Page 77 of Devil

And then I collapse back onto the mattress with a shredded cry, my arms flying out and hands scrabbling for purchase as the remaining pleasure tears through my cunt and tugs at every limb, every nerve ending, my palms, my toes, and the nape of my neck. By the time the peak recedes, even my eyelids are twitching.

I am fully deliquesced as Bell straightens up on his knees, cock once again rock hard. He drags his forearm over his wet mouth before flipping me over and pulling me up to my hands and knees.

My backside is given a round smack, and then a hand curls hard around my hip. “It’s a good thing you were already planning on sleeping in tomorrow,” he says, the hot tip of him coming against my soaked opening. Even after intercourse and a massive orgasm, he feels big, impossible. “I don’t know when I’ll be ready to stop.”

I roll my face into the mattress as he impales me and a new climax immediately poises in my cunt like a thinly veiled threat, and I think,I don’t know when I’ll be ready to stop either.

33

BELL

Lilith isan absolute menace in the studio.

I watch the kitten from the improvised desk I’ve made with two sawhorses and a wide plank and debate whether I should intervene—at least while Birdie is trying to work on the finer lines and curves of the impenitent criminal’s feet.

Lilith is standing on the makeshift plinth underneath, pipe-cleaner tail swishing and her tiny form quivering with anticipation, until she rears up on her hind legs and gives a full-bodied pounce. Sometimes she succeeds in wrapping her front paws around the handle of the chisel, sometimes she only bats at Birdie’s wrist, but every time, Birdie has to stop her work and patiently dissuade the creature from murder.

On one hand, Birdie is clearly consumed with making these carvings, and since I think it’s the first time she’s been able to properly create in years, the idea of anything pulling her away makes me itchy, especially on a Friday, when she’ll have to stop early to go visit her sister and then drive out to the gas station anyway.

On the other, it’s really fucking cute. And seeing Birdie smile—and, once, laugh softly as Lilith attached herself to Birdie’s trousers—is a drug I won’t ever deny myself.

I settle for dragging my makeshift desk closer and the cat bed underneath it. “Just say the word and I’ll take her,” I tell Birdie.

Birdie smiles at me, the apples of her cheeks pink with the effort of carving and kitten wrangling, a few reddish locks coming loose around her heart-shaped face. It’s her usual smile, the one where her lips stay pressed together and you have to gauge its happiness by how high her cheeks lift, by how many smile lines bracket the edges of her lips. There are a lot of lines right now, and her eyes are sparkling.

“She’s fine.” Birdie turns that smile on Lilith, who has captured an abandoned gouge and is industriously gnawing on the wooden handle with her little needle teeth. “It’s nice to have a coworker.”

That exact smile is why I made the decision to keep the feline in the first place. We walked into the studio and found Lilith wailing from the head of the criminal, and Birdie’s entire face went aglow. She scampered up a stepladder to rescue Lilith, turned to me with the cat held against her chest, and then she smiled that sweet, bashful smile at me, apples of her cheeks lifted so high.

“We have a visitor,” she informed me, bending her chin enough that the kitten could nuzzle against it. And looking at the two of them, framed by the fading evening light, at the complete joy and gratitude Birdie felt at something as ordinary as holding a kitten…

I’m selfish—you already know this. So obviously I’m not above bribing Birdie’s love with mouse-shaped toys and a prepaid vaccine schedule.

Plus I sensed a kindred spirit in Lilith. She’s clearly not of sound mind and she wants to lick Birdie every chance she gets. We have so much in common.

“Speaking of coworkers, are you sure you don’t want my help bringing a desk in here?” she asks. “Or I could make you one?”

“I’d love to have an original Birdie Cooper desk, but not at the expense of what the studio is actually for,” I say, tilting my head at the blocks of basswood earmarked for the other two carvings in the Golgotha set. “I’ll arrange to have a desk brought in here, don’t worry. As long as you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind. I like having you near me. I want you here.” The honesty in her voice makes me want to climb a fucking cliff and yell from the top. Jesus. “I just feel bad that you have such a nice office and now you’re working on raw lumber.”

“Nowhere is as nice to work as where you are, darling.” I stand up and stroll over to her, coming up behind her so I can take her hips and pull her back into my chest. I nuzzle behind her ear, breathing in apples and that faint hint of fresh wood, and enjoy the instinctive press of her rear against me.

I let go of her hips and slide my hands down her arms, pausing when I get to her wrists. She’s still got one hand wrapped around the chisel, and even though I’ve now seen her hold a chisel plenty of times, this is the first time I’ve gotten to see her hold one up close, the first time her hand hasn’t been in motion. With her palm up like this, I can see the way her little finger doesn’t curl all the way around the handle.

I wouldn’t have thought much of it if she hadn’t tensed a little as I traced over her pinkie with my thumb. I trace over it again, resting my chin on her shoulder.

“An injury?”

She nods without speaking.

“Does it still hurt?”

She shakes her head.

I wait, trusting my silence will indicate what I want, and at last, she speaks. Softly. “An ex of Busy’s. She took his car. He thought I knew where she was and was angry that I wouldn’t tell him.”

I’m wrapped all around her, and I don’t want her to feel my rage, but it’s a lost cause. She tenses even more, probably feeling the fury rippling through me, making me rigid, making my heart pound. I don’t want to scare her, I don’t want her to think I’m angry withher, and I press my face into her hair, inhaling her and reminding myself that she’s here now, she’s under my care, and I’m never going to let anyone hurt her ever again.