Bound By Lucifer by Aiden Pierce

Chapter Four

Jess

Ieyed the contract like he’d pulled a poisonous snake from his jacket instead of a piece of paper. How had he just had that?

There was no flaming parchment, no floating pen or deep, villainous laugh, but I still had the same uneasy sensation I imagined I’d have if all those things had actually happened.

All intrigue and mild excitement fizzled away that instant, replaced with molten fury. How the Hell did he know about my dad and his cancer? And what kind of prick would dare dangle his health over my head as some kind of employment incentive?

I turned on Melanie, flinging her a withering glare. “You told him about my dad? Melanie! What the fuck? That’s private.”

“I didn’t tell him. I swear!”

My throat burned with anger, fists clenching at my sides. Now Mel was lying to me? Tonight, I hardly recognized my friend. She wasn’t acting like herself. When she’d ordered me to stay at our table, she’d clearly told Lucifer my name and told him about my dad. It’s not like the guy could read minds.

“Then how does he know about my dad’s cancer?”

“Because he’s the devil, Jessica!”

I rolled my eyes with a scoff. “He’s not the devil. You need to go home, Mel. Get some sleep. You’ve been through too much tonight, and you’re starting to irritate me. And I don’t want to fight on your birthday.”

“But Jessica—”

“Go home!” I was almost yelling now. Angry tears stung my eyes and rolled down my cheeks. That was private information, and she had no right to tell a stranger. My dad’s fragile health condition was the only thing that made me feel weak and powerless, and fuck did I hate that feeling. Friday nights were supposed to be the night I could forget about that.

“Fine.” Her voice wavered, and her throat twitched with a big gulp. Her gaze narrowed on Lucifer, then dropped to the contract he held. “Just don’t sign anything, Jess. Please?”

Then she turned and left without a word more.

I pivoted to flip my glare on Lucifer, arms crossed over my chest. “You have some nerve, you know that? If you want me to come work for you so bad, how about you offer a normal incentive like a cash bonus, health insurance, a 401K…? I don’t know, this is a strip club, free lap dances?”

Despite my anger, he laughed and took another drink of the cosmopolitan I’d made him. “But you don’t want any of those things.”

“How could you possibly know what I want?”

He cocked his head slightly to the side, black tresses falling over his golden eyes. Ugh. He was so infuriatingly beautiful. And he knew it, the smug asshole. “I have a talent for knowing things, Jessica.”

When he’d first offered the job, I had been interested. My job was exhausting, mentally and physically, and I wouldn’t be able to handle it forever, not with everything going on in my personal life. Working in a place like this had its appeal. While it wasn’t as safe or as respectable as the hospital, I didn’t care about that. It was interesting. And having the billionaire playboy Lucifer Morningstar for a boss would make for an exciting work life.

But I had no interest in working for a prick who’d dangle my dad’s health in front of me like a carrot on a stick.

“If you know everything, then you already know my answer.” I flipped him off, ready to storm away and out of Siren’s forever. But as I turned to move, he caught my wrist. His touch burned me up. How could such a possessive move make me want to stop and listen to him when really I should have brought down the same sort of wrath I treated the old perverts in the hospital with who thought it was okay to grope their nurse? I didn’t pull my punches for anyone who made me feel like an object. Maybe it was the way he was looking at me, with a sort of reverence in his gaze and the desperation in his touch to keep me close.

“That’s not what you were thinking, Jessica,” he said through a soft as silk murmur. “You’re intrigued, extremely. Angry, but I think that emotion will be short-lived once you believe that I do, in fact, have the power to help your father. And that I have every intention of doing so if you sign this piece of paper.” He waved the contract, a diabolical smile sitting pretty on his lips.

I hated how he seemed to read me like a book because, damn it, I was intrigued. “He’s received the best care in the country at the Cancer Care Alliance Center. If they can’t help him, then you can’t.”

The smile slipped from Lucifer’s face, and his expression hardened. “I’m a resourceful man, Ms. Sims. I wouldn’t offer anything to you unless I was capable of delivering it.”

How did he know my last name? There was no way Melanie had told him…

Lucifer’s golden eyes gleamed from the shadows, and stripes of red light swathed his face. An involuntary shiver skittered down my back, and I instinctively took a step away from him. How could I be so repelled by a man and so attracted to him all at once? It was like my two halves having opposite opinions of him.

Because he’s not a man, he something else… Something dangerous.

Lucifer took a step forward while I took another step in retreat until I was cornered, with my back against the bar. He leaned forward, placing a hand on either side of the counter, locking me in. The club was filled with people. I could scream. I could call for help, but the moment I considered it, I realized I didn’t want to call for help. The fact that our bodies were so close that they were nearly touching stained my flesh red and sent my heartbeat into an erratic hammer against my ribcage.

By the curve of his lips, he noticed.

God, I already hated him. He was so smug, so cocky, so damn sexy. His lips spread wider. “Your friend did not tell me your name, Jessica. Nor did she tell me about your father. So please do not be angry with her. I’d hate to be the source of a spat amongst dear friends.”

I blinked several times. He had to be lying. There was no other way he would have known unless he could—

“Read minds? Yes, I can. Well, not perfectly. Yours has been a bit fuzzy. Kind of like the static between radio stations. You’ve got a strong will. That or a thick skull. Or both.”

My heart crystallized in my chest, and my entire body went cold.

When someone tells you they can read minds, any sane person would brush them off as either crazy or a liar. Maybe someone who claimed they read minds would be the exact same sort of person who claimed to be the devil.

It’s all fun and games until the bastard finishes a fucking sentence that had only been in your head.

“Ah, so you believe me now, Jessica?” The bastard laughed like this was all funny instead of disturbing. He leaned in so close, his lips brushed against my ear, causing my heart to lurch in my chest. His voice dropped to a gravelly purr that sunk straight down into my core and curled up between my thighs, a forbidden caress as the final notes of “Sympathy for the Devil” faded away over the speakers with perfect timing.

“I shouldn’t have come here.”

“Oh, but I’m ever so glad you did. Don’t fret, Kitten. I won’t hurt you. You’re a strong, fiery woman who loves a little bit of thrill, don’t you? What better thrill than to play with the devil?”

I couldn’t speak. I could barely think. I’d been flirting with— A fist-sized lump lodged itself in my throat. I could barely even think it.

“The devil. Go ahead and say it, darling. It’s not such a terrifying thing when it’s not used by Paradise as a method to scare humans into submission. I’ve been their proverbial ‘boogeyman’ for eons.”

“I–I—”

His lips softened, his brow’s furrowed deep into an expression that bled sensuality and arrogance. He starred at me for several more moments, as if rooting around in my head for clues on what to say to me next.

Finally, he stepped back, giving me some space. I gasped, gulping down air as if I could finally breathe now that he wasn’t directly in my orbit. My lungs cried out in relief, but the rest of me seemed to grow cold in the absence of the heat he invoked inside me.

“You’re overwhelmed, Kitten. Why don’t you go home? Allow yourself to come to terms with who I am. Sleep on the offer I’ve presented you. I think you’ll find it’s a good one. You can give me your answer tomorrow.”

He held the contract out to me. I looked at it in a whole new light now, knowing it wasn’t just a job offer from some rich asshole.

The devil existed. And he wanted to make a deal with me.

I knew now, the contract wasn’t for a job. That was a big fat lie if I ever heard one.

Regardless of what he was or what he wanted, if he could save my father, could I really refuse?

* * *

Melanie had been right.

Lucifer Morningstar, billionaire playboy and king of Seattle’s supernatural underworld, was, in fact, the devil.

The freaking devil!

I had flirted with Satan all night. And what had I got for my troubles? A proposition from the devil.

I was accustomed to crazy Friday nights out, but this was the first contract I’d ever been presented. I didn’t have to read it to know that if I signed it, I would be agreeing to something wicked.

The devil was in the details, as the saying goes. And I would be reading every last word of this contract. Not that I was actually considering signing it. No way. Sure, I was a thrill-seeker. But that meant driving over the speed limit, trying psychedelics, auditioning for the Seattle Theatre Club totally stoned. Not making deals with dark lords!

Nope, I wasn’t actually considering it.

It’s not like he could actually save my dad… Could he?

I laid in bed for hours, thinking about Lucifer Morningstar.

There were a lot of things troubling me, and the least of it was that I now believed he was who he said he was. I mean, yeah, okay, so he was the devil. That shit was pretty heavy. This meant Heaven was real; Hell was real. I’d never really been a religious person, but maybe it was time to get into the whole Jesus thing, especially if I was having these kinds of thoughts about the devil.

Why was I so attracted to Lucifer Morningstar? Lucifer—fucking—Morningstar.

The Prince of Darkness.

The King of the Night.

Lord of the Fallen.

The Light Bringer.

I tasted that last one out loud, testing its weight on my tongue. I wondered if that’s what the bouncer had meant by calling me “Little Moth;” that I was attracted to a light that would destroy me?

It made me wonder if the precarious chemistry Lucifer and I shared stretched deeper than mere physical attraction. Whatever it was, it was electric. It was dangerous. And intoxicating. I couldn’t stop thinking about what it had felt like when his hand brushed against mine, that inexplicable warmth, like the most delicious hellfire. And the way his lips twitched and his dark lashes fluttered when he’d gleaned all my filthy thoughts, and how he didn’t make me feel embarrassed for them.

I had two very different sides of my personality, and one of them I actually talked to in my head. I had arguments with the little voice in my head that tried to make me do stupid things. That shit wasn’t normal. But he hadn’t made me feel abnormal. He made me feel desired. It had me questioning exactly what it was he wanted from me.

I turned my head on my pillow to gaze at the contract that I’d placed on my bedside table. I’d been starring at it for hours. It wasn’t until the cusp of dawn began leaking through the drawn curtains of my bedroom window that I finally drifted into a shallow sleep, dreaming of the devil and his infernal smile.