His lips were soft yet firm. He opened up when I demanded it. He tasted of maple syrup and coffee. Beneath that was something distinctively him that I didn’t have a name for. I’d lived three hundred and twenty-three years. In all that time, I’d never tasted anything like him. It was slightly spicy yet floral, like the flowers on a nasturtium plant.
Pulling him closer was instinctive, and so was him ending up straddling my lap. My hands had a mind of their own, landing on his ass. One touch was all it took to ramp up the need. I pulled him into me, wanting friction against my hard cock. I had little doubt he could feel it against his own.
He ended the kiss. The heat in his gaze matched my own. Even so, he pulled away, climbing off my lap.
Every instinct urged me to pull him back into my embrace. He was safest in my arms.
One kiss was all it took to make me want more. I’d been protective from the first moment I saw him, but that protectiveness came with a need to be in his presence. I never wanted to leave his side. This level of protectiveness was new. It brought a certain clairvoyance. In the time it took to kiss him, we bonded—at least a little. Enough for me to know he’d go to his workshop, and that was where it would all begin. Someone would try to force my hand. I couldn’t see the outcome, but I sensed the danger lurking around the corner of time. Just minutes away.
He shook his head as if he disagreed with something I’d said. His gaze was accusatory. “You did something to me. I can feel you inside my head. That’s you, right?”
“I think so, but I did nothing directly.” It was all new to me, too. The clairvoyance regarding him and my increased protectiveness toward Elliot were things I’d never experienced before. “It’s the bond forming.”
Elliot stepped back, creating distance between us. “You’re making it happen.”
I tried to relax my facial muscles, but I knew I had failed. He acted as if it were all my fault. “I didn’t even know beloveds were a thing for reapers until you came along. We wouldn’t even know each other if not for your accident.”
“Oh my god. Are you seriously blaming me for this?”
The second I shrugged, I knew it was a mistake.
Elliot threw up his hands and turned to leave the room. “I can’t deal with you right now.”
“Don’t leave the house, Elliot.” He could do whatever he wanted inside, but shadows lingered, waiting for him.
He flipped me off. “Fuck you, Grymley Reaper. Get out of my head.”
“I don’t know how I got inside there.” I didn’t know a lot of things, like how not to annoy my beloved.
I sighed and followed him outside.
Chapter Seventeen
Elliot
Sanding was rhythmic. The back-and-forth motion and tight circles helped me calm down. After a few minutes, my mind quieted enough for me to ask myself why I’d started that fight in the first place. It seemed to me I was about to get down and dirty with the hottest guy on the planet. Why did I fuck that up again? Besides the fact that, according to Grym, my life had suddenly changed almost overnight. And yeah, he might have said as much in the dark and smoky in-between or whatever it was called, but it was one thing to hear and another to experience firsthand. The reapers were all over my house. Picture fourteen hot men, all attractive in different ways. Even Mr. Kidnapper Thug was hot. In a tattooed-head sort of way, but still no less than the rest. Not that he was around anymore. At the first sign of trouble, he bailed? That went against his hitman, mob aesthetic, didn’t it? The mob was loyal to each other. Whatever his reasoning, he wasn’t on my property anymore. If that meant he bailed, then he might just be the smartest amongst them all.
I was pulled from my thoughts when I thought I saw something move in the far corner of the workshop. I knew Grymwas outside, guarding me like a knight guarding a prince. All I had to do was call out to him, and he’d come inside with me. He’d check out whatever was in the corner. Was it a giant spider? If so, maybe I’d make Grym kill it for me. I didn’t like those, but I didn’t like being their killer either.
I stopped sanding as I glanced again in that direction, but all I saw were shadows, so I dismissed it as me seeing things that weren’t there and went back to sanding.
Then I saw it again, off to my left. When I stopped the sander a second time, I turned toward whoever was lurching in the corner, expecting to confront one of the reapers, but nothing was there except shadows.
Were those shadows moving? It was hard to imagine a shadow moving toward me without something tangible tethering it to reality. I blinked twice, then shook my head. If I heard marbles clanking together inside my mind, I would know it was just me playing tricks on myself. But I heard nothing at all.
The shadows grew dark, deformed limbs. I sucked in a breath and moved away from them, only to bump into a hard wall of muscle. An arm came around my waist, holding me in place. Grym’s deep voice washed over me, reassuring me. “I won’t let them hurt you.”
“What are they?”
“Demons. HR sent them.”
“HR?” That sounded... weird. Like the death thing was a for-profit organization.
“Human Resources.”
“I know what HR stands for, Grym. What I don’t know is why it applies to this situation.” And also, fucking demons. Really? That sounded very supernatural to me. And yeah, I kissed Grymley, the reaper, not fifteen minutes ago, but why did my life have to get even weirder?
“Demons run that department.”
