Work Text:
“We could always just go to the courthouse tomorrow after work, you know?”
The glass dish that Chloe was washing slips from her fingers and drops into the bottom of the sink with a clang.
Chloe makes no attempt to retrieve it. She just stares at it, at the glass surface still coated with remnants of enchilada and at the steady stream of water pouring from the faucet, while her brain screams TOMORROW TOMORROW TOMORROW like some kind of crisis warning system.
“Chloe?” she hears Marcus say. “You okay?”
She tries to take a deep breath, but can only inhale a shallow one. Her vision swims with dancing black dots, and she has to grab the edge of the sink to steady herself when her body sways slightly. A wave of nausea crashes over her but she forces herself to reach out, shut the faucet off, and turn to face her fiancé.
He’s sitting on the other side of the peninsula, phone in hand, thumb hovering over the screen. He looks out of place sitting on the stool where Trixie usually eats breakfast, and Chloe wonders what her daughter would say if she woke up one morning and found him in her preferred seat.
TOMORROW, her brain screams.
“What did you say?” she asks.
Marcus furrows his eyebrows. “What?”
She grabs a nearby dish towel. “What did you say?” she repeats as she dries her hands. “About the…”
She can’t bring herself to say it because she suddenly feels like she’s going to vomit.
TOMORROW, her brain shrieks like a banshee.
“About the courthouse?” Marcus says.
Chloe nods mutely because she can’t bring herself to say the word tomorrow out loud. She thinks if she tried, she’d end up shrieking it just like her brain.
“Well you’re stressed out with all the wedding planning, right?” Marcus says with an oblivious shrug. “So let’s just remove the stress and get it over with.”
Chloe stares at him.
“I mean, you can still do your bachelorette thing with Lopez and the girls tomorrow night if you want,” Marcus says as if he doesn’t realize that get it over with isn’t the most flattering way to describe their impending nuptials. “But then Monday morning we could just run over to the courthouse and sign the papers. It’s all such a circus, and…”
He keeps talking, but Chloe stops listening. Suddenly all she can see is her future with him spread out before her like the pages of a storybook that hasn’t been bound yet. She sees his clothes hanging in her closet and mixed in with laundry she has to fold. She sees his hulking form standing on the sidelines at Trixie’s soccer games or sitting next to her at end-of-year awards ceremonies. She imagines what it will be like to fall asleep next to him every night, and wake up next to him every morning, and have sex with him and only him until they’re both old and gray and more interested in puzzles and grandchildren than getting laid.
She feels nauseous. Marcus is still talking about how much easier it would be to elope, but all she can focus on is that once they get married, that’s it. She’s stuck. She’s stuck with his plaid button-downs in her closet. She’s stuck with his polite silence at Trixie’s school functions. She’s stuck trying to figure out how to integrate his rock collection with Trixie’s artwork, and she’s stuck on his arm and smiling supportively at L.A.P.D. functions, and even though she knows it’s not permanently stuck—she’s gotten divorced once before, she could do it again—it feels permanent because she doesn’t want to get divorced again. She doesn’t want to put Trix through that, and she doesn’t want to deal with whispers at work, and so if she does this, if she marries Marcus, it will be permanent.
She will be stuck.
Her heart is racing. She feels suddenly hot, and like her apartment isn’t nearly as big as it was just a few minutes ago. The walls seem to be moving closer. Somewhere through the haze of panic, her detective brain is trying to find answers. Why does she feel like she’s going to vomit into the half-washed enchilada pan? Why does she have the sudden, intense desire to pack a bag and run? She’s wearing his ring. She already said yes. She already agreed to a steady, comfortable life with this man who’s fully committed to her, and there is absolutely no reason why she shouldn’t want their life to start as soon as possible.
Except she doesn’t want that.
She doesn’t want that at all.
The shrill ring of Marcus’s cell phone startles her out of her reverie. She watches as he checks the screen, and then puts it up to his ear.
“Pierce,” he says gruffly. He listens silently for a moment, and then he nods. “Yeah, I’m on the way.”
He hangs up, and then rises from the stool with an apologetic smile. “Sorry. That was work.”
Chloe swallows around the nausea that’s still stuck in her throat. “Something wrong?”
“Just the same old, but I’ve got to head to a crime scene.” He rounds the counter and crosses the kitchen, and when he stops in front of her and bends down to kiss her, the urge to turn her face away throbs in her chest. She resists.
“I’ll call you when I’m done?” he says after he kisses her briefly.
She nods. “Okay.”
He flashes her a smile, and then he strides across her apartment, grabs his keys on the way, and disappears out the door.
Chloe doesn’t move once he’s gone. She stands in the silence of the kitchen, her hand still gripping the counter as if it’s the only thing keeping her on her feet, and stares at the floor.
TOMORROW, her brain shrieks.
And then, in a broken whisper, I don’t want to.
Panic flickers in her chest, but she pushes it away. This is just cold feet. It’s totally normal. Happens all the time. It didn’t happen when she married Dan, but so what? That was different. She was different. Just because she’s having second thoughts doesn’t mean she’s making the wrong choice. She just needs to remind herself of all the reasons why she’s marrying Marcus.
She turns back to the sink and flips the faucet on and reaches for the glass dish. She scours the baked-on enchilada remnants with a sponge and starts to compile a list of all the things she likes—no, loves—about Marcus. She loves that he’s good at his job. She loves that he respects how good she is at her job. She loves that he’s never seemed to care that she took off her top on film. She loves that he tries to get to know Trixie, even if he’s a little awkward about it. She loves that he makes her laugh. Not as hard as Lucifer makes her laugh, of course, but that’s—
She stops scrubbing the pan with a sharp, horrified inhale. Why would she be thinking that? What good does that comparison do her? Lucifer doesn’t want a serious relationship. She thought maybe, when she stepped off the elevator in his penthouse and found candles and flowers and a table set for two, that he did. She thought…
Well, it doesn’t matter what she thought. She was clearly wrong. Lucifer doesn’t want her. He just doesn’t want anyone else to have her. Marcus, on the other hand, offered her a ring. Marcus offered her a real relationship with a future, and so what if he doesn’t make her laugh so hard she snorts coffee out of her nose? There are more important things than that.
She lists them out for herself as she finishes scrubbing the pan, and then sets to work cleaning the kitchen and the rest of the apartment. At some point she realizes that she’s started repeating things to herself—he respects rules and procedure, he doesn’t flirt with other women, he’s never disappeared without a trace—and the realization that she’s just listing out all the things that make him different from Lucifer brings another wave of nausea. She tries to push the thoughts away, but then her eye catches on one of Trixie’s drawings hanging on the wall and she freezes.
It’s a drawing of Lucifer. He has devil horns and a tail and a pitchfork, and he’s standing next to a smaller figure that’s clearly supposed to be Trixie. They’re both smiling. Trixie always draws Lucifer smiling. Chloe scans the other drawings spread throughout her home, and finds several of Lucifer and plenty of Maze and Dan and herself, but there’s not a single one of Marcus. Her daughter has never drawn a picture of her fiancé.
She’s lightheaded again. The apartment feels hot, and the walls are closing in, and she can’t take it. She closes her eyes and tries to focus on taking deep, even breaths, but it doesn’t work. She needs to get some fresh air or she’s going to suffocate.
She stumbles toward the front door, pulls on a pair of boots, and then grabs her keys. The door slams behind her with a bang that makes her wince as she beelines for her car. She climbs in the driver’s seat clumsily, turns the key in the ignition, and peels out of her parking spot.
Once she gets out onto the street, her heart starts to slow. She realizes she’s clenching her jaw, and she forces herself to relax before she ends up with a migraine. She takes a few deep breaths, grounding herself in the familiarity of her car and the feel of the steering wheel beneath her hands, and then settles back into her seat with a heavy exhale.
She doesn’t pay attention to where she’s going. She just drives. She thinks about Marcus, and the wedding, and eloping. She thinks about what he offers her, and how it’s everything she’s always said she wanted. She thinks about the small voice in the back of her mind that keeps whispering I don’t want to despite all the boxes he checks and the yes that already came out of her mouth.
She doesn’t realize she’s driving to Lux until she pulls into her usual spot in the alleyway.
For a moment, she panics. Because this is bad, right? This is really bad. She has a ring on her finger and second thoughts rattling around in her head, and the last place she should be here is here, at the nightclub where her annoyingly charming partner offers to fulfill people’s deepest, darkest desires. Desire is not what she needs right now. She needs logic and reason and practicality and maturity. Why the hell did she come here?
She’s reaching for the gear shift when another thought crosses her mind. Maybe it’s not a bad thing that she ended up here. Maybe this is exactly what she needs. Maybe these cold feet of hers just need to be torched with a reminder of what she’s walking toward if she walks away from the steady, reliable guy.
Suddenly determined, she clenches her jaw and shoves the door of her car open. It slams behind her just like her apartment door did, but she doesn’t wince this time. She just locks the doors, and then marches her way out of the alley and around to the front entrance. She heads straight to the front of the line, smiles at the bouncers who nod at her in greeting, and then makes her way into Lux.
The music gets steadily louder as she travels deeper into the club. She passes a woman in a designer cocktail dress, glances down at her own jeans and blouse and sensible brown shoes, and wonders if she’s underdressed. Immediately after the thought crosses her mind, she wonders why it did. She’s never cared about her outfit before, why should she care now? Besides, Lucifer likes this blouse. He told her so a few weeks ago.
Not that it matters what Lucifer thinks about her wardrobe. Because it definitely doesn’t. What matters is that Marcus likes her blouse. And okay, fine, he’s never said that, but she’s sure that he does. Of course he does. And that’s what matters. That’s why she’s here. She’s going to see Lucifer in a booth with several Britneys, or humping a blonde on the dance floor, or taking body shots off a row of suntanned coeds, and she’s going to remember why Marcus matters.
She finally gets to the heart of the club and pauses on the landing above the DJ booth. She scans the dance floor below her but doesn’t see Lucifer. She shifts her gaze over to the bar, but doesn’t see him there either. It’s early on a Friday night, but the club is already full. No surprise there. It’s always full on weekends. She’s sure Lucifer is somewhere in the throng of people, so she makes her way down the stairs and through the crowd to the bar.
Patrick spots her immediately. He holds up a hand to a man leaning against the bar as if to ask him to wait, and then hurries toward Chloe with a smile.
“Hey, Detective,” he greets as he wipes his hands on a towel. “Can I get you something?”
She shakes her head. “No, thanks. I’m just looking for Lucifer.”
“Oh, he hasn’t come down yet.”
Chloe is opening her mouth to scoff and say something like And who’s keeping him busy upstairs? but Patrick beats her to it.
“He hasn’t been down in a while, actually.”
Chloe frowns, certain she misheard over the music. “What?”
“He hasn’t been around much lately,” Patrick rephrases.
“You mean today?”
“No, I mean the last few weeks.”
Chloe’s frown deepens. “Why?”
“I dunno,” Patrick says with a shrug. “I didn’t think it was my place to ask. I’m sure he’d talk to you, though.” He nods at the man down the bar who he asked to wait. “I’ve gotta go. Let me know if you change your mind and want a drink. You know it’s always on the house.”
He flashes her a smile and then heads down the bar, and Chloe finds herself turning back toward the club. She watches the crowd for a moment, her gaze flicking absently from one beautiful woman to the next. She doesn’t understand why Lucifer isn’t here. There are dozens of potential partners for him, and she knows that all of them would be ready and willing. No one ever turns down Lucifer.
Well, no one except her.
You’re special, his voice whispers in her memory. She can see him standing before her at the beach, can hear the waves and feel the uneven sand beneath her boots, and the memory of what happened after he said those words sears through her and then propels her forward.
She’s in the elevator before she even knows what she’s doing. She presses the button for the penthouse and the doors slide closed. Suddenly she’s in a small, enclosed space that should reignite her earlier panic, but it doesn’t. She doesn’t feel trapped. But why? Why is she here, why is she going upstairs, why is she—
The elevator doors slide open, her gaze settles on Lucifer sitting at his piano with his back to her, and she exhales.
There’s no reason for her to think it’s an exhale of relief. She has nothing to be relieved about. But the tension headache that was starting to throb in her skull is gone. Her heart isn’t racing anymore. And even though she’s still standing in an elevator, she feels like she’s in a wide open space where there’s nothing for miles and nobody closing in and she’s free.
Lucifer is playing the piano. His shoulders move slightly as his hands dance over the keys, and the sound that fills the penthouse is beautiful. Chloe doesn’t recognize the song, but that hardly seems to matter. The music is just an accessory, the notes wrapping around his shoulders and the rest of his body like curls of smoke. Her hands flutter with the urge to comb her fingers through his dark hair.
She steps off the elevator. She pauses, waiting for the practical side of her brain to kick back on, but it doesn’t. She takes another step, and another, and even though she’s walking toward a man who’s proven himself entirely too dangerous to trust with her heart, she feels no fear when the elevator doors close behind her and she’s left alone with him.
“Hi Lucifer,” she says when the song he’s playing dips into a lull.
Her voice is so soft that she’s not sure he’ll hear it, but he does. He whirls around to face her, and the notes cut off abruptly.
The first thing she notices is that his shirt sleeves are rolled back on his forearms. The second thing she notices is that he isn’t wearing a jacket or a vest, and the top button of his shirt is undone, as if he was planning to undress but changed his mind. The shocked look on his face is the last thing she notices, but it sweeps away everything else and makes her second guess herself.
Maybe she shouldn’t be here. Maybe she should go.
“Detective,” Lucifer says, rising to his feet.
Chloe offers him a smile because she can’t seem to find her voice.
“Do we have a case?” he wonders. He strides toward the bar and grabs his discarded jacket, and then pulls his phone from the inside pocket. “I apologize,” he says, glancing down at the screen. “I had my phone on silent, so I didn’t…”
He trails off with a frown, probably because he’s noticed that she didn’t call him, and then he looks up at her.
“No case,” she says, shaking her head.
“Oh.” He sets his phone down. “Right.” He blinks at her for a second, clearly puzzled, and then his lips smooth into a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Well then to what do I owe the pleasure?”
She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out. She doesn’t know how to explain whatever’s going on to him because she doesn’t know how to explain it to herself. Why is she here? Why isn’t she leaving?
The silence drags on, but she can’t make her vocal cords work. She twists her fingers together and glances toward his bedroom, suddenly afraid that he’s got company, but the penthouse is silent. Nobody else is here.
“Detective?” Lucifer asks, stepping toward her. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah,” she says, her voice cracking. She clears her throat. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
She can tell he doesn’t believe her, but he doesn’t argue.
“Let me pour you a drink,” he says. He hesitates for a moment as if he expects her to refuse, and she probably should, but she doesn’t.
If he’s shocked, he hides it well. He fetches a glass, and then a bottle, and as he pours some of the contents of the bottle into the glass, she walks closer to him. He’s standing behind the bar, so she forces herself to go around to the front so that there’s something between them. It feels important to have a buffer of some sort.
The glass makes a soft scraping sound as he slides it across the bar toward her. She reaches for it, her hand trembling slightly, and then lifts it to her lips and swallows it all in one go. Silence rings in her ears. She lowers the empty glass, and then finally lifts her gaze to his.
He’s no longer doing a good job of hiding his shock, but there’s something else in his expression too. Confusion, maybe. Or concern. Or fear.
“What is it?” he asks.
She shakes her head, because it’s nothing. There’s nothing to say.
He refills her glass. She drinks that too. It burns all the way down her throat, liquid fire that’s a sharp contrast to the icy metal on the fourth finger of her left hand, and when she lowers the glass from her lips, Lucifer is staring at her. He’s watching her mouth, and he keeps watching as she licks the remnants of what she’s sure is very expensive whiskey from her lips, and when he finally meets her gaze, she feels like she’s on fire.
He sets the bottle down on the bar with a soft thud. “Detective,” he says quietly, leaning toward her. “Something is clearly bothering you, and I—”
“Tell me not to marry him,” she blurts out.
He stares at her, stunned.
She stares back, equally stunned, because that’s not what she meant to say. It just came out, like the nausea she’s felt since Marcus said the word tomorrow manifested itself into word vomit instead of actual vomit.
“What?” Lucifer says, his voice barely above a whisper.
An opportunity to backpedal flutters before her. It’s right there, easily within reach, and she knows Lucifer would let her take it. She knows she could grab it in her fist and hang on and they could both pretend like this never happened.
“Tell me not to marry him,” she repeats.
Lucifer stares at her for a moment, clearly shocked that she repeated herself, and then his shock dissolves into anguish.
“I can’t do that,” he whispers.
For a moment, his refusal doesn’t sink in. She feels like one of those cartoons that stepped off a ledge only to hang in the air, wondering what’s about to happen, but then gravity checks in. She free falls, hits rock bottom, and shatters.
She drops her gaze. Humiliation burns as a blush in her cheeks and tears in her eyes, and she clears her throat.
“Right,” she whispers. “Of course not.”
Because what else did she expect? Why did she think this would go any differently? Did she really think…?
It doesn’t matter what she thought. Clearly she was wrong. Again.
She leaves the glass on the bar and walks back toward the elevator, back toward her life and her fiancé and their future. She knows she’ll cry on the drive home, but after that, there will be no more tears. This is over. It’s done. It has to be, because there are only so many times she can step off the precipice and fall and hope for a catch that never comes. There are only so many times she can shatter.
She’s three steps from the elevator when she feels his fingers wrap around her wrist.
She stops in her tracks. Her breath catches in her throat, and her heart starts to pound in her chest. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, and then turns around.
Lucifer is standing behind her, his grip on her wrist gentle but insistent, and the look on his face takes her breath away. He looks agonized, like he’s been asked to do something terrible, and for the millionth time since she first met him downstairs in the haze of Lux, she wishes she could read his mind.
“Do you want to marry him?” he asks softly.
Chloe blinks at him in surprise, and then drops her gaze. Lucifer has her left wrist in his grasp, and with her arm stretched out between them, it brings her engagement ring into view. She studies it, searching for the answer.
“I thought I did,” she murmurs.
“And now you don’t?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
He doesn’t say anything. She can’t bring herself to look at him. He shifts a little closer to her, and then adjusts his grip from her wrist to her hand. His fingers clasp hers, and then he presses the pad of his thumb gently into the diamond on her ring.
“I think you know,” he whispers.
She closes her eyes and barely resists the urge to shudder at the way his voice smooths over her. She tries so hard not to compare Marcus to him, and usually she succeeds, but all her defenses seem to have fled the moment she got in that elevator. Marcus’s voice doesn’t do things to her the way Lucifer’s does. Marcus’s hands on her skin don’t feel the way Lucifer’s do.
Lucifer shifts even closer to her. It’s not an inappropriate closeness, but it’s not exactly work-partners-and-nothing-more closeness either. Her hand is still in his, and his thumb is still pressed to her diamond. He’s moving her ring slowly, just enough for it to rub back and forth on her skin. The metal is cold, but his skin is warm.
“What do you desire, Detective?” he murmurs.
She finally lifts her gaze to his. “You know that doesn’t work on me.”
He gives her a half smile. “Humor me.”
Her gaze dips toward his mouth, which is a lot closer than it has been in a while, and then she catches herself and forces her gaze back up to his eyes. She knows he noticed, but he doesn’t smirk. He doesn’t tease her.
“Close your eyes,” he tells her.
She gives him a look. “Lucifer.”
“Close your eyes,” he implores, and she sighs at him but does as she’s told.
For a moment, he doesn’t say anything. They stand there in silence, her hand in his, and she’s suddenly aware of the scent of his cologne. The urge to step forward and bury her face in his chest and inhale is almost overpowering.
“Imagine you’re old and gray,” Lucifer says, his voice a familiar hum. “You’re sitting in a rocking chair in your home, surrounded by photos of the people you spent your life with. Who do you see?”
Chloe inhales a slow breath and then lets it out. “Trixie.”
“Of course,” he says. She can hear his smile. “President, I assume.”
Chloe smiles too, and shakes her head. “She’s too good for politics.”
Lucifer hums in agreement.
“A doctor, maybe,” Chloe says. “Or a teacher. Or a research scientist who cures cancer.”
“All the above, knowing her,” Lucifer muses. “She’s as smart and determined as her mother, so the sky’s the limit, really.”
Chloe smiles wider and opens her eyes.
“Tsk, no cheating, Detective,” Lucifer says, clicking his tongue at her in disapproval. “Keep those eyes closed.”
“Lucifer,” she sighs.
“Humor me.”
She sighs again at the repeated request, but she closes her eyes.
“Who else?”
“Dan.”
“Ah, yes. The douche barnacle.”
Chloe opens her eyes. “The what?”
“Well he’s a douche,” Lucifer says. “But also a barnacle because you can’t seem to be rid of him.”
“He’s the father of my child, Lucifer.”
“Yes, well, that is unfortunate.”
If Chloe didn’t know him as well as she does, she might be offended. But she can hear the thread of teasing in his tone, and she can see the sparkle in his eye, and she knows that if Dan needed something, Lucifer would give it to him.
“You’re cheating again,” Lucifer reminds her.
Chloe sighs in exasperation and closes her eyes.
“So Captain Douche and the urchin,” Lucifer prompts.
“Maybe Charlotte,” Chloe adds. “Dan cares about her, and I think they’re getting serious.”
“Charlotte would be a wonderful addition to any family,” Lucifer says, and the sincerity in his voice makes Chloe ache.
“Ella,” Chloe says. “Linda and Maze.”
“The tribe,” Lucifer says. “I’m told every woman needs a rabid horde of female friends, so it’s perfectly sensible for you to keep them around. Excellent choice, Detective.”
Chloe nods. “My mom, obviously.”
“Obviously. Penelope Decker is a national treasure.”
Chloe smiles, but then it fades when she remembers the last time she saw her mom. She remembers thinking that her and Marcus had hit it off, only to be surprised when her mom pulled her aside later to ask if she was happy, and if marrying him was really what she wanted.
“Who else, Detective?” Lucifer’s voice cuts gently into the memory.
Chloe shakes her head.
“You’re old and gray,” Lucifer murmurs. “Your rocking chair creaks as you move. There’s a cup of tea nearby, you’re surrounded by photos of a life well-lived, and you’re happy. You have no regrets.” His hand tightens on hers, and the ring on her finger shifts beneath the weight of his thumb. “Who do you see?”
No regrets.
Chloe opens her eyes. Lucifer is staring down at her, his eyebrows furrowed as if the world hangs in the balance, and she thinks maybe it does.
“You,” she breathes.
The agonized expression crosses his face again. “Of course,” he murmurs, his lips smoothing into a halfhearted smile. “Cases to solve, and all that. Your illustrious career—”
“Lucifer.”
He stops. They stare at each other, still holding hands, and then it’s Chloe’s turn to lean closer to him. The space between them is shrinking rapidly. She doesn’t care.
“Who do you see?” she whispers into the heavy silence.
He shakes his head. “I’m immortal. There is no old and gray in my future. I despise furniture that creaks. And rocking chairs, as well. Absurd creations. I don’t—”
“Lucifer.”
He stops again.
“Close your eyes.”
He looks afraid, but he doesn’t let go of her hand. She’d let him if he tried, but he doesn’t.
“Detective,” he murmurs.
“Close your eyes.”
He swallows, his throat bobbing, and then closes his eyes.
“If you had no regrets,” she whispers, her voice wavering, “who would you see?”
He exhales a heavy breath, and then opens his eyes.
“You.”
As soon as the admission leaves his lips, he looks wrecked. Desire pulses in her veins, and for once, she doesn’t resist.
She lifts her free hand to his face, rises up to her toes, and kisses him.
He goes rigid in surprise. When he doesn’t reach for her and doesn’t kiss her back, she freezes too.
What is she doing?
“Sorry,” she blurts out before their lips have even really separated. She takes a step back. “I’m so sorry, Lucifer, I—”
He lunges forward and swallows the rest of her apology with a searing kiss.
They stumble backward from the force of his enthusiasm. She grapples at his shoulders for purchase, tripping over her own feet until her back hits the wall next to the elevator. He cradles the back of her head with his palm to gentle the collision, and the gesture makes something spark inside her. She pushes off the wall and arches toward him, lifting her hands up to his head so she can thread her fingers through his hair. He presses his body against hers and pins her to the wall, kissing her with the same desperation she feels racing through her veins. She doesn’t hesitate to open her mouth for him when he flicks his tongue along the seam of her lips, but when a whimper tears out of her throat and echoes through the penthouse, it jolts her back to her senses.
She drops her hands, flattens her palms on his chest, and pushes him away.
He stumbles backward in surprise. They stare at each other, chests heaving in unison. His hair is mussed and his eyes are wild, and she brushes her fingers over her lips in shock. The engagement ring on her finger is cold as ice, but it’s not enough to chill the heat sparking beneath her skin.
“We shouldn’t have done that,” she whispers.
He swallows, his throat bobbing, and drops his gaze to her mouth. “Perhaps not,” he agrees. He lifts his gaze to meet hers. “But I don’t regret it.”
His voice is a low rumble, and her body aches. She drops her hand away from her mouth with a sharp exhale, and when his eyes dart down to her mouth again, another ache throbs deep within her.
He takes a step toward her. She tenses, afraid her resistance might break despite the guilt that’s surfacing in her chest, but he doesn’t take another step.
“Do you?” he murmurs.
She tries to keep her eyes locked on his, but they keep drifting down to the glimpse of his chest she can see peeking out thanks to the undone top button of his shirt.
“Do I what?” she asks as she imagines what it would be like to trace her lips over his bare skin.
His fingers twitch at his side like he wants to reach for her. “Do you regret it?”
She stares at him, still breathing a step faster than normal. He stares back, his eyes dark with desire and longing.
“No,” she confesses in a barely audible voice.
His eyes light with hope, and then darken again.
“Would you like to do it again?” he asks.
The words are innocuous, but the implication isn’t. There are a million reasons to say no, starting with the ring on her finger, but she can’t bring herself to lie to a man who prizes the truth.
“Yes,” she admits.
A look of wonder flashes briefly across his face. The corners of his mouth turn upward into a smile so soft it makes her ache for an entirely new reason, and then he steps toward her. She knows he’s going to kiss her again, and she knows that as much as she wants him to, she can’t let him. They can’t do this. Not this way.
“Lucifer,” she says, holding up her hands to stop him before he gets to her.
He freezes immediately.
She shakes her head. “We can’t.”
Confusion ripples across his face, and his eyebrows furrow into an adorably puzzled frown. “But you said you want to.”
“I do.” She drops her hands because she knows he won’t cross the boundary she’s just drawn. She glances down at his lips, and then back up to his eyes, and then sidles sideways toward the bar so that she isn’t trapped between him and the wall. It’s making her think about his body pressed against hers.
“I really do,” she adds.
He tilts toward her, but his feet stay rooted to the floor. “But?”
“But I need more than this,” she says, twisting her fingers together. “More than…”
She trails off, unsure how to categorize the energy that’s thrumming between them.
He doesn’t seem to share her uncertainty. The frown on his brow smooths out, and he wilts a little. “Desire,” he finishes softly.
She hesitates because agreeing feels like an indictment of everything he is, but he’s right. And it’s the truth.
She nods.
His eyes flutter closed briefly, and then he takes a step back. The space between them seems to stretch, a few feet that feel like miles, and it takes every ounce of her self control not to erase them.
“He can give you more,” Lucifer whispers.
Chloe swallows around the lump in her throat. “So could you,” she whispers back. “If you wanted.”
Lucifer stares at her. His agonized look from earlier is back, and she can feel the familiar, barely healed cracks in her heart start to break again. She drops her hands to her sides and forces herself to look him in the eye, to step to the precipice one more time.
“I’m here,” she says, trying to keep her voice steady. “But I won’t be after tonight.”
Lucifer’s eyes flutter closed again, as if looking at her is too painful. Chloe’s heart pounds in her chest, desperate and wanting and afraid, but she won’t jump first this time.
“What do you want, Lucifer?” she says into the silence. “What do you truly desire?”
His eyes are gleaming. She thinks it’s a trick of the light until he tilts his head and she realizes it’s not. There are tears in his eyes. He opens his mouth, presses his lips together as if he’s thought better about what he was going to say, and then he exhales shakily and shakes his head.
“Don’t marry him,” he breathes.
She chews her bottom lip, trying to decide if that’s enough. She glances past him toward the spot where he had a table set for two and she thought he was finally going to catch her, but he didn’t.
“Why?”
She expects him to sputter and stutter and start and stop the way he always does when they get too close to confronting whatever this thing between them is, but he doesn’t.
“Because I want you,” he answers without a trace of hesitation.
She shakes her head. “You want everyone.”
“Not like I want you.”
Hope swells in her chest, growing and growing until it’s pressing against her lungs and leaving her breathless, but she’s afraid. She’s afraid it will pop like a balloon, and she’ll be left with the broken pieces.
“How do you want me?” she whispers.
He smiles, and she’s certain he’s going to say something sexual, but for the second time in as many minutes, she’s wrong.
“I want you in the morning, before you’ve finished your first cup of coffee, when you’re a little cranky.”
He takes a half step toward her, and when she doesn’t try to stop him, he closes the remaining distance between them slowly.
“I want you in the driver’s seat of your cruiser sighing about traffic. I want you when you’re listening to Ms. Lopez be nerdy about science, and when you’re rolling your eyes at Maze, and when you’re teasing Daniel. I want you in your parent-teacher conference blouse. I want your absurd lectures for your urchin about sugar intake. I want your terrible taste in music, and the way you laugh a little too loud when you’re surprised by something amusing.”
He stops in front of her. She holds her breath, her heart pounding in her chest, as he reaches for her hand. They both glance down at the ring on her fourth finger. He presses his thumb against the diamond the way he had earlier, and then he lifts their hands and presses her palm into his chest, over his heart, and leans closer to her.
“I want you,” he murmurs. “Every virtue and flaw. Every line and curve. Everything.”
His shirt is soft beneath her palm. She rubs her thumb against the fabric and swallows around the lump of fear in her throat. “For how long?”
“As long as you’ll have me.” He smiles sadly. “And likely even after that.”
She shakes her head. “Why now? Why couldn’t you just…?”
He furrows his eyebrows. “I was afraid. I still am. There are things you should know. Things I need to tell you. Show you.”
“I’ve asked,” she points out. “I’ve asked so many times.”
“I know,” he sighs. “I know.” He lifts his free hand to her face, and brushes his thumb over her cheek. “I’ll tell you everything. I’ll give you everything. Just choose me.”
He leans forward and presses his forehead to hers, and she closes her eyes and breathes him in.
“Please,” he whispers.
The last of her defenses fall. There weren’t many anyway, and she’s not sure how strong they were, but it doesn’t matter. They’re gone.
She’s made her choice.
The shrill ring of her cell phone shatters the moment. She startles away from Lucifer, and he looks physically pained when she gently pulls her hand away from his. She reaches for her phone nestled into the back pocket of her jeans, and when she glances down at the screen, Marcus’s face is smiling up at her.
She doesn’t answer it. She flicks it to silent, and then slides it back into her pocket and looks up at Lucifer.
“I have to go.”
He isn’t looking at her. He’s staring at her boots, his posture uncharacteristically slumped and his face contorted into an expression that she can only describe as devastation.
“Back to him,” he says quietly.
Chloe is surprised for a second—how could he think, after all that, that she’d choose anyone but him?—but then she realizes that of course he would. Of course.
She reaches out and laces her fingers through his, and when he looks up at her in surprise, she smiles.
“I can’t start something new with you until I’ve ended things with him,” she murmurs. “I have to tell him that I chose you.”
Lucifer stares at her like he can’t believe the words that are coming out of her mouth. She smiles at him for a moment, struck by how awed he looks over something that he could’ve had so much sooner if he’d only asked, but then she remembers the last time they were this close, and the way his penthouse looks when his furniture is draped in sheets.
“Will you be here if I come back after?” she whispers.
He lifts her hand to his mouth, and presses his lips to her knuckles. “You have my word,” he whispers into her skin.
She wants to kiss him, and she will.
Just not yet.
Chloe returns a few hours later.
Lux is even busier than it was before. There are people everywhere, and the music is deafening, but she doesn’t go searching for Lucifer on the dance floor or at the bar. She heads straight for the elevator. She rides up to his penthouse with her heart in her throat, twisting her fingers together nervously. Her left hand feels lighter. She can’t stop rubbing her thumb over the empty skin on her fourth finger.
When the elevator slows to a stop, she sucks in a breath. She’s excited and terrified and definitely not one for prayer, but she wants him so badly she prays.
Please let him be here.
The doors slide open.
Lucifer is seated on the piano bench just like he was when she arrived hours ago. This time, though, he’s facing the elevator.
He was waiting for her.
He rises to his feet as soon as their eyes meet. She steps into the penthouse, still rubbing her thumb over her empty fourth finger. His gaze dips down to her hands, and then back up to meet hers.
“No ring,” he whispers.
She shakes her head. “No ring.”
They stare at each other. She’s standing on the precipice again, teetering on the edge, and she wants to jump. She’s so close—they’re so close—and she wants to jump.
“Chloe,” he whispers.
She jumps.
And this time, he catches her.