To Tempt the Devil

Series: Brimstone

Disclaimers: All characters except Cassie belong to TPTB. I'll figure out who they are when and if they ever put Brimstone back on television.

Category: Romance, as unlikely as that sounds.

Rating: Part 1: PG-13  Future parts may go to R. I'll have to see where the story leads me.

Plot: What would happen if the Devil fell in love?

By Wesa.

"Hello, Cassie."

Cassie shrieked. She leaned back in her chair and pressed her hand over her heart, her chest heaving as she laughed at herself. She swatted good-naturedly at Lucifer's arm. "Luke, don't do that!"

He smiled and took her hand, raising her to her feet. "Come with me."

"I can't leave right now, Luke," she murmured, "but I'm almost through with what I need to get done today. Let me finish, and I'll take a half-day vacation for the rest of the afternoon. Deal?"

"Let me help," he suggested.

Cassie grinned up at him. "Luke, my love, you're very good at causing mischief, but what do you know about accounting? Come on, now, pull up a chair and look pretty for fifteen minutes. I have this report to finish and one more to do, neither of which will take long." She caught his face in her hands briefly, admiration suffusing her features. "You are so beautiful."

He chuckled softly. "You humans. Do you think I will be such easy prey for your flattery?" he asked.

"A girl can hope," she replied. "Okay, you've distracted me enough. Try to behave for a few minutes, will you?"

"What will you give me?"

Cassie rubbed her thumb gently across his lips in answer, smiling, then turned and re-seated herself in front of her computer, frowning at the screen. "You're lucky, in a way," she said. "You don't have to worry about money, whether you'll have enough coming in, controlling how much is going out, keeping other people from stealing it."

"You don't have to, either," he replied.

She glanced at him briefly. "It's my job to worry about it," she told him. "Granted, it's not my money. I don't have so much that anyone would be thinking of stealing it."

"You could take some of theirs," he suggested, waving a hand to indicate the building around them.

She shrugged. "I do, every payday."

"That isn't exactly what I meant."

"I know."

"I just thought you could consider it."

"I gave it all the consideration it deserved, Luke," Cassie told him. "I'm not a thief, and I don't tolerate stealing."

"Because it's against the Commandments?"

"Because it's wrong."

"Hm." He frowned.

"I'm not doing it to make your job harder," she said. "I realize you have to try to tempt me."

"It's not exactly my job."

"Sure it isn't," she agreed sweetly, her voice expressing her disbelief.

A particularly handsome man passed her doorway. "Hi, Cassie," he called cheerily.

"Hi, Dave," she called back, then rolled her chair toward the doorway and stuck her head out. "Any problem with me taking a half-day vacation this afternoon?"

"Got the P&L?" he asked.

"Just finishing up," she told him. "Also I sent you a brief e-mail about where I think we can control expenses better, turning off lights we're not using, et cetera. I'm going to go over the credit card report before I leave, but I don't foresee any problems there."

"Paid the bills?"

"Yesterday."

"Then go have fun," he told her.

"Thanks; I'll see you tomorrow." Cassie turned back to Lucifer. "What are you grinning at?"

"I believe most women would consider your boss very attractive, Cassie," he observed.

She shrugged. "He's easy on the eyes, yeah."

"Want to sleep with him?"

"Nope."

"Why not?" Lucifer asked in surprise.

"I'm kind of a one-man-at-a-time kind of girl," she told him. "I'm currently heavily in lust with someone else."

"Ah, now we're getting somewhere. And just who is the paragon who excites your hormones?"

She chuckled. "Well, I don't know if I'd call him a paragon ..."

"Cassie, who?" he insisted.

She smiled mischievously at him and turned back to her computer screen.

End of part 3.