How to Seduce an Angel in 10 Days (22 page)

She slipped a hand between them to bring herself off, but his fingers covered hers. Tally took control again and used his hand to come. She pushed his fingers inside her and if he hadn’t already come twice, he would have been ready to fuck her again from the sensation of her body pulling his fingers deeper inside.

His fingers were covered in her sweetness and he wanted another taste, but she was riding his hand, seeking her own release again. Falcon tugged her down to him and kissed her hard, his tongue pushing past the seam of her moist lips and exploring the cavern of her mouth. She made soft mewling sounds against the onslaught, but he didn’t stop. He crashed into her again and increased the pressure and the pace until she was writhing and screaming his name.

“It would serve you right if I buried my face between your thighs this very moment,” Falcon said in a ragged whisper.

Tally collapsed and nestled herself in the crook of his arm. “I can take it.”

“Not for another thirty minutes.” He cringed, thinking how sore his cock was going to be.

“Why do they always have so much sex in books, but in real life, it seems once is enough?”

“A real man gets it done right the first time.”

“We did it twice.”

“As a real man, I’m not averse to practice.”

Just as Falcon believed everything was going to be okay, he realized Tally’s fears weren’t to be taken lightly. Something wrenched at his insides and the blissful expression on Tally’s face was more than postcoital ecstasy—it was the same one she wore when he made her come.

“So good,” she sighed.

It morphed from a tugging in his gut to outright pain, a hundred knives flaying him. Fear welled in a fountain from the most primal part of him—the thing that every man dreaded deep inside—that this woman would devour him. Yet, his fear was founded in truth.

This was his sacrifice to be with her, he realized. He’d meant every word he’d said. She’d sacrificed so much, been through so much, and he hadn’t been there to slay the dragon. He had the power of regeneration, but he wasn’t sure how that worked with this creature she’d become.

In that moment, Falcon surrendered. He opened himself to whatever she wanted to take from him.

That was the miracle of love: His heart would never run out, never be empty. There was always more. A new kind of bliss washed over him, and eased his pain. It was like cold water on a burn and he was prepared to follow it as deeply as need be.

The connection between them was severed with a snap that jarred him into reality. The horror that twisted Tally’s lovely face told him everything she was thinking.

“It’s okay, Tally. I’m fine.”

“No.” She shook her head slowly, as if that would somehow make it all go away as she scrambled away from him. “ No. ”

“It’s what you are. I accept you. Love is endless. Boundless. You can’t hurt me. Take all you need.” He held out his hand to her.

“No, that’s not true. It’s part of the lamia’s power to make you think that. It’s—”

“Drusilla. You are the lamia, now. It’s part of
you
.”

“That’s why we can’t be together.” With those words, Tally ran back up to the beach house and all Falcon could do was let her go.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Love in the Time of Lust

T
ally felt that a part of Falcon was still inside her.

His essence filled her up, sated her, and made her hungry for more all at once.

She’d felt what he’d felt in those moments she’d been taking from him. His fear was bitter ash, but there was something beneath that. The truth of his words. The bright beacon of his love for her. The breadth and depth of his love was more than she could fathom—seemingly eternal and endless.

He’d struggled when she first started taking from him and she’d tried to stop, but couldn’t, not until he surrendered. That acceptance of what was happening had jackhammered through her haze of pleasure to make her very aware of what she was doing.

And it was all Tally.

The thing inside her, its voice was quiet and still. She couldn’t blame it for what she’d done. Only herself. She’d known better and she’d slept with him anyway.

Because Falcon fed more than the lamia—more than any supernatural hunger. He fed her heart, her soul, her very self.

Again, she was reminded of the nature of sacrifice and redemption—the kind of witch she wanted to be. But she wasn’t a witch anymore, was she? Drusilla Tallow was a Crown Princess of Hell, the embodiment of Lust. It was in her nature now to want, to desire. Yes, it was better she part from Falcon now. Her heart only wanted Falcon Cherrywood, but what about the rest of her? What about her demon magick? Would Lust be content with only one lover for eternity?

“You’re giving up, Tally,” Ethelred said from Luminista’s bedroom.

“Says he who just obliterated the Powers That Be.” Tally snorted and leaned against the doorway, his familiar presence actually comforting to her.

Ethelred shook his head. “No, Uriel stopped me.” He flexed his fingers in the thin nightgown that had been spread across Luminista’s bed. “I allowed the deities themselves to leave with only a ward on their magick.”

“Why?”

“He’s an angel.” Ethelred shrugged and looked at his hands for a moment, still buried in that soft nightgown. Then he looked back up at Tally, his eyes raging with the fires of Hell. “But I will still have my vengeance.”

“On me?” Tally asked.

“Why would you think I want vengeance on you?
What did you do?
” he asked, although it was obvious he already knew.

“You know what I did. I broke Emilian’s curse. I killed him.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered if it wasn’t for Cupid and his fucking self-righteous arrow, would it?” he snarled.

“Oh, I see. You’re going to hurt me to punish Cupid for giving you Luminista, only for you to lose her.”

“Glad you understand.”

“I do. More than you know, Ethelred. For all the lessons you’re so quick to hand out, this one is yours. We, humans, witches, all of us with the capacity to love also have the capacity for the pain you’re feeling right now. And we feel it every day. All of those little accidents you like to engineer? People lose the ones they love because of you.”

“But it makes them great!” His flames licked the bed around him, crawling up the wall.

“How do you know this isn’t to make
you
great, Ethelred?”

He roared, the flames reaching out to her, enveloping her, but she didn’t feel the fire. “Don’t you spew the company line at me, little girl.”

“Then put away the horns and the tail. We’re working for the same company now.” Tally revealed her crown and her wings.

“Damn you.”

“Damn me? No, Ethelred. Damn
you
. You can take that same objectivity and shine it on yourself. Can’t accept that sharp knife digging into your soft places?”

“She’s dead, Tally! Do you know what that means?”

“Yeah, I know what that means. Do you? Do you really? What you’re feeling now is pain. And it’s all yours. You want someone to blame? There’s no one to blame. Just Fate. Just another spoke on The Great Wheel.”

“I don’t feel this, Drusilla. This is not me. This is not . . . I’m a demon. I was born a demon, not with all of this putrid humanity.”

“Now you get to roll in shit with the rest of us.” Tally sat down on the bed with him as the flames receded, leaving the room as it had been.

“It’s not fair.”

“It rarely is.”

“I hate Love.”

“Hate Love if you want, but don’t hate Falcon.”

“He did this to me!” Ethelred said again as if Tally just didn’t grasp the concept.

“You did this to you. Remember, we have to take responsibility for ourselves. You told me that. He doesn’t get his Happily Ever After. I’m the Angel of Lust now and I’ve got all the baggage that comes with the title.”

“Good,” Ethelred growled, still looking at his feet.

Tally leaned on his shoulder.

“Stop that.” He was suddenly scandalized instead of raging. “We’re not friends.”

“Yes, we are. You just don’t know it yet. You changed my life, Ethelred. You did everything that you said Hell is supposed to do. You pushed me. You made me become greater than I was. So now you’re stuck with me.”

“I could end you,” he said, without conviction.

“Maybe you could. Maybe you couldn’t.” She sighed. “But if you did, I would forgive you.”

He shoved her off him. “That burns, Drusilla. Why would you go and say a thing so horrible? Forgiveness? Are you sure you’re a Crown Princess of Hell?”

“Yeah. You’re the one who told me Hell is relative.”

“And I regret it. I hate you.”

“No, you just
want
to hate me.”

“Look, I don’t like this teacher becomes the student bullshit. I don’t have time for it. I’m angry. I want someone to pay. I don’t want redemption. I don’t need it. I’m a fucking demon.”

“Yes, you’re a demon. Why do you feel like you need to keep reminding
me
of that fact? I’m not a witch anymore.”

“Shut up.”

“Okay.”

“Still talking,” he grumbled.

“Yep.”

He sighed. “Might as well make some tea.”

“Hey, Tally, I thought I heard—” Emilian stood in the doorway. But there was something more on his face than surprise when he saw Ethelred. “You.”

“Luminista,” Ethelred mumbled in return. “But you’re not you. You’re him. And you. And him,” he said dumbly.

“One soul instead of two,” Emilian said.

Tally realized they had a lot to discuss and she backed out of the room quietly toward her own. She didn’t know how they were going to work it out, but it was obvious that when Emilian had been resurrected, the two halves of the twins’ soul had been joined. Ethelred saw Luminista, or some piece of her, looking back at him from Emilian’s eyes.

What was Tally supposed to do now? Was she supposed to fly around and inspire lust? Was she supposed to make deals and sign contracts for souls? Was she supposed to stay in the mortal world? All of these questions fogged her brain like a sandstorm, little gravelly bits worming into her soft places.

But the most important one of all was more than uncomfortable sand gravel and it would be a billion years before Tally could make that pain into a pearl.

How was she supposed to live without Falcon?

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Conversations with Kali

F
alcon Cherrywood may have let Tally run, but he was not going to lose his woman.

He didn’t give a good damn about what she needed to take from him. She could have it. He loved Tally, everything about her. Love meant accepting all of her. He’d admit, knowing that she was no longer a girl of sugar and spice and everything nice was a little intimidating, but Tally had always been more snakes, and snails, and puppy dog tails. So, a Crown Princess of Hell really wasn’t that much of a leap. It scared him at first that she could feed off their sexual energy.

Living without her scared him more.

He remembered Kali saying she’d given the gift of the succubus and the lamia to many of her devotees who wished to remain untouched. If she could give the gift, then perhaps she had some advice for Tally on how to live with it.

Falcon had willed himself to materialize in one of her temples. He made it a point to hide his wings—there would be profound religious implications if an angel appeared in Kali’s temple.

Thankfully, it was empty, though incense offerings burned, making the air thick and sweet.

��Mother Kali, I ask you to bless me with your presence,” Falcon said humbly. He didn’t actually expect her to appear, but he hoped against hope she’d come. Or send him smoke signals, or a pictogram in some chapati—it didn’t matter. He didn’t know what else to do.

“Ask and you shall receive, Cupid,” a deep, yet still feminine voice responded.

Falcon looked up to see a woman with dark skin in a dress of crimson rose petals. Her skin had been red in the Hall of Gods; now, it looked like black marble. Power thrummed through the room and Falcon bowed at the waist and presented his own offering of marigolds.

She accepted them with a smile. “So polite. I see you even took the time to research what I’d like. What is it you want from me? Have you come to ask me to take the lamia out of your little witch?”

“No. As easy as it would be, I wouldn’t ask that. Tally gave her word.”

“Interesting. Then what?”

“How does she get past her hunger?”

Kali laughed and the bells tinkled with her mirth. “You don’t want it to go away for always, only when you want to have sex.”

“It doesn’t need to go away. I just want her to believe that she won’t hurt me.”

She laughed some more.

“Kali, I’ve told her it doesn’t matter to me. She doesn’t believe me.”

“I wouldn’t, either,” Kali replied. “What are you going to do if I have no answer for you?”

He sighed. “I don’t know. Be that guy in her bushes? I can’t let her go.”

She snorted. “I’m sorry, I know this is serious, but you’re too funny.”

“Now I know what Tally meant.”

Kali laughed harder. “Oh, you’re wonderful, Cupid. Really. You’re a good man and I can see you do love her. Are you sure you don’t want me to banish the lamia? I can do that, you know.”

“No, no. The lamia kept its end of the bargain and Tally made her bargain in good faith. I won’t interfere with that.”

“Are you afraid to kiss her?”

“No, why would I be?”

“That’s the question of the hour, isn’t it?” Kali grinned. “Are you afraid if she wants to give you oral sex?”

“No,” he said hesitantly, unsure of where this was going.

“You’re not afraid she’ll bite you? You don’t fear her mouth? The lamia uses Tally’s body the same way. To take nourishment. If you would let her lick whipped cream off you, then you have nothing to fear from the lamia. Only it eats your life force instead of whipped cream. And with you, I imagine it would be your sexual energy. Of which you have plenty to spare.”

“Kali, you mistake me. I don’t fear her or what she would take from me.
She
does. She thinks she’ll hurt me, but I’ve told her Love is eternal.”

“And so it is.” Kali smiled. “She needs to believe that. Understand it. You must prove it to her.”

“How do I do that?” Falcon asked, at a loss.

“Take her home to the people who love her. Women, are at their core, the same. All we want is to be loved. A simple concept, but not so simple in execution.”

“Thank you, Kali.”

“Now, go get your woman before the Powers That Be can mobilize. You should know they won’t take what’s happened lying down. They’ll blame Tally as much or maybe even more than Ethelred. You, too. Love gets blamed for everything.” Kali kissed him on the cheek and marigold petals began to drift down from the ceiling in blessing. “Take her some flowers when you go. Try foliage before kidnapping.”

“I wasn’t—” Falcon started, but the look on Kali’s face told him that she knew exactly what he’d had planned and didn’t care for it. “Okay, I was. I don’t know how else to make her listen to me.”

“Try listening to what she says first. Really hear it. Don’t just wait for her to be done talking so you can say what you want to say.”

“She keeps running away.”

“Well, then maybe you’ll have to kidnap her after all.” Kali winked at him as the marigold petals continued to fall. The petals of her dress began to blow away and with it, the vision of Kali herself.