Page 37 of Devil

But it doesn’t matter how much she tries to avoid notice. That burning, clarifying essence of her glows through her skin and eyes—even in jeans with her head down, it’s as evident as if she’s been transfigured on a mountaintop. I remember thinking this the very first time I laid eyes on this woman. I remember thinkingGod still talks to her.

“You’re so beautiful,” I tell her, and she ducks her head even lower. I don’t force her to look at me, but I do press my lips to her hair. She freezes as I let my mouth drift lightly over the messy silk, as I bury my nose in her curls and treat myself to a deep inhale. Sawn wood and apple shampoo.

I am burning, burning, burning. My breath is shaking as much as my hands are, and I have to remind myself that I’ve bargained for a whole year, that I’ve already waited longer than I ever would have thought possible.

I adjust myself as I pull away. I can still smell apples.

“Let’s go, little bird.”

16

BIRDIE

Bell can’t seemto get enough of touching me. His hand finds my knee, my thigh, my hand, my forearm. He reaches over to touch my hair. He eyes the console dividing the front seat between us like it’s responsible for every unhappiness in his life.

We’re only on the road for ten minutes before he swerves off onto a gravel track that leads to a mostly abandoned cemetery. Long grass growing in the middle tickles the bottom of the truck—the occasionalthwacksignals a stick or a rock—and then we’re fully screened by the box of trees around the cemetery, trees probably planted around the time the Coopers came to Kansas. The grass sways under a sunny sky like a small green sea, broken only by the parallel lines of gravel looping around the stones and the stones themselves, worn limestone the same color as the bones they stand sentinel over.

“What are we—” I begin, but I’m cut off by him surging over the console to kiss me.

His lips are hot, and his tongue is wicked—as wicked as I remember, a tongue that doesn’t need words to coax you into sin. He’s got his fingers on my jaw, forcing my mouth open so his tongue can delve inside. He tastes sweet and almostspicy, like cloves, and when I pant against his kiss, I smell him too, that rich, incense-y wood, with pepper underneath.

Smoke and heat, fire and brimstone. A devil with a pickup truck.

“I’m sorry,” he says and exhales. “I’m sorry. I can’t wait.”

He pulls back and then—quick as a river fish—slips himself into the back seat of the truck. And then my wrists are grabbed, and with a breathtaking flash of protest from my shoulder, I’m pulled toward him. He must see something in my face that makes him think my gasp isn’t one of surprise, and he lets go of my wrists. My waist is seized instead, and I’m half lifted, half twisted until I’m underneath him on the back seat. And I’m aware that my shoulder still aches like this, that my calf is throbbing where it hangs off the edge of the back seat, but I’m looking up at him, and he’s breathing so hard that he’s panting, and I don’t know if it’s the painkillers or the adrenaline, but the pain feels so distant now, cool compared to the warmth pooling in my chest and behind my navel.

He kisses me again,hard, and I had this idea earlier that I was going to preserve my pride when it came to sex with him, that I was going to keep the deeper parts of myself away from the tawdry, transactional necessities of it all. My body could be a vessel, a receptacle—that’s all he wanted anyway—but my mind and my soul? Those I’d keep up on a shelf, sealed and stored in a dark place, ready to take down and open up again when the year had passed.

I should have known I’d be incapable of keeping any part of myself separate from him.

A sightless, wordless longing chips into my chest as he settles in to kiss me, his weight on his elbows, his fingers restless and searching in my hair, his hips between my legs and gently—so gently I barely notice it—rocking. I open my mouth shyly, blushing at my own daring, but he tastes so nice, and the moans he makes when I offer him my tongue are intoxicating.

His arousal arouses me. I don’t know what to do about my pride during an arrangement like this if that’s the case, but more importantly, I don’t know what this means for any hope of self-preservation. If he has me feeling like this within the first hour of saying yes to his unholy offer, then how will I feel at the last hour? At the end of it all? Will I be completely wrecked, just like I was before, and he’ll saunter off to conquer new worlds with that endearing smile, that boyish and immoral charm, totally unchanged by everything I’ve surrendered to him? Already forgetting me even as I’m still packing my bags?

The bleak obviousness of the answer makes me freeze underneath him.

Bell doesn’t stop when I go still, but he does move his face to kiss my jaw and my neck, fingers sliding through my hair—as much of the bargain as my breasts or thighs—and he’s murmuring all kinds of cajoling, evil things as he rolls his hips against mine with firmer and firmer pressure.

It’s okay, sweetheart. It’s okay, you can trust me.

It’s just a little bit of fun. Just to take the edge off.

A little bit longer, baby, just let me feel you a little bit longer.

I’ve never done anything like this—not in high school, not in college, not after—and there’s something darkly funny about this moment finding me at thirty-six years old, being pressured intojust a little bit morewhile I’m on my back inside a truck that’s been parked on a quiet gravel road. The wrongness of it is woven into the wrongness of my new circumstances, of my coerced consent, of the willingness that I’m willing to give up, andI don’t know—I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I haven’t known since Bell pressed my face into the chalkboard seven years ago, but I find my thighs falling open just an inch or two more. My hips lifting up the tiniest amount. And my hands…

I won’t be proud of this later or even understand it, but my hands find his sides, loose, tentative. Fingertips against the thin sweater and the firm, muscled torso underneath.

He groans like I’ve just slid my hands down the front of his pants.

“Jesus, Birdie,” he mumbles. “Keep touching me. Fuck.”

I flatten my palms against his sides, and then his mouth returns to mine, more insistent than before. His tongue is clever, coaxing, and before I know it, I’m venturing into his mouth, I’m chasing him back. He breathes out these small laughs when I do, laughs that are a little mocking, a little mean, and he says things likeI knew you wanted this. I knew it. All you had to do was ask.

A pressure swells low in my body, right underneath where his hips meet mine. I’m in jeans and he’s in trousers, and there are seams and zippers, and still it doesn’t matter; every roll against me makes the pressure grow and grow, a heavy, crushing swell. His erection is big—as big as it felt in my memories—the width of his hard flesh making precision unnecessary, the length meaning there was no end to him with every roll of his hips.

His lips move to my neck and he whispers, “You really do need a good fucking if this is how worked up you get with your pants on.”