Jenna Black - The Devil You Know

The look he gave me said he still didn’t trust me, but this time when I reached for the door, he let me open it.

“I’ll walk you to your apartment,” he said, getting out of the car.

Again, I had to swallow the urge to tell him to back off. I reminded myself that I didn’t have a Taser on me, and I didn’t have a death wish.

“Thanks,” I said through gritted teeth. Then, as we walked toward the elevator, a very disquieting thought struck me. “Could you beat Der Jäger in a fight?”

I looked at him out of the corner of my eye and saw the sudden tightness of his expression.

“I don’t know,” he finally answered. “But I could at least hold him off long enough for you to get away.”

There wasn’t much to say after that, so we walked the rest of the way to my apartment in silence.

I discovered it’s incredibly hard to fall asleep at five o’clock in the afternoon when you’re in constant pain—even when I knew falling asleep would allow Lugh to heal the worst of it. I’d have to keep the bruise from yesterday’s encounter with my not-father, but today’s injuries could soon become nothing but an unpleasant memory. If only I could let myself drift off.

Outside my bedroom door, I could hear the TV going as it no doubt had been all day. I’d come home to find Andy sitting listlessly on the couch, staring at the TV but not really seeing it. He’d snapped out of it long enough to ask me what had happened during my ill-fated break-in, but when I’d stopped talking, the animation left him and he was back to staring. I had to hope he had enough brain cells functioning to shoot anything that came through the front door.

I was in too much pain to deal with his issues, so I’d gone to the bedroom to lie down. But as I lay there failing miserably at my attempt to sleep, I couldn’t help worrying about him.

Andy might not be catatonic anymore, but he wasn’t exactly back to normal, either. He had a fragile vulnerability that was so not in keeping with my mental image of him. Had Raphael damaged him irreparably? Was there anything I could do to help?

Eventually, I realized I wasn’t getting to sleep without help. I raided my medicine cabinet and found an old, expired bottle of sleeping pills. I downed a couple, hoping they’d still be effective after the expiration date, then went back to bed and closed my eyes.

I don’t know how much longer I lay there awake, my mind cycling through my impressive list of problems, but eventually I drifted off. I hadn’t been sure if Lugh would talk to me now, or if he still thought I needed cooling-off time, but I awoke in another version of his dream world, one I had visited only once before, when he’d healed me after Adam had finished “playing” with me.

I lay on my back on a sumptuously soft bed, my body draped with a crimson silk sheet that clung to its contours like a wet T-shirt. Naturally, I was naked under that sheet, and I was keenly aware of the texture of the silk against my skin.

Lugh sat beside me on the edge of the bed. He’d toned down his wardrobe for this conversation, ditching the S&M getup for a plain black T-shirt that hugged his spectacular chest. He still wore his trademark black leather pants, but not the heavy black boots. One bare foot was tucked under the opposite leg, and I had the strangest urge to reach out and touch it. Then I remembered I was furious with him and nipped my arousal in the bud.

I glanced down at my body, noticing that despite my supposed anger, the thin sheet did little to hide my decidedly perky nipples. I scowled.

“Why do I have to be naked?” I grumbled. It was hard to have a good, knock-down, drag-out fight when you were naked as the day you were born. Then again, maybe that was Lugh’s intention.

He smiled at my anger. “Perhaps because I like you that way?”

I struggled into a sitting position, clutching the sheet tightly against myself. “Well I don’t! Put some clothes on me.”

His smirk told me in advance things weren’t going well. I no longer felt the sheet against the skin of my torso, but when I looked down I saw that I was wearing a barely there teddy in a sheer black mesh that didn’t exactly hide anything. I shoved the sheet away, fighting down my embarrassment.

“Fine!” I snapped. “If you’re going to be childish and take advantage of me again, there’s nothing I can do to stop you.”

His brows drew together. “In what way am I taking advantage of you? I reside within your body. I know what you look like naked. I even know what you look like in the throes of passion.”

My blush burned my cheeks. There was little about these dreams to help me remember they were dreams—even when lingerie suddenly appeared out of thin air. I crossed my arms over my chest, hiding my breasts while the sheet hid the rest of me. I was letting him distract me from the real issue.

“Do you have anything to say for yourself?” I asked, and there was no way in hell he didn’t know what I was talking about.

The teasing smile left his lips. “I needed to speak to my brother. Since you won’t let me in when you’re conscious, my only chance to do so was while you slept. But you started to wake up at an inconvenient moment, so I had to give you some incentive to stay asleep.”

I swallowed hard, trying to blot out the images in my mind of the distraction he’d conjured. “You could have just told me what you were going to do.”

He laughed. “You’re not fooling yourself with that argument any more than you’re fooling me. If I’d told you what I was up to, you’d have awakened in a heartbeat. I’m sorry for the deception, but it was necessary.”

He reached out and took my hand. I had the strong impression I should have tried to evade him, but I didn’t. His grip was strong and steady, an anchor in the midst of my tumultuous life.

“Besides,” he said, his amber eyes gazing into mine as he raised my hand to his lips, “you needed the release.”

Once again, I urged myself to take back my hand, to resist the temptation of his touch. But though I willed my body to obey, I remained motionless and unresisting as his lips brushed over my knuckles.

That velvet touch sent a shudder through every cell in my body. Desire swamped my senses, and though he’d made me come two nights ago, it had been with the touch of my own hand, and that wasn’t enough. I closed my eyes as his lips traveled from knuckles to wrist. Deep inside my belly, I ached for something I didn’t dare let myself have.

His scent flooded my senses, and my skin felt the heat that radiated from his body as he pressed closer to me. His long, silky hair tickled my thigh, and I realized the sheet seemed to have slipped down past my knees.

I almost let it happen. Almost let my desire override my free will. Until I wondered just what he might be doing with my body in the real world.

I jerked away from him, my heart rate accelerating, my breath coming short. My hormones screamed in protest, but I ignored them.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I asked, and there was an edge of panic in my voice. I struggled to close my mental doors, but I was too freaked out to concentrate.

Lugh backed off, raising both hands in a gesture of innocence. “Easy, Morgan. I’m not doing anything. You’re just lying in bed, recuperating.”

I grabbed at the sheet, yanking it up to my shoulders and holding it there with both hands. “I don’t believe you.”

His shoulders drooped. “I haven’t done anything to earn your distrust.”

I laughed, a bit hysterically. “Newsflash for you—seducing me so you can drive my body uninterrupted is a violation of my trust.”

He cocked his head to one side, looking genuinely puzzled. “I might have had more than one motive, but I did not coldly seduce you for only my own purposes. You have to know that my attraction to you is genuine.”