*-*-*-*

“Hurry up!” Melanie whined from the hallway.

“I’m hurrying!” she said, trying not cringe when she finally managed to turn just enough so that she could see the damage from her latest episode of breaking and entering.

She groaned when she saw the large bruise covering most of her lower back and bottom. Sadly, even after seeing the damage and spending the night crawling back and forth to the kitchen for ice she couldn’t say that she’d learned her lesson.

Fighting back a yawn, she reached past the prescription bottle of painkillers and grabbed the bottle of Advil. As much as she would love to spend the day curled up in her bed trying to pretend that her ass wasn’t on fire, she was going to have to suck it up and go to work. Rent was due next week and she couldn’t afford to miss the hours. It didn’t matter that she had enough in her checking account to cover next month’s rent and bills. She had a job and she needed to be there to ensure that the customers were taken care of properly, that everything was clean, the condiments neatly organized and-

Okay, fine so she really just wanted to see Lucifer.

She wanted to see him, because she missed him!

God, she was pathetic, but then again, so was staying up most of the night waiting for him. Around three this morning she’d finally accepted the fact that he wasn’t coming and that her ass wasn’t going to stop throbbing and gave up. She tried to fall asleep, but it never happened. Now she was trying to pretend that her ass wasn’t throbbing so that she could see him.

Definitely pathetic.

“Move your ass, Shaw!” Melanie snapped, sounding unreasonably irritated for a woman who liked to stay up all night eating junk food and watching sappy romance movies.

“Stop rushing me!” she snapped back, wondering why they kept settling for apartments with only one bathroom.

“It’s your turn to take Mojo out!” Melanie said, obviously desperate if she was resorting to using Mojo, who was probably passed out by the door.

“I know it’s my turn!” she said, which at this point was the only thing that she knew, because she had absolutely no idea how she was going to walk Mojo this morning without falling on her face. She could barely walk and here she was getting ready to work an eight-hour shift right after she took a two hundred and sixty-five pound dog for a walk. It was going to be the best day ever, she thought miserably as she pulled her shirt back down.

“Seriously, move your fat ass!” Melanie yelled.

“I’m trying to get my fat ass ready for work!”

“I see,” Melanie murmured thoughtfully instead of arguing with her, making her wonder if today was actually going to end up being a good day after all.

Biting her lip, she carefully tucked her shirt in. Once she was done, four or five minutes later, she zipped her pants up, buttoned them and-

Rolled her eyes when the banging started all over again.

“I’ll be out in a minute!”

“You are not working today or any day this week,” the incredibly sexy deep voice that she loved said, letting her know that there was a traitor that needed to be dealt with.

“I really am,” she said, wondering why he was bothering to argue with her when they both knew that she was going to-

“In two minutes I’m going to open this door and if I don’t find your beautiful ass soaking in that tub, then you and I are going to have a problem,” he said evenly, making her roll her eyes.

It was so cute when he thought that he could intimidate her.

“A minute and a half,” he announced as she stood there, shaking her head with a sigh, because they both knew that he wasn’t going to do anything.

“I’m getting ready for work,” she said, checking her hair to make sure that everything was in place.

“A minute and fifteen seconds,” was his reply.

He wasn’t going to do anything except glare at her while threatening to spank her ass. It was cute, but it wasn’t going to work. She was going to work and that was all there was to it.

“Sixty seconds.”

She was going to work.

“Fifty seconds.”

He was just going to have to deal with it.

“Thirty seconds.”

It was so cute that he thought that he was in charge.

“Twenty-five seconds.”

“Don’t care,” she said, fixing her shirt even as she shot a nervous glance at the door to make sure that it was locked.

He wouldn’t…

“Twenty seconds.”

“You’re not scaring me!”

And he wasn’t, because they both knew that-

“Ten seconds.”

Shit!

Panicking, she struggled to yank her clothes off as she tried to start a bath. She’d barely kicked her panties off when she heard the doorknob turn.

“Oh, crap!” she whispered frantically as she tried to climb in the tub only to slip, fall and land on her side in ice cold water just as Lucifer, looking exhausted and pissed, walked in.

“I’m taking a bath!” she screamed, somewhat hysterically to the large man glaring down at her. “Oh, my God! I’m taking a bath!”

Narrowing his eyes on her, he stood over her for another few seconds before abruptly turning around and walking out, leaving her laying there, wondering how she was going to survive a week of house arrest.

 

 

Chapter 34

“No!” Melanie yelled as she stormed into the kitchen. “I’m not watching any more horror movies with you, you demented bitch!”

“Aw, come on! Just one more movie!” he heard Rebecca yell from her bedroom where he’d made damn sure that her beautiful ass had stayed for the past few days.

“No!” Melanie yelled back at Rebecca.

“I found this zombie movie that looks promising!”

“Rot in hell, bitch!” Melanie yelled back.

“This one’s not that bad! They only eat rotted corpses!”

When Melanie spotted him standing there she came to a stop five feet away from her beloved couch, looked at him, over her shoulder and then back at him again before he found himself being dragged towards the back hallway. Before he could ask the obviously insane woman if she’d lost her fucking mind, he found himself shoved into Rebecca’s messy room.

“Please forgive me,” Melanie whispered before she slammed the door shut and, by the sounds of it, ran away.