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“Maybe she needs to be upset!” Imani yelled.
I sighed, clearing the tightness in my throat. “Imani, you have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Or maybe you just don’t like what she has to say,” Vi quipped.
Anger surged in. Fuck this. I was a grown ass woman and I had stood beside them through all their mistakes. Through all their ups and downs. I wasn’t about to stand here and have them all talk down to me like they knew more than I did when they didn’t know anything. “Look. If you want to talk about all this, fine, we can talk. After I get dressed.” I turned, a hand pressed to Asmodeus’s chest as I pushed him from the room. “I’m not going to stand here and argue with you guys wrapped in a fucking blanket.”
“Ede,” Sarika stepped forward. “Hun.”
“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” I called over my shoulder. For the first time in a long time, I wasn’t excited to see my girls. That thought weighed heavy on my mind as I guided a naked Asmodeus upstairs.
33
EDEN
My hair was still wet from the shower, the ends dripping onto my cream sweater as I mentally fumed.
Asmodeus’s hand was comforting around my stomach as I stared into the mirror in my bedroom. He stepped behind me, dipping his head to rest his chin against my shoulder. “You owe nobody an explanation.”
But that wasn’t true.
We had been a team for so long. We have been there for breakups and hookups. We had been there awaiting anxious test results or school admissions. We had been there through pregnancies and births. Marriages and divorces. These women were my life in more ways than I would ever be able to put into words, and I owed them an explanation.
Just as I’d owed one to Gran and Abuela.
“They’re really important to me.” It felt weird. There was an intimacy between us that shouldn’t be there. Like suddenly we were a unit. Like I was the wife he kept telling me I was.
My mind went back to the whispered voice that told me to open the box and the intensity that shook through both of us the moment I did. Pandora’s box, only it was everything we both were locked inside, set free. The day that followed had been frantic. We were no longer content in our own skin if it wasn’t pressed against our opposite.
It felt like Asmodeus was suddenly settled under my skin. Something that rushed under my flesh I wouldn’t easily be able to remove. Years of intimacy had somehow been accomplished almost overnight. Ease settled in the place where I used to keep caution for him. I couldn’t even be wary about it. All I felt was content and… I wouldn’t dare say what else.
A sigh left me as I leaned back on him. “Be nice to them.”
He scowled. “But… they’re tiring and vexing! They hit me with all their nonsensical things and keep trying to banish me.”
“Can they?”
“No.”
I lifted my shoulders in a light shrug. “So why does that matter?”
“It’s rude,” he scoffed. “Waving their silly little trinkets and singing those annoying songs.”
“They’re prayers.” I couldn’t help but smile. This was all so ridiculous. I was standing there trying to explain prayers to a demon. A demon I’d slept with. More than once. I was surprised I could stand with how constantly we went at it. My legs should be useless at this point.
Asmodeus scoffed again. “Well, maybe I’ll pray back at them.” His voice was light, but I didn’t miss the whisper of threat.
“Pray back at them?” My brow lifted as I tried my best to smother the smile threatening to make an appearance. “An eye for an eye and all that?”
“I will take all the eyes.”
I turned in his arms with a soft smile on my face. “You won’t take anyone’s eyes. Stop it.”
He pouted but his hold on my waist tightened. “Right. Because I am being nice.”
“As nice as a demon can be.”
His brow creased. “I can be an angel if that is what you demand of me.”
