Demon Angel

expectations.
    "What do you think you know, Sir Pup?"
    "That a woman came to me with the intention of leading me like an animal to her bidding."
    "Whatever you think my sins might be, I assure you I have never done that with an animal."
    He bit back his laughter, shaking his head. How did she so easily manage to amuse and distract him? "A horse, a dog, oxen—all are led by the foremost part. You thought to lead me by mine."
    The slight thump as she landed on the stairs in front of him and sudden waft of displaced air were his only indication of her movement before her palm covered his burgeoning arousal. "Indeed, a woman has but to touch it and it swells to better fill her grip. I daresay it was made for this."
    "A man is not an animal." His throat closed on a groan, and he had to clear it before continuing. "After you left, I saw you—"
    He broke off, sweat breaking over his skin as she placed his hand on her breast. Bare, it burned like fire under his fingers, her nipple tight beneath his palm. "Then a woman must be led by these," she said.
    Heat rushed through him, and he ground his teeth against the ache of his erection. Acting on the lust she created in him—or running from it—would both serve her purpose; he could neither give in nor flee. Steeling his resolve to act contrary to her expectations, he gently pinched the tip of her breast and pulled.
    She gasped and fell against his chest, his hand caught between them. He echoed her earlier mocking tone. "Apparently you can be led thus." Letting go her nipple, he traced his fingers along the underside of her breast. He cupped his hand; she filled his palm, but barely. Certainly not as much as Marie's generous proportions had suggested. The beat of her heart thrummed against his fingertips. "But I find most women are led by what is beneath."
    Her chest rose and fell in a quick, ragged breath, and she wrenched herself from his embrace. He let her go, listened to the scratch of claw and stone. Her voice came from above again, laced with bitterness. "Only when she is a fool." As if with great effort, humor returned to her tone and she added, "Fortunately, there are many women willing to think with their hearts, and it makes them as brainless as their tits."
    "And there are many demons willing to take advantage of them." Hugh crossed his arms over his chest, leaned back against the wall, and let the cold stone ease the heat she had built within him. "After you left me, I saw you in the courtyard with Michael."
    She did not reply; music and voices from the hall filled the air between them. He wished for a light that he could see her expression, discover what lay behind the darkness. She wore neither clothes nor the form of Marie, but he did not think she looked as she had in the courtyard, either. She'd not had wings when she'd been in his arms.
    "Will you not try to convince me it was a nightmare? Or pretend to have no knowledge of that which I speak?"
    "I'm not a priest, nor do I have need for lies." She paused as he burst into laughter, and she joined in after a moment. "Why are you not afraid of me? It is extraordinarily vexing."
    He smiled broadly. "I was told you cannot do me harm."
    "Michael." The name was followed by a hiss of displeasure. "And you believed him?"
    Recognizing her question for what it was—an attempt to fuel uncertainty—he shrugged and said, "Difficult to refute the evidence I saw."
    His casual tone held no indication of the doubts and thoughts that had plagued him over the week, the sickness that roiled within him as he'd forced himself to accept a different version of truth than he'd known. How easy it would have been to take Father Geoffrey's explanation, to call it a nightmare. How many times had he almost convinced himself that he'd heard incorrectly, that he'd experienced an hour of madness?
    But he could not. He'd seen the demon—Lilith—and Michael's miraculous transformation into a thing of terrible beauty and power.
    "Evidence? A figure in a night-filled courtyard?" She drew a sudden breath. "Your certainty is not because you saw me —he showed you what he was."
    "Aye."
    Her snort of laughter echoed through the passageway. "You trusted his appearance ?"
    Sparks flew above his head. He ducked, belatedly realizing that she'd only scratched the stones with her fingernails. She did it again, and in the flash of light he saw her: a lithe, strong figure clinging to the spiraling stairs with her feet, her black hair trailing toward