Chapter 4: The Aftermath
The green room had been a joke. A storage closet, really, with a stained futon and the smell of stale mop water. Lucifer had looked at Robert’s expression and simply said, “Walk with me.” They’d slipped out a service exit, the cold night air hitting Robert’s heated skin like a slap, and into a waiting Uber.Not a town car.An Uber. Robert had crammed himself into the backseat of the Prius, his knee pressed against Lucifer’s massive thigh, and laughed into the dark window.It felt dangerous.Delirious.
The elevator to Lucifer’s apartment was silent, mirrored, and impossibly fast. Robert watched their reflection—the actor, rumpled and buzzing, and the bartender, a monolith of calm beside him.Lucifer’s gaze was fixed on the ascending numbers. He hadn’t touched Robert since they’d stood from the futon. The space between them in the small elevator crackled.
When the doors slid open, it wasn’t onto a hallway, but directly into the apartment.Robert stopped breathing for a second.It was vast. A single, open space of polished concrete and glass. The far wall was all window, a sheer, breathtaking plunge into the city’s grid of neon and moving light. The hum was a constant, low-grade thing in the bones of the floor. The air was cool, carrying a scent of good leather, of expensive scotch, and beneath it, that sharp, clean ozone note. No furniture, save for a long, low sofa in black leather, and a bar. The bar was a slab of obsidian, glowing under a single, recessed light. It made the one at Glamorous look like particle board.
“You mix drinks here, too?” Robert asked, his voice echoing slightly in the cavernous room.“Only for myself,” Lucifer said, walking toward the windows. He didn’t turn on any main lights.The city provided the illumination, painting his broad back in blues and reds. “What’s your poison now?”
“Surprise me.”
Robert wandered, his dress shoes clicking on the concrete.There were no photos.No books.No sign of a life lived. It was a portrait of a mind that refused clutter.He felt oversized and shabby in it. He stopped at the window, the whole of LA laid out like a stolen diamond necklace. “You own this view?”
“I rent it.” Lucifer’s voice came from behind the bar. Robert heard the clink of glass, the solid glug of liquid. “The view is free.”
Robert turned.Lucifer was pouring two drinks from a bottle with no label. He walked over, accepting the glass.Their fingers brushed.“No labels. Suits you.”
“Labels are for other people,” Lucifer said.He leaned back against the obsidian, watching Robert take the first sip.
It was whiskey, but unlike any he’d ever tasted. Smoky, profound, with a finish that seemed to warm him from the inside out. “Jesus.”
“Just Lucifer.”
Robert laughed, a short, surprised burst of sound. “Point taken.” He took another sip, studying the man in front of him. The perfect tuxedo was still immaculate, a stark contrast to Robert’s own loosened tie and open collar. “You gonna stay dressed like the help all night?”
A slow blink.Then, Lucifer set his glass down on the black stone without a sound. His large hands came up to his own bowtie, pulling the silk loose with one sharp tug.He didn’t break eye contact as he undid the top button of his shirt. Then the next. “You seem fixated on the uniform.”
“I’m fixated on what’s underneath it.”
The rest happened without words.Lucifer pushed himself off the bar. Robert met him halfway.This kiss wasn’t like the one in the break room, all frantic heat and discovery. This was a claiming. Lucifer’s hands came up to cradle Robert’s face, his thumbs stroking his jawline, and the kiss deepened, turned thorough and slow. Robert tasted the whiskey on his tongue, felt the immense, controlled strength in the hands holding him. He fumbled with the remaining buttons on Lucifer’s shirt, pushing the fabric over his shoulders. The skin he revealed was smooth, warm, stretched over muscle that looked carved. Robert ran his palms over the contour of Lucifer’s chest, down the ridged plane of his stomach.He was perfect. A statue come to life.Lucifer reciprocated with methodical precision. He peeled Robert’s jacket off, let it drop to the floor.The shirt followed. His touch was shockingly gentle, a counterpoint to his overwhelming size. When Robert was bare from the waist up, Lucifer just looked at him, his amber eyes dark in the low light. He traced the line of Robert’s collarbone, the faint silver scars of old adventures, the weathered tattoo on his bicep. He saw everything.
“Bedroom’s through there,” Lucifer murmured, nodding toward a single, dark doorway in the wall.It wasn’t an invitation.It was a decision.
The bedroom was as minimalist as the living space. A platform bed, low and wide, framed by the same wall of windows.The city glittered, indifferent. Lucifer finished undressing him, then himself, letting clothes fall where they stood. In the diffuse light, his height was even more staggering, a landscape of shadow and sinew. He guided Robert onto the bed, the sheets cool and crisp against his back.For a while, Lucifer just explored. His mouth was hot on Robert’s neck, his shoulder, the pulse point at his wrist. His hands mapped Robert’s body with a quiet reverence that felt more intimate than anything that had come before. Robert, usually so restless, so in charge of every room, let himself be still.Let himself be seen. When Lucifer’s teeth grazed his hipbone, he arched off the bed with a sharp gasp.
“Lucifer—”
“I know,” was the calm reply.
The preparation was careful, almost clinical in its care.The bottle of lube was cool, Lucifer’s fingers sure. Robert watched the city lights swim behind Lucifer’s head as he pressed inside, the stretch a bright, stunning ache that stole his breath. He wrapped his legs around Lucifer’s waist, anchoring himself to this giant, beautiful fact.Then Lucifer began to move.It wasn’t frantic. It was tectonic.Each thrust was deliberate, deep, a wave breaking against a shore. Robert had craved the frantic energy from before, but this was different. This was a conversation in a language of pressure and release. Lucifer braced himself on one arm, the other hand coming down to entwine with Robert’s, pinning their joined fists against the mattress above his head. The grip was firm, unbreakable.It was surrender.It was equality.
Robert lost all sense of time. The world narrowed to the slick sound of skin on skin, the low groan building in Lucifer’s chest, the spectacular friction that built a fire in his gut. He chanted a string of nonsense, curses, pleas, names. Lucifer watched him the entire time, his expression a mask of fierce concentration, drinking in every reaction his body could draw out.
The climax, when it hit Robert, was a silent explosion. It wrung him out, leaving him breathless and blind for a long moment. He felt Lucifer follow him over the edge, felt the powerful body above him shudder and lock, a deep, guttural sound escaping into the hollow of Robert’s neck.
Collapse.Gravity.
Lucifer’s weight was immense, but he shifted most of it to the side almost immediately, pulling Robert with him so they lay tangled on their sides. Sweat cooled on their skin.Robert’s heart hammered against his ribs, echoing in the quiet room. The only sound was their ragged breathing, slowly syncing, slowing.
Lucifer rested his head on Robert’s chest.His hair was damp, soft. Robert stared at the ceiling, one hand automatically coming up to stroke that dark head.He felt scraped clean. Hollowed out and refilled with something heavier than light.A long time passed. The neon signs across the street flickered once, then went dark.The hour before dawn.
“I don’t usually do this,” Lucifer murmured into the silence.The words vibrated against Robert’s sternum.Robert smiled up into the dark. He pressed his lips to Lucifer’s forehead.The skin was warm, slightly salty. “Neither do I.”
He felt Lucifer’s breath hitch, just once.A quiet admission. The hand splayed on Robert’s stomach flexed, then relaxed completely.
Outside, the first faint suggestion of grey began to bleed into the edges of the black sky, outlining the silhouettes of skyscrapers.The city’s hum seemed softer now, a lullaby. Robert kept stroking Lucifer’s hair, watching the night begin to die, knowing everything would change when the sun rose.Knowing he didn’t want to move. Knowing, for now, he didn’t have to.