Page 65 of Devil

And at the same time, he wanted to do this. Badly. He got hard just explaining what it was that he wanted.

And even though he wasn’tashamed, I could sense a struggle in him. As a devil would, he loved transgression; as God would, he cared about not pushing me past what I could bear. He wanted to do unconscionable things to me; he couldn’t escape his own conscience.

About this at least.

I did agree, though. I did free him from his concern. At the time, I told myself it was because I wanted to keep him happy, wanted him to feel like he was getting his money’s worth from me, because in so many other ways, I was a severely deficient mistress. I wasn’t overtly sensual; I was too timid to take initiative. I had no roster of sexual delights or tricks. I had nothing except the bare reality of who I was and the gift of enjoying being forced by a man who liked forcing me.

But as the next two days ticked by, I found myself more and more preoccupied by the idea of him using me for sex while I was asleep. Waking up with him behind me, his face in my hair, his strong thighs pressed against my own. Waking up with him on top of me, already sweat-damp and close. Being played with and posed. My dreams turning erotic and strange while I was unaware of what he was doing.

I finally asked about it this morning, after he filled a condom taking me against the door and then another one while I was bent over the back of his couch.

I asked why he hadn’t done it yet.

I wanted to give you a little more time to settle in, he replied with an upward hitch to his lips.A little time for your cunt to adjust. But if you’re ready now…

He had me go to bed naked and also promised he’d use lube if I wasn’t wet enough, which was such a sick, warped promise and also humiliatingly made me wet all on my own.

And now here I am, with him drawing circles on my stomach with my own fingertips, his eyes on my face, aware of every flicker of my features as he waits for my answer.

“I liked it,” I finally reply, my cheeks hot. “I know I shouldn’t. But I liked it.”

“You probably like it precisely because you shouldn’t, my sweet Catholic girl,” he says. But despite the lightness in his words, his eyes still don’t leave my face. “You won’t upset me if you don’t actually like it, though. If you don’t want to do it again. I’ve known people much, much kinkier than you can even imagine who won’t touch somnophilia with a ten-foot pole. It’s fucked up, and it’s dangerous. I want you to be sure.”

“Ry.” I use that name deliberately, knowing how much he likes it when I do. “I’m sure.”

His lower lip slides briefly between his teeth. “You can tell me at any time you don’t want to do it again. I’d like to trust that you will do that. That you know this is…extracurricular to our other terms.”

“You can trust me.” I think of how much he seems to crave my thoughts, so I offer a little more. “I would sometimes have dreams like this, that something was tormenting me while I was asleep, tainting me. Making me…respond. And I would wake up so worried something was wrong with me and also secretly hoping I’d have more dreams like it, because it always felt so good inside the nightmare, even while I knew it was wrong, while I knew it was damning to dream about an incubus or something using me for sex. Doing this with you, it’s almost exactly like my dreams. Pretty demon and all.”

His eyebrows lift and his eyes are sparkling, and I wonder what part he could be so delighted by since I’ve basically just implied that he’s a demon until he asks, “You think I’m pretty?”

I give a disbelieving exhale—a soundless laugh. He glances down at my stomach, which has just moved under our joined hands, and then back up to my face.

“Ry,” I say, sounding more like a teacher than I ever have in my life. “You already know you’re pretty.”

“Well, obviouslyIknow I’m pretty. I want to know ifyouthink I’m pretty.”

It’s late afternoon, and the windows—darkened while I was sleeping—are letting in so much summer sunshine right now. His features are trimmed in light—even the beauty mark above his mouth looks angelic—and his bared shoulders and chest and torso look like they belong in a painting. He is all grace and symmetry and gold. It’s only those eyes—a forget-me-not seen just before dawn, sea ice under the moon—that betray what’s under the beauty, and then only if you know how to look.

“Yes,” I say. “I think you’re pretty.”

The answering grin is immediate and wide as a peacock’s tail. He bats his eyelashes. “Birdie, you’re so forward.”

That makes me laugh—and not just laugh butgiggle. Bell’s smile flickers with something so hungry that I worry he’s going to take a bite out of me.

“Now. We need to address the other topic of conversation from Wednesday,” he says before I can start worrying if I sounded inexperienced or stupid with my giggling. “Have you masturbated yet?”

His voice is still breezy and flirtatious, just warm and friendly and light, not at all as if he’s asking if I’ve put my fingers inside myself lately. I’m abruptly aware of our hands still circling my belly, of the circles that have gradually moved lower and lower.

“Um. I tried. On Thursday while you were at work.”

“And?”

“And I don’t think it’s for me. I did it for a little while and nothing happened, and I didn’t feel… It’s not the same way you make me feel.”

He doesn’t look smug about that last part, which is a little surprising with what I know about him. Instead, he seems thoughtful, a line between his brows, a quirk to one side of his mouth, and I’ve seen this expression before. When he’s in his glassed-in office tapping the end of his Apple Pencil against his lips, when he was a student at Evelyn and he was considering a thing he’d never drawn before, an insulin pump or a bowl of darting goldfish.

He looks like he’s trying to solve a problem.