Things are a bit of a blur after that. I carry Eve into my room, somehow manage a shower, and then we collapse in bed. I think that might be it for the night, but she turns in my arms and kisses my throat. “Azazel?”
I’m instantly hard at the needy tone in her voice. “Yeah, baby?”
She rubs my cock with the heel of her palm. “You promised to kiss me better if I was sore.”
Fuck, the things she does to me with that bratty tone of voice. “You’re tired,” I murmur as I reach behind me for the balm. “You should be asleep.”
“You’re right.” She squeezes just beneath the head of my cock. “I know just the thing to get me there.”
I want to be able to simply enjoy this or even to pretend that this is how it could always be with me and Eve. Her in my bed. Sex and jokes and conversations and us. I know better.
Nothing has changed for her. She’s been honest with me from the start, her anger completely understandable. She may very well not forgive me. But if this is all she’ll allow me to give her, then this is exactly what I’ll do. I tug her leg up over my hip. After dipping my finger into the balm, I press it into her. “How’s this to start?”
She shivers in my arms. “Pretty solid. But I have a better idea.”
Eve pushes on my shoulders, and I allow her to guide me onto my back. She nabs the balm and smears a generous amount on my cock. I freeze. “Eve, that’s not how it’s meant to be used.” I have nothing to heal, but that doesn’t stop the balm from trying. A tingling radiates through my cock, making me hard enough that it’s painful. Fuck.
“I know.” She grins. “But can’t hurt to try.” She tugs me up to sit and grinds against my length. “Unless you want me to stop?”
“You know I don’t.”
“Thought not.” She positions my cock at her entrance and sinks onto me. It’s easier this time, though she still has to work for it, wedging me deeper and deeper until I’m sheathed to the hilt. Eve’s eyes flutter closed. “I was right. Your cock really is ruinous.”
It’s so damned hard to focus with her clenched tight around me. “Do you need to—”
She keeps talking right over me. “How am I supposed to fuck other people when I’ve had you like this, Daddy? How am I supposed to want to?” There’s something in her tone, something soft and sweet and aching.
I cup her face. Maybe this is the most honest we’ll ever be with each other. “Do you want to keep fucking other people?” She may be the only one for me, but I’m well aware that I wasn’t her only client. A possessive part of me always ached knowing she’d be with others the way she was with me, but the thing that irked me the most was the fact that I was just another client to her. She was never truly mine, even if I was hers.
Eve’s lower lip trembles before she firms it. “I don’t know,” she whispers. “I won’t pretend I didn’t enjoy my work, but it was . . . work.”
I don’t know what to say to that. Even if I did, now’s hardly the right time for this conversation. I sit up and wrap my arms around her as she starts to ride me. No matter what else this time brings, I can’t regret it, because she’s here with me. At least for now. To chase the thoughts from my head, I kiss her. Better to lose myself in the moment, in her, than to worry about what comes next.
Eve doesn’t pick up her pace. She slides her hands up my chest and grabs my horns, using the leverage to angle my head back and drag her mouth over my throat. “Azazel?” Her voice is a demand for more. “I’m almost there.”
I grip her hips and guide her to grind harder, working her clit against my stomach. “I’ve got you.”
She orgasms with my name on her lips, and my heart is a fool ten times over because it’s certain this changes things, even as my brain knows better.
Some things can’t be forgiven.
The only thing I can do is remove the threat and send her home, pausing on the way out to ensure she has enough money that she never has to work again if she doesn’t want to. It will mean losing her forever—there’s no world where she’d welcome me as a client still, even if I were willing to continue endangering her. The contract will have to be nullified, but while that process is uncomfortable and will drain my power for a time, it’s a small price to pay. If I hadn’t been so damned selfish, Eve never would have been in danger.
Maybe, if I’d been honest from the start, it wouldn’t have come to this.
Eve reaches between my thighs to cup my balls. Her gaze is a little dazed, but she’s clearly not stopping until I come too. “Get out of that head, Daddy. You’re in my hands now.”
She squeezes, and there’s no holding back my orgasm. I forget myself enough to slam her down on my cock once, twice, four times, and then I’m spilling inside her.
Bargainers don’t believe in an afterlife the way humans do. Our gods are great and unknowable beings who formed the realms and then moved on to do whatever gods do with eternity stretching behind and before them. When we die, we become one with that universe, and sometimes a soul will be pulled back for another chance, many lifetimes in the future.
But if I believed in the concept of heaven—whatever that looks like—then this would be it. Exhausted and spent, Eve relaxes in my arms, tracing abstract patterns on my chest.
She sighs and kisses the spot she was just stroking. “Azazel?”
“Mmmm.”
“If you keep fucking me like that, I might not have any choice but to forgive you.”
She means it as a joke, but I can’t take it as such. Not when it’s about this. I hug her closer and press a kiss to her forehead. “You’ll always have a choice. If you ever do forgive me, then it will be in your own time, when your heart is ready. If your heart is ever ready.” I want that time to come, but I’m not confident it ever will. Not with everything I’ve done.
Eve makes a face like she wants to argue but finally shakes her head. “No, you’re right. I’m sorry. The sex is too good. It’s making me silly.”
I tip her chin up and kiss her slowly. “I like you silly.”
“Yeah?” She nips my bottom lip. “Well, you know what to do.”
“I do.” I kiss her again.
There are many hours left until dawn. I plan to use every one of them.
CHAPTER 17
EVE
The next three weeks pass in a blur of . . . happiness. Azazel stops keeping me locked up in my room and starts bringing me with him as he takes up Ramanu’s duties. Not all the leaders of the villages we visit are as supportive of him as Alice is, but they clearly respect him and his policies. And his people love him.
We spend each night in his bed, fucking and cuddling and sleeping.
He even has me sit in on his meetings with Nuin and Ziven, where they give their reports on their efforts to locate and capture Brosh. I like them both quite a bit.
Nuin is shorter than me, with deep-purple skin and thin, straight horns like some antelopes. She’s clever and serious, laying out each stage of their search systematically.
Ziven is her opposite in every way. Ne is tall and lanky, with skin nearly the same shade as Azazel’s, curving horns, and a deep laugh that makes me smile no matter the situation. Ne seems to have plenty of experience with finding people who don’t want to be found.
It’s only a matter of time before they find Brosh and this all ends.