He Loves Me, He Loves Me Hot Read online

  “You couldn’t have just gone and killed Satan, could you?”

  “Dani, did you really expect you could tell me to murder the leader of hell and I’d just do it? Pick up takeout for you, and maybe I wouldn’t have bothered to question it. But murdering Satan’s a little different.” He picked up a plaid shirt and frowned. Since when did he wear plaid shirts? Ma. He tossed it aside and went hunting for a T-shirt instead.

  “You’re a jerk.”

  He sighed as he tugged on a pair of jeans that smelled a little musty from being stored for so long. “Yeah, well, that’s life.”

  “No, it’s not life,” she snapped. “It’s death now. They weren’t going to kill me before, but now that you proved I can’t lie to you, they’re actually going to do it, and it’s all your fault.”

  He hesitated as he caught a hint of actual fear in her voice. “Where are you?”

  “Come to my apartment. You’ll see.” Then she hung up.

  Just after ten on Thursday morning, ex-Guardian Iris Bennett came out of her bathroom to find Satan posed seductively on her new satin comforter, a scarf woven with gold leaf draped over his manly regions. He was tanned, ripped, and completely naked, except for a new watch that looked like it cost high six figures. His rich black hair was usually perfectly coiffed and styled, but it was in total disarray, as if someone had been running their fingers through it…she smiled at the memory of their amazing night. He was beautiful and sexy and…looking guilty as sin? Hmm…

  She folded her arms over her chest as he wiggled his eyebrows. “My luscious pancake of love, I shall bring you to orgasmic peaks that no mortal could survive. Sounds good, no?”

  “Where did you go for three hours in the middle of last night?” she asked.

  He blinked once, very slowly, and his face went carefully blank, except for the lust gleaming in his eyes. “I do not know of which you speak.”

  “Fine.” She knew from experience that there was no point in arguing with him, but blackmail was another story. “No sex, then.” She walked back into the bathroom and locked the door.

  “Oh, my feisty lioness, do not deprive yourself of my lovemaking talents!” The door flew off the hinges, and Iris jumped back as it crashed into the bathtub.

  She glared at him as the splintered wood flew up around them. “You broke my door!”

  “Yes, I did. I am quite magnificent, am I not?”

  “I thought we agreed that you would use none of your hell-talents in my house.”

  Satan paused in the doorway, a look of chagrin curving his lovely features. “I forget my strength. I do not intend to bring hell’s business to your quaint and small house that is like a matchbox compared to my many and expensive mansions. I apologize. Now forgive me and let us continue our exceptional lovemaking.”

  Iris stepped back, holding out her hand to block him as he approached. He pressed his chest against her hand, and her belly jumped at the feel of his hot skin, as it always did. “Satan, I can’t live like this.”

  “Of course not. You live in a hovel. Move to my island in the Caribbean and—” He paused when she shook her head. “My flat in Paris?” When she shook her head again, he broke into a delighted smile and grabbed her around the waist before she could stop him. “You have decided to move to hell! I am so thrilled, my happiness will explode from my head and shower us with—”

  “Stop!” She poked him in the ear. “I’m not moving to hell!”

  He stopped and looked at her, his face so disappointed that she almost caved and agreed to pack her bags and move south of the border with him. Don’t be an idiot, Iris. You don’t want to live in hell. So, instead, she laid her hands on either side of his face and forced him to look at her. “What did you do that’s making you look so guilty?”

  He met her gaze. “I cannot lie to the woman whom my heart yearns for. Despite your specific request to the contrary, I have ordered my Rivka to harvest more souls and I tortured her last night. But she is most deserving and recovers well. She enjoys it as much as I do, of that I am most certain.”

  “You’re trying to tell me that she enjoys being tortured?” At his vigorous nod, Iris looked into the face of the man she was starting to grow fond of and wondered what she’d been thinking. How could she date the leader of hell? Even her women’s support group in purgatory thought she was being too optimistic about the chances for their relationship. “Satan, she doesn’t enjoy it.”

  He waved his hands around his ears, trying to block her words. “Yes, she does! We bond through our shared life force! My Rivka and I are tight like sex addict and his women! There is no misunderstanding! She thinks I am boss most worthy!”

  Could he be more deluded? She’d met Becca. The woman practically oozed unhappiness at being Satan’s pet. “Satan, I can’t take this anymore. You need to change, or I’m out of here.” She saw the panic in his eyes and had to dig her fingernails into her palms to continue with her speech, hearing the members of her women’s group chanting their mantra: “You must be true to yourself first and the man second.” She had to at least try it their way, because she was miserable trying to live with his morals. “Promise me you’ll reform hell. That you won’t abuse your Rivkas anymore, that you won’t harvest any more souls.”

  He stared at her. “This is important to you?”

  “Very.”

  He spun around and marched out into the bedroom and began to pace, fiddling with his new watch and muttering to himself. As she watched, his golden aura slowly became visible, shimmering around his body in a beautiful display. She shaded her eyes, wondering why it was showing now. She’d only seen it once before, when he’d intentionally revealed it to her.

  He came to a stop in front of her, then dropped to his bare knees, thunking to the tile, a deep rose pink mixing with the gold in his aura. “Iris Bennett, matchless beauty to whom I have devoted all my fantasies, I will be the man you yearn for. I hereby take a leave of absence from hell. I will harvest no souls and order none to be harvested.” His eyes were wide, fixated on Iris like she was his reason for living, and pink began to fill his aura.

  Iris felt something swell deep in her heart, and she touched his face. “You will do all this for me? Release all the souls in hell, too?” That was what her new friend Rosemarie had told her to ask for at the end of the last women’s support group, after hearing how upset Iris was with Satan’s nefarious activities. They both had felt that if Iris could use her relationship with Satan to help people, then she might be able to live with the other hellish things he did.

  A muddy gray seeped into Satan’s aura, dimming the colors. “Release the souls?” he echoed, his voice hollow with disbelief. “But they are my minions. Without my souls to rule, I cease to be the virile and dominating man who makes your body hot and throbbing. It is who I am.” His aura grew darker, and some black came into it, and his eyes became bleak. “I cannot do that. Please do not make this a condition of your love. I would beg, but that is unmanly, and I am never unmanly.”

  Iris bit her lower lip, realizing she’d asked too much. She could not take away the essence of what made Satan who he was. But he seemed to want to change for her. Was there a chance she could reform him and save his soul, little by little? She wanted to try, and she thought of Rosemarie’s backup suggestion. “You’re right. I can’t ask you to do that.” She idly flicked his hair with her fingers. “Okay, how about this? For every time we have sex, you have to release one soul. You have billions and billions of souls. I get to pick who you release.”

  “Done!” Satan leapt to his feet. “It is done! I am your stallion! Ride me along the beach until there is no more sand!”

  Iris laughed as he swept her up in his arms, wrapping her arms around his delicious shoulders, filled with hope for their future. “I think I can live with that.”

  And then he tossed her on the bed, and she opened her arms to welcome him, giggling at the thought of how the world was going to change when the leader of hell became a new man.
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  “Dani?” It was already noon on Thursday when Nick flung open the door to Dani’s condo. She hadn’t answered the door, making him glad he’d insisted on keeping a set of keys when he’d bought it for her. He’d tried to call her repeatedly since she hung up on him, but her phone had kept going to voicemail.

  And he was getting worried.

  The instant he stepped inside the apartment, he felt cold. Bleak. “Dani!”

  The apartment was ominously silent and heavy, and he knew Dani wasn’t there. The place was devoid of all emotions. Empty. Something else was there, though. Something he didn’t like. Something that made him feel like his bones had been plunged into freezing water for days. But what?

  He whipped a gun out of his shoulder rig, then strode down the hall toward her bedroom, adrenaline racing as he scanned her condo for any sign of threat. He yanked open her door and stepped into her room, gun up, then froze at the sight of a transparent black dome that nearly filled the space.

  His chest clamped when he saw Dani inside it, lying on her back on her bed, motionless. She was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. Her hair was limp, and for the first time since she’d turned twelve, she wasn’t wearing any makeup. She looked young, and her skin was pale.

  And she wasn’t emanating any emotions.

  It was as if she were dead.

  Jesus. “Dani!” He roared her name and charged, slamming his shoulder into the bubble. He hit it, and it flung him back, slamming him through her wall and into the hallway. “What the hell?” He shook off the ringing in his head and stood up, ignoring the plaster hanging from his clothes as he crunched over the wall remnants littering the hardwood floor and stepped through the hole and back into the room.

  For a long moment, he forced himself to simply stand there and listen. Look. Assess. He reached out with his senses, trying to detect any living force coming from her room.

  But all he felt was cold. No emotions of any sort. Simply emptiness.

  After a few minutes of coming up with nothing, he nudged the bubble with the muzzle of his gun. The bubble sprang back softly. He pressed harder, and the bubble rebounded with more force. Then he slammed his fist into it, and the bubble flung him back against the desk.

  What the hell was it? He jumped to his feet with a scowl and reapproached the bubble. He laid his bare palm against it and once again reached out with his senses.

  It was cold, silent, and left him feeling empty and dark.

  And it wasn’t letting him in to get his sister.

  Cursing, he peered at Dani again, this time noticing that her chest was still rising and falling slightly with her breath. “Oh, God, squirt,” he whispered. “You’re alive. Good girl.” He closed his eyes for a moment to tamp down on the sudden tightness in his chest, then opened them, trying to focus. Trying to figure out a plan. “Dani? Can you hear me?”

  No response.

  He tried again for a few minutes but got nowhere.

  Dani was out.

  Grinding his teeth restlessly, he walked around the bubble, testing it for weakness, his mind racing. Every time he touched it, the dome tugged at his warmth, at the pulsing light within him that kept him alive. “Dani! Get up!”

  He wound up at the doorway again and opened his senses, trying to get a bead on Dani’s emotions. But all he could feel was a soul-sucking emptiness that made him want to drop to his knees and bawl like a ninny.

  It felt like death.

  It felt like evil.

  What it felt like was hell.

  He stood for a minute longer while he contemplated, then he holstered his gun, spun on his heels, and sprinted for the door.

  Five

  Becca’s fake belly button ring was in danger of falling out, and the glitter she’d put on her breasts was itching. She’d worn the sluttiest outfit she could find, and the lascivious stares from some of the skankier occupants of Club Axe told her she’d chosen well. A scum would no doubt be hitting on her before too long.

  First lesson for Paige had been that Rivkas only harvested souls who deserved it.

  When Becca’d had to pry Paige off a nun outside St. Mary’s Cathedral on their way to Club Axe, she’d realized that the lesson hadn’t quite sunk in.

  She caught one guy eying her chest with a particularly lecherous look. Excellent. She pulled her shoulders back, fluffed her breasts, and ran her hand up her thigh as seductively as she could, trying to make it look like she actually meant it.

  He was just setting his drink on the counter to move toward her when a bundle of sunshine danced across her vision. “Okay, so I got your drink, boss,” Paige announced, bounding up to Becca, her breasts nearly falling out of her too-small bustier. “Can I take someone’s soul now? Ooo…you found a victim?” She spun around. “Oh, that guy at the bar, right? The blond guy who looks like he’s humping the stool while he stares at you? Wow. So that’s what humping looks like, huh?”

  Becca frowned at the question in Paige’s voice and caught the girl’s wrist just as she began heading across the room toward the scum. “Hang on a sec, apprentice.”

  “What’s up, boss?” Paige stared at her expectantly, waiting for orders.

  “Are you a virgin?”

  Paige threw up her hands. “Well, totally! I mean, I’ve only been alive for like three weeks and I had to learn all this stuff about humans so I could blend in and stuff and then I had to learn the history of Satan and some basic Rivka stuff, like how to get around hell without falling into an acid pit. It wasn’t like we had time for the sex part, you know?”

  Satan saddled her with a virgin? Becca became suddenly aware of the heavy odor of sex in the air, of the couples in the upstairs rooms grunting, of the gyrating threesome on the dance floor in front of them. She looked at the slut outfit Paige was wearing and felt like an irresponsible mom. She shrugged out of her thigh-length leather jacket and held it up. “Put this on.”

  “Your leather jacket?” Paige set the drinks on a nearby table, totally oblivious to the snarl from one of the women already parked there, and reverently took the coat, pressing it up to her nose to breathe in the scent. “I can’t believe I’m holding Becca Gibbs’s soul-harvesting coat.”

  At the excited gleam in Paige’s eyes, Becca didn’t have the heart to tell her that it was actually just a regular coat because the dragon had absconded with her soul-harvesting coat. “Yeah, I’ve brought down entire countries in that thing. Be careful with it. It’s loaded.”

  “Ooo…” Paige carefully put her hand in the pocket as she slid it on. “I can feel all the souls in the leather, screaming for release.”

  Becca turned away to stifle her grin, then saw the scum from the bar heading toward them. She moved next to Paige and lowered her voice. “Okay, so he’s coming over here—”

  “Do I get to have sex with him?”

  “You don’t have to have sex in order to harvest a soul.”

  “Really?” Paige frowned. “My teacher said Satan says you do. Why would she lie?”

  “Okay, fine, the intimacy of sex can help you access someone’s innermost sanctum, but you won’t be harvesting any souls until you’re strong enough to do it without sex. Got it?”

  Paige folded her arms over her chest. “I want to harvest souls now. I’ll have sex. I don’t mind.”

  “You’re not old enough to have sex.”

  “Since when?” Paige gave her a skeptical look. “How old do you have to be?”

  “Older than three weeks.” She grabbed Paige’s chin and pointed her back toward the approaching lecher. “When he gets close, hold your hand out over his torso. If your fingers tingle, he’s ripe for harvesting.”

  “Can I harvest him even if they don’t tingle?”

  “No. I told you, we only harvest souls that deserve it.”

  “Bo-ring…” Her voice trailed off as the guy leered at them and let his gaze drift over their bodies as he neared. “Ooo…look at him…”

  Becca’s stomach crawled, but she saw Paige begin
to glow with excitement. “Paige—”

  “He is so HOT,” Paige whispered. “I can practically hear his soul calling my name…”

  The man came to a stop in front of them, staring right at Paige’s cleavage. “Want to go to a motel?”

  “Yes!” Paige flung herself on him and wrapped her legs around his waist, slamming her mouth onto his before Becca could reach out to stop her.

  Becca glared at him and let her eyes flash red, letting a low growl roll off her tongue. He immediately paled, dropped Paige with a crash, and bolted for the door. Knocked over two women and a waitress on his way.

  Becca grinned, suddenly feeling much better.

  “Let’s go get him!” Paige jumped to her feet and was already shoving past Becca.

  Becca just managed to grab the tail of the coat and hauled the girl to a stop. “Chill out, girl! We’re not going to chase him down.” No way was she going to have Paige harvest a lecher’s soul. She’d have to wait for a drug addict. Or maybe a carjacker. Yeah, that would work. Or an embezzler. Even better. “You’re way too excitable. Where’s your strategic thinking?”

  Paige was instantly contrite. “Don’t kill me. I’ll get better, I swear. Next time, I’ll—”

  Becca slapped her hand over Paige’s mouth as a chill shot up Becca’s spine. He was here.

  She shoved Paige aside and spun toward the room, keeping the wall at their backs.

  “Boss—”

  “Quiet.” She scanned the room. It was dark. So many bodies. So many scents. But she could definitely sense the man who’d nearly killed her two weeks ago when she’d tried to harvest his black soul. He’d convinced her he was human until the last instant, and her idiocy had almost gotten her killed. She’d been searching for him for the last two weeks, and now he was at the club. Watching her. If she could find him, persuade him to tell her who’d hired him, and then kill them both, she’d feel so much better about the fact she was still tied to Satan and would have no future if this assassin succeeded in taking her out.