For a few minutes we were both silent, our nearly tandem breaths the only sound to fall around us. Then finally, Belial spoke, his velvety voice echoing off every polished surface in the room. “Is this what you wanted?”
I smirked, trailing my fingers up his thigh, enjoying the way his muscles flexed beneath my touch. “Well, my bath’s back at home don’t usually involve a sexy, masked demon. Or me almost drowning because said demon has an intense asphyxiation kink. Or me stabbing anyone. But this is better… I think.”
“You think?”
I settled my head against his shoulder, while shrugging my own. “There’s a part of me that feels safe with you.”
“But?” He asked, anticipating the next word out of my mouth.
“But,I’m anticipating the knife in my back.”
A soft chuckle tickled the column of my neck, his hand coming up to idly twirl the baby hairs at my nape around his finger. On the next breath his fingers curved around my throat to clamp over my collar.
“If that’s the case, why are you naked in the bath with me? With your back to me…” He leaned forward, his hard chest pressing into my shoulder blades. My breath hitched when his arm banded around my waist under the water and pulled me into his lap. He wasveryhard. “And your ass pressed against my cock. Not exactly a good position for you to fend off any potential attacks.”
His words had every reason to spike my suspicion, but there was no hiding the amusement in his voice. Like I was telling a joke.
“You know the saying. Keep your friends close, your enemies closer. I feel like I can’t completely let my guard down around you.”
“Smart girl,” he chuckled, that smile still in his voice. I’d come to love that smile, even if I’d never seen it beyond the small peek I got every now and again through the slit in his mask.
I turned my head, catching his stormy gaze. “So I’m right not to trust you?”
“I didn’t say that,” he replied with a bend in his tone I couldn’t parse.
“You still haven’t taken your mask off for me. Even in the bath. What are you hiding?”
His muscles tensed against me. “Scars.”
“That’s specific,” I said with a frustrated sigh. I knew he wasn’t lying, but he was being vague as hell. I’d surmised as much because I could see his scared lips, but I wanted to know whatelsehe was hiding.
“I’ll let you see other parts of me, Rayven. The parts I don’t show anyone else.” He brushed my hair back away from my face with his wet fingers, sending tingles down my spine.
“I’ve already seen your dick.” Felt it too, by the way it was jabbing into my ass. Not that I was complaining.
He gave a dark chuckle in my ear, the nose of his mask brushing against the edge of my jaw. “I’m not talking about that. I mean parts of me on the inside. Things about me no one else knows.”
I blinked, casting him a curious sideways glance. Christ, he was so handsome. The warmth of the bath made his skin slick with sweat, which gleamed in the firelight. “Like what?”
His eyes banked with thought. “No one else knows about my…” he paused, seeming to choose his words carefully. “Carnal preferences. No one knows how fucked up I am.”
“You’re kinky. So what,” I said, trying to sound unimpressed, even as my body flushed with heat. “Tell me a secret. Something you’ve never told anyone.”
He thought for another moment. “Belphegor, one of the Lord of Bones’ brothers, is a shapeshifter. One of his favorite forms is that of a beautiful woman. He once seduced another brother, Asmodeus, the Lord of Lechery.”
My brows hiked up close to my hairline. “How do you know that?”
“I know a lot of shit. I travel all the Styx and see all sorts of things others don’t.”
“Well, that’s interesting. Also, gross.” I giggled. “But that doesn’t tell me anything aboutyou.”
Belial sighed, probably realizing I wasn’t giving up so easily. I was determined to find out more about him. “Alright. I wasn’t always a demon.”
“Really?”
He gave a nod. “I was a human, a long, long time ago. One of the first, I think. So long ago I don’t remember who I was, or anything about my old life. I died, and as one of the first humans to cross into this realm, I took up the mantle as one of the high-ranking members of this court, to help dictate what would happen to all other souls who followed suit.”
“The face beneath your mask, is that what you looked like as a human?”
