by Heather Long
Weird. Maybe hallucinations were a symptom of death. I giggled.
Seth quirked a brow, not amused in the slightest, but remained silent, apparently too happy to let me have my adjustment period.
He pulled out the matching wooden chair for me as I came close, and I allowed him to help me push in the chair as I sat. This was weird. Not ever had anyone done this for me, unless you count that one really expensive restaurant Alex had taken me to when he asked me to be his girlfriend. That was the height of his kindness, and it all went downhill from there.
So having someone I didn’t know, a stranger that wasn’t paid to do this for me, gave me a strange tingling sensation at the base of my neck. Damn it, my cheeks were getting hot too.
Must not look this delicious god man in the face.
At least until I had my bodily functions under control. Another giggle burst out of me. Now that sounded wrong and weird, even in my head.
A full plate of…I’m not even sure what kind of breakfast this was, sat before me. The only thing I recognized with any certainty was the bacon. Sliced tomato and cucumber adorned a salad, okay, that looked good. Then there were a couple slices of toast with some kind of spread and an over easy egg on top. Overall, it smelled delicious, but different. Definitely like nothing I’d ever had before.
My confusion must have showed, because Seth took a seat on the bench running the length of the wooden table. He pointed to each part of the plate with a description.
“This is a salad, this is mashed fish with egg over rye bread,” he pointed to a small cup next to the plate I hadn’t even noticed, “this is skyr, a traditional Icelandic yogurt, and this is bacon.”
I grinned. Did he think I wouldn’t recognize the bacon?
“Thanks.” I picked up the fork as he poured a glass of orange juice for me. What an impressive spread. Either he was quite the chef, or he had a cook around here somewhere.
“So the deal,” he began. “It’s important to remind you that I only prolonged the inevitable. You have a month, maybe a few days more. For your assistance in the punishment of my brothers, your Alex,” his mouth curled in disgust on the word, “will receive the punishment he deserves.”
I picked up the rye bread and took a bite, chewing slowly while I deliberated what to say. Unique but delicious flavors burst on my tongue. The mashed fish was a little gritty, but it worked together with the egg and toast.
After swallowing, I took a sip of orange juice and cleared my throat. “Right. You want me to help punish your brothers. Am I imagining it, or did you say they needed to be punished for abandoning me?”
He nodded, and those plump, kissable lips compressed into a thin line. Why was I even looking at him like this? Alex was a fresh reminder that men were only good for heartache, no matter how good they were at fooling you. But Seth wasn’t a man, was he? His luminescent eyes gave that away.
None of these thoughts mattered anyway. In a month, I’d be gone. Nothing.
I stuck a piece of bacon in my mouth and chewed it as I stared into his pale, glowing eyes. Yep. They were definitely glowing. This should totally be freaking me out, right? Instead, I glanced at his lips again. Even the strain of his flattening them hadn’t robbed them of their luscious color.
What. The. Hell.
I forced my attention back to my food. “Your brothers—they’re angels like you?”
“I’m not an angel.” A scowl appeared between his brows, and he spoke in the same tone I might have used to say I wasn’t a pile of dog crap.
“You’re not?”
If anything, his frown grew fiercer. “No. I am not an angel. They are definitely not angels.”
Okay.
Fish bread? Bacon? I took another sip of orange juice. I still needed to brush my teeth, but I was really glad I hadn’t yet. OJ after toothpaste sucked.
“Dahlia?”
The snap of his voice brought me back to the present. I nibbled more on the fishy bread. Then… “You look like an angel. You stopped me from dying.” When he would have opened his mouth to correct me, I waved at him. “Paused it. Yes, I got that. I’m going to die. Just on hold. Blah. Blah. No pain.”
His scowl erased, and his eyebrows raised.
“My point,” I stressed. “How did you do that if you’re not an angel?”
“My grace,” he explained, as if it answered everything.
“So you have grace but you’re not an angel?”
He sighed, so long and intensely, I almost felt guilty. The guy saved my life. Well, technically, he paused my life or my death. You know, he did the thing with the grace, and here I was, giving him a hard time. Except…
“How exactly do you expect me to punish someone like you?” Because really? I didn’t punish people. I could barely spritz my cat with water when she got on tables when I was a kid. Mom had been forever after me to not let the cat get up there. Just spray it with some water and make it get down. I was better at talking to people.
For some reason? People loved to tell me their problems. That was okay, I liked being able to help them. It was why Alex and I hit it off. He was the first guy who seemed to really listen to me, too.
Though looking back, I wasn’t so sure about that.
Mom had hated Alex from day one. While she never said it aloud, she’d radiated it. I was always having to defuse the tension between her and Alex. Course, now that…oh, man. “My mom.”
“I don’t believe your mother would be useful to the task,” Seth stated. “My brothers haven’t evinced an interest in much until you. It will have to be you.”
“No, my mom. Who is going to tell her I died? She’s…she’s going to be so unhappy. I need to call her.” I was the only family she had left. She was going to be devastated.
Before I could stand though, Seth covered my hand with his and I froze as he pinned me in place with a look. “Dahlia, you are still changing. You need to focus at the moment. The deal must be finalized between us, and you must complete the recovery.”
“Am I going to change into an angel?”
Seth rolled his eyes. Well. He sort of cast them upward, and I swore he groaned. “No,” he snarled. “You will not be an angel. I am not an angel. We do not make angels.”
“Okay,” I said, pulling my hand from under his and patting it. “Okay. Sorry. Got it. Not an angel. Even if you have the face of one.”
Damn. Where was my filter?
He exhaled and pulled his hand away. “Please do not try my temper.”
“Trust me, I got that. But apparently, I suck at it since, you know, I’m here.”
The pause in the room swelled, and I stole a look at him. The consternation on his face gave way to something a little more relaxed. Only a little, and I had to blink because the longer I stared, the more I swore a braid appeared.
Cool. I’ll take angelic hallucinations for five hundred, Alex.
“You are correct,” Seth said slowly. “Not that you suck at it.” His beautiful lips twisted on the phrasing. “I will make allowances for you to learn, but in return, you will accept my answers as final.”
“On everything?”
“Yes.”
“So if I ask you if the sky is blue and you tell me it’s purple, I have to accept that as final?”
“Why would I tell you it’s purple?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But I’m still not altogether sure this is real and I’m dead but not dead. I’m going to die. I agreed to punish two people I don’t know because they somehow failed me. And the man I thought I loved and that I’ve pretty much reworked my whole life around killed me because he couldn’t take one joking comment I made to lift his spirits.” I picked up my orange juice. “On the other hand, apparently I don’t have to worry about my student loans anymore…so there’s that.”
After swallowing a mouthful of juice, I met his perplexed gaze. He stared at me like I was on some National Geographic show and the narrator hadn’t told him what kind of creature I was yet.
“So, how do I punish your brothers? And how did they fail me?”
Sure, embrace the madness. What could go wrong?
“Our grace decides what our roles are. Let’s just say that their grace should have demanded they intervene before Alex,” there went that lip curl again, “got as far as he did.”
Yeah, he was making as much sense as a gymnast filling in at a basketball game. “Okay, Sparky, you’re going to have to back-up. You’re making zero sense.” I rubbed my forehead with my free hand. “You’re saying I’m the first thing that interested your brothers in years, but not so much that they intervened. I’m not sure your thought process is on point, though I’m grateful for the extra time.”
“Sparky?” He sighed in exasperation.
Holy hell. That slipped out because he gave electric kisses. I would never, never, never admit that to him. “Sorry, I had a blond dog at one point in my childhood. His name was Sparky, and he had the same cute but grumpy look going on.”
There went the tomato stain in my cheeks again. He had to know that was completely fabricated. I was a cat person for Christ’s sake. I’ve never even had a dog.
He merely shook his head and continued. “You don’t need to understand how I know they were moved by your existence. They were. All I need you to do is follow my instructions. Can you agree to do that?”
Like I had any choice. “Yes, I can agree to that. But I’d like to call my mom. Can I do that?” I held my breath because this was the turning point. I would not, could not help someone who was so heartless that I couldn’t give peace to the one person who loved me unconditionally.
“Dahlia, you are dead. You cannot call your mother.” His frustration was showing. “I will compromise with you, especially if this will affect your ability to follow instructions. Today, I will go visit your mother and share the news of your death, and that it was painless. I will allay any fear and suspicion she may have. Is that agreeable to you?”
Was it? My heart squeezed at the prospect of never again speaking to my mom, or receiving one of her amazing hugs. But this was better for her. She wouldn’t know that the man she hated from day one had killed me in a fit of rage. I didn’t want her to know how stupid I’d been to fall for his act.
“Yes. But before my time is up, I want to go see her. No, hold your horses, not visit with her. I won’t let her see me, I just want to see her one more time.”
He nodded his agreement. “That is fair.”
My plate and cup were empty, and my stomach was pleasantly full, even if my heart was sad. Doing something I’d always been good at, I pushed that sadness into a tidy little box at the back of my mind. I compartmentalized that bitch.
“Okay, so what’s your grand plan for revenge? Sorry, I mean punishment.” I snickered, because we were kind of talking about revenge here, weren’t we? At least for me, it was punishment with a nice dose of revenge on the side.
“All I require you to do is get to know them. Let them get to know you. The rest will be revealed later.” He held my stare, then started to stack the dishes into a nice neat pile.
Huh, it sounded an awful lot like seducing. He really must not know me because my seduction skills sucked.
“You want me to seduce them?”
“No, not seduce, just get to know them.” To Seth, that said everything. How did he know they would even be friendly with me? These brothers could be the biggest douche canoes in the world. I mean, Seth wasn’t exactly a shining example of friendliness. I doubted he would want to sit and shoot the breeze if there wasn’t something he wanted from me.
“Wait, so them getting to know me is your great plan for punishment? Are you trying to tell me something?”
Seth frowned. “Yes, I’m telling you the plan.”
“Okay, Captain Literal, I’ll choose not to be insulted.” Maybe he restored everything but my filter to perfect health. “Tell me about them. I need at least basic facts.”
He stood and moved to the doorway. “You’ll have an easier time if you get to know them without any preconceived notions. Don’t worry, I’ll point you in the right direction so you know who they are.”
This was not a man used to working in a team.
Damn it, I hoped these brothers weren’t as gorgeous as Seth.
Or as literal.
Here goes everything.
3
You know when they said ‘this has disaster written all over it’? They meant me walking into this bar… - Dahlia
Dahlia
Seth’s “plan” had two major flaws right from the get go. One, he wanted me to get to know his brothers without anything more than his pointing them out to me. Two, for me to go and get to know his brothers, I actually needed something to wear that wasn’t this very thin, oversized cotton nightdress thing. Granted, the fabric’s softness rivaled the bed, which I had to admit turned out to be even nicer when I burrowed back into the covers and pulled them over my head to hide from Seth, his plans, his brothers, Alex, and my death.
The fact that I could make any of that rhyme utterly destroyed my plans for hiding. Giggling gave me away, and Seth whipped the super-soft comforter off my head and stared at me. “What are you doing?”
“I’m having a moment,” I informed him before I yanked the comforter back up and hid under it again.
Whoosh. He pulled the comforter away. “This is not the task.”
“I don’t care.” Yank. Down I went.
Whoosh. Not only did he yank the comforter away, it flew across the room.
“Dude. Not cool.” I wagged my finger at him. “Hiding requires head under the blanket time.”
He stared at me. “You have a task. You need to meet my brothers. Let’s go.”
Was he serious right now? From the way he stalked out of the room to how the muscles of his back flexed and bunched with every step, it all promised me he meant it… Funny, I hadn’t noticed just how well that shirt fit him. Instead of following, I waited. Not long, because he noticed my absence fast enough that he reappeared in the doorway in seconds.
“Are you planning to leave me on their doorstep like a lost puppy?”
Ha. That question got him. Seth frowned. “No. You are not a lost puppy.”
“So, where do you plan on me ‘getting to know them’?” I waited, since there was really only one answer I kind of expected.
“The bar.”
Slanting a look at the windows and the angle of the light spilling in them, I said, “You think they’re really going to be at the bar this early in the morning?”
He studied me for a beat. “I don’t think they have anywhere else they will be, even if they have places they should be.”
I groaned and flopped against the pillows.
“What now?” Impatience crept into Seth’s voice. It turned it all deep and husky, like a ‘sex’ voice. How would he sound gritting out my name in that same tone?
Wow. The idea alone sent shivers over my skin. Combine the electric kiss with the sex-dipped voice, and I’d be halfway to orgasm with or without my clothes on.
“Dahlia.”
I sat up and glared at him. “What?” Didn’t he understand I was having a moment?
“The bar?”
“Sinner’s? Great place for angels to hang out.”
Seth narrowed his eyes at me. “We’re not angels.”
“Awww, I think you’re sweet.”
I think he wanted to roll his eyes at me. As it was, he just stared. Stony. Inflexible. Tense.
He’d be magnificent when he let go in bed. All that power unleashed and those beautiful, wide hands. I wonder if he’d let me grip his braid while I…
Fingers snapped in front of my face, jerking me out of that lovely fantasy. Jerk. The jerk jerked me. Jerking jerk. Did angels jerk off? I giggled, and not even his glare could smother the laughter.
The more he glared, the harder I laughed, until I was lying on my side, hugging myself. As my amusement waned like water rolling back out to sea, h
e released the longest sigh. The aggravation and the barest hint of disappointment in that sigh sobered me.
No, he was right.
I only had a month and a little left. I needed to make the most of it. My company was launching the new upgrade next week. The release had been a feather in my cap. I’d sorted it all out, and I wouldn’t be there to see it take off. The giddy drunkenness of the moment evaporated entirely.
“I need clothes,” I told him abruptly. “You burned one of my nicest suits and my five-hundred-dollar shoes.” No, I wouldn’t cry over their loss. But finding sexy heels that felt fucking good on my feet was worth a lot more than what I’d spent on them.
If my abrupt mood swing bothered him, Seth didn’t say anything. “Then we will get you clothes. There are some things in the drawer for now. Come.”
Rolling off the bed, I was a good dog. The drawers he motioned to meant the antique oak chest of drawers next to the closet—the interior of which was painfully empty. I had so many nice things in my closet. Things I’d work really long and hard to afford. Contrary to some asshole’s opinions, I understood exactly what it was to grow up with nothing, to wear shoes even when the sole peeled away, to wear shirts with safety pins where buttons should go, and haunting garage sales and consignment stores for those hidden treasures that could let me spend a dollar to acquire something that had been fifty off the rack.
I didn’t spend less than a hundred on shoes these days, and that was only if they were on sale. It had become a point of pride for me. My one weak vanity. I might still pick up nice clothes in nicer consignment stores, but my shoes?
They were an investment in me, because I was worth it.
Opening the top drawer, I stared at the gray, dismal looking shirts, institutional panties, and plain bras. All gray.
Drab. Dull. Lackluster.
I tugged them out and then opened the drawer below. Pants. Also gray. Also boring.