I bit the inside of my cheek. “There will be someone there to intercede. A duchess. Priscilla said it was a demon?”
Curious surprise painted the arch of his brows.
“Duchess Vapula,” I said. “One of the witches I mentioned, Priscilla, is calling on—”
“The Infernal Court.” He nodded approvingly. “Once again: excellent. The Royal Court held an audience with the four courts after you made your announcement. Hell’s support is unanimous. I’m not surprised you’ll have someone on your team, but I’m relieved it’s happened so quickly, and so directly. Plus, the Duchess will like you. Her divinity is tightly interwoven with creativity. As a writer, she’s probably had her eye on you.”
I chewed on my lip, looking at our shoes as I asked, “And you? I assume you aren’t staying?”
He folded himself in even more tightly, pressing himself into me, forcing the angled ridge of the pulpit deeper into my back. His thumb slid to a resting place beneath my chin, forcing my face up until I had no choice but to look at him. “I’m moving Heaven and Hell to ensure we have it all, Love. And I do mean that literally.”
“What does that—”
His thumb traced a line down the front column of my throat, moving over my collarbone before dragging an excruciatingly slow path down my side, landing on my hip. The decompression of his fingers had a rather predictable effect as my body cried out for him, whether or not I consented to its calls. The deepest parts of me bloomed, heat spreading frommy core and settling in the places that wanted him most.
“It means,” he said, brushing his lips over mine, “that I will be hosting the most miserable meetings of my life. I will be brokering peace and inciting war, while desperate to be at your side.”
“Then stay.” My breath hitched. “Let me rally the troops.”
I brought the wine to my lips again, if only for something to do with my nervous energy. He snagged the green glass, stopping it before it reached my tongue.
“You’re avoiding me,” he said.
“I’m taking the sacraments,” I joked weakly. “The blood of the antichrist.”
“And the body?” he said, squeezing the fingers that rested on my hip.
I was going to lose my goddamn mind. I tried again, a desperate, futile attempt to delay him, to hold it together, to maintain whatever scraps of dignity I possessed. “I may be mortal, but I’m swinging for the fences with our End of the World team.”
The gravel of his soft, low chuckle made me tingle. He said, “Medusa is a powerhouse I could never sway—Ms. Clovis, as it were. You have a shot I’ll never have. She possesses an asset that could change the game for us. Besides, if she joins our cause, I imagine she has an array of allies. Ones who’ve been primed to despise the gods for one reason or another. Until I can be at your side, Azrames will be with you.”
“And Silas,” I added.
I didn’t miss the muscle that ticked in his jaw as he repeated, “You smell like Heaven.” The air was forced from my lungs as he reacted. In one swift movement, he’d flipped me so I was facing the pulpit, chest bent over the wood. The pressure was equal parts terrifying and delicious as he growled in my ear, “Let’s fix that, shall we?”
“It’s nothing,” I said. “Heaven is my enemy.”
“Is that so?”
My cheek burned on the holy wood as I barely managedto choke out his name. “Caliban—”
“Tell me to stop,” he said.
But I’d rather die than peel his hands from my body. I was an addict, and I needed him.
His teeth were already on my neck, one hand balled in my hair as he pinned me against the structure. Something primal and possessive swept between us. I couldn’t control my moan as he moved over me. The juxtaposition of fire and ice nearly sent my body into shock as his free hand slipped easily down the front of my sweatpants. Either he’d scented my arousal or knew me well enough to understand exactly what his presence did to me. The pressure, the tension, the domination were cruel.
“We’re in a church,” I gasped.
I wasn’t wearing panties beneath my sweats. His fingers hovered just above my entrance. The cross cast a dim shadow over my face as I leaned into the sacred space. The hand in my hair tightened with painful intensity as he repeated himself, “Tell me to stop.”
Hundreds of pews watched silently as the Prince of Hell made me moan.
It took one finger to test just how ready I was. He groaned approvingly as he slipped in a second, then a third. The blur of tension, of pressure, of command overpowered me as he slipped his soaked hand out from within me. I ached in his absence, but I wasn’t left alone for long. He maintained his hold on my hair as he tugged the band of my sweats down over my ass.
I gripped the pulpit’s wooden ridges, face pressed into the center, precisely where a Bible should be.
“Hold on,” he said.
