Azagoth: A Demonica Novella (1001 Dark Nights) by Larissa Ione

said softly. “Focus on me.”
    His gaze locked with hers, and she saw the moment he went from furious to...well, furious and aroused. And she knew, in that moment, that no matter what happened next, nothing between them would be the same again.
     

Chapter Ten
    Azagoth concentrated on the female beneath him, his body a mass of writhing, twisting contradictions. Like the last time he’d come back from time travel, he was reeling from emotions he couldn’t handle.
    Now it was happening again, only on a grander scale. The fissure that had opened inside him last time had cracked open further, leaving him overwhelmed with feelings. Joy, sadness, anger, jealousy. He wasn’t even sure what event or person each emotion was attached to. It was just all bubbling out, as if thousands of years’ worth of denied feelings were breaking free of their bonds.
    This was what you wanted, asshole. You wanted to feel. Be careful what you wish for.
    True enough. He’d been so cold inside for so long. And now he was cold and insane.
    Distantly, he heard Lilliana talking. Felt her fingers digging into his arms. Felt her thighs clamping around his hips to hold him still. Felt her core pressed firmly against his raging erection.
    Focus. He tried gathering the maelstrom of emotions together and forcing them down, back into the fissure. Focus. Reaching deep, he tried to separate out each one and associate it with an event, a person, anything to understand why he’d be so angry or jealous, but each time an image started to form, it scattered to the wind and was replaced by a black hole of fury.
    Focus!
    The female beneath him shifted, tugging him closer, rubbing her sex against his. Whether or not it was intentional didn’t matter. He instantly locked up as his body took command of his mind and did the focus thing.
    Of course, the focus was all in his dick. Whatever. He’d roll with it.
    Zeroing in on Lilliana, he panted through the gnawing tension that made him feel as if he could explode into violence and death to become the corrupted monster that legend—and a few firsthand accounts—had made him out to be.
    As he dropped his mouth to hers, a thread of guilt wove its way through the messy tangle of emotions that were fading to the background. He was using her. Doing to her what all the females before her had done to him. He’d been a stud for hire for Heaven, and demon females only came to him for bragging rights. Oh, sure, he fucked them well, but ultimately, all they wanted from him was sex. For pleasure or for other reasons, he was nothing but a lay and a means to an end.
    And now he was using Lilliana to bring him out of an emotional overload he couldn’t handle.
    Also...what the fuck. When had he started having regrets or caring about anyone but himself? There was a reason he’d volunteered for Grim Reaper duty, and it sure as hell wasn’t so he could go all Dear Diary about shit like being used.
    Lilliana’s hands were stroking his arms now, her slow, light touch soothing his mood but stoking his lust.
    Focusfocusfocus...
    “Azagoth,” she whispered against his mouth, bringing him right back to the place he needed to be.
    He slid his hand under her shirt again, caressing her smooth, taut skin as he kissed her quiet. But this wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.
    With a growl, he gripped her shirt and tore through it as if it were paper. And glory be, like most angels, she wasn’t wearing a bra.
    Her gorgeous eyes watched him with curiosity and desire as he lowered his head to take one berry-red nipple into his mouth. Licking and sucking eagerly, he cupped the other breast, filling his palm with her warm flesh as he settled more fully between her thighs. His cock was aching like a sonofabitch behind his fly, and he shifted again so he could reach between their bodies and unzip. While he was down there, he yanked open the buttons on her jeans and drove his hand inside.
    Lilliana gasped as his fingers found her center and stroked