“Oh my god. You gave him a name, and the name isthat.”
“You’re saying this likeI’mthe one who’s talking nonsense here.”
“Because you hate the idea of being so close to me constantly?”
“Because I don’t know what I’ll do if I am,” he hissed, clearly not thinking as he did so. But once it was out, it was out. There was no going back. All he could do was try to explain the clear desire that hummed in his words. “I’m already on edge. I should have reverted by now and I haven’t because my head is full of what we did. What you did. The things it does to me. And now the idea of you in my shower getting all slippery and flushed and probably making those little whimpery noises because I couldn’t resist soaping over your breasts and between your legs and oh man, you gotta be able to see the problem here.”
Though of course all that did was make it worse.
She couldn’t even bring herself to feel nervous now about persuading him. He’d persuaded himself. He’d given permission. This was real, and not, at the same time. And besides: “It’s not really a problem if it’ll help us.”
“How will you being here, saying things like that, do anything of the kind?”
“Well, you want to be with someone. You want them to love you. You want to have a real relationship with them and be around them all the time and probably eventually live in the same house as they do. And you want to do it without snapping to demon form. So a few kisses isn’t really the maximum limit of your restraint and my magic that you need to test.”
“So what is, then?” he asked.
He knew the answer already, however.
It was in his eyes, heavy with desire.
On her, as she let the answer drip from her lips.
“Constant temptation,” she said.
Then headed for the shower.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
He didn’t follow her into the bathroom in the end.Just give me a fighting chance, he’d said.Let me revert to human form and take a second and then get some of whatever magic you’re going to do to keep me from going monstrous all over me, and then maybe we’ll see what I can do. We’ll see how far I can go, if you want to go far with me.Though she couldn’t help noticing the way he watched her go. Or how hard he clenched his fists.
It replayed over and over in her head as she showered.
And so much so that she barely even registered what she was showering off herself. Blackish-red stuff formed a whirlpool around her feet. She streaked his flimsy little shower curtain with god knows what, and all she could think about was what might happen when she went to him. What might happen if she really did stay here with him. How far things were going, how deep they were getting.
How much pleasure she might feel again.
You’re just helping him, you’re just helping him, you’re just trying to get him and everyone he cares about out of a hole, she told herself. But it didn’t seem to be working. She couldn’t even shake off this unholy amount of desire by thinking about magic. About what she’d gained.
Though she knew that part of the reason for that was howtied the two things were. She was going to go in there and do actual spells on a real demon. Sexy spells, that made her hum even harder at the thought of them. She caught a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror as she wrapped herself in a massive but paper-thin towel, and that silvery glow was now almost blinding. She squinted behind her glasses at the sight of it. It took a full minute to stop seeing stars.
And she didn’t even stop to think about how she was going to dry her curly hair. Usually she needed a diffuser, at least, if she was going to get it into some kind of manageable state. In fact, evenwithone she usually wound up with a big tangle.
But here she had nothing. He didn’t even have a hairdryer at all, of course he didn’t. Yet she ended up with the softest, smoothest, bounciest curls anyway, courtesy of her pen.Dry, she wrote on the air. And that was all it took.
It’s coming easier now, her giddy brain said, as she bounced out of the bathroom. No waiting, no hesitation.
Straight to him to get started. She even had it all set in her head, how she was going to go about it. Not with the pen this time, no. The pen wasn’t quite right for this particular job. She needed something softer, something silkier, something that fit the vibe. And she snatched two things from the purse she’d left in his kitchen on the way:
A makeup brush, and a tube of mascara.
He’s not going to like that, she told herself once she was in front of him with them clutched in her fists. She even braced herself for it, arguments at the ready. Only to find him not even paying attention. He was staring at the wall to the right of the bed he was sitting on the end of, as if something had recently sprouted there. Something fascinating that he simply could not look away from.
She had to prompt him with a throat clear.
“Don’t you cough at me, you little nightmare. Coming in herein just a towel—where are yourclothes? And don’t give meoh, they’re all covered in mess, Jack, what was I supposed to do.If you can dry your hair like that you’ve reached clothes-cleaning level. I’ve seen witches reverse burn holes. Now get back in there and put them all on, up to and including your shoes.”
“Jack, I’m not going to wear shoes to do sexy things to you.”
