Death stormed straight towards me, his eyes now darker than they’d ever been while waves of anger rolled off him. The dark shadows around him remained, clouding him in darkness despite it being the middle of the day.
He roughly grabbed my arm and before I could say anything about it we were back at his apartment. We appeared right next to the toilet, allowing me to immediately empty my guts in there. It was humiliating but at least he didn’t say anything about it.
But I didn’t know if I should thank him for that since a warning would’ve been more than welcome.
He waited for me to finish before handing me a towel, which I gratefully took. He didn’t tell me to hurry up but I could feel his anger radiating off him. I just hoped it wouldn’t be aimed at me. But if it was, I wouldn’t blame him.
“I’m sorry,” I blurted out before he could even think about chewing me out. Ever since I’d arrived I had been nothing but a pain in his ass, especially that first day. He probably had way better things to do than save some weak formerly-mortal girl.
His face remained impassive while he blinked down at me. “About what?”
He was still angry, his stance was tense and his jaw was tight. But by hearing his voice, you wouldn’t know. He didn’t yell at me like he’d done at the guy in the park, making me exhale lightly.
I couldn’t cope well with people yelling at me. Despite all my bravado it usually only took one person yelling at me to make me cry.
“About what happened?” I explained. Or asked. I wasn’t sure, I was just sorry.
“Did you cause it, then?”
“I mean, sort of?” I said while scratching my neck. Death just looked at me before turning in the direction of the living room. It was a little awkward since I was still waiting for him to reply but I followed him nonetheless. When we reached it he turned around again to look at me.
“You caused it by sitting in a park, is what you’re saying now?”
“Yeah, I should’ve stayed here, probably. We already knew shady stuff was going on. I wasn’t being smart about it.”
And I meant it. Why did I even choose the park of all places? If there was any place you get attacked in it was a park. It didn’t get much more dangerous than that. I knew I should’ve been smarter.
But Death grabbed my hand and pulled me toward him, bending down in the process to be able to look me in the eyes. “It’s not your fucking fault, alright? None of this is. I never said you couldn’t leave this apartment and I’m not going to.”
He looked as if he wanted to say more but stopped himself. Instead, he lifted my hand and kissed my knuckles. “Just forget about him for now.”
He said the words with such gentleness I couldn’t help but believe him. I swallowed down the remaining guilt and instead focused on my hand, which was held by his much larger one. I ran my thumb over his fingers while remembering what it felt like to have them run over my body.
I saw him look down as well, but he didn’t move.
“Will I ever stop throwing up after warping somewhere?” I asked, changing the subject in an attempt to lighten to mood a little bit.
But he let go of my hand, something I wished he hadn’t done as I now missed the warmth of it. I dropped mine back at my side while I awaited his answer.
“Probably, but I couldn’t tell you how long it would take since I don’t think I’ve ever met someone with a weaker stomach than yours.”
I glared at him but he didn’t seem too fazed by it. Maybe I wasn’t as intimidating as I thought I was. “Maybe you just suck at it.”
“Maybe I’ll just leave you behind next time.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“And why is that?”
“You’re too soft. So far you’ve threatened me dozens of times yet nothing’s happened yet.”
“I can change that right now.”
“Alright, do your worst.”
An evil glint appeared in his eyes but by now I knew him well enough to know that whatever he was planning out, I’d be able to handle it. Despite his size and somewhat short temper, he was too nice. Too good.
I’m sure he’d throw a fit if I ever told him that though.
He slowly stepped forward but I refused to step back. Even if I was growing a little nervous I wouldn’t show it. I kept my eyes on his, which forced me to crane my neck as he got closer. He was just so uncomfortably tall.
He eventually bent down enough for his lips to lightly graze my ear. “You know I can rip you apart and put you back together, right?”
“That’s nice. But as I said, you won’t.”
“Hm,” he rumbled while brushing his lips behind my ears. The sensations made me lean into him in an attempt to create more contact, but he just moved away every time I did.
When his rough hand slipped under my shirt and made contact with my bare skin I almost forgot what the conversation was about. His touch sent a wave of electricity jolting through my body. In this moment I felt more alive than I’d ever been.
A burning need for him settled between my legs but I refused to acknowledge the things he made me feel. I willed myself to stand still and not touch him. I knew what he was doing and I hated that it worked.
His fingers lightly grazed the waistband of my jeans and I let out a small gasp.
Shit.
Now he definitely knew his actions were affecting me.
But he didn’t say anything. Instead, he continued to run his finger over my skin while his mouth still barely made contact with the area under my ear.
I hadn’t even realized I’d closed my eyes.
How could this guy, who I knew next to nothing about, make me feel this way? Well, I did know something. That he was an ass. And that he had a great ass.
Alright, so I knew two things. Not bad.
If he would’ve told me to undress right now I would have. His feather-light touches were bothering me to the point I needed something to alleviate it. Anything at all.
And it seemed like I was going to get what I wanted when he moved his head to look me in the eyes, and I knew he saw nothing but burning desire in them. His left hand left my stomach and grabbed the back of my neck, making our lips connect.
His kiss was hard and rushed but it was exactly what I needed. Except, it only lasted a second.
He immediately broke off the kiss, making me open my eyes in confusion. His golden eyes seemed to glow even more than they usually did but I didn’t like the devilish smirk that came with it.
“Have a nice evening, Lilly,” was all he said before he disappeared.
Leaving me hot and bothered with no one to relieve it for me.
The longer he was gone the angrier I was getting. Threatening to rip me apart was one thing, but this? It was much worse somehow.
I tried to relieve some of the tension myself but it just wasn’t working. I wanted him to do it for me. I felt like I was going insane.
I paced back and forth while thinking of all the names I was going to call him. It was a pretty long one.
Stupid, asshole, shitface, dick, cunt.
It wasn’t long before I ran out of everything I knew so I had to get creative.
Clownface, monkey brain, lord stinky breath.
I’ll admit some of them were a little juvenile, but they fit his rotten personality. Even if his breath didn’t really smell and his face was too beautiful to call clownish.
Monkey brain might’ve been the most accurate one, actually.
There were no clocks on the walls to indicate the time and I doubted people around here bothered to check it at all. They had nothing but time around here.
But it did get dark, indicating this place followed a daily cycle at the least. Whatever light source purgatory had was going down, telling me it had been a while since he vanished.
I turned on some lamps to keep the darkness at bay and I wondered if Ira could just come in here to grab me. There were no locks in here after all. And I doubted even those would stop someone who could literally teleport.
I turned on the last one and turned around, bumping straight into someone. Thinking it might’ve been Ira I let out a scream before pushing him away.
But he was too heavy and remained in place while I was the one who fell down.
“Fuck,” Death said while grabbing me to stop me from falling. “Lilly, I’m sorry I didn’t mean to scare you.”
He seemed to understand why I had screamed. Maybe the looming threat of Ira abducting me hung over his head as well. The gesture made me almost forget why I was mad at him.
“Let go of me,” I said while yanking my arm back. I stepped back with a glare so deadly he had no choice but to get the message.
“You’re mad at me,” he said. It wasn’t a question, more of an observation. And a good one at that. “From this afternoon?” he asked.
“Yes, from this afternoon, Death. What else should I be mad about?”
He shrugged while stuffing his hands in his pockets. “I’m not answering that. And besides, you’re the one who told me to do it.”
I balled my hands into fists before willing myself to calm down. Yelling wasn’t going to get me anywhere and I didn’t want him to actually hate me.
“You said you were going to rip me apart,” I started. “So I told you to do that. Not... This!” I said while frantically waving my hands around. I didn’t want to explain to him what I meant by this but seeing the stupid smirk appear I knew he knew too.
“Poor little Lilly got a little frustrated?” He cooed, taunting me. I saw what he was doing but refused to let him have the satisfaction of actually riling me up even further.
I could see this conversation wasn’t going anywhere. And if it was, I had already lost. Either I was going to admit what he made me feel or I was going to get angry at him. And I wanted to do exactly none of those things.
“Good night, Death,” I said while walking toward the bedroom, effectively dismissing him. Just before closing the door, I caught the sweet melody of his laughter reverberate through the hall.
