The Secretary

Chapter 5

After I closed from work I went home and changed to my dress like i do every night since I met him last week, hoping I’d see him again. I hoped in a cab and went to Turners the club.

Silas nodded me through the unmarked door. Inside, the world softened and deepened. The air was warm, thick with perfume and whiskey. Masks turned everyone into elegant ghosts. I wore my raven-wing half-mask. My dress was a slip of emerald silk.

I saw him immediately.

Lucifer stood at the edge of the lounge, a glass in hand, watching the room like a king surveying his dreams. His mask was the silver fox, gleaming under the low light. Even concealed, his posture was unmistakable a relaxed, absolute sovereignty.

Our eyes met. The connection was a live wire.

He set his glass down and walked toward me. The crowd seemed to part without noticing. He stopped close enough that I could feel his heat.

“Little raven,” he murmured. His voice was velvet wrapped around steel. “You’ve been playing in the daylight.”

“I’ve been building,” I whispered.

“I know.” He took my hand. His thumb stroked my inner wrist, right over the frantic beat of my pulse. “Come.”

He led me back to the private chamber. Once inside, he locked the door and turned. The room became a universe of two.

His face was stark under the mask, beautiful, his eyes lit in the lamplight. “Last week,” he said, his voice low, “was about your surrender. This week…” He closed the distance, his hands rising to cradle my face. “…is about your hunger.”

Then he kissed me.

It wasn’t gentle. It was a claiming. His mouth was hot and hungry, moving over mine with a mastery that shattered thought. A broken sound vibrated from my throat into his. I clutched at his shoulders. He walked me backward until my legs hit the divan, and we sank into the velvet in a tangle of limbs and silk.

He lay over me, his weight perfect, his knee between mine. The kiss deepened, turned wet, slow, devastating. He tasted of dark whiskey and darker promises. One hand speared through my hair, holding my head still for his exploration. The other slid down my back, pressing me against him until I couldn’t tell where my body ended and his began.

I was burning. My hips arched against him, seeking. A ragged gasp tore from me. He swallowed it, his own breath turning harsh.

“You are so beautiful like this,” he growled against my lips. “All that control… gone.” He kissed down my jaw to my throat, sucking lightly at the pulse there. I cried out, back bowing off the cushions.

His mouth was everywhere my collarbone, the swell of my breast above the silk. His hand slid up my thigh, pushing the hem higher. His fingers brushed the soaked silk between my legs. I jerked, a sharp, pleading sound escaping me.

He stilled.

With a shuddering breath, he pulled back. He lifted himself up, looking down at me. I was wrecked hair wild, lips swollen, eyes glazed.

“Not yet,” he breathed, the words strained.

“Please.”

He shook his head, a cruel, beautiful denial. “This ache,” he whispered, brushing a thumb over my lower lip, “is my gift to you.” He sat up, pulling me with him, tucking me against his side. My body trembled, humming with unsated need.

“Next week,” he said softly, his lips against my hair, “you will go to your pristine office. You will sit at your neat desk. You will be flawless.” He kissed my temple. “And you will feel this emptiness inside you like a wound. You will feel me. And you will know that the chaos you try to order… belongs to me.”

He held me until my shaking subsided into a deep, resonant hum. Then he stood and went by the door.

“Until next time, little raven.”

He left. The lock clicked shut.

I sat in the silence, the scent of him on my skin, in my mouth. The ache was a living thing inside me a hollow, throbbing reminder. He was right. Tomorrow, in William Harper’s world of ice and order, I would carry this hunger beneath my clothes like a secret. And I would know, in some deep, terrified, thrilling part of myself, that the line between the man of stone and the man of fire was thinner than a mask.