Thanks to a dare gone wrong, Maggie Brumfield finds out the hard way that Heaven and Hell are real.
Prince Laudon, Lucifer's son and the current ruler of Hell, has locked Maggie into a sinister deal that grants him temporary ownership of her soul...
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MAGGIE'S POV
I have to kill Samuel Carpenter.
I have to hand him over to Laudon and be the reason his sweet soul is condemned to Hell for all eternity. Though not literally killing him, it sure as shit feels like I am. It feels like I'm driving a knife into the center of his chest, pushing it in a little deeper every time we talk, every time I laugh at one of his corny jokes, every time he pays me a compliment and makes me blush. All of our interactions sting.
I look at him now and my heart breaks.
Currently, he's very enthusiastically telling me a story from when he was a child, how he got the small scar above his left brow after falling off his new bicycle for the first time. I'm barely paying attention thanks to how scrambled my thoughts are, but still, I nod and laugh and smile at the appropriate times. On the outside, I'm here with Samuel completely. But on the inside, I'm about a million miles away.
"And then my mom comes running down the hill screaming and crying, doing the absolute most because she was certain I'd caught a concussion," Samuel says, laughing all the while. "Anyway, she and my dad fix me up and bandage my wounds, and after making a quick trip to the local Wal-Mart to buy me a helmet, I was finally able to ride again."
"I was surprisingly a natural when I first got on a bike," I say, slowly slipping back into the conversation. "My mom used to be pretty strict, but she never really got on me about using a helmet."
"Lucky you. After my not-so-little incident, my mom forced me to ride with a helmet until I turned sixteen. It's safe to say the majority of my childhood consisted of me trying to get my parents to loosen the overprotective reigns that they had on me." Samuel pauses to take a sip from his drink, his hazel eyes still glued to my face. "So, what about you? Got any embarrassing stories to share?"
Embarrassing? Well, there's the extremely filthy dream that I had about you last night...
"Uh, n-no. I got nothing." I can feel the heat rush to my face as I lie. "Sorry. I'll be sure to come up with something for you next time."
Samuel raises a brow, looking surprised. "Oh. So... you want to go out with me again?"
"Have I given you the impression that I wouldn't like to go out with you again? Sorry if I have." I smile, mindlessly pushing the food around on my plate with my fork, barely having touched my pasta. My appetite, along with the better part of my mind, is also a million miles away right now.
If only this was a real date, maybe it wouldn't be so difficult for me to match Samuel's energy.
After what happened between us at that party the other night, me running out on him and then leaving the party right after, I had to find a way to apologize to him. So, no. What we're doing right now, this isn't a date at all. It's my apology for being a sneaky, untrustworthy bitch.
