face. He didn’t usually talk that way to clients.
She expected Lucifer to show anger at being characterized that way. And at first his body did tighten, his fists clench. But then, to her surprise, the tension seeped out of him. His shoulders slumped just a fraction and he cocked his head. His face, instead of expressing rage, held puzzlement. Sorrow. Even, if she could believe it, a little shame.
“You’re very observant, Mr Tony. I do like hurting people,” he admitted. “Although only those who deserve it because they hurt others. Dispensing justice is deeply important to me.”
“This one deserves it, Mr Morningstar.”
“I can see you’re convinced of that. Very well. I’ll let you watch me treat her the way I think she deserves. No recordings.”
“No recordings,” Ice Tony agreed.
Lucifer sauntered toward Ella.
Lucifer never sauntered. He was struggling to play it cool.
Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry, she told herself. But tears spilled from her eyes anyway.
Lucifer leaned over her and brushed the hair away from her face. “Crying already, my dear?” he said. He thumbed at her tears and brought the thumb to his mouth. She shuddered. She wanted to see it as the tender gesture it was, but she found herself imagining it done to her by someone who really wished to see her hurt.
“Don’t worry. I will make you feel good. I promise. And I’m a Devil of my word.”
He bent and kissed her forehead. His familiar scent enveloped her, making her feel safe for the first time in weeks.
Ice Tony, watching from a chair in the corner, guffawed. Ella saw relief pass over Lucifer’s face. She understood. Ice Tony couldn’t imagine his gentle words and touches used any way but cruelly, sarcastically, falsely. Not in this room.
But Lucifer meant every word. Lucifer never lied.
Lucifer slipped his hands behind her head and deftly removed the gag. Ella gasped with relief as her mouth was freed of the maddening device.
“I prefer you able to speak,” Lucifer was saying. ”And plead. And scream.”
He smiled one of his dangerous smiles, the one that usually meant You’re about to get the fucking of a lifetime. Ella’s body responded…but abruptly her gorge rose into her throat. She’d seen pale imitations of that smile on men for whom it was the prelude to a beating or humiliation, not a promise to bring her pleasure. Her response to Lucifer, the brightest joy in her world, was tainted.
Lucifer winced...and then anger flared on his face, just for an instant. Ella knew it was not directed at her. It made her feel a little better, knowing Lucifer was seething with rage on her behalf.
“She’s a screamer, alright,” Ice Tony put in. “You wanna know what she hates the most?”
“No, I do not,” Lucifer replied coldly. “I am quite capable of discovering it on my own.”
No lie there, either, Ella thought. Finding what people loved and hated the most was what he was best at.
“Alright, alright,” Ice Tony conceded.
Lucifer turned his gaze back to Ella. Her wrist was tied to her ankle and he grasped her fingers. “Now, do you consent to what’s about to happen?” he said. Tony might have found his tone mocking...Lucifer certainly intended him to, but Ella knew he was entirely sincere. “Do you trust me?” he finished.
When Ella and he had played certain games in the past, ones that left her without the use of her voice, Lucifer would make sure some of her fingers were touching him. One squeeze meant go and two meant stop.
She squeezed once. She didn’t want to do this. Not in front of her pimp. Not with her throat and pussy both raw from the abuse she’d suffered in this room. But the sooner they finished the “sampling,” the sooner they would be able to escape.
Ella knew it would be a good idea to create some melodrama for Tony’s entertainment. If he believed she was frightened, he’d spend his energy on lust and not suspicion. “What are you going to do to me?” Ella whimpered. “Please don’t hurt me.”
“Of course not. I always take care of my things.” Lucifer pitched his voice louder on that word. “But I’m told I need to fuck you here before I take you away to enjoy in private.”
He paused thoughtfully.
“And Mr Tony desires me to punish you,” he went on. “I would enjoy punishing you while I fuck you, you know, if you said you were willing.”
Memories flooded her.
“And since she’s not, you’ll enjoy it even more, eh?” Ice Tony chuckled.
“Mr Tony, you are on to something,” Lucifer said. His voice sounded dangerous again. “I do punish those who deserve it, whether they want me to or not. And I admit—” Ella could hear his toothy grin “—I confess I sometimes enjoy it when they don’t want me to.”
Ella could see Tony’s cock tenting his sweats now. “I was right about you,” he bragged to Lucifer. “You’re a sick fuck, aren’t you? I bet you know all sorts of ways to get a reluctant bitch to scream.” His voice had that hoarse quality it got when he was aroused.
Lucifer dropped Ella’s hand and walked across the room to Ice Tony, moving like a panther. With a forefinger, he lifted Tony’s chin.
“You have no idea.”
Tony visibly recoiled. Maybe Lucifer’s eyes had flashed red in the way that profoundly frightened most bad people.
“Soon you will have proof of my depravity,” Lucifer continued. “Until then, you will Shut. The. Fuck. Up.”
“Alright, alright,” Ice Tony whined fearfully. “Just trying to be friendly. One sick fuck to another.”
Lucifer ignored him. He strode back across the room and squatted by the fuck rack. He grabbed Ella by the hair, exactly as rough as she liked it, and kissed her hard, but briefly. “We’ll deal with him later,” he breathed into her mouth. “It’s just you and me now.”
Ella didn’t know if she could play it that way, but she squeezed once. She was willing to try.
Lucifer let go of her hair. He yanked her to the end of the bed and roughly pushed her knees apart.
“Beautiful,” he growled.
He began unbuttoning his shirt.
~~~
Lucifer was completely naked and Ella couldn’t take her eyes off him. The dusting of hair on his belly. The swell of his pecs, which she loved to grab at when he propped himself on his hands above her. His long legs.
As for what was between them, he was as aroused as he had ever been. Ella wasn’t sure what it meant.
What am I thinking? she chastised herself. Lucifer’s always hard and ready for me. He likes whips and restraints and playing with fear, but he doesn’t need them.
He was the most considerate lover she’d ever had, scrupulous to do exactly what he knew she wanted. One of her favorite games put him in the role of her rough and unrefined boy toy. It made such a contrast to the L.A. fashionista Lucifer with his silk suits and pocket squares. He played it to the hilt and seemed to love it.
“What do you want from your boy toy tonight?”
She usually knew what she’d say. “I want him to lick my clit until I beg,” or “I want him to take his cock out of his leather pants and put his hands behind his head.” But once she’d found herself saying “I want you to fuck me while I’m trying to fight you off.”
Once he’d decided she meant it, he’d done it with such zeal and purpose — even in her current predicament it made her shudder with arousal to think of it.
They swapped impressions later.
She loved that she could fight him with all her strength and skill, knowing she couldn’t really hurt him.
He loved how fierce she’d been. How long she’d held out.
She loved being inevitably overpowered, that moment of victory for both of them when he’d pinned her on her belly and thrust inside.
“When I got inside you at last, you were so fucking wet. I slid in like butter.”
“Scream for me,” he’d growled in her ear. His strong body on top of her, hips pumping at breakneck speed, hammering into her from behind. She had no choice; she let out a howl and her pussy clenched around his cock, unable to resist him. “Hell’s gates, you’re coming your fucking brains out,” he told her, what seemed like hours later. “I can’t hold back any more…” and then he was coming his fucking brains out too.
So she knew that the greatest pleasure for him that night was giving her pleasure. What she’d never known was: had he ever actually wanted to take her against her will?
And if so, did he want that now? Would Tony’s demand feed the darker part of him that she knew was there (now more than ever)? What did it mean, that he enjoyed punishment? Was it about just desserts — or did he also love causing pain and fear for its own sake, just because he could?
And then she knew. She felt it in the way he trembled as he grabbed her ankles and yanked her toward him. She saw it in his eyes. He tried to hide his feelings, but she knew him. She was helpless and vulnerable in a way she didn’t want. He was going to fuck her anyway, and he loved it. It scared him how much he loved it. And it made him hate himself.
It might traumatize him more than me, she realized.
Lucifer slid two long, slender fingers inside her.
Ella moaned. He was trying to arouse her, and she didn’t want that. She wanted it dry and hard and fast and finished. She wanted it to be everything their previous encounters were not. “Please,” she said. “Fuck me now.”
His glance at her was hooded. Almost cold. “As you desire.”
He gripped her hips hard and yanked her onto his cock, grinding into her. He felt huge. He was splitting her apart and it hurt. She groaned in pain. Lucifer didn’t stop to check in with her, as he had always done in the past when she made that sound. He kept at it. Trying to give her what she wanted, even though she didn’t want it. Even though she winced and whimpered.
He abruptly stopped. He wasn’t all the way in, but she felt stretched and skewered.
“Good enough to prove I’m not a fedérale?” he said to Ice Tony, his voice tight.
Ice Tony was enjoying this far too much. And Ice Tony was greedy.
“No, man. She’s gotta make you come. Otherwise I’d be providing you shoddy merchandise, right?”
Lucifer growled.
He often growled in her ear, a gleeful sound of effort and lust and triumph he let out when he was taking her hard, pounding her until she writhed and screamed and drenched him with come. Then he’d pause, still buried deep, and grin down at her. “Would you like another, Ms Lopez?” He loved to call her Ms Lopez when he was fucking her.
This was not that sound. This was a growl of rage and despair.
“Your boss wants me to come. That means I’m going to have to make you come too.”
She’d never quite grasped that about him before. But it was true. He only came right after she did.
He gripped her hand, and it was her only clue that something of Lucifer was still in there.
“No, please,” she blurted. She couldn’t imagine anything worse than the humiliation of coming in front of Ice Tony.
But she squeezed Lucifer’s hand only once.
Next thing she knew, the painful pressure of his cock in her dry cunt was gone. His tongue was there instead, bathing her, soothing the rawness. His lips closed around her clit and he sucked her.
Moments later his fingers were inside her again, unerringly targeting her pleasure spots with gentle but insistent pressure. She could feel herself getting wetter by the second, a tidal wave building inside her.
“No, please. I can’t…please don’t make me…” Ella begged, although she knew it was too late. Too late for both of them.
“I’m making you,” Lucifer whispered. He flicked his tongue lightly over her aching clit. Curled his fingers inside her. “Then you’ll be sopping wet, and I’ll slide into you so sweet and easy. Bring you on my cock. When I feel your pussy clutching me, I’m going to cream so hard.”
The filthy talk was what Ella needed, taking her over the edge. She convulsed around his fingers, clit pulsing against his tongue. She screamed bloody murder. Lucifer had stopped fucking her anywhere but his soundproofed penthouse, because sometimes law enforcement paid a visit.
Ice Tony didn’t know it was a scream of pleasure. He’d never heard her expressing pleasure. He growled with satisfaction. “Hurt the bitch good.”
Ella heard him, but Lucifer was pushing into her then, thick cock stretching her cunt wide, claiming every millimeter. It was just as sweet and easy as he’d said. She moaned in pleasure again, narrowly avoiding saying his name and “God.”
“Fuck yeah.” Ice Tony came closer for a better view. “Wish I’d known she could be such a sweet squealer if you hurt her right. You don’t mind if I have her once more before you take her home, right?”
He grabbed her breast and squeezed hard. Ella shrieked, not in pleasure this time.
With a roar, Lucifer backhanded him. Ella saw him fly through the air, heard him crash against the far wall.
They could run now, she realized. No one came to investigate loud sounds coming from this room.
But Lucifer kept fucking her. Filling her up so good. She was teetering on the edge.
“Lucifer,” she hissed. “Stop!”
Ella struggled, but Lucifer’s grip on her was like iron, impossible to escape. He seemed entirely taken over by whatever mixture of rage and lust was coursing through him.
And it was sucking her down too. She was furious, pulling at the ropes around her wrists, trying to get her arms loose so she could hit him. But she was also writhing in pleasure as Lucifer’s cock burrowed inside her again and again. Never faltering, he leaned over her and pulled at the rope binding her wrist to her ankle. It snapped.
One arm freed, Ella pushed at his chest, and when that didn’t work, she punched his ear.
He grabbed her arm and pinned it over her head, but casually, like an afterthought, like waving away a fly. “Ella…your sweet, tight cunt…” He groaned. “Come for me. Come on my cock. Now.”
Her body obeyed him, like it always did. He kept pumping into her, and she climaxed hard, pleasure stabbing through her like a knife with every thrust. She felt furious and helpless, but that only made her come harder than ever.
Then Lucifer was coming too. Also harder than ever, also angry as fuck, if his swearing and yelling were any indication, or how fiercely his hips slammed into hers.
Their mutual explosion seemed to go on forever. But finally Lucifer pulled out of her. Then he was sawing at the ropes binding her, with a knife he’d grabbed from a shelf full of implements of torture. As Ella battled with her dizziness, she heard sounds of violence at the back of the room. A still-naked Lucifer was crouching over Ice Tony and repeatedly punching him in the face.
“Stop it!” she yelled. “I have a case against these people! They don’t need vigilante justice!”
“Perhaps not, but I need to dispense it.” Lucifer replied in a hoarse, raspy voice very unlike his usual one.
But he got up and took a couple of steps away from the bloodied pimp. The knife was still clutched in his left fist. At least he hadn’t been striking Ice Tony with that.
Ella shrieked when she saw his face. It was scarred all over and his skin was a hideous shade of red. But as she watched, it transformed to his usual features. The crimson color of his eyes lingered a few seconds longer.
“I need to get out of here,” Ella said, in a voice far firmer than she felt inside. “Eventually someone will come investigate. If they catch me they’ll figure out I’m a cop. They’ll find the evidence and destroy it, and then they’ll destroy me. I didn’t spend three weeks being undercover as a whore for nothing. Dispense justice if you must, but I want you to come with me instead.”
Lucifer stared at her, his face tight.
A sob suddenly forced its way out of Ella’s throat.
“Please, Lucifer. I need you.”
She’d never said those words before. Many times, she’d seen Lucifer recoil when something was demanded of him. He preferred to grant his favors as the mood struck him.
On the face of it, it didn’t make sense. She knew where Ice Tony kept the phones he confiscated from his bitches. The plan all along had been for her to call the LVMPD for extraction once she had the evidence. As for Lucifer, he could be more useful in other ways. With Ice Tony’s phone, he could track down other crime ring members. There was no time to waste; they probably had prearranged signals, and if Tony didn’t check in, the rest would get suspicious. They could bolt at any time.
But Ella knew in her whole being that they couldn’t separate from each other now. Not if they wanted to come out of this ordeal whole. Lucifer was no longer inside her body, but they were tied together by a spiderweb of memories and regrets, anger and recrimination. They needed more than physical healing.
She needed him. It was the truth. And she owed him the truth. Even if she had to risk destroying their relationship to chance saving it.
“You need me?” Lucifer said. A little blood — Ice Tony’s she presumed — spattered his naked chest and face. There was a lot more on his knuckles. It stood out in contrast to his skin, which had become, so it seemed to Ella in her addled state, a little luminescent.
She nodded.
“Where do you desire to go?”
Ella realized she hadn’t thought it through. She opened her mouth, having no idea what would come out of it. She felt the pull of Lucifer’s mojo.
“Away,” she said. “A better place. Just for a little while.”
It didn’t seem like she’d really answered his question. But Lucifer didn’t ask her to clarify. There was an indescribable expression on his face. Pain…and wonder.
He gasped and cried out.
Ella tried to go to him, but he leapt back.
“No! Stay back and cover your eyes, Ella,” he shouted urgently.
It was one of the most difficult things she’d done. Ella hid her face in her hands.
She felt a flash of heat against the front of her body. She cried out in terror of being burned, but the next instant she there was only delicious warmth. Brightness seeped through her fingers.
“Safe now,” came Lucifer’s voice, sounding strained.
Ella opened her eyes.
The angel was naked. Wings spread open from his back, each one at least six feet long. They were what was emitting the light, as bright and warm as the sun on Venice beach at the height of summer.
The angel’s right hand was covered with blood.
Emotions chased each other across his face. Joy. Anger. Bewilderment.
“Morningstar…” said Ella. “But I thought you’d gotten rid of your wings.”
“So did I,” winged Lucifer said. “But here they are. And now I can take us to the better place you desire to go.” He held out his hand.
Dazed, Ella went into his arms.
~~~
The air smelled so sweet. That was the first thing Ella noticed after Lucifer set her down among the trees and she felt the soft grass between her toes.
She remembered Lucifer picking her up in his arms, and a sudden sense of ascent. She heard the sound of great wings beating the air. Then there was no more motion, just a sense of weightlessness, and her vision was obscured by soft white light, her body caressed by feathers — he had enfolded her.
“Where are we?”
She saw no signs of human habitation. But at the same time, the surroundings were pristine in a way virgin forests on Earth were not. She heard birds, but underlying all the nature, there was a hush. A sense of potential.
“Away. A better place,” Lucifer replied, quoting her words back at her. “Where you desired to go.”
“This isn’t…Heaven, is it?”
Lucifer chuckled, a tad sourly. “Far from it. Wings or no wings, I’m barred from going home. For good.”
What must that be like, Ella wondered.
They wandered through the trees, Lucifer letting Ella pick where to go. He kept reaching up to knock at the low-hanging branches.
“This place is still in the Celestial realms, though,” Lucifer continued. “In fact, this is the only place in the Celestial realms I am able to go, other than Hell. I believe my wings returned because it’s time I paid a visit. My desire and yours coincided, and combined, they were strong enough to bring back my wings.”
“Wow,” was all Ella could think of to say. She was just a scrappy gal from Detroit. She thought she could handle herself on an undercover assignment, and she’d been so wrong. But she ended up…here?
“Figured out where we are yet?” Lucifer’s grin was wider now.
“Where, Luci?”
Lucifer held out his hand. There was an apple in it.
“It’s the place where sin was born.”
~~~
“So this place has been here all along, since Adam and Eve were kicked out?”
“My dear old Dad has never deigned to explain why, but the prevailing theory among my siblings is that it stays as a cautionary reminder never to get too comfortable. Anyone could get kicked out at any time. That’s why they don’t like visiting it.”
“But you do?”
“I already got kicked out,” Lucifer said. “And, the place holds memories.”
“Oh, of course. Eve…what was she like?”
Lucifer chuckled darkly. “We made some beautiful sin together.” Then he became more serious. “But we weren’t good for each other, Ella. We goaded each other on to darker and darker places. As much as I hate to admit it, because Amenadiel would never let me hear the end of it — I need good people in my life. People who will tell me when I go too far.”
Ella squeezed the hand that wasn’t holding an apple.
“And I hate that, Ella. Because I’m hard on the people around me. Eventually I hurt them. Every one of them. Sometimes beyond repair. Ella, I hurt you. And I’m so ashamed.”
Lucifer hurled the apple away. Ella could hear it crashing through the trees. He plopped down onto the ground, reminding her of nothing else but her three year old baby brother after he’d pulled the kitten’s tail and it had run away from him. Although Lucifer’s weeping was quieter.
Ella didn’t know what to do.
She couldn’t lie to him. He had hurt her. The physical hurt didn’t matter. What scared her was seeing that lust on his face, the expression of hunger not for her pleasure but for her unwillingness.
She’d known Lucifer was no saint. But that he could want that…and from a friend…like her…
The circumstances, she reminded herself. He was compelled to do it. She’d asked him to do it. To get it over with.
But she couldn’t forget the cold satisfaction in his eyes.
How many others?
Did she want to know the answer? Because if she asked, he would tell her.
Lucifer had stopped weeping. He sat cross-legged on the grass, face pointed away from her. It was so unnatural. Lucifer never avoided looking at anyone or anything. Well. Except himself.
He was turning another apple over in his hands. He took a bite.
“Bitter,” he said.
Ella plopped down on the ground a few feet away from him.
“It’s so beautiful here,” she remarked. “It makes me kind of mad at the Big Guy.”
“Why?” Lucifer asked, turning his head halfway toward her.
“One mistake, and he throws them out. And ever since then, no humans have ever visited, right? Or maybe you’ve brought others here, but hardly any.”
“I’ve never brought anyone here before.”
“All this beauty. This hope. This potential. All wasted. All empty. I feel like, if we could see it, see it even once in our lifetimes, even in a dream — well, we might be better people. But here it sits, closed to everyone except…well, you.”
“It hasn’t made me better,” Lucifer remarked.
“How do you know, Lucifer? What kind of a person you might have been without the time you spent here, the things you learned from Eve?”
“My father was right about one thing, Ella.” He tapped his chest. “There’s a darkness in me. For all I know, if he hadn’t thrown me out, it would have spread to the whole of the Silver City.”
“Of course there’s darkness in you,” Ella retorted. It was so clear, all of a sudden. “You’re the Lightbringer. There’s no light without darkness.”
He turned to look her in the face then, his lips parted, his brow furrowed.
“When the Big Guy cast you out, maybe he protected Heaven from the darkness you carry. But he also deprived it of your light. Why?“
Lucifer took another bite of the bitter apple.
“All the lost souls, looping through their guilt and failures forever. I was drawn to them. I asked my Dad over and over. Why did he leave them no hope? Do you know what he said? ‘Someday, son, you’ll understand.’ No. I refuse to play the game of ‘read Daddy’s mind.’”
When Ella saw it in her mind, it didn’t come with a blinding flash of revelation. It was quiet recognition of something that had been there all along.
“But Lucifer. That’s not what he meant. Don’t you see?”
Lucifer glared at her. “No, I don’t.
“He didn’t have a secret reason he was keeping from you until you were mature enough. He doesn’t know why Hell turned out that way. When he said you’d understand some day, he meant you will be the one to discover the reason. And once you know, you’ll be able to fix it. You’ll be the one bringing hope to Hell!”
She thought Lucifer would be excited, or at least intrigued, by the idea. But he just slumped his shoulders.
“It’s a lovely thought, Ella. But it’s not true. It would mean my dear old Dad had faith in me. He never has, and he never will.”
Ella jumped up and began pummeling Lucifer’s shoulders. “You dummy, no. It’s not the Big Guy who has no faith in you. It’s you! It’s like you have your own Hell loop.”
Lucifer caught her wrists. There was such anger on his face, Ella expected him to hurl her away from him. But no, she realized then. It wasn’t anger. It was pain.
He let go of her wrists, and she grabbed his hand, which he permitted.
“Ella, I’m a punisher, not a healer. How can I bring hope to lost souls? I hurt people. It’s what I do.”
“It’s what we all do. But it’s not the only thing we do, including you. You accepted me into your life. Into your bed. You bring me pleasure every time I spend time with you. I always go away feeling more whole than before. Healed. You grant people their deepest desires. Those aren’t hurtful acts.”
“I try to rescue you from kidnappers. But instead of bringing you away safely, I…I took something from you. Against your will.”
“You did what needed to be done, in a situation where there was no easy thing to do. Yes, you revealed something about yourself you didn’t want me to see. And I didn’t want to see it either. But it doesn’t define you, Lucifer, and what you took doesn’t define me. Or us, as far as I am concerned. We’ve got some tender spots now, but we will heal. I have faith in you. Do you believe in me too?”
“Ella, I believe you’re a better angel than all of my sibs put together. If you have faith in me, maybe that make up for my lack of it, at least for a little while.”
“Can you take us home now?” Ella said, feeling exhaustion wash over her. “I think I’ve taken in enough knowledge today to last me several lifetimes.”
~~~
Lucifer greeted Ella as she stepped out of the elevator to his penthouse. He was wearing her favorite outfit of his: a red and black silk robe, belted tight enough around his waist that she could tell he had nothing on underneath.
“How has your week been?” he asked her, handing her a tumbler of whisky on ice.
The liquid slid down her throat with a sweet burn. She shared the good news. “Almost the entire crime ring taken down. My cats now deign to recognize me after I abandoned them to their pet-sitter for three weeks. Bruises and abrasions are almost gone. Doctor assured me I’ll have no permanent damage from the ordeal. He cleared me for…well. I didn’t ask him about everything I plan to do to you tonight. But the gist is, I’m up for pretty much anything.”
Lucifer’s eyes lit up, and Ella felt a thrill of desire spreading through her. So he wanted to atone to her, after she’d had a chance to heal. She’d known exactly what to suggest.
Ella set down the empty glass. She used the voice that had always made her brothers scared of her.
“Are you sorry?”
“Abjectly,” Lucifer said in his most sultry tone of voice.
“Strip.”
The robe slithered off his shoulders and pooled on the floor. She ran her hands down his muscular chest.
“Oh your knees.”
She’d always been amused that the mighty Lord of Hell was such a natural at this. He knelt before her, thighs spread, hands behind his head.
Ella flipped up her skirt, knowing that Lucifer could see how wet she’d become thinking of this moment.
He let out a quiet whimper of desire.
“Make me come on your tongue,” she told him.
After that, she was going to cuff him to the bed and ride him. Her climax always made him come too.