Ramona closed her eyes again. The exhaustion was finally catching up to her, pulling her down into something that might actually be sleep.
Her last conscious thought was that the chair springs had gone quiet. That Zara had stopped shifting, stopped adjusting.
Like maybe she was actually sleeping, too.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dark-tipped nails draggedalong the bare skin of her abdomen, gently at first, then growing in insistence. She writhed under the touch, burning up from the inside. Molten heat between her thighs made her impatient, and she lifted her hips — hoping, begging.
“Not yet, little Mortal,” the honeyed voice in her ear crooned.
Zara.
Zara above her, the weight of the demon’s body on top of hers, pressing her down into the bed.
Oh.Oh.
Dark hair fell about Zara’s face as she looked down at Ramona, those smoky eyes staring into her own, into her soul, knowing exactly what she needed. Zara’s hands, her slightly elongated canines, her tongue, her entirety.
She reached up and touched Zara’s cheek, the skin under her hand impossibly hot and soft at the same time. A moment passed between them. Trust, perhaps? Permission.
Light flooded her senses, and Ramona jerked awake, immediately pressing her thighs together to dampen the throbbing ache between them. She looked around the room toget her bearings, finding Zara standing at the window, her hand on the cool glass. Tiny frost designs spiraled out from where her hand touched the window, as if the merging of heat and ice sparked a bit of winter magic.
Ramona’s cheeks warmed, embarrassed by the fact that she was just having a sex dream about the demon she’d accidentally bound to her. She scrubbed a hand over her face. “Um, good morning.”
Zara was breathing fast. “Yes.”
Ramona eyed her. “Are you all right?”
Zara nodded quickly, turning away. “Of course.” She cleared her throat, and Ramona watched as she clenched and unclenched the hand that wasn’t against the window.
Was it just her embarrassment, or did Zara know what she’d been dreaming? Had Ramona done something like moan her name in her sleep? She bit her lip, unsure whether to ask or completely leave the topic alone.
“Shower, Mortal. We’re late for work,” Zara said. Her voice was still strained, but surely Ramona was reading into things. “I’ll enlist Felix to make you a cup of coffee to go.”
Ramona did as she was told, turning the hot water up higher than she normally did, scalding her skin to wash off the embarrassment and any lingering truths about just exactly what she’d been dreaming about.
The next twodays of work went by quickly, with Zara creating a long list of inventory, suggesting organizational changes, and putting forth three ideas for pivoting the self-help section into something that would get them a better ROI, whatever that meant.
The only moment of pause was when Iris texted her, asking her to bring bread rolls to her family’s Imbolc dinner thefollowing week. Ramona had stared down at her phone, and with Zara’s help, had worded a careful response to let Iris and her mother know that she’d be officially missing Imbolc dinner this year.
Iris had sent back seventeen questions within a span of thirty seconds, but her mother had simply given Ramona’s message a quick thumbs-up. She’d silenced her phone for the rest of the day, not ready to come up with a response for Iris.
A sharp stab of guilt stayed under her sternum for hours, annoying and insistent, but how could she bring Zara to her family’s manor? To dinner? There was no way.
Both evenings were spent sitting on the couch with Posey and Cammie, watching new episodes ofLove Potion. Zara joined in only from the distance of the kitchen table, asking questions no self-respecting witch ever would about the magical world’s most popular dating show.
“You’re telling me all of these gorgeous, intelligent witches are trying to get this man to fall in love with them? Why?” Zara asked.
Posey sighed dreamily. “Because it’s true love.”
Zara snorted. “But he’s not even that powerful. He’s really got nothing other than his mother’s impressive ancestry to lean on.”
Cammie glanced toward Zara. “And he’s hot. Isn’t that enough?”
Zara openly grimaced and Ramona couldn’t help but grin, hiding her smile behind her hand.
“Yeah, it’s all bullshit,” Felix said from the kitchen counter, where he was finishing up a batch of dark chocolate and cherry brownies. “But aren’t most things?”
