Decision made, he sat on the edge of the bed and shook her lightly. “Bianca?”
She tensed and came awake instantly. Lingering pain haunted her eyes. “What are you doing?”
Immediately, her barriers tried to sneak past her inner turmoil, but it was a poor effort, which told him all he needed to know about how bad her dreams had been.
Giving in to the urge, Lucifer scooped her into his lap. “I’m comforting you.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to.” He enfolded her against his chest. “And because I know you need it. Now, stop being a pain in my ass and be comforted.”
Bianca snort laughed against his chest, but she relaxed into his hold. “I didn’t think comforting was your thing.”
“Generally, it’s not.” He ran a hand down her back. The knobs of her spine were prominent beneath the silk of her top. He commended his taste in sleepwear—elegant and comfortable. “How am I doing?”
“Good,” she whispered and pressed her face into his neck. Her breath huffed warm and damp against his skin. She took a sniff. “You smell good.”
“Of course I do.” He rested his chin on her head.
She chuckled.
Her silky, sable hair smelled of flowers and herbs. “What were you dreaming about?”
“Unicorns and sparkly rainbows.”
This haglette of his would be the end of him. “Try again.”
“The bodies,” she whispered.
“Ah.” He had guessed as much. “Would you like to tell me about it?”
“No.”
Lucifer understood. He wasn’t one for jawing crap through either. “Would it help if I told you that wasn’t the end for those witches?”
“Are you going to give me some religious talk?” She huffed and wriggled in his hold. “Because I should tell you right now that I’m pagan.”
“No.” He wrapped her close to him. “But those religions that include reincarnation are as close to the truth as it gets.”
“Huh.” She settled into his hold.
He didn’t want to let her go yet, so he said, “I telephoned the theatre, and Emma and Ethan are well.”
“You phoned?” She pulled her head back and looked at him.
She had the most fetching mouth, almost too wide and full for her fine features, but somehow it worked. He could also tell from the gleam in her eyes that he was about to get some of her impudence. It was so much better than her nightmares. “You find that strange?”
“Yeah.” She rolled her eyes before tucking herself beneath his chin. “Don’t you have some kind of super mind ju-ju or something?”
And there was that cheek. He struggled not to laugh. “No telepathic powers. At least, not across a distance.”
“But you would if you were closer?” She wound her fingers in the hem of her sleep shorts.
“Not as you would understand them.” He didn’t know why he was explaining his powers to a human, and a witch at that, but he did anyway. “We can sense presences and power signatures. We’ve also been around each other for so long that we can sense what the other will do.”
“Hmm.” Her fingers migrated from her shorts to his shirt. “Telepathy would be better.”
“Absolutely not,” he said without a moment’s hesitation. “I have no desire to know what my fellow hell princes are thinking.” He couldn’t suppress a shudder. “Dear hells, Wrath’s thoughts alone would fry my mind.”
She giggled and pleated his sleeve between her fingers.
It should bother him that she was wrinkling the linen. “I prefer cell phones.”
She peaked at him. “You do?”
“Very efficient,” he said. “One of your better human ideas.”
“I hate technology.” She sniffed. “It puts barriers between people.”
“You don’t hate technology.” He stilled her fiddly fingers by twining them with his. “You hate the way technology has been used.”
Her small hand felt fragile in his, and an inexplicably protective urge swept through him. “Like many of your human inventions, the reasons you created them and their intended purpose were excellent. You could not, however, resist the lure of greed, and they became tarnished.”
“Huh.” She stared down at their joined fingers. “Are you holding my hand?”
He squeezed her fingers. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
Bianca woke with no Lucifer in sight. Morning light peeked through a gap in the heavy drapes. She had no memory past her sitting on his lap and him holding her hand. Getting used to Lucifer being kind to her was a bad idea, and Lucifer had been kind to her last night. Even the bullying her to eat and busting in on her in the bath could be construed as him taking care of her—in his own, special kind of way.
She sat up in bed and peered through the open door to the lounge. “Lucifer?”
“You should call your coven.” His voice drifted back to her.
What a charmer!
“Good morning.” She put a load of extra chirpy into her greeting. “I hope you slept well.”
“I don’t sleep.” He appeared in the doorway with her phone in his hand.
“Ever?” She was going to overlook how he must have dug through her bag to find her phone.
“Rarely.” He sprawled on the bed beside her and handed her the phone. “We need to find out if they can strengthen the crystal tracking spell.”
The intimacy of his proximity brought back last night, and her cheeks heated. “I remember.”
“You’re blushing.” He stared at her.
