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He wound a lock of her hair around his dark claws. “Marry me.”
Epilogue
Alyssa wrinkled her brow and pondered the glowing numbers on her microwave. It was three-seventeen in the morning, but she was craving hot cocoa. The microwave would make considerably less noise than a whistling kettle. Or maybe if she babysat the kettle, she could catch it right before it whistled—
“You should be in bed,” a deep voice growled behind her.
She jolted back, landing against a hard, familiar chest. She looked up to Drastos’ human face—a face she couldn’t see because she was lurking around the kitchen in the dark—but a face she knew had a sour, disapproving expression.
“I’m still working.”
“No,” he disagreed. “I know you. When you’re up this late ‘working,’ it means you’re staring at the same information and rewording it again and again until you’re exhausted and feeling ‘snacky’, as you call it.”
She rolled her eyes and pushed away from him to flick on the light, since they were both up anyhow. “I do some of my best work at night.”
“You believe that, but trust me, it isn’t true. You’re just confused because the work that keeps you awake would put everyone else to sleep,” he grumbled. “Data organization optimization.”
Shaking her head, she leaned against the doorjamb. “But I’m awake. I may as well attempt to be productive.” She arched a brow at him. “You should find my work interesting. It’s directly related to how easily you do your work. The university library’s search engine is atrocious.”
“I have advantages that nullify the barriers of an average human researcher,” he countered.
She grabbed the kettle, her desire for a hot drink rekindled. His hand gripped her wrist and tugged, making her release the kettle.
“You and your nightcravings,” he chided.
“Don’t say it that way. They aren’tthatsort of cravings.”
He smirked, and his eyes flickered to her stomach. She wasn’t expecting, but it was always on their minds, as it wasn’t for lack of enthusiastic trying.
“If they were ‘that sort,’ they wouldn’t be as mundane as your usual nighttime foraging.”
“In any case—” She freed her hand from his and gestured to the stove. “I was just going to boil some water for cocoa.”
“I suppose that’s better than the time I found you frying bacon at two in the morning and eating it right out of the pan.”
She bit her lip, fighting the blush that accompanied her embarrassment at being caught. Most people grabbed a handful of chips or microwaved pizza rolls when they got the munchies at night. She’d once cooked a New York strip and called it a snack. In her defense, she was usually so busy during the day that she skipped lunch and rushed through dinner. Her mundane was another’s unthinkable, and yet she guessed that demon baby cravings would be on an entirely different level.
“If you can’t sleep, I can remedy that,” he said. His eyes met hers, and as she watched, his mahogany irises darkened into the pitch-black that signaled his demon form coming forth.
She was over his shoulder within a blink, and back in their bedroom the next. Since their whirlwind marriage last year, they’d moved into his home—a luxurious, multilevel brownstone that put her tiny apartment to shame.
With the new home came front row seats to the double life Drastos lived. His friends were mostly Maelificars, but she’d alsomet a pair of incubi and a few vampyrs. He enjoyed hosting them, turning from mild-mannered research librarian by day, to debauched demon millionaire by night. Or as she liked to put it, librarian in the stacks, demon in the sack. She loved both sides endlessly.
He tossed her onto the bed and flexed, shredding his onyx silk pajamas in a violent transformation to his demon form, sans the wings she’d discovered after their first night together.
The wings were a surprise he’d shown her later, and were functional, giving him the ability to teleport short distances in the human world, and between this realm and his home—Pand?monium, the demon realm. They were cumbersome, and he often left them off when he transformed, just as he nixed the tail if he pulled his demon form out and wanted to don demon-appropriate attire. The latter had occurred a few times thanks to some very interesting dinner parties at their home.
It turned out that demons were fine with human companions as long as there was true commitment. Marriage made her acceptable, because demons could not break contracts, and there was no divorce for the supernatural. Actually, she had a suspicion that not even death would do them part, but she had yet to find the right moment to delve into what would likely be a deep and dark philosophical discussion.
He joined her on the bed, which didn’t creak like her old one. His was a monstrously large and sturdy bed with a black-lacquered frame she suspected was made from center cuts of a tree. She’d seen no bed as massive, but it was necessary to accommodate his demon form. However expensive, it was a practical choice. The night before their wedding he’d visited her apartment for nostalgia’s sake and her frame had splintered and cracked beneath his vigorous movements. It wasn’t a moment she wanted to repeat.
From beneath the cage of his body, she eased out of her robe and tossed it aside, relishing the way his gaze wandered over her nude body. She slept naked these days, a demand of his that she had grown comfortable with.
He lowered himself until his chest pressed against hers, the warmth of his body quickly seeping into her. Their lips met, followed by the heady rush that always accompanied his kisses—she hoped it never faded. The taste of his lips and tongue imparted giddy magic on her. She moaned into him, and he swallowed the sound and followed it with a possessive growl that rumbled through them both.
Pulling back, he sucked her lower lip between his teeth and gently bit down until she squeaked from the tiny, sharp pain.
“I love that sound. I could devour you.”
