Dancing With the Devil

DANCING WITH THE DEVIL

Witches Anonymous Step 5

Misty Evans

To all the Witches Anonymous fans…

Amy and Luc finally get a happily ever after because
you asked for it!

An author is nothing without her support team…

Michelle and Amy …as always, your insight and
editorial skills deserve

my undying gratitude and a truckload of Dove
chocolates.

Mark, your ability to design my covers is out of this
world.

And to my brainstorming team: Nana and Michelle…thank
you for responding to all my wacky emails and endless “what if” questions!

Dancing
With the Devil, Witches Anonymous Step 5

Misty
Evans

One step forward…

Ex-witch Amy Atwood has never wanted
anyone the way she wants Lucifer. As she tackles Step 5 of Witches
Anonymous—atoning for the sins she committed as his right-hand witch—she may
actually land him
and
the magic-free life she desires.

Two steps back…

But when an ancient curse is
revealed, a heavenly force determined to remove Lucifer from her life traps Amy
between giving into her love for him and saving the souls of her family and
friends.

Will this be the end for Amy and
Lucifer?

As the war between good and evil
reaches a tipping point, Amy must rely on the devil she knows—and can’t
resist—to break the curse and help her redeem the souls she’s damned to spend
eternity in Hell. Souls Lucifer has no intention of giving up.

Having been Lucifer’s right-hand witch for seven years, I
can tell you there are three elements necessary for proper Devil worship: an
evil witch, a propensity for evil spell-casting, and, of course, the help of
the Devil himself.

When I say “help”, I mean the kind where he infuses your
body, mind and soul with full-on wickedness. Oh, yeah.
That
kind of help
is the whipped topping on the whole evil hot-fudge sundae.

So when it came to proper Devil worship, I, Amy Atwood, was at
the head of the class. Evil witch with a proclivity for casting evil spells and
a Devil-take-me-to-Hell attitude? I received an A-plus in every subject.

But even wicked witches believe in the Law of Rebound. You
know the one that states you reap what you sow? Witches, Wiccans, Pagans, Christians…ninety-nine
percent of us believe what you do to others comes back to you, only with more
force.

With my past, odds are, I’m headed for a fall of giant
cauldron-size proportions.

Since I joined Witches Anonymous—going magic-free in the
process—I’ve been hoping for a reprieve. At the very least, a lighter sentence.
Because if what goes around comes around, I’m going to need more than Lucifer’s
help to deal with the fallout. I’m going to need God’s.

Yeesh.

New Year’s seemed like the perfect time to tackle Step Five
of the Witches Anonymous thirteen-step program. A new year, a new outlook on my
relationship with Luc. It was time to knock this step off my list—admitting all
the wrongs I’d committed and to whom—and move on.

Problem was, it was a damn long list.

The other problem being that I was required by WA rules to
admit all these wrongs and those I’d committed them against to my mentor. Technically
my mentor was an angel named Cephiel who posed as Father Leonard, a priest at
Immaculate Conception. Since he’d probably stroke out over the exact nature of
the Devil-inspired wrongs and lecture me endlessly about turning my soul over
to God, I wasn’t exactly rocking the confessional. The Devil made me do it
excuse wouldn’t pass muster with Ceph.

To add to my predicament, Lucifer was waiting for me in my
apartment when I got home from work on New Year’s Eve. The sight of him made my
heart speed up. My chest felt lighter. The magic securely contained behind
reinforced prison bars next to my heart purred.

He had that look in his eyes. The look that said we were
going to do a bit of New Year’s Eve celebrating before the official party at my
friend Keisha’s place.

Luc slid up to me and took the boxed ice cream cake out of
my hands. “Mm mm. You smell like a banana split.” His lips nuzzled my neck right
below my ear. “And I’m hungry, witch.”

Damn. I was hungry too. A hunger pain squeezed my lower
stomach. Okay, fine, it was lust. My skin tingled where Luc’s hot breath
touched my neck. The sensation ran all the way to my toes. They curled ever so
slightly in my boots even though my feet were killing me from a long day of
taking end-of-the-year inventory. “It’s the ice cream cake,” I stammered. “My
latest concoction is a cross between a banana split and a brownie.”

I lived above my business, Evie’s Ice Cream Shop, and I’d
promised Keisha I’d bring a dish to her party. Since I suck at cooking, baking
and, well…everything, I offered to bring ice cream. My prowess for whipping up
extraordinary treats is akin to my A+ in Devil worship. I excel at it.
Everything else? Well, let’s just say, it sucks to be me.

Except when it comes to casting spells. If your neighbor has
loud parties and parks on your grass, I can make a sink hole open under his
house. Got a cheating boyfriend? I can give him a flesh-eating disease that
only attacks certain, ahem, body parts.

And if you’re the Devil and need a lover to broker deals on
souls? I’m your witch.

Or at least, I used to be. Now I’m good.

Sort of.

I’m trying, anyway.

Luc breathed deep, grazing my cheek with his lips as he
brought his face in front of mine. The hand not holding the box wrapped behind
my neck as he stared me in the eyes. A lock of hair tumbled across his
forehead, making him look carefree and debonair. The heat coming off his body
would melt the cake
and
me if I didn’t move away.

But I didn’t want to move.

“Kiss me,” I said, ready to get this party started.

He lowered his lips, and just like always, my world tipped
sideways and the floor under my feet seemed to rise and fall like I was riding
a wave. You want to talk connection…we had it in spades. Always had.

Hence, my problem.

His tongue teased my lips open and I sighed, giving him
complete access to my mouth. He licked my lower lip and my inner bad girl did a
fist pump. My fingers curled around the soft cotton of his long sleeve T-shirt
and I drew him closer, deepening the kiss.

“Did I mention,” he said, breathing as hard as I was, “that
banana splits are my favorite treat next to you?”

My heart double-tapped my ribcage. Next door, my imprisoned
magic rejoiced.

Danger, Will Robinson
.

Luc and I had a long, complicated history. Seven years of
wickedness and creating havoc on Earth before my sister, Emilia, intervened and
tried to save my soul from eternal damnation. Instead, she ended up Luc’s
playmate and I ended up with a giant archangel headache named Gabriel. Luc and
I broke up and that’s when I joined Witches Anonymous. I’d been keeping my
magic under lock and key ever since.

But that wasn’t all. I went to Hell and back, literally,
because of Lucifer, and now here I was, ready to chuck my magic-free life in
the Witches Anonymous garbage can over a sweet, romantic line comparing me to a
banana split.

Sweet, romantic lines get me every time. “You had me at
I’m
hungry, witch
.”

Luc smiled. Lust and magic swirled around us, tingling my
skin the same way Luc’s breath had. The sigil on my forehead—the worst gift
ever
from my guardian angel—warmed. “No magic,” I reminded Lucifer.

The sigil was the Mark of Cain, a protection symbol that
came direct from God. Anyone who tried to use dark magic on me or hurt me in
any way would be obliterated by said mark. 

Being that I was in love with the Devil, and he’s
the
essence of darkness and magic, you can imagine the problems this could cause.
Talk about cramping a girl’s love life. Luc and I had been stepping around both
our magics for six months and never getting past first base. My frustration
level had hit DEFCON 1…maximum readiness coupled with imminent nuclear meltdown
if I didn’t get some hellacious relief and soon.

Which brought me to my current take on the whole good/bad
situation. A magic-free lifestyle was heroic and all that, but totally,
totally
,
overrated.

Especially as we approached the New Year. So what if we
survived the Mayan prophecy about worldwide doom? Who was to say we wouldn’t
all die at the stroke of midnight, our New Year’s resolutions dying with us? Hell,
at the rate I was going, I could be the apocalypse that wiped out civilization.
How absurd would that be? I’d stick to my magic-free oath but self-combust,
taking out the world like some ass-backwards martyr.

Either way, at that moment, with Luc’s lips trailing their
way down my neck, I, for one, planned to go out with style. I didn’t want to be
saved from magic, Lucifer or anything else, and I was tired of having God’s
stupid mark dictating what I could and couldn’t do.

“Why do you still have clothes on?” I asked the Devil.

Luc chuckled low and deep. Every nerve in my body sat up and
said
hello, sin
. “Ladies first.”

Grabbing the box from his hands, I broke free from his hold
and ran into the kitchen, shoved the cake in the freezer and ran back to the
living room. On the way, I shucked my sweater and started unbuttoning my pants.

Another chuckle rose from his throat and he grinned a very
sexy grin. “For real? You’re not just teasing this time?”

This time. There had been a lot of
this times
since
the summer when I’d returned from Hell with a new attitude and a slight
complication in the bad-witch-dying-to-have-sex-with-her-ex department. “No
magic. No spells. No hexes. We should be safe.”

Luc and I had fooled around every day since I’d been
resurrected from Hell, but I hadn’t been able to seal the deal. Giving the Mark
a test run seemed imprudent when it could fry someone you care about. Didn’t
mean I hadn’t tested the boundaries…we’d had a few close calls where the Mark
struck and Luc ended up slamming into the wall across the room. Still, my
libido kept me coming back for more, Will Robinson danger or not.

Luc seemed to need to remind me of the fact I was a tease. “You
give me that line about no magic and we’ll be safe every time I nuzzle your
neck, and then, right when push comes to shove, you back out.”

He meant the push-comes-to-shove part literally. And it was
true.

But not this time.

“No backing out.” I kicked off my boots, wiggled out of my
pants and reached for his belt buckle. This was it. I was going to do it. The sigil
on my forehead be damned. “Just keep your magic to yourself.”

Clothes went flying as Luc joined me in disrobing. “I’ve
never had sex without magic.”

Memories of sex
with
magic skipped joyfully through
my mind. The way Lucifer had used it to seduce me. The way he’d used it to enhance
the experience…

Heat flooded my body and the room swayed. An uncomfortable
tightness set up camp in my throat. “Holy hexes, Batman.”

Luc tossed his black jeans on the floor. “Are we role
playing? I thought you were over your Batman fixation.”

“Never,” I tried to joke, but when he grabbed me, brought
his naked chest against mine and kissed me so deep, his tongue practically
touched my tonsils, the spot on my forehead sizzled and my stomach clenched.

His pores oozed magic. His kisses teemed with it. The touch
of his hands sent electrical charges rippling over my skin. He wasn’t purposely
raising his magic, but it was so much a part of him, there was no way I could
escape it.

With trembling fingers, I pressed my hands against his chest
and pushed. He didn’t budge, except to stop kissing me. “Amy.” His tone was
edged with frustration, just like the hundreds of times before when I backed
out of having sex.

“I’m sorry. We can’t do this.”

“Of course we can. I promise, no magic.”

It was a promise I knew he couldn’t keep. And the Mark was
an unforgiving son-of-a-bitch. “I won’t jeopardize your life.”

His dark brows pinched together and he stared at me through
his long, gorgeous lashes. “I’m a fallen angel. Nothing can kill me.”

We’d had this argument on a several occasions. Biting my
lip, I stared into those dark, gorgeous eyes and wavered.

I wanted so much to believe him, I let him kiss me again.

He didn’t need further encouragement. His parts and my parts
started a hurried hookup and I ignored the searing pain in my frontal lobe. Big
mistake.

Wham
. An electrical charge the size of Kansas blew us
apart. A lightning bolt of white energy blistered the air, and I threw an arm
over my eyes. I landed on my butt across the room, my forehead feeling like I’d
been hit with a sledge hammer.

The moment the light winked out, I smelled singed hair and
charred wood. A quick scan of my body told me my parts were all in place and I
was fine. Except for the migraine pounding in my head.

Thick smoke hung in the air. Ignoring the pain, I scrambled
around, waving my hands through the smoke and trying to clear my vision. “Luc?”

My new hardwood floor had a black gouge in it, the edges scorched
and giving off steam. The black gouge looked like the outline of a man. On
further inspection, not a man. The gouge was a hole in the shape of an angel.

Oh, shit
. My heart, which had been beating hard and
fast before, locked up in my chest.

Nothing could hurt him, right?

Right
, my mind said.
Except God
.

I thunked the Mark with my palm—which only made the migraine
pound harder—and fell to my knees next to the charred hole.

Nothing like starting the New Year off with a bang…

And killing the Devil to boot.