Page 31 of Judge of Saints and Sinners

“I’m sure you could, little thief.”

She tilted her head to rest against my shoulder, the intimacy of the movement making my chest fuzzy with pleasure. “Do you think that I would belong in Elysium someday?”

I growled. “Not for a very, very long time.”

“But someday.”

“No, Justine, I think you belong somewhere else altogether.”

I moved, her head falling off my arm as I shifted to pull her to her feet. In my hands, her fingers were chilled and so small and precious. Her breathing spiked for a moment as I pulled her hand up to my lips, turning her wrist until I could press a kiss against the lily that was still inked there.

“Let’s go home.”

***

Justine

I woke up this morning to something I’d never once experienced. There was a man in my bed, and not just in my bed, but wrapped around me like I was his lifeline.

I gulped, my chest tightening as Judge shifted against me. I fell asleep early last night. My mind had been a scramble of emotions after spending the day with the demon. Not because anything significant had happened, but because it hadn’t.

We had simply co-existed, talking quietly, walking Cerberus, and then at the end of the night, I’d attempted to show him how to cook scrambled eggs. To my surprise, he’d weathered my teasing like a champion as he burned the first egg into something charred and unrecognizable but then opted to trade me positions and instead doodle small pictures across the notes I’d left out.

They were beautiful, the attention to detail so stunning that I had nearly burned the eggs again when he showed me a few of what he called “scribbles.”

One was a river, the waves looking like they were moments from splashing me off of the page. He said his home was there, by the River Styx. The second one, it had been a tiny portrait of a woman who he quietly admitted was Anna. Her features, so unfamiliar, made a spike of something run straight through my chest.

Not jealousy. It was something else. Something so much deeper and more important than any petty jealousy. This woman, she had carried Judge’s soul. She was a part of him, and he’d lost her. And while their relationship had never been romantic, there was something so devastating about that loss every time I tried to bring up yesterday’s grave visit that I gave up trying.

I knew his pain. I understood his pain. And God help me, it made me like him so much more. Because I liked Judge. I liked him so much that at times my chest ached and my stomach rolled. The need to be close to him raced through my veins with every heartbeat. I didn’t know what it meant, exactly, but I knew that I wanted him here with me for as long as I could have him.

Which meant I couldn’t be doing anything stupid and risk him saving me and thus breaking the magic holding him to me.

I shifted on the bed, and behind me, Judge’s arm moved, reaching across my belly. His weight was warm and welcome, and I stilled, making sure I didn't wake him.

His breath puffed out the back of my neck, making goosebumps creep up and down my spine as I became more aware of just how many places we touched. His arm across my side, his legs cupping mine, one long, powerful thigh splitting my legs and pressing high against a part of me that throbbed with his proximity.

I wasn’t very experienced. It wasn’t as if I had time to date as I jumped and moved across the country hiding from my faceless stalker, but I knew enough to assume that Judge was far more experienced than me.

Not ti mention that he had to be so much older than me.

That shouldn’t be as hot as it was.

“Hmmm,” Judge said, his mouth moving close to the nape of my neck, where his face nuzzled into my hair. “What are you thinking about, little thief? I can practically feel the ideas rolling off you.”

Ideas? Ideas of rolling you over, grinding down against your thighs. Maybe giving into the nearly painful need to press my mouth against yours and see how you taste.

I chomped down on my lower lip, making sure my hips didn’t move an inch as I moved my chin so I could look back at him. His hair was braided back from his face, his expression relaxed, eyes still closed. “You’re a blanket hog.”

At that, his lips quivered and he snorted. “You think I chose this position? I had to get closer in order to have a chance at any blanket.”

Blinking, I looked back and realized that I held most of the sheets and comforter in my fists, meaning I had truly stolen them from him. My cheeks felt hot as I pushed up, stammering an apology. “I didn’t mean to, I don’t usually—uh…”

His arm around my middle only gripped me tighter, and I was tugged back into the warm bed. “Calm down, Justine. I was just teasing.”

I allowed him to rearrange me again, tugging me back into the frame of his form until we were paired up, close enough I could feel the way his chest moved when he breathed. My eyes clamped shut at the sudden need to memorize all of this, every moment. Who knew when I would experience such a divine pleasure such as this again.

I wanted to commit him to memory. The way his broad body cradled me. The way my hips felt tucked up against his. The way I could nearly hear his heartbeat.