The flavor was pungent, fruity at first with a mild burn as it slid down my gullet, with a bitter aftertaste of leather and smoke.
“Oh.” My lashes fluttered, and I sat back in my chair, letting the liquid fill me with a warmth I’d never experienced from any alcohol.
It tasted like a memory I didn’t have, almost…melancholy.
I pushed the glass away with a shiver. “Are they all going to taste like that?”
Lucifer watched me intently, almost with a pained look in his eye. “No. But they will all invoke some kind of emotion.”
“Couldn’t we just have a normal dinner? Cheeseburgers and a movie, maybe? Then we can get onto the weird stuff like talking about you buying my heart.”
He canted his head with a smirk. “I’m notbuyingyour heart, Jessica. In any case, when have you ever settled for normal?”
The question took me aback. He was right. Fuck normal. Normal was boring. In my case, normal was painful. It usually involved situations others would find uncomfortable, but where I felt at ease.
Even now, I felt oddly calm when I was half expecting my heart to be one of the courses for tonight. Heck, maybe that’s what Lucifer meant by me being dessert. At the very least, I had to expect that he might try to poison or drug me.
The devil gave a purr-like chuckle and sent my flesh into another outbreak of goosebumps.
My blood froze in my veins as I caught the look on his face and realized he’d managed to catch the thoughts I’d just had.
Chapter Ten
Jess
Lucifer took a casual sip of his wine, with a look etched into his face like we were discussing something mundane like the weather. “If I didn’t have such a fantastic sense of humor, I might be offended by your thoughts.”
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t dig around in my head.”
“I don’t poison the things I covet, Jessica. That’s just common sense.”
My cheeks flared with heat, and surprisingly, it had little to do with the wine.
I wanted to ask him again, why me? Why was he doing all this for me? The dress, the fancy meal, the offer to save my dad? What did he have to gain by owning my heart? To him, I should have been a nobody.
So why was I filled with the overwhelming sensation that I was anything but?
Lucifer looked like he wanted to say something, but the enigmatic devil held his tongue, taking another sip of his wine.
“So erm, what’s the second dish inspired by the Second Layer of Hell going to be like? Oysters? Something decadent with chocolate?” I asked the question with placid enthusiasm, trying to fill the silence.
“Actually, I believe it’s soup,” he murmured, the corner of his mouth tugging into a shadow of a smile, almost like there was a joke I wasn’t picking up on.
My nose crinkled. “The dish inspired by Lust is…soup?”
“It’s cold and blustery in the Second Circle. The former Queen of Hell once recommended I set up a restaurant over Lust that serves soup.”
“The former Queen of Hell? Is that…Eve?”
He coughed, like my question caught him off guard. “No. Eve’s simply an ex-girlfriend. We never married. The former queen as in Abaddon’s ex-wife.”
“Oh. She must have been an interesting character.” She would have had to been to put up with that asshole.
Lucifer’s answering chuckle turned into a sharp exhale, his golden gaze swirling with molten heat. “She was the most interesting person I’d ever met.”
“That must be some compliment coming from Lucifer Morningstar.”
“It is.” He gave a pause. “You’re wondering what happened with her and Abaddon.”
