Chapter 8: One on one with Simeon
The coffee at the Devildom café was bitter, thick as tar, and utterly delicious. Simeon stirred a precise amount of honey into his, the spoon clicking softly against the porcelain. Moonlight, a filtered, curious kind that pushed through the perpetual haze, cut across the small table between them, highlighting the faint dust motes that danced in the air.
“You seem quieter today,” Simeon observed, his voice as smooth as the ceramic under his fingers. “The peace you found with Solomon… it feels weighted now.”
I traced the rim of my cup. Satan’s words from the night before were bricks in my stomach. Bricked over. Amputated. “It’s just adjustment. Being back.”
His blue eyes, the color of a deep, still lake, held mine. He didn’t push. He never pushed. That was his gift. “Lucifer convened the Student Council yesterday,” he said, changing the subject with effortless grace. “He was… efficient. More so than usual. Diavolo made a joke about his paperwork being a sentient entity attempting escape. Lucifer didn’t laugh. He didn’t even blink.”
The mention of the name was a needle slipping between my ribs. “He’s good at not blinking.”
“He’s good at many things,” Simeon agreed, and there was a weight to the statement that went beyond administrative skill. He took a slow sip, watching me over the cup’s edge. “Including self-flagellation. It is an art form among the oldest of us.”
The casual insight startled me. “You’re not like him.”
“I am an angel. We are, by nature, repositories of devotion. The object of that devotion is what differs.” He set his cup down. “Come back to Purgatory Hall with me. Luke baked. He’s attempting something with void-berries and rage-flour. It’s catastrophically sweet, but he beams so brightly when someone eats it.”
The invitation was a raft. I took it.
Purgatory Hall’s corridors usually held a faint, mournful echo, but Simeon’s room was a world apart. Warm lamplight pushed back the gloom, glowing against rich, earthy tones of burgundy and gold. Books lined the walls, their spines soft with age. It smelled of vanilla, old paper, and the clean, ozone scent of angel.
He closed the door and the world outside ceased. For a long moment, we just stood in the center of the plush carpet. The frantic energy from the twins, the icy analysis from Satan—it all drained away, leaving a hollow, weary ache.
“He is a fool,” Simeon said softly, his hands coming up to cradle my face. His thumbs stroked the arches of my cheekbones. “To have this and choose a fortress of his own making.”
“Maybe the fortress is all he is,” I whispered, leaning into his touch.
“No.” The denial was firm, gentle. “I knew him before the Fall. There was a garden, and in it, a being of terrifying beauty and boundless curiosity. That being is still in there, buried under millenia of duty and pride.” He leaned forward, his breath a warm caress on my lips. “But his failure is not your penance, Nikki. You are not a pilgrimage site for his regrets.”
Then he kissed me.
It was nothing like the kisses in the House of Lamentation. There was no hunger, no claiming, no desperate obliteration. This was a slow unmooring. His lips were soft, moving over mine with a patience that felt infinite. He tasted of honey and the faint, crisp tang of celestial magic. It was a kiss that asked a question, and then waited, utterly still, for the answer to form itself in my bones.
My hands fisted in the soft wool of his sweater. A sound escaped me, half-sigh, half-sob.
He took it, absorbed it, and deepened the kiss by a fraction. His tongue traced the seam of my lips, and I opened for him. The slide was slow, explorative. He mapped the inside of my mouth like it was hallowed ground, like he was committing the terrain to a sacred memory. It was so profoundly intimate it made my skin feel too new, too sensitive.
He broke the kiss, only to press his forehead to mine. His eyes were closed. “Let me,” he murmured, the words vibrating between us. “Just for a little while, let me show you what reverence feels like.”
He led me to the bed. He undressed me not with frantic urgency, but with a ritualistic slowness, each button, each zip, a deliberate act. The cool air raised goosebumps on my skin, and he followed them with his lips, warming each one. He knelt to remove my shoes, my socks, his hands cupping my heels with a care that felt devotional.
When I was bare, he stood back, his gaze traveling the length of me. It wasn’t the searing, possessive stare of a demon. It was observation, appreciation, a quiet study of form and spirit. “Exquisite,” he breathed, the word leaving him like a prayer.
He removed his own clothes with the same deliberate pace, folding each item neatly over a chair. His body was different from the brothers—leaner, no less powerful, but the strength was that of a tensile cord, not a hammer. The light seemed to cling to his skin, emphasizing the elegant lines of his collarbones, the dip of his spine.
He joined me on the bed, the covers soft and cool beneath us. He began at my temples, kissing away the tension there. He followed the curve of my jaw, the column of my throat, pausing to feel my pulse thrum against his lips. His mouth was everywhere—the hollow of my shoulder, the inner curve of my elbow, the sensitive skin of my wrist. He turned my hand over and pressed a kiss to the center of my palm, and the gesture was so unbearably tender I felt tears well.
“Simeon…”
“Shhh,” he whispered, his breath hot against my sternum. “I am listening. To your heart. To your skin. To the stories it tells.”
He took one nipple into his mouth, not sucking, but bathing it in slow, wet circles until it peaked into a hard, aching point. He gave the other the same exhaustive attention, his hand gently kneading the soft weight of my breast. The pleasure was a slow, deep burn, a counterpoint to the frantic, pounding need I’d grown accustomed to.
He moved lower, his kisses painting a burning trail over my ribs, my stomach. He nuzzled the thatch of curls at the junction of my thighs, breathing me in. “You smell of life,” he said, his voice ragged at the edges. “Raw and vibrant and so desperately beautiful it hurts.”
Then his tongue was on me.
It was not a lashing, but a communion. He licked into my folds with a slow, savoring thoroughness, as if tasting a rare vintage. He found my clit and devoted himself to it, not with frantic speed, but with a focused, undulating pressure that built the heat in my core into a slow, rolling boil. His hands slid under my ass, tilting me up, holding me open for his worship.
“That’s it,” he murmured against my soaked flesh, the vibration shooting straight to my core. “Let go for me. Let me have this.”
The orgasm didn’t crash over me; it rose, a tidal wave in slow motion, gathering every neglected, aching part of me into its swell. When it broke, it was silent, profound, a dissolution that left me trembling. He drank from me, gently, until the last tremor subsided.
Only then did he move up my body, his own need evident, his cock hard and heavy against my thigh. He kissed me, letting me taste myself on his tongue.
“I need to be inside you,” he said, the request a raw fracture in his usual composure. “May I?”
I could only nod, pulling him down.
He entered me with one slow, inexorable push, seating himself to the hilt. The fullness was absolute, but it was a filling of a different kind. He didn’t move, buried deep, his face pressed into the curve of my neck.
“You feel…” he began, then shuddered. “You feel like grace. Like a forgiveness I didn’t know I was seeking.”
He began to move. It was a rolling rhythm, deep and deliberate. Each stroke was a promise, a lament, a blessing. Our bodies met with a soft, wet sound that was obscenely intimate in the quiet room. He watched my face, his eyes locked on mine, reflecting the lamplight and something deeper, something ancient and wounded.
“Tell me,” he breathed, his pace gradually increasing. “Tell me what you need.”
“You,” I gasped, wrapping my legs around his hips. “Just you. Like this.”
A groan was torn from him. He shifted, angling deeper, and the new pressure had me crying out. His controlled rhythm began to fray. His thrusts became sharper, more urgent, the bedframe giving a soft, rhythmic protest.
“Fuck,” he hissed, the crude word stark and beautiful in his angelic mouth. “You’re so tight. So perfect. Taking me so well.”
He drove into me, his hips pistoning now, a beautiful, breaking rhythm. The reverent angel was gone, replaced by a being of pure, desperate need. His fingers dug into my hips, holding me firm as he fucked into me with a power that belied his slender frame.
“Come with me,” he demanded, his voice a guttural prayer. “Let me feel you come on my cock, Nikki. Let me have that.”
His hand slipped between us, his thumb finding my clit, rubbing firm, desperate circles. It was too much, the coil snapping instantly. My climax ripped through me, a blinding, silent shatter that clenched around him like a vise.
He cried out, a sound that was both triumph and surrender, and followed me over. His release was hot and endless, pumping into me with each jerking thrust, marking me with a warmth that felt cleansing.
He collapsed, carefully, his weight a comforting press. For long minutes, the only sound was our ragged breathing mingling in the air. He was still inside me, softening, a tender, intimate connection.
He finally shifted, pulling out and gathering me against his side. He drew the covers over us. In the warm, musky dark, he stroked my hair.
“He watches,” Simeon said quietly, echoing Satan’s words but with a different timbre. “But he only sees the shadow he casts. He doesn’t see the light you hold, stubbornly, in its shade.” He kissed my forehead. “Sleep. For a little while, just sleep. And know that you are cherished.”
As I drifted, safe in the arms of an angel, the hollow ache remained. But it was lined now, just at the edges, with something that felt like peace. It wasn't an answer. It was a reprieve. And for now, in the quiet aftermath of his reverence, it was enough.
And for now, in the quiet aftermath of his reverence, it was enough. His scent, clean and ozonic, wove through the musk of our spent bodies. My limbs were liquid, my mind quieted, the hollow space within me temporarily filled with a golden, static peace.
Simeon’s fingers traced idle patterns on my bare shoulder. The lamplight caught the dust motes again, making them look like slow, drifting stars. “Void-berry tart tomorrow,” he murmured, his voice raspy with sleep and satisfaction. “I’ll tell Luke you had two helpings. He’ll preen for a week.”
I smiled against his chest. “I’ll explode.”
“A worthy end.”
The silence deepened, warm and thick. My thoughts, sluggish, began to drift toward that familiar, cold fortress. I pushed them away, clinging to the feel of his skin, the steady beat of his heart. Here, I was not a problem to be solved or a ghost to be avoided. I was just… held.
A sharp, digital trill shattered the calm.
It was jarring, a serrated sound in the room of soft edges. Simeon went still. His breath hitched, just once. The phone vibrated on the nightstand, a persistent, aggressive buzz against the wood.
He didn’t move.
The ringing continued, a mechanical echo of intrusion. I felt the peace of moments before crystallize, then crack. “Aren’t you going to get that?” I whispered.
His arm around me tightened almost imperceptibly. “No.”
“It might be important.”
“It is,” he said, his voice low. He knew. The certainty in that single syllable was heavier than any confession. The phone danced with each pulse, casting a small, blue glare on the wall. It was Luke, or perhaps Solomon with some frantic magical query. But we both knew it wasn’t.
The ringing stopped.
The sudden silence was louder. It screamed into the space between us, filled with all the things he hadn’t said. My skin, so sensitized from his touch, now felt cold. The ghost was in the room. It had always been in the room.
Simeon let out a long, controlled breath. He shifted, leaning over me to reach for the device, his body a tense arc. The screen lit his face in a pallid glow as he checked the call log. His expression, usually so placid, tightened. A muscle feathered in his jaw.
He showed me the screen.
A single, stark name: LUCIFER.
The characters glowed, accusatory. My own heart stuttered, a traitorous thump against my ribs. “Why?” The word was a dry leaf.
“To ensure I remembered my place.” Simeon’s tone was flat, drained of its earlier warmth. He tossed the phone onto the carpet, where it landed with a dull thud. “To ensure you remembered. A reminder that no sanctuary is impenetrable.” His gaze returned to me, and the anger in it was new, a cold, bright flame. “He doesn’t call me. Ever.”
The meaning unfolded, ugly and precise. This wasn’t a summons. It was a surveillance ping. A demonstration of reach. He’d known where I was, who I was with. He’d waited, perhaps, for a precise moment to shatter it.
The hollow ache returned, but now it was filled with a hot, corrosive shame. I’d been lying here, feeling cherished, while he watched the clock. My skin crawled. Simeon saw it, the revulsion flashing across my face.
His anger shifted, redirecting. He rolled, pinning me beneath him again, his weight more demanding now. “No,” he growled, his lips hovering over mine. “You don’t get to retreat. Not here. Not because of him.”
His kiss wasn’t reverent this time. It was consuming. It was a claiming fueled by a shared, furious rebellion. He bit my lower lip, not hard enough to break skin, but enough to make me gasp. The sound was swallowed by his mouth as he plunged his tongue inside.
The switch was devastating. The gentle lover was gone, replaced by something raw and defiant. His hands were everywhere, possessive and rough, dragging over my hips, gripping my ass, squeezing as if to imprint his touch over the ghost of another’s gaze. “He heard you,” Simeon rasped against my throat, nipping at the tendon. “He heard you come for me. Let’s give him more to hear.”
The obscenity, the intentional violation of the moment, should have sickened me. Instead, it lit a fuse. A hot, dark thrill shot through my veins. Fuck your surveillance. Fuck your fortress.
“Yes,” I spat, clawing at his back.
He wrenched my legs apart, his body settling between them. I was still wet from him, slick and open. He didn’t guide himself in. He shoved.
The entry was brutal, a single, deep, tearing thrust that stole the air from my lungs. He was thicker than I remembered, my body stretching to accommodate the sudden, furious invasion. “You feel that?” he grunted, pulling back and slamming home again. “That’s me. Not a memory. Not a ghost. Me.”
“I feel it,” I choked out. Each drive of his hips punched a sound from me. The bed slammed against the wall in a steady, violent rhythm. This was fucking, pure and simple. A nasty, beautiful collision.
He hooked an arm under my knee, yanking it higher, bending me nearly in half. The angle was obscene, deep, letting him piston into a spot that sparked white behind my eyes. “Say it,” he demanded, his breath hot and ragged. “Whose cock is splitting you open?”
“Yours!” The word was a scream.
“Damn right.” He leaned down, capturing a nipple in his mouth, sucking hard, biting. The dual assault of pain and pleasure liquefied my spine. “Come on it. Come on my fucking cock and let him wonder what sound that is.”
His command, filthy and direct, coiled the tension in my gut to a breaking point. The climb was vicious and fast. There was no slow wave, just a catastrophic detonation. I came with a shattered cry, my body clamping around him in rhythmic, milking spasms that made him roar.
His control snapped. He fucked me through it, his rhythm devolving into a frantic, slapping chase of his own end. “Take it,” he snarled, hips stuttering. “Take all of it. My come. My spite. Everything he threw away.”
The heat of his release flooded me, pulse after pulse, a claiming as visceral as any mark. He collapsed, his sweat-slicked body heavy on mine, both of us gasping, wrecked.
The phone on the floor remained dark and silent. The ghost, for now, was gone.
Simeon’s weight shifted, but he didn’t let go. His lips brushed my ear, his voice a wrecked, tender thing again. “The hard part begins tomorrow,” he whispered, echoing Satan’s prophecy with a new layer of grim resolve.
He was right. But tonight, the fortress had heard its walls crack.