The Devil's Boyfriend

By Alexa Piper

Lionel, necromancer and police consultant, finds himself closer to the Devil than he ever wanted to be. But even for a necromancer, life goes on, and murder happens. The next crime scene is just around the corner, and Lionel will do his job… ideally without Lucifer looking over his shoulder.

After a traumatic experience, Lucifer knows he has to protect his necromancer, mostly from the other man’s own stubbornness and ignorance. Lionel is not quite as human as he likes to think, and to Lucifer's great annoyance, Lionel hasn't given up on his bad habit of running into situations without thinking.

Lionel doesn’t know how he feels about the Devil, and he doesn’t know what he wants in his life. Lucifer knows what Lionel needs, but getting the necromancer to accept that is the difficult part. And of course, there is murder happening in town, and it is not the boring human-on-human kind of violence. This time around, it looks like immortals are involved. Solving the case will require Lionel to accept who he really is while Lucifer wants his boyfriend to embrace who he truly can be. Lives may depend on it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Changeling Press
• Release date: Feb 4, 2022

Book preview

Chapter One

Lionel

The Devil’s body on top of mine, his mouth stealing my breath, his woodfire smoke-and-spices scent all around me -- that was not something I ever thought I’d get used to. Yet here I was, Lionel Hawkes, consultant for Brunswick PD and accomplished necromancer, my cock rubbing against Lucifer’s belly and his own erection as he was doing his damnedest to kiss me senseless. My lips were already tender, but the soft lighting dipped his bedroom in an amber glow, and that made me care less about the state of my lips somehow… as long as he kept coming back for more kisses. I wanted to bury my fingers in his baby-cat hair, but Lucifer had my wrists crossed over my head, his hand holding me there. I could struggle, but he wouldn’t let me go. I’d tried that before, and he’d kindly informed me that I got to move my hands when he wanted me to. He fucking owned me.

I bucked up to get more friction and heard his deep voice break into a chuckle that made my entire body tremble.

Sweet Nelly, is there something that you want from me? he said with laughter smoothing around his words like warmth around a fire.

That fucking asshole. He knew exactly what I wanted. I wanted to come. He’d put me on my back in his too-large and weirdly round bed with the super-soft cotton sheets about an hour ago, and then he’d started with kisses, with touch, with friction that was just never enough.

I have work in the morning. I just want to come and go to sleep, I said. I’d been off for three weeks after that thing with the crazed serial killer, a.k.a. No Longer Quite So Sexy Mitch, who’d drugged and abducted me. But tomorrow was my first day back. And you seem to have one hand free, so if you would, Lucy? I looked down to my leaking cock. Damn, my belly was slick from our combined precum.

I wiggled under him, feeling the soft sheets I was lying on. I tried looking away as if this whole lovemaking thing bored me. Lucifer had drawn the curtains, but I didn’t really think they were thick enough to hide what he was doing to me. Obscure it, yes, but if anyone with a daring heart got to his wilderness of a home on this cold-ass November night and peeked up, they’d know exactly what was going on in the Devil’s bed. I’d complained about it two weeks ago. Lucifer had smirked and said, If anyone does dare to come here, they should be rewarded by getting a glimpse of your face, writhing in ecstasy because you have my cock deep inside you. It will serve them well to think of it while I punish them for the transgression. So typical -- boisterous Devil-speak.

And that was just so Lucifer, but since the room was partially lit, I saw him pull back and look down at me as if he were a cat and I a canary, caught between his claws with my wings splayed. He wanted to fucking torture me, I could see that in his sapphire eyes. Not actual torture, but he wanted me in a writhing puddle of need, so desperate I begged for his cock.

Heavens knew he’d fucking gotten me into that state before.

Before Lucifer could make another noise, before I could try to get a wrist free to jack myself after all, my phone rang. Lucifer’s eyes darkened. I told you to turn that off, he said. He didn’t raise his voice. Lucifer didn’t have to. He was the fucking Devil. His voice carried.

And I told you I need to be reachable, I said as the Jaws theme music grew louder. Let me up, I need to go answer that.

Of course, the Devil his own damn self didn’t move a fraction of an inch. You do not need to be reachable when you are in my bed, when I have you and am in the middle of figuring out how exactly I will make you feel me -- what exactly I will make you feel once my cock is buried deep in you.

Oh, damn his stupid sex talk. It got me in entirely the wrong mindset to achieve my current objective -- answering the phone. And I would bet a spell he’d stolen that line from one of the countless romance novels he read. There was currently a pile of them near his reading armchair by the window wall. He got up to two or three a day sometimes. That one weekend, when I’d told him I just needed quiet and hot cocoa after escaping the fucking basement a psycho killer had dragged me in to kill me, Lucifer had actually complied. He’d made me sit on the couch in his rich-people house where he let me stream just whatever sappy thing I wanted to watch without comment from him. In fact, Lucifer had refilled my mug with hot cocoa whenever it was empty, and sat there as close as I would allow it like some classical statue, reading through a stack of those damn novels. He had taken a reading break every couple of hours, and his breaks had only consisted of getting me off. If I allowed it.

I had allowed it. You just read about that in your damn book? I had asked after he was done with one of his breaks, my naked back pressed against his chest, my spent cock still in his sticky hand.

He bit my earlobe before he answered. The things I want to do to you, Nelly… They aren’t in any of those books.

Fucked. At that point, I was pretty damn sure I was fucked, and not in the literal sense, because that had been plainly evident. Right now, in his bed, naked under him, that suspicion was confirmed. I liked it when Lucifer the Devil his own damn self said things like that to me. Things that made me imagine things he’d do to me. Even if he did steal the lines from his smut books.

You are not burying your cock anywhere inside me before I answer that damn phone, Beelzebub, I said, sweet as you please, cherry on top. I couldn’t tell him I liked it when he talked to me like that. I just could not. Because he’d gloat and preen and do it all the fucking time.

Lucifer, when pissed, looked about as you would expect the Devil to look in such a situation: sexy, eyes darkening with the promise of icy vengeance, delivered piecemeal, the line of his full lips thinning but quirking up at the corners of his mouth. It really brought out the black baby-cat hair that I still somehow wanted to run my fingers through. All the damn time. He was too sexy. It was just wrong.

His free hand reached between us, closing around my still straining cock, and giving it one hard tug at the end of which he ran his thumb over the tip, slicking the precum and teasing my slit. I shivered and moaned… and then he let me go.

Go answer, then, he said, rolling off me to lounge on his side, one elbow propped up to cradle his head. His cock was still hard, and the plains and valleys of his muscular body were not at all enticing. Not. At. All.

I did what I had to. My phone was in my pants -- discarded on the floor when Lucifer had demanded I take them off. I picked them up and fished my phone out with that flagpole situation between my legs. It was just a fantastic way to answer the phone.

Christine, I said. Detective Christine Rice was not exactly my partner -- I didn’t have one, because I was just the necromantic consultant -- but she was usually the one I worked with. Under. She was the detective who told me which bodies to reanimate, which body parts to match, which possessions to identify as belonging to a victim.

You’re back as of midnight today. When it rings, you answer, Hawkes, she informed me. It’s how phones work. A pause. You haven’t been touching yourself, have you?

I had to find my phone, and it’s after midnight, which makes this the middle of the night. People don’t jerk off all the damn time, whatever you may think.

Speak for yourself, Lucifer muttered. I ignored him.

I’m making no assumptions about people, Hawkes. Just about you. Christine Rice was the ray of burning sunshine that helped me maintain a bullshit-free course in my professional life. She was also a damn good detective. I need you at a scene.

Where? I asked.

Text. And hurry. The ME is already here, and she wants to bag it up. On account of the fact we are freezing our asses off.

I sighed and looked down at my erection. Speaking of bagging things up… I’ll be there, stat.

Christine hung up before I could. I turned and found myself nose to chest with Lucifer. Nelly. What do you think you are doing?

Going to work, I said, defiantly grabbing my pants. I had to get past him to get to the bathroom to clean the precum off my belly, but that would mean I had to get past him again once I was ready to leave. I glanced over my shoulder and toward the door. With my pants, I could make a run for it. My car was just outside. I kept a change of clothes in the trunk, along with my bespelled rubber boots. With any luck, the cold November air would make the sex smell harder to notice at the scene.

You are not running out that door, Nelly. I have not once restrained you on account of your PTSD, but I find myself having to reevaluate some very soft restraints purely for your own well-being, Lucifer said.

Yeah, the PTSD thing really was something he had embraced ever since that night in the basement. I just didn’t talk about that night or the basement, or Mitch, and it worked fine for me. I was fine.

I don’t have fucking PTSD, I informed him. No one had died that night, and all was well. Not quite all well, because Murder Mitch was suffering a death curse for his psycho-killer act, delivered by one fierce and fiercely cursed poodle. Served him right for being a sexy serial killer.

Lucifer sighed. Babe, it’s okay. I’d never think less of you for struggling. Having been through what you have, it’s okay not to feel okay all the time. And you have to know I’m here for you. Whatever you need.

Now, this I knew without a doubt was from one of his novels. I ground my teeth and started putting my pants on. No-washcloth day it was, then. Lucifer didn’t move, of course. "I have not gone through trauma, and I am fine, Lucy. Fine. Unless I make Christine wait."

Lucifer sighed and walked away toward his wardrobe area. You couldn’t quite call it a walk-in closet. His room was just one big open space, and the wardrobe and bathroom were hidden from view by a partial wall against which the circular bed was set. Some interior designer had used light to further divide the room without making it seem any smaller.

With Lucifer out of sight for a hot second, this was my chance. I grabbed my sweater off his reading chair, picked up the extremely comfy and warm socks Metatron, Lucifer’s housekeeper and angel of the non-existing lord, had gotten for me, and hightailed it out of the room. It was not the first time I’d done this, although to be fair, this time around, I knew I’d be coming back. And I was kind of all right with that. Maybe I even looked forward to walking back in through the front door. And all that, it was just more stuff I could never tell the Devil. Or not yet. My head did feel like a complicated place these days. Talking about its interior wouldn’t make it any better.

I pulled my sweater on as I went down the stairs, feet still bare. At the bottom where his large ballroom was cast in eerie shadows, I turned toward his fireplace room, and… once more found myself nose to chest with his royal pain in the ass, Lucifer. At least he was fully clothed now -- dark sweater and a pair of tailored jeans that made his ass look great, because that was the only kind of jeans he ever wore.

Sweet Nelly, he purred, his hand stroking along my jaw and up my cheek in a blush-inducing caress. I have reevaluated.

I need to go, I said, stepping around him.

Lucifer sighed. I’ll bring the car around. Put on your coat and the rest of the winter trim.

My jaw dropped. You don’t have to drive me. My car is outside.

Lucifer’s eyes flashed brightly in the semi darkness of his house. The last time you left this house in the middle of the night, I ended up on a rescue mission, supervised by the dragon mother. I refuse to repeat that disfortunate series of events, so yes, I will drive you, and I will accompany you to your work.

I started shaking, and my vision narrowed. I am ever so sorry saving your pretend boyfriend was such a damn inconvenience for you, I said, my voice sounding far away. I felt cold all of a sudden, and my heart was racing. So sorry for almost getting cut up and tortured and broken by -- But I couldn’t say his name. In my head, sure. Out loud? Not so much. With just the memory of him, his handsome face flashed in front of me along with the memory of how he’d kissed me in that basement, had forced his lips against mine, his tongue into my mouth. Bile was rising in my throat.

I felt so cold, but in the next moment, there was heat, Lucifer’s strong body, his scent of fire and spices all around me, his hands rubbing my back. What I meant was, he said calmly, his voice like the crackling of a campfire. I would always come for you, because it’s you, Nelly. Even storming out of my bed in the middle of the night, I would find you wherever you went and make certain you were safe. And if the dragon mother is on hand to judge me in my care, so be it.

I… need to go. To work, I said. This felt like treading water. I felt as if I were in the water, an ocean, cold and salty. Lucifer was warm. He was a raft, deceptive in how safe he felt. I pulled out of his arms, and he let me.

Lucifer narrowed his eyes at me and sighed. Coat, scarf, hat. Wait for me in the door, he said, and vanished. His strategic teleportation could get quite annoying.

I made my way through the dark house. Window walls let in plenty of light for me to see by, and anyway, most everything here, apart from some very evocative paintings, was white. I walked past the fireplace room and to his entrance hallway. As soon as the weather had turned toward winter,