Demon Angel

back against the door. "Release me from this wager, Hugh. Let me try to convince Lucifer."
    "I cannot." His lips caressed the side of her mouth.
    She tried to move away as he licked her lower lip, but had no retreat. "My fangs," she breathed.
    "Then I will bleed." But he lifted his head, silent until she looked up at him. "You may convince him, but if he thinks you take pleasure in destroying me, what will keep him from choosing Punishment instead? You lie too well—and you are most adept at lying to yourself. You tell yourself that there is no light without darkness, you convince yourself your role is to be the darkness so that light will exist—yet moments ago you admitted humans are fully capable of it without help from Above or Below. Do you think I don't know what you'll tell yourself as you move through that Gate? That your reaction to me was a scheme to draw my feelings for you into the open, so that you may manipulate them later, destroy me with them? That you have been a demon for so many years, it was impossible that you truly felt desire? And you would force yourself to believe it, because Lucifer will see if you do not, if it is only an illusion. But I won't allow you that lie, not when it might destroy you."
    She laughed without humor. "And this is how you save me? With sex?"
    "With evidence that you cannot lie away. For no matter what you say to yourself, no demon feels physical desire, nor physical release. Even you cannot rationalize it into something else."
    "Release me from this wager," she said, her voice flat. "It will fail."
    "If you don't return, then I will traverse the Gates of Hell to retrieve you." It was said like a vow, and she did not doubt the truth of it.
    She steeled herself against it, and said harshly, "You would die. Release me."
    "Then I would die sacrificing myself for another." He smiled, but it did not touch his eyes. "Perhaps Michael would turn me back into a Guardian, and I would try again."
    "Release me." The pleading note in her voice terrified her.
    He lowered his gaze, but not before she saw the pain that flashed across his features. "I did not truly want it to be force," he said, and turned her to face the door.
    "And I didn't want it to be kindness," she said bitterly, placing her palms flat against the wood on either side of her head, the broken handcuff chains dangling. The top of the door was almost completely destroyed from her earlier response, but this time, she determined, she would resist. Shut herself away from his touch.
    "At least I have never been raped by a demon," she said, her eyes burning.
    "Aye," he agreed thickly. "Men can be infinitely worse."
    And his hesitation was almost a cruelty, drawing out a moment that she'd rather have gotten over with quickly. She wouldn't care that it was born of the inner conflict she could feel raging within him. Unnatural for a man of his character to touch her in this way: against her will, even if by her consent— and she should not feel betrayed by it. She had given up her will long ago; it should not matter who used it against her: Lucifer, Beelzebub. And now Hugh.
    "I'm sorry," he whispered, and she flinched away from the words. She pressed her wings together to block his view, block access, but he slipped his arms between the membranous folds and smoothed his hands down the length of her spine.
    His groin rested against her bottom. She could no longer feel his arousal, only the breath that shuddered from his chest, his palms as he moved them around to her stomach. They slid up, cupped her breasts.
    He laid his cheek against the top of her head. "The first time I saw you, I could not stop staring at these," he said softly. "I think you meant to distract me so you could make your bargain." His thumbs caressed the outer curves, moved in, strayed close to her nipples. "They are still beautiful, even tipped with these razor ruby scales. And just as dangerous."
    She squeezed her eyes shut.
    "I kissed you then, without love or promise," he continued. "I could not do so again."
    "Stop," she said, but the tightness of her throat made it a wordless sigh.
    He pressed a kiss into her hair. Against her temple, where obsidian horn met crimson scales. He lifted her breasts; her nipples rasped against the wood grain. She should have laughed, it seemed so absurd, but had to bite her lip as the vibration quivered through the sharp, crystalline flesh. He must have felt her response, for he did it again.
    Even that defense, he found