Bathin stood up from a crouch, coming out of the shadows and into the pale morning light. A little black and white cat—one of the strays around town everyone fed—came out of the shadows with him.
Had he just been petting that cat?
Bathin leaned against the side of the building, green, green eyes bright, hair finger-combed back as if he’d just stepped out of a shower.
I scowled.
He smiled.
“My morning just got better.” His voice was sex and sin and surrender.
“And mine just got worse,” I replied cheerily.
He shouldered off the wall and strolled toward me. The cat stopped licking its back and hurried to follow Bathin like he was a bag of treats. I lingered behind the car, waiting for a tug to tell me togo,be,movebut nothing happened.
I sighed.
“Do I smell cinnamon?” He tried and failed to make that sound nonchalant. As if I didn’t notice those laughing eyes, that wicked mouth.
“I know you were in my dream.”
“What?” The surprise on his face was very good and very fake.
“And I told you I’d kick your ass if you do it again.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, but do go on. In your dreams, you say? Was I naked? Were you?”
“Get out of my way, Bathin. I have a job to get to unlike a certain demon drifter.”
He snorted. “Let me help you with those cinnamon rolls.”
“No.”
“Let me carry your tea.”
“No. What’s up with the cat?”
“What cat?”
I made a point of staring at the cat rubbing along his calf.
“It’s a stray. It’s straying. Shoo,” he said to the cat. “Be gone.”
The cat wasn’t paying any attention to him, rubbing on his other calf before becoming interested in a patch of sun in the middle of the sidewalk.
“Just a stray,” Bathin shrugged. There was something more he wasn’t saying, but my arms were getting tired of balancing the carriers and I wanted tea. I strode forward.
“Excuse me.”
“Let me get the door.” He was closer to the building and my hands were full of breakfast goodies so I didn’t try to stop him.
He waited until I was right up next to him and then just stood there, arm across the doorway, hand on the latch so he could open the door. But he was not opening the door.
He was tall, this demon, and exactly as dreamy and tempting as he had been in my dream, kissing me, touching me.
Bathin watched me, silent, waiting. I was close enough to smell his cologne, the scent of his skin warmer than cinnamon, almost bourbon, almost fire.
I wanted to draw in to him. Like a moth to flame. My heart wanted that, wanted the light, the heat, the wild spark. To ignore any tug of pre-ordained gifts. To just let go and be free.
