Prince Of Lust (Princes Of Sin: The Seven Deadly Sins series Book 1)

I tightened my grip on the back of her head. Her red lipstick-smudged mouth tightened over my cock and sucked the tip then slid back down the shaft. She was gorgeous with the trail of eyeliner and mascara running down her bright-pink cheeks. It may have taken some convincing on her part, but I throbbed in the back of her throat and groaned at the vibration when she hummed for my approval.

As the Prince of Lust, manifesting pleasure and desire in humans was as simple as existing. The taste of their sweat—of their climaxes—was the sweetest nectar. I had spilled my seed on every continent of this blasted rock more times than I could count. I breathed for the act, and being brought to the precipice by a lesser being had never lost its luster.

Until her.

Mara had been different. Not only in the fragments of her soul but in her ability to resist me. A human who captivated and excited me but did not return my adoration. I would have given her Heaven and Earth, but she was not mine to dote upon. Moving on from her had brought me more pain than I’d known before her, and in a more demented way than I cared to admit, it made my heart, soul, and lungs ache for her all the more.

A secret I would carry with me until our bones were returned to the stars.

Unlike my princely brothers, I did not carry the burden of envy or greed or a propensity for being dragged through pain and agony.

No.

I was the prince of pleasure, and if it took me five hundred years, I would return to my former glory.

If I could only reach climax without picturing Mara’s face on this and every other human who became tangled in my web.

“Harder,” I rasped out, flattening my palm to her head to push myself down her throat.

She coughed, and I allowed her to catch her breath before she bobbed with vigor.

My head lolled on the cushion of the couch as my cock slammed into her throat then met the back of her teeth on the upward stroke. She was working herself with her fingers to the cadence of her mouth, and the closer we edged, the heavier our breathing became.

I dug my fingers through her hair. Not to guide but encourage with a soft stroke.

Unfortunately for her, my power over her body and mind had dwindled to nothing more than flesh on flesh.

I was Prince of Lust by title alone. I’d lost all of my potency.

The moment her cunt convulsed and spasmed with her release, my hips bucked then stalled deep within her strained throat. My cocked jerked and filled her cheeks with my seed. She swallowed me down and licked the tip for every last drop with grateful laps.

When she had her fill, I cupped her jaw and brought her up to me.

“Thank you, beautiful,” I said, then gave her a quick peck on the lips before roughing her chin away from me.

She straightened her dress and wiped the dark stains from her cheeks with her sodden fingers before turning toward the door without a word. Her disappointment that I hadn’t asked her to stay was expected. As was the awkward look over her shoulder before she opened the door.

“Call me?” she squeaked out through bruised vocal cords.

I gave her a curt nod, and she smiled as if I’d confessed my undying love for her.

She pulled the metal door open, and the pounding bass of the club below broke through the office before she scurried out. Silence, stale booze, and sex thickened the room before a voice came from the desk behind me.

“Did you even get her number?”

Ezequiel.

No matter when he’d decided to appear, he had just gotten a decent show.

“No,” I answered, getting to my feet to fasten my pants. “What is it the humans like to say? If it is meant to be, it will be.”

“How little they know of fate,” he mused.

I stretched my arms over my head, feeling the muscles in my back and sides prickle and pull. When my body relaxed, I looked Ezequiel over more closely. He looked haggard and was wearing the same clothing I’d seen him in two nights ago, which was the last time I’d been sober enough to realize he had left me for more than a few hours. An unusual practice since we’d become business partners all those years ago.

“What type of trouble have you just unfurled from?”

“Far more than you have lately,” he said with a wiggle of his brow.

He wasn’t referring to the amount of sex I was having—or the lack thereof. He’d seen firsthand that the gift that had been bestowed upon me had faded. Before, willing participants had allowed me to be the conduit for the flow of energy down their spines and into their every synapse, damning them with a high they would chase for the rest of their lives but would never catch with another human. Now, what once would have been a surge of my influence into a human was now barely an ebb of pressure.

When I didn’t return with a witty remark, he continued his explanation. “I told you before I left that I was summoned by Azazel.”

I didn’t remember, but that wasn’t his fault. It was the two bottles of whiskey I’d had for dinner that night, then the handful of pills I’d taken for breakfast the next morning.

“Right,” I replied dully, not wanting to have to admit that the spiral I’d been on had come to a head and the recovery was taking its toll on my mind.

He perked a brow and glanced toward the door. “I see you’ve kept busy without me.”

“Getting back on the horse.” I raised my hand and gave a vague gesture around the room.

He grinned a cocky and unconvinced grin as he got to his feet and rounded the desk to my side. He clapped my shoulder and turned me to face the large window that looked out onto the dance floor.

“Full of human idioms this evening,” he said low, leaning over to my ear. “Have you had your fill of virgins on your holiday? Or should we find a hole for you to fill downstairs?”

The last time Azazel had gathered the Watcher Angels was for a twelve-hour orgy. The leader of a cult had struck a bargain with Azazel, promising him that the women who had gathered were ripe for breeding and had been blessed as a sacrifice to the Watchers for good favor with the Father.

Azazel, cunning and ruthless since his banishment, accepted the offer, and together, the remaining Watchers had descended and ravished every last virgin until they’d been used within an inch of their lives—a pack of rabid dogs presented with fresh meat.

The cult leader, or keeper, as he called himself, raged and cursed when nine months later, not one of the women had borne a child of the divine.

“No virgins this time.” Ezequiel tensed the arm that hung at my shoulders. “I was punished for my part in our last agreement. For helping you.”

“What?” I snapped my eyes to his.

It wasn’t Azazel’s place to bestow punishment on Ezequiel, and the thought set fire to my blood. Azazel held no more power than I or Ezequiel did in his self-appointed—and rather lax—leadership of the banished Watchers.

The outrage and disdain boiled within me for my brother, my most trusted friend.

“I was buried beneath the Euphrates for two days to be reminded of my ostracism and not the complete fall from grace that you have been cursed with.” His nonchalant attitude did nothing to extinguish my rage.

“I am going to tear him apart limb by limb.”

Ezequiel chuckled and raked his dirty fingers through his unkempt blond curls. “There you go again with the phrases of man. I am whole, brother. It was a worthy punishment for an even worthier cause. My lost weekend and your millennium of self-inflicted torture were plenty to satisfy our Father and anyone else who comes to question the ritual we performed.”

He steered me toward the door as he spoke, pacifying me but not at all relieving me of my guilt. He’d suffered alone for days on my behalf. A small voice inside of me wondered if he’d done it as a way to atone for the agony he felt he imparted onto me. He had warned me that I would suffer greatly; he’d been right. But I did not regret it in the slightest. In fact, I would have done it tenfold if it meant that a small grain of hope had been unearthed within my unholy heart.

We stood at the top of the office stairs, the music of The Deacon raging in my ears. The DJ was on their fifth hour and would be announcing last call soon. The dance floor was as full as ever with thoroughly drunk mortals and the lesser demons who had come to prey on them. The club was a haven for the Fallen and had become an integral part of our existence.

Ezequiel and I had opened the L.A. nightclub to cultivate connections within the human community. All matter of humans and demons came to fraternize under our roof, and having friends high in human society had proven to be an asset time and again. Film directors would come to scope out new talent and then strike a bargain to guarantee their projects didn’t flop at the box office.

Actresses and would-be pop stars would flock to Los Angeles for a chance at the spotlight, and when given the opportunity to mingle with some of the top names in the industry here in the club, they would trade their bodies and souls for a taste of their dreams being fulfilled.

Paradise for the damned. A feast for the starved.

A throne on which I sat with grateful subjects and a never-ending cache of souls to mark and covet.

Dreams were granted here, and that reputation had made it easy for The Deacon to become the most exclusive club in all of California. It was second only to our location in New York City. But I hated the cold and was not the ward of the East, so in Southern California, I resided with Ezequiel by my side.

The stains of divine annihilation were long washed away, but there were wards around the building that needed to be cleaned. And we had moved forward with construction on the second-floor addition.

We’d added a lounge for more intimate groups to mingle. The VIP booths on the second floor each sat on a glass window that looked directly down to the dance floor. The openings had to be made from underneath but would be disguised as two-way mirrors. Unsuspecting patrons below would have no idea they were being watched unless they garnered an invitation to the VIP section.

The request for more quiet seating had been echoed by many demons. They were far too worried that they would fall through the wrong hidden door on the main floor. I couldn’t blame them. The lost dimensions hidden in the walls of The Deacon wouldn’t only ruin a deal, but they could trap the participants in pure darkness with only the fiercest beasts as their company.

A group of tipsy women crossed our path. The more sober of them jerked around to take a second glance at the Watcher Angel and the Prince of Lust.

Even covered in silt and revenge, Ezequiel was a trophy.

My tarnishing was not outwardly displayed, but the humans whose eyes locked on mine seemed to be able to sense the challenge they would face and decided to move on to my companion.

Rightfully so.

I was tattered and jagged, unable to use the only gifts I had been blessed with upon my crowning as the Prince of Lust.

For now.