Lucifer's Beginning (The Lucifer's Trilogy)

“You assume I’m going to let you live to try,” Savage snaps.

Adam moves then and has her gun in a flash, but Ana is well trained and reacts smartly, quickly. Instantly, I’m standing, and so is she, and she’s holding yet another gun she’s pulled from her person at my chest. “I’ll kill him!” she shouts at the room while her eyes burn into mine. “You must have a death wish. I can’t believe you came back here.”

Her anger, her contempt, and the burn of her believing the worst of me is a fresh blade in my heart, but it also pisses me the fuck off. “Kasey tried to kill me, Ana,” I say softly, for her ears only. “I had to kill him.”

“He wouldn’t—”

“He did,” I snap. “He was dirty.”

Her jaw clenches. “He wasn’t dirty.”

“Some part of you knows the truth. You just wish it were the other way around, that I’m dead and he’s not. Shoot me, Ana. If that’s what will make you happy, fucking shoot me again.”

“God, you really are the devil. Don’t tempt me, Lucifer.” Her hand trembles, when it never trembles, and her energy radiates with anger and emotion. “Don’t tempt me,” she repeats in a raspy hiss.

Suddenly Savage is beside us, and he grabs the gun, yanking it away from Ana. “No one in this room is shooting anyone except maybe Darius the Dickhead, who irritates the fuck out of me. This is why Adam is currently tying his ass up. He’s safer that way.” He glowers at me. “I can’t save you if I let her shoot you at this close range. And you can’t save her if you’re dead.” He glances at her and shoves her gun in his pants. “He’s a good guy. Whoever the fuck Kasey is, he shot him because he deserved it.”

She rotates on Savage and smacks him in the face. “Fuck,” he snaps. “That wasn’t nice.”

“He was my brother, you asshole. And if I shoot Lucifer again, I don’t intend for anyone to save him.”

Savage gapes at me. “You killed her brother? Fuck, man, there’s no coming back from that.”

Aware of that truth, and even more so the fact that we could be attacked at any moment, I grab Ana. She slaps me hard in the face, yet the sting doesn’t stop me from throwing her over my shoulder. She tries to kick and fight, of course, and she calls me names, but Adam was right. This is between me and her, just me and her, which is why I walk toward the location I know to be a bedroom.

Once we’re inside, I kick the door shut and set her down.

Now we’re alone, and I’m not at all surprised when she slaps me again. And again. I let her just do it. Maybe I want the pain. Maybe I deserve the pain, but it can’t hurt as much as the day she told me she hated me. The day she tried to kill me and almost succeeded.

“Do something!” she shouts at me. “Stop just standing there.”

I catch her arms and drag her to me, turning her and pinning her between me and the door. “Does that work?”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Lucifer

Ana doesn’t jerk at her hands or fight me. She’s trained not to waste energy she can’t afford to expel. Her eyes meet mine, and there is a punch of history between us. Four years of history that started in a corner store turned into an engagement ring, and then ended with a bullet in my gut. I never thought I’d be this close to her again, even if I had to pin her to a door to make it happen. She’s still beautiful. She still smells delicious. And I still fucking love her, and I hate that I do.

She feels all the things I do. I see the flare of memories in her eyes, and I damn sure feel the push and pull between us that is familiar, ripe with history, and burning with the knowledge that we are still wickedly hot together. I know the exact moment she realizes this, the moment she hates me for it, the moment she really does want to shoot me all over again.

“Why are you not in hell already, Lucifer?” she demands softly.

I’d flinch, but she’d enjoy it too much, and of all the ways I’m willing to offer her pleasure, that’s not the kind of pleasure I intend to give Ana now or later.

“Because, apparently,” I say, “I was supposed to stick around to keep you alive so you could have another shot at me, Ana, but do it later. Jake’s dead.”

She blanches. “What?”

“He called me to warn me about a hitlist. He was being chased.” My lips thin. “I heard him die, and then a man came on the line. He told me you were next and challenged me to get to you first. I was in Texas, and you wouldn’t take my calls.”