Page 81 of Angel I Am Not

I had no idea how much time passed after that. Long enough for my wings to disappear again. Long enough for the sheets beneath us to become an absolute disaster. Long enough that when somebody finally knocked on the bedroom door, I was sprawled across Deus’s chest with one thigh thrown over his hips, trying to decide whether I could feel my legs.

Deus, naturally, looked ready to start all over again.

His fingers were drawing lazy patterns along my bare back when another knock sounded. “You good, Angel?” Zel called through the door.

I lifted my head from Deus’s chest and stared toward it. My brain supplied several possible answers before settling on the only question currently important enough to ask. “Did you know he has two dicks?”

There was a short pause outside before Zel laughed. “I did. Though it’s a pretty tough fit with one hole.”

His footsteps started moving away before I could ask what the hell that was supposed to mean.

I slowly pushed myself upright and looked down at Deus. He was still lying beneath me with one arm tucked behind his head, completely unbothered by whatever Zel had just admitted. “You fucked him?”

Deus’s hand settled on my thigh. “Everyone tries the Lust demon once.”

I stared at him, then glanced toward the door as another thought occurred to me. “Even Nick?”

That got a real laugh out of him, deep enough that I felt it through the mattress. “Except Nick.”

I tried to picture Wrath willingly climbing into bed with Deus and understood immediately why he was the exception. Before I could ask about Luc, Deus caught me around the waist and pulled me back down over him, his mouth finding mine while his tail curled around my calf again.

“Now come here, Sweetness.” His hand slid over my back as the familiar heat started blooming beneath my skin again. “I’m not done with you.”

Ariuk

By the time the bathwater stopped feeling hot enough to cook me alive, I had lost track of how long we had been in the bathroom.

Not all of us were technically in the bath. There were limits, apparently, even to whatever madness my life had become. I was stretched out beneath enough bubbles to hide most of me, my head tipped against the edge while Deus sat on the floor beside the tub with one arm draped over the rim. His fingers moved slowly through my hair, nails tracing lightly over my scalp before sliding down the back of my neck, and every pass seemed to loosen another part of me I hadn’t realized was still tense.

Zel had somehow turned the rest of the bathroom into a picnic.

I cracked one eye open when I heard another plate touch the counter. He had claimed most of the vanity, laying out sandwiches, fruit, bottles of water, and something chocolate I couldn’t quite identify from where I was sinking into the water. Nick stood beside him looking personally offended by every crumb that landed within six feet of the toilet, while Luc had taken the closed lid and was eating like sitting in a bathroom with four other demons and one half-asleep impossibility was a perfectly reasonable way to spend the night.

“This is disgusting,” Nick muttered, staring at Zel as he cut another sandwich in half.

Zel didn’t bother looking up. “Then don’t eat.”

Nick grumbled something before I heard him take one of the plates. I smiled, letting myself rest completely. Deus’s fingers moved from my scalp to the base of my neck, pressing into a knot there with exactly enough pressure to make my shoulders sink lower beneath the water. A quiet sound escaped me before I could stop it.

“God, does your touch always feel that good?”

Deus’s hand paused just long enough for me to feel his amusement before he started again. “I am a man of many talents, Sweetness.”

I expected the usual rush after that, some spark of heat sliding beneath my skin because apparently touching Lust came with its own set of consequences, but what spread through me was softer. The ache in my muscles eased beneath his palm. The oversensitivity that had made even the sheets feel like too much earlier had dulled into something pleasantly distant, and for once his touch wasn’t trying to pull more from me.

I turned my face slightly against my arm. “You can do this without making me want to climb you?”

“I can do many things without making you want to climb me.” His fingers slid across my shoulder. “I simply don’t understand why I would.”

Nick snorted around a bite of sandwich before dragging the small stool closer to the tub. His gaze moved over my face, lingering long enough that I knew exactly what was coming. “You actually okay?”

I opened my eyes properly and found him watching me with none of the sharpness he usually wore when he was trying to irritate someone. “Yeah.” I shifted beneath the water, taking inventory because Nick would absolutely know if I answered too quickly. My body was sore in several places and exhausted everywhere else, but nothing felt wrong. “I’m tired. My legs may never work correctly again, and I’m pretty sure Deus rearranged something important, but I’m okay.”

Deus looked far too pleased by that assessment.

Nick ignored him. “Not what I meant.”

“I know.” I reached over the side until Nick gave me his hand, then curled my fingers loosely around his. “I’m okay. Really.”