NA :
Short one-shot for the moment (and not the smutty one, sorry - but yes, we'd all like some more XD) that we can only imagine between the end of episode 5 and the beginning of episode 6 of last season.
Of course (as said in the summary),
SPOILERS S5
Thanks to NotOneLine for the idea X)
NO SHORTCUTS
Lucifer is true to his word.
Besides his honest deals, thanks to which anyone willing to deal with the Devil himself had always found their groove, besides his more intimate, unequalled services and his efficiency - as unequalled as the rest - in punishing anyone who deserves it...
Besides everything that makes him the Devil he is, it is his word, his very word - respected in any circumstance - that defines him in this world.
And yet...
"Detective."
Yet, he can say no more than this simple word passed her gaze.
He can't help but listen to her, listen to how his word, his voice gets stuck in his throat when he notices the slight twitch along the Detective's. His fingers twitch just the same on the notes that haven't resounded yet, for how his name resounds between her lips, which she then pinches.
For these notes of hesitation, of hope. "If... if that's true…."
She has doubts about his reaction. That fast?
He doesn't lie. Never.
Yet... His word, he—
Yet...
The Detective keeps talking. He keeps listening to her, more than he listens to his own doubts. Because he is so close, so damn close to break his word.
"—oose to be vulnerable around me…."
It is up to her, to these next words, to ruin his reputation for good.
Because he gave her his word.
No shortcuts.
"...then I choose to be vulnerable around you."
Lucifer blinks and lets his word break between his lips, flatly blown as he notices how Chloe is getting closer, how it is up to him to destroy his honest, honourable foundations.
He is the Devil, a Devil of his word.
He is who he is, vulnerable, willingly weak against her lips.
Irrevocably lost the moment he chooses to touch, to kiss her back, to stifle their pretensions to control whoever they are around each other. He chooses to deepen the kiss, to run his tongue over her lips when Chloe's hand moves from his cheek to his arm, when her fingers sink into the fabric of his shirt under the elbow.
As vulnerable as he is, as he decides to be, Lucifer intends to keep his word by other means.
When Chloe expects more by opening her lips, his hand brushes her neck, her mouth reaching for his. He lets her look for more contact when he squeezes her bottom lip between his teeth, just for a second. When he keeps her close, yet not closer to him.
He moves back on the bench as her knees nearly touch his, he drags her to him with a deeper kiss, with his tongue that circles hers just the right amount of time, which he knows essential to keep his word despite the arousal going down, between the folds of his trousers, and beating stronger in his chest.
No shortcuts.
Their kiss, however, is shortened by the sound of broken glass. Alcohol splashes his trousers to ankle level shortly after. Lucifer looks at the shards of glass on the floor, his bourbon spreading around the left foot of the piano and disappears from his sight under the bench. His gaze comes back to the main part of the instrument, to Chloe's hand, precisely where the unbroken glass was a moment ago.
The corner of her lips lifts, her cheeks turned pink, her lips... still too pink.
But they chose this.
"Oops…" she whispers, her fingers flexed on the shiny, dark wood.
"Oops, indeed."
The Detective's fingernails move on the instrument down to the keys, a few inches from the second octave. Her voice sounds an octave too high, like her face as she stands up and looks at the minimal damage scattered around them, "We'd better pick u—"
The dissonance gets lost in the equally disordered octave of the keys under her hand, in the second octave played between them. Lucifer's hands are firm as they cup her face, the ballet from one mouth to the other... the only melody they'd better play.
Chloe is vulnerable around him, just as he is vulnerable around her.
It's best not to touch those shards of glass, to only touch each other's body. The Detective's knee weighs on his thigh; her right, stretched leg and hand on the keys help her keep some balance. Lucifer caresses the curve of her breasts under her jacket and hears a note - the 'te' perhaps?
Chloe puts her full weight on his lap, her legs stretched to either side of the piano bench. Their breaths, their hands, their clothes are the only barriers left between them now.
Lucifer frees her lips, he keeps his eyes closed and his forehead against hers. He exhales his desire on her skin, every particle of air she keeps stealing from his lungs with each new, slow move of her hips against his crotch.
His fingers find the keys, the first octave of a series of moves slowed down by his other hand on the Detective's thigh. Although, sooner than he thinks, his hand increases the pressure rather than soothing it. He may be pressing too hard, his fingers may leave a bruise under the jeans.
But isn't this the principle of a fully respected vulnerability? For her as for him?
Shouldn't he shiver when Chloe's hands move up from the base of his neck to his hair? Has he any other choice than kiss her again, hold her tighter against him, when her nails scratch his scalp?
Is there no other octave to play than the ringing that follows?
"Wait... Lucifer—"
"Breathless already, Detective?" he soughs, his lips reaching for the known, sensitive spot under the ear. "We've barely started…."
No sooner has he touched her earlobe than she squirms in his arms, her giggles muffled in the folds of his shirt at shoulder level. He moves aside, his hands back to her hips. She keeps laughing and shivering as she moves away from him, back to her first seat on the bench.
This isn't a shortcut, it's a bloody step backwards.
"Sorry," she says, phone in hand. "I just.. just... one second, okay?"
Still wondering what has just happened, what he has just heard, Lucifer lets the Detective take the call without his approval, or even his refusal.
He had kissed so many women, men….
How could she laugh at such a perfect kiss from him?
He only half listens to the words exchanged, his attention on her face that she naturally tilts to her right, her hair slipping over her shoulder and falling down her back. His gaze lingers on her lips, the slight contraction of muscles for each word ignored by him, given to her interlocutor.
Her neck looks like any other, but...
She is not like anyone else, is she?
"Lucifer."
"Hm?" he answers instinctively, his eyes back to hers, slight squint of concern. He frowns as she opens her mouth. "What was so funny?"
She stares at him. "Funny? Wha- ?"
"You laughed. I heard you."
Her expression changes, she laughs again - a lighter laugh compared to the previous one. But Lucifer is not so fond of high-pitched sounds tonight, not anymore.
"Oh, this? I'm sorry, I- I'm just a bit ticklish."
"Really?"
Chloe nods and smiles at him. He nods in turn, his smile close to hers as he slightly leans forward. His hands find her knees on either side of the piano bench.
The right one never reaches the thigh, though.
Lucifer arches an eyebrow, arched stare for her outstretched hand, a minor barrier that he brushes with his lips before sitting up. "What? You're not ticklish there, I'm sure of that."
Hand down, unable not to smile, she shows him her phone. "Ella just called."
Lucifer stares at her for a long time, his upper body still leaning towards her, towards her lips which she no longer wants to share with him in favour of...
… of Miss Lopez, really?
Then he sits up, mouth opened, eyebrows furrowed. With just a gaze, he asks her not to rule in crime's favours. "Please tell me you did make Amenadiel a police consultant, Detective," he begs her after a sigh.
Lips pinched, he's horrified to see her shake her head.
"What about Daniel? Helping Miss Lopez would certainly reharmonize his douchiness!"
Once again, she denies any extra time for their vulnerability. "He's keeping Trixie."
"Oh come now! Your offspring is resourceful enough to survive a lonely night, isn't she?"
She squints, then puts her phone away.
"Aren't you resourceful enough to survive another chaste night?"
"Well, you haven't been stuck for millennia in Hell imagining this moment, have you?" Lucifer replies, leaning his face towards hers once again with his two hands halfway up on her thighs.
He breathes in, then smiles as he notices another twitch along her throat, how her eyes linger on his mouth, then lower down.
"Perhaps not millennia, but... I'm sure that your imagination has nothing to envy mine," he murmurs.
One more breath and he'd imprison hers between his lips.
This time, Lucifer is pleased to see her nod. "No, it's true. I've imagined…."
"Yes?" he encourages her, their noses brushing together.
His breath tickles her chin, it teases her lips even before he really touches them.
"I imagined that it wouldn't kill us to postpone the fun later."
With these words, Chloe pecks his lips, mute of any adequate reply; an unprecedented shortcut to his plans for tonight, without the expected effect on she and he. She gets up, lets her hand slide down his sleeve to the bracelet that Daniel gave him a few days ago.
Grumbling in the Detective's back, Lucifer gets up as well, crushing broken glass and alcohol under his feet as he buttons his cuffs. Hide the bracelet from his sight doesn't lessen his frustration as much as he would like, but it's a start.
Not the shortcut he would like for the long, bloody long frustration accumulated in Hell.
"It depends, Detective," he sighs as he smoothes the collar of his suit jacket, his footsteps leading him to the lift doors.
"On what?"
She keeps the doors open for him, her back against the opening to let him through. Lucifer deliberately brushes her slender body with his, although he knows he is massive enough to pretend to coincidence when his unfulfilled desire meets her palm. He knows that the Detective's bent thumb, which lingers on the most conspicuous fold between his legs, isn't.
As there have never been any shortcuts between them.
Only extra times.
The doors close slowly, prolonging their gaze more than enough for him to almost call Miss Lopez back or ask his brother for a time out.
Just like old times.
"On whether you let me drive or not."