“You thought I was him when we first met…the Grim Reaper, and his wife Melanie.” With that, her shoulders loosened and sagged in relief. I didn’t understand what was freaking her out, but I suddenly needed to know.
We stared at each other a long while before she finally broke the silence. “So what? You want to keep touching me because of the feeling you get when we touch?” Did I see a hint of red on her cheeks? “Because it feels good?”
Maybe I was an ass, but I couldn’t help but smirk. “Yeah, it’s quite electrifying. It wakes me up so I guess you can say it feels good.” She looked confused. Was I horrible for enjoying it? “Why? Isgoodthe way you’d describe it? Or amazing?”
I thought she might have realized I was teasing her because she scoffed. “You’re soeverywhere, it’s confusing.”
I nodded, never having been described that way before. “You’re probably right. That’s inappropriate for friendship.”
Her mouth fell open, and she was back to looking at me like I was crazy. “See what I mean? You’re all over the place with the things you say.”
“I like green eggs and ham,” I couldn’t help but go with what she was implying, and I thought I saw the corner of her mouth lift in an almost smile.
Was I getting somewhere finally?
“If touching my skin is what you want, then hurry up and do it and go away.”
I didn’t get to acknowledge what Izzie was saying because we were about to be rudely interrupted. “Something’s coming.” She stiffened at my words as I looked ahead. “We’re about to get company. A portal’s opening in front of us.”
As soon as the words left my mouth, it opened. Damn. Imps poured out, flying and jumping, headed toward the car. I brought up a barrier blocking any humans from seeing what was about to go down
“Shit,” she muttered, leaning over and pulling her purse from the floor beside my feet. I watched as she removed a portal chip. I took it from her before she could use it. “What do you think you’re doing?” she hissed at me.
“Are they here for you?” I asked simply because of her behavior. She clearly was running from something. I would havesuspected that maybe they came to tango with me since the rendezvous in the cave, but Izzie was upset. Her actions just as desperate as the troubled pout on her lips. And imps weren’t clever enough to find me.
“Just let me have my portal chip.” When I didn’t give it to her, she opened the car door with a string of cuss words. She held out her hand and started destroying the imps with her witchy zapping shit. I sighed before re-fading next to her. Before she could protest, I grabbed her wrist and would have let my eyes roll back if I didn’t have to smack imps away in the process.
Oh… Fuck…Yeah.
This was better than good. This was amazing. Her touch was the shit. I finally let go of Isabella and summoned a weapon. Then I was everywhere, fading and re-fading in different areas as I got rid of the imps before focusing on the ogre stepping out of the portal. I finished off the imps and closed off the portal, preventing anything else coming through.
The big guy roared as I did so, stomping around to face me. “This has nothing to do with you, Reaper.”
“You’re a demon standing beside the fucking highway in the human world,” I spat. “That makes you my business.”
His giant belly jiggled as he laughed. “Move.” Before his large hands could smack me, I faded behind him. Morphing my sword into a chain, I wrapped it around his legs and yanked. His feet flew out from beneath him. I placed my boot on his stomach, holding the ugly beast in place.
“Mind telling me what you’re here for?” I asked.
Only he didn’t get a chance to answer. He started to disintegrate, and I turned around to see Isabella working her magic on him.
It made me wonder if she did it so that he couldn’t tell me anything. I couldn’t figure her out. She was running. She was wary of me, but maybe she was wary of everyone. Her touch woke me up, but it bothered her.
I stalked toward her. Our eyes met. Isabella held her palms out, like weapons, as I moved closer. I smiled, revealing every tooth I had.
Imps again? Too much of a coincidence. I had a feeling my little energizer knew the person on the other end controlling the imps.
“I have a feeling we can help each other.”
Six
Isabella
Mr. Handsy was going to be the death of me.
Spontaneous combustion. The cause: his touch.
It was a little unsettling how good it felt when our skin touched. Not to mention, the darkness that swarmed around inside me begged me to latch onto him which was why I kept wanting him to go away.
