Fire & Brimstone

She needed the hours, she told herself over and over again in her head, hoping that it would give her the energy that she was going to need to survive the next eight hours. Forcing herself not to look at that inviting, messy bed where Mojo was currently snoring, she focused on getting ready for work.

Oh, to be a dog…

“What are you doing?” Lucifer asked when it should have been more than obvious.

“Getting ready for work,” she mumbled, grabbing a fresh Fire & Brimstone tee-shirt, jeans, socks and panties before turning around and once again forcing her feet to take her away from her bed.

“I thought you’d just quit,” Lucifer snapped, not really sounding all that happy for a guy that had been trying to fire her for the past five years.

Before she got a chance to respond, the reminder that the walls were thin cut her off. “You quit?” Melanie asked from her bedroom, which just happened to be next to hers.

“Yes!” she hissed with a glare at the wall.

“Oh…,” came the response from the other side of the wall. “Are you going to apply for that bouncer job?”

She probably would if it was still available, but it had been weeks since she spotted that ad so it was probably already filled. She was going to have to dust off her resume, think of new explanations to explain her checkered work history and start spending all her free time searching for jobs and filling out applications.

“Maybe,” she said, hoping that would appease their audience.

“You’re not quitting,” Lucifer snapped, making her cringe, because if there was one thing that Melanie liked, it was gossip. She loved to know everything that was going on, but she was surprisingly tight lipped, refusing to share anything.

“Oh, this should be good,” she heard Melanie mumble to herself.

Yeah, this was going to be great, she thought dryly as she paused by the towel closet, blindly reached inside, grabbed a semi-folded towel and headed towards the bathroom, praying that Lucifer would lose interest so that she could take a shower in peace.

“You’re not quitting,” he said more firmly as he shut the bathroom door behind them as though that would somehow make her change her mind.

Sighing, she tossed the crumpled towel on the sink counter. “I have to quit.”

“Why do you have to quit?” Melanie asked, obviously too curious to wait until later to start her interrogation.

“Mind your business, bitch!” she yelled, deciding that the next place they moved to was going to have walls lined with lead.

“You are my business, bitch!” came the reply, making her shake her head and Lucifer glare at her, because apparently he wasn’t happy about having an audience either.

“Look,” she said, too exhausted to argue, “do you think that we could talk about this later?”

His scowl said it all.

“Right,” she sighed, moving to turn the shower on when Melanie, who apparently had nothing better to do than to hang on their every word, announced, “There’s no more cold water!”

Well, that would explain why Melanie hadn’t been in her usual spot on the couch with her laptop powered up and a pile of Hostess wrappers decorating the couch and floor. Whenever Melanie got stumped on a design or code, she took a bath to think it through and that usually meant a really long bath with the help of fresh hot water added every fifteen minutes or so.

“Great,” Rebecca said, giving up the idea of a hot shower, which she desperately needed if she had any hopes of making it through this shift.

“We need to talk,” Lucifer said, taking her hand in his and leading her to the door.

“We can do that later,” she mumbled pathetically as she allowed him to drag her through her apartment only because she was too damn exhausted to argue.

“Wait! You’re leaving?” Melanie yelled from the other room, sounding disappointed that she was going to miss everything.

Ignoring Melanie, Lucifer led her across the hallway and into his apartment. Before his door had a chance to close behind them he was dragging her towards the back hallway.

“You seriously need to stop dragging me everywhere,” she said even though she actually liked the way that he held her hand. His grip was firm, but far from punishing, especially since every few seconds or so he would absently caress the back of her hand with his thumb.

“And you seriously need to stop pissing me off,” he said as he dragged her down the hall, through a surprisingly neat room and into-

“What the hell…,” she breathed as she walked into the large bathroom.

It was definitely a lot larger than her bathroom and a hell of a lot nicer. Not that she lived in a rat’s nest or anything, but where her bathroom was basic, his was something that she would expect to see in a five star hotel.

Her entire bathroom could fit in the custom-made shower with room to spare. There were his and hers sinks, the toilet had its own little room and there was actually a closet! As she gazed around the bathroom that should have rightfully been hers, she couldn’t help but wonder how she’d got stuck with the lame bathroom.

While she was looking around, she started to pull her clothes off, not really caring if he’d dragged her in here with the intentions of letting her use his shower or not, because she was damn well using it. After what he did to her in the truck she needed one, she thought, trying really hard not to think about what he did to her in that truck. Unfortunately for her, it was going to be hard enough getting through the next eight hours without wanting to rip his clothes off.

With that in mind, she shimmied out of her panties and stepped inside the shower, amazed at how many showerheads there were. They were built into the sides, in front of her, and on the ceiling. It was really a thing of beauty. While Melanie loved baths, she was more into showers. Besides the fact that sitting in her own filth really didn’t appeal to her unless her stomach hurt and she really had no choice, she enjoyed standing under a spray of hot water as she washed the day away.

When Lucifer wrapped an arm around her waist and reached around her to play with the complicated dials, she simply closed her eyes and leaned back against him so that she could relax and enjoy herself. As soon as the spray of hot water hit her from every angle, she sighed and felt herself relax completely in his arms.

He kissed her shoulder as he wrapped his arm around her. “Talk.”

“Too tired to talk,” she mumbled as she tilted her head to the side so that he could kiss her.