My eyes bulged. “Wait. Harvest kidnapped me way before Isabella and the vortex. You knew about that? Why?”
“I’m the Devil. I’m aware of everything that goes on. I’m trapped in Hell, but the Underworld belongs to me.”
I stared at the towering monster. No, I had to stop referring to him as one. He was more man than anything else to me. And everything I continued to learn shocked me. My lips parted. I hated that my mind made assumptions based on everything Luke said or did. “You didn’t bring me here to be cruel, did you? For whatever reason, you don’t want me harmed. You’re keeping me safe from Harvest. Why?”
Luke froze, eyes locking. Time stood still. At least it felt like it did until he chuckled in a way that made me shudder. “I don’t care what happens to you. I care that someone dares to threaten me with you.”
I gestured toward his hips. “You even hid your tail.” I still tried to reason I wasn’t wrong. He knew the appendage bothered me. He teased me with it at first, but already, he hid it.
In a blink, he was breathing in my face. He was so close. A tightening sensation blanketed my legs. I didn’t have to look down to know it was his tail by the way it slithered around me. “Just because I’m not as cruel as you’d expect for the Devil, don’t mistake my leniency as some sort of false feelings.”
Hades, he smelled good, and I was tired of pretending he didn’t. Although it was wrong to close my eyes, I did as I inhaled, then trembled as he dragged his nose across my neck and breathed in, in, in as if he could smell me. Maybe he wished to know my scent as well as I did his.
“Look at you,” he murmured, pulling away to yank at my shirt enough to reveal my shoulder. “You behave like a woman burning with desire. It’s been so long since I’ve touched another, I fear how easily I could be fooled.”
He brought a claw-tipped finger to my lips. I flicked my tongue up brazenly and licked the tip of the digit, then covered the claw with my mouth. Luke sheathed his claws as I did, eyes brightening as he watched me suck.
“I find myself willing to be a fool for your trickery,” the words sounded like vibrations ripping from his chest. “Does that please you?”
When he yanked his finger out of my mouth and gripped my hips possessively, my legs instinctively wrapped around his waist as he hauled me up.
“Don’t dematerialize your clothes,” he warned as he sat me down on the edge of the table, knocking off countless items of food as he shoved everything aside. “I want to rip them off.”
My body buzzed, nipples hardening against my bra. My heart beat frantically. My attraction to Luke made me slightly nervous, knowing it was wrong, until he gripped the top of my shirt and tore the material like he said. He shoved my bra cup down next, leaned in, and covered a nipple with his mouth.
My body jerked like someone had attached a live wire to me.
Hades, that tongue and mouth.
I held onto his horns, letting my head fall back. Bliss rolled through me as he sucked and licked. “I want you to do that to my clit.” I practically moaned the words.
There was a snap, and my bra ripped in the middle. My breasts jiggled a little, and I arched into Luke’s giant palm. My nipple was red and puffy by the time he pulled away. His eyes brightened as he inspected his handiwork, smoothing his palms over my breasts.
Luke liked to stare, so I took his wrists and guided his attention lower, to the button of my jeans to hurry him along. “You’re not just a glutton, are you, Kitten? Been needing something I can give you.”
I hated how intensely his words struck true. How right it felt, how deeply his touches resonated with my soul, though it shouldn’t. Clarity hit me like a freight train, and I froze. He was wrong—even if it didn’t feel that way. What I wanted from him wasn’t just sex. I wanted to ruin him. Or maybe to let him ruin me. To unravel him as my mate—just once.
But those thoughts weren’t good ones. Luke couldn’t be who I wanted him to be. There was nothing sweet between us. He was my enemy long before I was born.
“Ah, there it is.” Luke stood tall and studied me. “You can pretend, but only for so long.”
He mistook me. There was no pretending, but I should try to fight the attraction I felt for Luke.
“What will it take?” he asked suddenly, bracing his arms on both sides of me.
“What?” I frowned.
“Say I let you venture back to your family,” he whispered. “Let you attempt to stop me. Change your fate.”
My eyes widened as Luke retrieved the torn shirt from the floor and placed it over my chest.
He materialized something in his arms. I didn’t get a good look at it before he snapped it onto my wrist. “Make no mistake, you will come right back here. If you take too long to return, I’ll pull you back. If I sense something I don’t like, I’ll pull you back. If there’s trouble, you return. I better not catch you anywhere near Harvest.”
I rubbed the loose black bracelet. It looked like nothing more than dark, glittering jewels, but it didn’t budge when I tried to slide it off.
“It won’t come off. This ensures I don’t have to come to get you. You’ll return when I want,” he stated.
When the shirt began to slide over my breasts, I gripped it. “You’re truly letting me leave?”
