Duncan glances at me from his position on my right. “You okay?” he checks.
I roll my shoulders, wondering how they are controlling the lust that seeps into our skin like slick oil. My pulse is spreading, a pounding heat around my body making me twitch with the need to relieve the ache. “I’m managing. How are you holding up?”
His eyes roam the landscape before landing on me. “It’s not without difficulty, but after hundreds of years I’ve learned how to curb my emotions.” He glances at Zee on my left. I follow his gaze.
Zee’s jaw is set in a hard line, the muscles in his neck corded with tension. “You doing okay there, big guy?” I check.
He swallows and flicks his gaze to mine. “Don’t look at me,” he whispers. “I’m barely holding on to my restraint and you are looking like the most tempting woman in all of history right now.”
“Pretty sure I was made that way,” I mumble.
Someone grips my shoulder and yanks me back, the touch sending delicious electricity dancing up my arm. My breath catches in my throat. “You can walk with me and Lucifer,” Archan grumbles as Zac takes my place between Duncan and Zee.
Archan wraps his hand around mine, his thumb rubbing circles against my palm. I glance at him. “Why aren’t you affected?” I wonder.
His gaze snaps to mine. “Who said I’m not? However, the woman I want the most in the world is standing right next to me. No other could compare.”
“Then why am I struggling so much?”
He frowns. “In what way?”
I glance at the floor. “I am seconds away from tearing your clothes off and taking you to the floor like a crazed sex fiend.”
His lips quirk up. “Just me?” he checks. “Not the thousands of male bodies writhing around you?”
I nod and glance up to lock eyes with Archan. His eyes are endless golden pools of need. “Then the lust is affecting you, but because our souls are linked, it directs all that emotion towards me—where it belongs.”
A loud groan of pleasure to the left catches my attention. My steps falter and my eyes narrow on the woman attached to some sort of diagonal cross suspended in the air so she’s lying flat on her stomach, open and vulnerable. But it’s the males surrounding her that make me pause. Archan’s gaze follows mine just as the one between the apex of her thighs thrusts into her with such force her body jolts against the restraints. Heat pools in my core. The second guy hooks a finger into her mouth, tilts her head back and forces his cock down her throat, a growl rumbling from his chest as he disappears into her mouth. The third and final male lashes her back with a whip comprising multiple strands of leather, her ass rising with each strike.
Archan’s mouth appears at my ear; his hot breath sending shivers rippling down my spine. “You want three men taking you like that? Your body being pushed and pulled as their hands slither all over you, their cocks spearing you in half as you beg for more? The sting of the leather heating your skin to a fevered pitch?”
I shake my head, my hair falling over my eyes, obscuring the scene. “I only want you.”
His hand trails into my hair, and he fists it, yanking my head back. “Good answer. I may be one man, but I can make your body feel like it’s about to explode with the ways I can fill it.” He drops a molten kiss on my lips. Velvet heat slides down my spine, the phantom touch caressing every nerve and igniting a fire in my core. He pulls away as he grazes his thumb along my bottom lip. “Every inch of you is mine. I can fill you until you feel you are going to detonate with just one thought. A thousand men can’t match the pleasure I can give you.”
“Careful, bro, I might want you to fuck me if you keep talking like that,” Jed says. My lips pull into a smirk as Archan releases me and I tug him forward until we catch up with the gang. I ignore our surroundings and focus on the promise of sensual violence Archan gives me with just his molten gaze. I can’t wait for this to be over so we can explore what is happening between us.
“We are here,” Lucifer cuts in. I glance around the circular wooden floor empty of everything but multiple candelabras at the edges and a large, thick stone table in the center. I walk up to the table and trace the markings around the outside.
“Who goes there?” a masculine booming disembodied voice echoes around us.
“Bert, good job you’ve done keeping out the occupants of Tartarus,” Lucifer snarls. “I should commit your soul to Heresy and leave you there to rot.”
The wall to the left ripples, a tall man with straw-colored hair and a full mouth dressed in a green suit pushes out from behind a curtain. My brain immediately goes to the Wizard of Oz line ‘Don’t mind the man behind the curtain.’ Jed snorts, catching my stray thought. Bert’s startling blue eyes collide with mine, then find Lucifer over my shoulder, who steps towards him.
Bert squints at Lucifer. “Boss?”
Lucifer sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Yes, it’s me. Ignite the altar so that we may pass.”
Bert’s hand twitches like he’s going to reach for a weapon and my muscles tighten with awareness. “You’ve not paid the tax.”
I glance between Lucifer and Bert. “Tax?” I ask.
Lucifer pushes a hand through his hair. “It’s a failsafe; ensuring anyone trying to get further into Hell is trapped here instead.”
“So how did Zeus get out?” Zac asks.
Lucifer glances at him. “I said into Hell, not out.”
