The Unlikeable Demon Hunter: Fall

by Wilde, Deborah

  I nipped at his lower lip; our tongues tangled in a dirty, reckless kiss. Rohan groaned and pressed me back against the leather seat, his kiss almost bruising.

  A honking horn and voices yelling out on the street cut through my haze of desire.

  I pulled back, trying to catch my breath. Rohan ran his thumb over his lip, all hard muscle, messy hair, and swollen lips.

  The limo was parked at a curb on a quiet street.

  Rohan helped me straighten my clothes. “Come on. You need Corn Man.”

  It was after midnight in a deserted neighborhood and that sounded more like a threat than a treat, but, leaving the sapphire necklace on the seat and the ring on the floor, I scrambled out of the limo. I stopped short at the smell of roasted corn and the line-up of people twisting through the darkened parking lot behind a discount store waiting their turn at the tiny cart staffed by an older man and his son.

  Rohan joined the end of the queue.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  “East L.A. Lincoln Heights. Corn Man makes the best elotes ever.” He rose onto tiptoe as if counting how many people were ahead of us. “He’s here till about 2AM but if he runs out of corn, that’s it. Too bad. So sad.”

  A car slowed down as it drove past, the driver hanging out the window and yelling “The wait is worth it!” before zooming off into the night.

  The customers were of all ages and all ethnicities, dressed in everything from the two girls in pjs wrapped in a huge purple blanket, to us in our evening finery. Rohan was still in his sherwani.

  Ro was recognized in stages: a muttered debate in Spanish and English from the two couples behind us on whether or not it was him, the decision that it was, the person anointed to get confirmation.

  “Hey man, you Rohan Mitra?”

  “Yeah.”

  The skinny speaker nodded. “Cool. I hated your shit. So depressing.” He punched Ro in the arm. “Lighten up, homie.”

  “Yeah, Ro,” I said. “Lighten up.”

  The next hour and a half was spent sharing beer and chatting with this group about our chances of getting to the front before the corn ran out and the best foods to eat when you were plastered. That turned into them prompting me for weird Canadian words when I mentioned being drunk on a mickey of vodka and learned that Americans had no clue what that flask-like bottle was.

  It was a weirdly carnival atmosphere.

  The closer we got to the front, the tenser I got, more and more determined that I had to have my elote. I didn’t even know what it was, but damn, it smelled good and the people walking away with their orders looked like they’d won the Super Bowl. I’m not saying I would have busted out my magic if it got me to the food, but I’m not saying I wouldn’t have.

  My feet were throbbing and I was huddled into Ro for warmth when we finally, mercifully reached the front.

  “Bowl or cob?” the older man asked.

  Ro looked at my dress. “Bowl.”

  The man scooped a bunch of corn from a water-filled blue cooler into a styrofoam bowl. His movements were economical, an ease born of repetition: the dollop of mayo, the heavy sprinkle of cheese, the squirt of lime juice, the dusting of chili powder.

  Ro bought corn for the couples behind us as well: the last four cobs. Our new friends cheered, while a collective groan went up from the rest of the line.

  We got into the limo. Rohan had also bought a bowl for the driver.

  The elote was sweet, spicy goodness that I fell on like a starved wolf, humming in joy between bites. Rohan wasn’t eating with any more dignity. We basically ignored each other until all had been licked clean.

  I patted my belly and refastened the sapphire around my neck. “You told the driver to come here when we first got into the limo. When you were still mad.”

  He shrugged. “I knew you’d like it.”

  My heart palpitated in my chest like a distressed old woman fluttering her hands, but for the first time ever, my brain didn’t scream at me to run away. It dug in with an “I’m good.”

  I was so shocked that I actually twitched. “Tunes,” I sputtered. “Put on some music.”

  “Uh, okay.” He punched on the stereo, fiddling with the song choice until Michael Franti’s “I’m Alive” came pouring out of the speaker. Ro had introduced me to this song and it had subsequently become a happy place.

  Just like he had.

  I checked back in with my brain, but it was still perfectly content where it was, phonetically mangling song lyrics, so I tentatively relaxed into the moment.

  We zipped along the highway, the moon roof open to let in the Los Angeles night, with our bellies full of corn, belting out this song about just wanting to be with a certain person.

  Since I had no clue where in the city we were at any given moment, I didn’t realize we hadn’t gone back to Maya and Dev’s place until we turned onto a leafy street that curved up a hill, ending in a cul-de-sac.

  “Now where does my midnight adventure lead?”

  “My place,” Ro said. “I want you home with me tonight.”

  “Where else would I have been? Had you been planning to kick me out of the bungalow and only just changed your mind?”

  “My place. My home.”

  “Oh.” I pressed the heel of my palm into my chest to keep my heart from bursting free and jumping out the window.

  The limo pulled partway into the driveway, blocked from getting to the gate by the half dozen people clustered there.

  Ro sighed. “Reporters.”

  I peered out the window, though it was hard to see much more than shadowy figures huddled in the darkness between the sparse streetlights like the light might burn them.

  They swarmed the limo, bulbs flashing in through the tinted windows, yelling questions at us.

  “Way to disturb the peace,” Ro snarled.

  I eyed the ring on the floor of the limo, wishing I could just get inside and put some distance between myself and this sham engagement, but I’d made my bed, now I had to lie in it.

  “Let me handle this.” Ring back on my finger, I opened the door, squinting into the gloom. I only got vague impressions of them: the Dracula-esque slicked back coif of one, the shlubby baggy sweats of another, the red leather trench coat of the sole woman in their midst.

  “Is it true?” Dracula-dude asked. “Are you engaged?”

  I held my ring finger up like I was flipping them off. “You tell me.”

  Flashbulbs popped in my eyes.

  The shlubby one edged forward to get a shot of me, but was pushed back by the woman.

  “Are you pregnant?” she asked.

  I ran a hand along my body. “Do you really think the only reason he’s with me is obligation?”

  “Groupies don’t tend to have staying power,” she said.

  Most of the others laughed, but the shlubby one sent me an apologetic smile from the pool of light he’d been pushed back into.

  Something about the woman’s comment was off. Too pointed.

  “If you’re gonna insult me, at least have the balls to show your faces.” I studied my ring like I couldn’t care less.

  They shuffled forward.

  “Let’s get a shot with you and Rohan,” the shlubby one said.

  I smiled at him. The brief glance I’d spared for the woman had confirmed it.

  Tia.

  I’d been all wrong about how the fake engagement would affect me, but in terms of finding the demon, my instincts had been bang on.

  Hiding my triumphant smirk, I ducked into the limo. “Come take a photo.”

  “Okay.” There was nothing in his expression as we posed together to indicate he’d recognized Tia, but he squeezed my waist in signal to me.

  “Thanks, babe,” I said to Rohan. “You can get back in the limo.”

  One of the reporters made the sound of a whip cracking.

  “Hey.” I motioned Tia over. “How would you like an exclusive?”

  “Why me?”

  “Becau
se you’re the only woman here and if I give it to one of the boys, I suspect you’ll be merciless towards me.”

  “You want to control your press? It doesn’t work that way.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Direct my press. What do you say?”

  She’d set up a cover persona and having gone this far had to play her part. The only thing that might blow it was if she suspected I was Rasha. I glanced down at my Rasha ring, but it was still glamoured to look like a funky titanium band.

  “All right. Tomorrow.” She gave me a time and a place in the late afternoon.

  “See you then.”

  I got back into the car and slammed the door, the reporters grudgingly moving so the driver could get behind the security gate.

  “Tia Lioudis,” I said. “Wants to meet outside the Museum of Modern Art.”

  “Not ideal, but we can find somewhere to take her down.” Rohan high-fived me. “Go big or go home. You made the right play.”

  18

  High off my success, I relaxed enough to enjoy the tour Ro gave me of his place. His house, though much smaller than his parents’ mansion, was more in line with what I’d expected.

  Sort of.

  “Didn’t you own an apartment?” I said.

  “I did, but I sold it when I came back before we went to Prague. I wanted something in a quieter area.”

  The house was still rock star appropriate with floor-to-ceiling windows and interesting touches in every room from Ro’s travels like the glass Moroccan lanterns in the living room or the black lacquer cabinet carved with Chinese dragons that housed his alcohol.

  A stunning mahogany-colored baby grand piano dominated the living room, next to a stand of acoustic guitars.

  Beyond the wide porch with the lattice roof was a panoramic view of the city. A long fire pit ran the length of it, while cozy patio furniture made it an inviting space.

  “The painters did a great job with all the cream walls,” I said. “I mean, they didn’t get any on the floors and it doesn’t even smell like paint. Good thing you were here to oversee them instead of meeting me at the airport.”

  “You’re such a brat.” Rohan tugged me down a hallway and flicked on the light in a room. A room that was painted my favorite shade of royal purple, not too lilac and not too blue.

  My mouth fell open.

  He’d installed a tap floor. The wood planks, warm and smooth under my feet, were even sprung, all the better to absorb the shock from my percussive dance and prevent injury.

  “You did this for me?”

  “Nah. I did it for my other girlfriend. Just thought I’d get your opinion.”

  I hopped into the middle of the floor in my bare feet and started tapping. This was insane. He’d had this whole thing installed for me. Who did that? Was it a normal rock star thing or was it something else? And if it was something else, what did it mean?

  I could see myself dancing in here with the early morning light streaming through the large windows, Rohan coming to kiss me good morning and bring me coffee. The two of us jamming, late at night, like now, with crickets adding their song to ours.

  There it was again, the hard fast slide of black ice, my heart surrendering to gravity. I was falling hard for him and with everything still so fragile between us, did I need to put on the brakes before I got hurt?

  I stopped dancing and sat down in the middle of the floor. “Do you know how to be us yet?”

  He folded himself onto the floor next to me, shrugging out of his sherwani and laying it beside him. “It’s not a one-person decision.”

  I toyed with the sapphire pendant. “You forgiving me is.”

  “I forgive you.”

  “Doesn’t sound like it.”

  He met my eyes steadily. “I’ve lived my life in absolutes and it’s been hard to come to a place where I can forgive you instead of walking away. It’s not so much about you as about me.”

  Quit poking at painful wounds, my brain ordered. Thank him for the tap floor and ride the bliss.

  No, my heart countered. No matter how hard this is to hear, you have to have this talk. I can’t take all this second-guessing.

  Ugh. My heart was right. We had to grow up and face our fears and our baggage and do this right. We deserved that.

  I deserved that.

  “Do you think you’ll ever get there?” I said.

  He rubbed his jaw. “Zack made me shave and get a haircut before you came because he said I was starting to look like a mopey homeless dude. It’s not going to be easy being back together and in the public eye, but I want this. I want us.” His expression turned soft and open. “You make me want to share, Sparky. My thoughts, my dreams, my life. And I’m an only child. I don’t like to share. Or, I didn’t before you. So, yes, I forgive you. Do you forgive me? Do you want this?”

  The clear depths of his eyes shone with a raw vulnerability.

  Rohan had been the driving force in us becoming a couple, and while the arrogance of it was breathtaking, there had been something compelling about his certainty that we would end up together. Even our break and superficiality of the past month had felt like a course Ro had set with no hesitations, which was why it had devastated me.

  He rubbed his index finger and thumb together rapidly, the rest of him rigid as he waited for my reply. How very wrong I’d been. Ro was fumbling through this as much as I was, with all the same fears.

  My heart slowed to a normal tempo. The metaphoric rope I’d been bound in that had cut off my circulation for the past month had finally fallen away, my body sagging in relief and my lungs capable of taking a deep breath.

  “I want this, Rohan. And I won’t go behind your back, try to save you, or decide what’s best for you. I won’t break us.”

  “I won’t either. But this has to go.” He took my hand wearing the ring and gently pulled it off. “If I give you a ring, I want it to mean everything.”

  I may have eeped.

  Standing up, he swung me into his arms.

  I draped my arms around his neck. “You abducting me? Because I’m fine with that.”

  He strode down the darkened hallway. “I want to make love to you in my bed. I never wanted anyone in there. Not until tonight. Not until you.”

  I cradled my cheek in the crook of his neck. “I’m glad you waited,” I said softly.

  We were pressed heart-to-heart, a single racing beat.

  He set me down on the throw rug in the middle of his bedroom, raising his arm so slowly, I could barely tell he was moving until his fingers grazed the side of my neck. He untied the ribbon holding my halter together. My gown puddled to the floor in a silken wave. I was naked, outlined by night and distant lights through the floor-to-ceiling window.

  He trailed a finger down my side. “I was wrong about the Spanx.”

  “I forgive you. See how magnanimous I am?”

  Rohan snorted.

  I went to pull the sapphire necklace off, but he stopped me.

  “Wear it,” he said in a thick voice. “I want you draped in jewels like the goddess you are.”

  I had to remind myself to keep breathing, because otherwise I’d black out and not get kissed by him and I needed to be kissed by him in this moment, with all our barriers down, and the two of us choosing each other, as much as I’d ever needed anything.

  I rose onto my toes and leaned in.

  Rohan’s expression was serious, his eyes that molten gold that made my belly do flips. He clasped my hips, his fingers squeezing and releasing.

  I tilted closer, closing my eyes and inhaling his spicy iron musk. My lips parted.

  I was left hanging. I cracked an eye open.

  Rohan stood there, watching me.

  “Problem?” Please say no. Please say no.

  “I’m nervous.” He briskly rubbed his hand over his stubble. “It’s stupid, but I feel like this is our first time and I don’t want to disappoint you.”

  I kissed his jaw. “I’m nervous, too. So we’ll just take care
of each other, okay?”

  “I’d like that.”

  I helped him shrug out of his tank top, rolling the fabric up to run my hands over the delicious planes of his abs. I scraped my nails along the fine dusting of hair on his brown skin and Ro hissed.

  He picked me up and deposited me onto the bed, a massive wooden platform bed that made me think of pirates and plundering.

  I bounced on his divine mattress with a squeal, the sapphire thunking against my chest, and scooted back as Ro prowled on all fours toward me. Giggling, I grabbed a pillow and swatted him with it.

  He knocked it away, grabbing my sides and dragging me down so I lay on my back underneath him. His jeans hung unbuttoned off one hip, his erect cock pressing into me.

  I wrapped a leg around him. “Oh no. You caught me.”

  “Mwahaha–”

  I leaned up and kissed him, my tongue dancing with his.

  Ro groaned into my mouth, grinding his hard frame against me.

  I wormed his jeans down. “Too much fabric.” He kicked them off and I wriggled out from under him, swinging a leg over to straddle him. “And I want to be on top.”

  “You’ve got me where you want me, and now you’re just going to boss me around?”

  “Pretty much.” I rolled my hips against his hard-on. “Did you want to register a protest?”

  “Depends on what comes next.”

  I stretched myself out over him. “Kiss me.”

  He really did follow orders beautifully.

  Our lips tangled in a long, deep kiss, Rohan’s hands bracketing my face and his legs intertwined with mine. Lips moved to shoulders and were pressed to ears with whispered endearments. I buried my head in his neck, sucking on the sweet skin there, marking him, making him mine.

  Rohan let me set the pace as I relearned the planes and contours of my boyfriend. His right little toe was bent outward and sucking on it made him groan. If I kissed him behind his knee, he gave this sweet half-sigh, half-giggle, and if I rasped my teeth over the divots in his hips while stroking him, his cock jerked, hardening further.