There was a roughened purr to his voice—low, edged with heat—and it sent a stupid shiver through me before I could suppress it.
His tail shifted beneath my breasts, the movement firm, deliberate. Another part of it slithered along my hips, smooth and heavy. I pressed my hands to the warm appendage, trying to keep it from lifting my chest even more. I wore a T-shirt,and it didn’t matter—not with how blisteringly hot his body heat burned through the fabric.
When the tip of his tail slid up and nestled itself between my covered breasts, my breath hitched. A flush rose to my face, hotter than him—and that was saying something. He always felt like fire, but what flared low in my stomach burned hotter. Worse. It wasn’t just heat. It was torment. A wicked kind of ache.
Arousal laced with discomfort.
I told myself he was doing it on purpose—trying to scare me, unnerve me with proximity and implication. That this was another form of psychological punishment.
It had to be.
Because if I let myself think otherwise—if I believed there was something else behind the way his tail pressed and moved, I might cry.
I peeked down at the thick tip just resting between my breasts. I didn’t feel sick. I didn’t panic. The tail still freaked me out, yeah, but it didn’t feel like just anappendageanymore. It felt like…him.
Which made it worse. And somehow, better. Neither made sense.
I didn’t want to touch it. But after a nap, and after everything that happened in the green room…I felt different. More grounded. Less vulnerable.
And as long as I kept believing he was doing this to mess with me—not to violate—I could breathe.
Barely.
“Would you stop squeezing me?” I closed my eyes and braved the unthinkable—grabbing the tip of his tail. “I have organs, you know. And the tip’s getting dangerously close to squeezing a tit.”
In an instant, he yanked me off the bed.
A gasp tore from my throat as my head whipped to the side. His tail lifted me into the air, holding me up like a hunter might dangle a rabbit by the ears. My legs hung uselessly beneath me, and I clutched at the thick coil wrapped around my waist for balance.
His crimson eyes slid over me, slowly and deliberate. Then his head tilted, just slightly.
“It’s a shame you fear my tail so much,” he murmured, “when you fit so well within it.”
The words sucker-punched me. I flushed wildly, heat crawling from my cheeks down to my toes. That sounded like something a demon would say if he were trying to seduce—something vulgar and dirty and…appealing.
No. No, he couldn’t have meant it like that. He didn’t feeldesireanymore. He wasn’tflirting.
Then again, my body didn’t seem to care. It responded anyway, clinging to the lewd implications like an addict.
But before I could decide how to react, he stiffened.
Suddenly, he dropped me. I hit the ground with a startled thud, my knees were tight, and legs sluggish from being coiled so long. I groaned and rubbed them as I sat up, trying to bring circulation back.
The Devil stood over me, eyeing his tail like it had personally betrayed him. When he rubbed it, his posture changed. The gleam in his eyes dulled, his shoulders slumped ever so slightly.
He caught me watching. His face shuttered in an instant.
“You didn’t have to drop me,” I said as I climbed to my feet, brushing myself off. “What is it? Something clearly bothered you.”
His scoff was immediate, sharp. The tail curled around my ankle in response.
“You, existing, bothers me.”
I narrowed my eyes at the monstrous figure in front of me. “Then let me go.”
“You can’t escape me. Or should I say, you can’t escape fate,” he practically spat, the last word as if it was bitter on his tongue.
Anger surged through my veins like venom. “There is no fate. You cursed me. And in doing so, screwed yourself over.”
