Truth or Demon nov-5

by Kathy Love

  Never, if she was smart. Dabbling with a man like Killian, thinking she could have casual sex, and not start feeling too much, was dangerous business.

  “So it’s all good,” she said with a decisive nod. “It was a fun and unexpected night. I’m fine. You’re fine.”

  His smile faded at her tone, but again he nodded.

  “As long as you’re fine.”

  She managed a small smile. “I am. Good night, Killian.”

  She turned then and unlocked her door. She didn’t look back as she stepped inside.

  Unfortunately, she had little time to gather herself.

  Daisy popped out of the kitchen. “You’re home early.”

  Poppy tried to muster the same calm she’d always managed over the past four years, hiding her true feelings, keeping her emotions in check. But tonight that composure was just somewhere out of reach. She attempted a carefree smile, knowing it fell short.

  “The showing only went until nine. And it was—pretty dull.”

  Daisy nodded, but Poppy could tell she was trying to read her expression. Poppy forced another smile.

  “I got my paper done, and I was just getting a snack before heading to bed. Want some?” Daisy held out a bowl of popcorn.

  “No thanks.” The truth was Poppy couldn’t think of eating. Her stomach was churning with nerves, confusion and something that still managed to feel like excitement.

  Daisy took her popcorn and headed into the living room, collapsing on the couch. She curled her legs under her and reached for the television remote. The theme music to a popular sitcom filled the apartment.

  “Are you going to watch Big Bang Theory with me?” Daisy called out to Poppy.

  Move. Answer her. Don’t give Daisy any reason to question your behavior and worry.

  “Yeah,” she said, “I’m just going to—go change.”

  “Hurry. It’s a new one.”

  Poppy walked to her bedroom. She closed the door and pressed her back against it. She allowed herself a moment to fall apart.

  Running a shaky hand through her hair, she closed her eyes.

  “What are you doing?” she whispered to herself, her voice trembling as much as her hands.

  She should have put a stop to the encounter. She should have told him no, that she wasn’t interested in him that way.

  “But you are,” she murmured, for the first time really admitting it, even if it was only to herself.

  It could only ever be to herself.

  Nothing good could come out of a relationship with Killian O’Brien, even if that was what he wanted.

  Nothing good at all.

  She wandered around her room, not quite sure of what to do. Tonight had been so surreal, she somehow felt out of place just dropping back into her normal world.

  She sat on the bed, only to stand up again. She walked over to her dresser, rifling through the drawers, only to pause, clothes forgotten in her hands.

  This was no big deal. Just a casual sexual encounter. Adults did that. Didn’t they? Casual trysts that didn’t mean a thing.

  She looked down at her hands, realizing she clutched several garments. What had she been looking for? Pajamas. That’s right, pajamas.

  And she couldn’t hang out in here indefinitely. Daisy wanted her to watch their favorite show. She pulled out a pair of plaid cotton pajama bottoms and a T-shirt. Quickly, she changed into them and braced herself to act normally.

  She could hear Daisy’s laughter as soon as she opened the door. The sound should have pleased her. It usually did, knowing that Daisy was thriving, happy. But tonight, it just made her feel guilty and ashamed.

  Was her behavior tonight the example she wanted to set for her little sister? Not that Daisy would ever, ever know about it. But Poppy knew, and she couldn’t believe how easily she’d let Killian do whatever he wanted. No, that wasn’t fair. She’d wanted it too. So very much.

  “Poppy, you’re missing the whole show.”

  She joined Daisy, curling on the couch too.

  “Sheldon cracks me up,” Daisy said, popping some of the buttery popcorn in her mouth.

  Poppy smiled, and tried to follow what was going on, but her mind kept wandering back to that rooftop and the feeling of Killian’s touch. His body against hers. His mouth. And his very naughty tongue.

  “That was a good one,” Daisy said, dragging Poppy out of her erotic memories.

  Poppy shifted, pulling her legs in tighter to herself. The show was over, and she couldn’t recall a single word of it. Heat crept over her cheeks and neck. She ran a hand through her hair, hoping the action would distract from her surely red cheeks.

  “It—it was good.” She smiled.

  Daisy studied her for a moment, then sighed. “I guess I’d better get to bed.”

  Poppy nodded. “It is getting late.”

  Daisy picked up her popcorn bowl, bringing it into the kitchen. She paused on her way back through the living room.

  “Did you have any fun at the art gallery?”

  More embarrassment burned her face, but she managed to shrug. “Yes. It wasn’t too bad.”

  “I’m glad,” Daisy said, then headed off to bed, a little bounce to her step.

  Poppy fell back against the cushions, relieved Daisy seemed to think everything was fine. Maybe she’d behaved more normally than she’d thought.

  Daisy closed her door and rushed over to her nightstand. Her cell phone lay among the piles of books and hair bands and pens and papers.

  She flipped the phone open, and her fingers began flying over the character pad.

  He did it! Poppy def met some-1 2nite. Killian did it!

  She hit send, and the text whisked through the atmosphere to find her friends’ phones.

  She dropped the phone back to her nightstand and crawled into bed, a smile on her face. She’d really started to think this conjuring idea was a bad one.

  But Emma had been totally right. Daisy had been able to tell as soon as Poppy stepped into the apartment that something had happened tonight. She’d looked all flushed and dreamy. She hadn’t seen a bit of her favorite show. She was thinking about someone. A man. Daisy could just tell.

  She turned off her light, then hugged her pillow, grinning to herself. Poppy was going to find happiness, finally.

  Daisy just knew it.

  CHAPTER 28

  He was on his knees. She looked down at him. Their eyes held. Locked. Words flowed between them. Hunger. Need. Lust. But so much more than that. Words that shouldn’t be there, but were. Gentleness. Caring. Affection.

  He rose, their eyes never leaving each other’s.

  Slowly, he leaned in, bring his lips to press against hers. Kissing her. Tasting her. She savored him too. The embrace was unhurried, thorough, encompassing. A true melding of beings. Of souls.

  Time didn’t seem to exist, they just were. One.

  Finally they parted, eyes searching each other. Heat and emotion swirling there.

  Then words were said aloud.

  “I love you.”

  Poppy gasped, sitting up straight in her bed. She pressed a hand to her chest, her heart crashing against her rib cage like a panicked bird trapped in a cage. Like she’d just woken from a horrible nightmare.

  But it hadn’t been a nightmare. Not exactly. More like …

  She pulled in several more breaths, trying desperately to calm herself. It was just a dream.

  She fell back against her pillows. Just a dream.

  Just a dream in which she told Killian that she loved him.

  Killian’s eyes snapped open. He didn’t move, although his heart raced as if it were trying to escape his body. His breathing sounded rapid and harsh in the silent darkness.

  He’d been dreaming. A very vivid, very real dream.

  The words that had come from his lips echoed through his mind in time with his heartbeat and his breathing.

  I love you. I love you.

  He’d told Poppy he loved her.

 
“Wow,” Daisy said when she shuffled into the kitchen the next morning in her Hello Kitty slippers. “You look like you didn’t sleep too well last night.”

  Poppy looked up from the chapter she’d been editing, knowing full well she looked exhausted. After the dream, sleep had never returned. By three a.m., she’d given up and decided to get some work done.

  “Yeah, I couldn’t sleep,” Poppy said, “and there didn’t seem to be much point just staring at the ceiling.”

  Plus, staring at the ceiling gave her way too much time to reflect on the significance of her dream.

  Of which there was none, she assured herself. For the umpteenth time. Dreams were just crazy workings of the subconscious mind. They didn’t have to mean anything at all.

  And really, why would she even give it much thought? Loving Killian. That was silly. She barely knew him. So he’d hung around her place a few days. And they’d gone on a couple ill-fated outings. And … some other things.

  She should be laughing about the dream, not flipping out about it.

  Daisy joined her at the table with her usual cereal and milk.

  “So are you still going out tomorrow with Killian?” she asked as she poured—cornflakes this morning—into a bowl.

  Poppy paused at the sound of his name. “Umm, no. I don’t think so.”

  Daisy stopped, half a gallon of milk in her hand, poised mid-pour. “Really?”

  Poppy shrugged, confused by the displeased expression on Daisy’s face. “Well, I’m not sure, but I do have a lot of work to do. So I thought I’d probably just stay in.”

  Daisy looked unimpressed. She finished preparing her breakfast, and Poppy had the distinct feeling she was irritated.

  “And I’d like to go do something with you,” Poppy added, hoping to appease her annoyance. Annoyance she didn’t understand.

  “I’m going with Emma and her family this weekend. Remember, we’re going to her grandmother’s place on the Cape?”

  “Oh, right.” No, Poppy hadn’t remembered that, but she had agreed weeks ago Daisy could go. And even though Poppy really wanted her sister’s company this weekend, there was no way she could tell her she couldn’t go now. That wouldn’t be fair.

  “So you should really go out this weekend,” Daisy said, her tone bordering on—bossy.

  Poppy put down the red pencil she held and regarded her sister closely. Going out was becoming really important to her.

  She sighed. “Well, maybe I will. You know, now. Because you are going to be away.”

  Poppy still had no intention of doing so, but a half-truth was better than a continued debate with a fifteen-year-old. Talk about an exercise in futility.

  Daisy took a bite of her cereal, looking neither as if she believed Poppy nor as if she was appeased.

  Poppy sipped her coffee.

  After a moment, Daisy blurted out, “I thought something happened last night.”

  Poppy’s heart stopped. But she managed to look up calmly at Daisy. “Why did you think that?”

  Daisy shook her head. “I don’t know. I just thought something had.”

  “No,” Poppy said, trying to appear perplexed by her sister’s notion.

  Daisy returned her attention back to her breakfast.

  “Like what?” Poppy found herself asking. Did Daisy still have some false hope that she’d become interested in Killian? Even after Poppy had made it clear that wouldn’t happen?

  Instantly, the incident on the roof and then the dream flashed through Poppy’s mind.

  Yeah, she’d made that clear all right. Maybe to Daisy, but apparently not to herself.

  “I thought you might have met someone.”

  Someone. Not Killian, just a random, faceless someone.

  Poppy found herself nodding. “I did.”

  Daisy’s head popped up, her dark eyes searching Poppy’s. “You did? Really?”

  Poppy nodded again.

  “I knew it,” Daisy exclaimed, a huge grin replacing her sullen irritation. “What’s he like?”

  She shouldn’t be doing this.

  “He’s nice,” Poppy told her. “A—professor.”

  “Really?” Daisy’s smiled widened, if possible. “Like Dad? That’s a good fit for you.”

  “Well, we just met. So, you know, I don’t want to make too many assumptions, but yeah, it could be good.”

  Daisy jumped up. “Well, I think it’s great. You gotta go out this weekend.” She hugged Poppy. “I’m late, but I’m really happy for you.”

  “Thanks.”

  As soon as Daisy bounced out of the room, Poppy’s strained smile faded. Why had she told her sister that? There was no professor. There was just a tawdry encounter on a rooftop with a man who would never really be interested in her—well, you know, beyond “like.” But she’d hated her sister’s disappointment.

  And Poppy supposed it would be easy enough to get rid of a nonexistent professor. She just didn’t want Daisy to worry about her. Even for a weekend.

  “Have a good day,” Daisy called to Poppy as she headed to the apartment door.

  “You too,” Poppy yelled back, then pulled in a deep breath.

  Twirling the pencil on its tip, she wondered how she was going to have a good day. Not with all these worries haunting her.

  Killian was just stepping into the lobby of the apartment house when Daisy and the girls came off the elevator. Daisy grinned, dashing up to him. And much to his surprise, she hugged him.

  “Thank you!” she said, squeezing him.

  He hesitated, and then his arms went around her thin form. He hugged her back.

  Daisy embraced him a few moments longer, then stepped back to beam up at him. “I knew you would do it.”

  He nodded as if he understood.

  “I could tell last night when Poppy walked through the door that it had finally happened.” Daisy practically danced with happiness.

  Killian glanced at her friends. Emma smiled too, a small, wistful smile. Madison for once didn’t look completely unimpressed. But still he had no idea what was going on.

  “I’m really happy with your choice,” Daisy said, giving him another quick hug. Then the girls hurried out of the lobby, rushing off to school in a flurry of giddy, girlish chatter.

  Killian watched them leave, trying to understand what had just transpired. She knew what had happened last night and she was thrilled?

  Somehow he had a hard time believing that Poppy would share all the details about what had happened. But she must have told Daisy something.

  Killian walked into the elevator and pressed the number for Poppy’s floor. He leaned against the wall as the elevator shuddered to life. The wall against which he’d kissed Poppy.

  He’d spent most of the night walking around Boston, thinking about everything that had happened over the past week. Trying to understand. Understand why he’d been conjured here. Why he hadn’t been willing to find Poppy a man, any man, and leave. Why was he attracted to her? More than attracted. His body ached for her.

  As he’d walked and walked, one thing started to become clear to him. He was supposed to be with Poppy.

  Not as her soul mate. He’d have to have a soul for that. But maybe as a stepping-stone. All along he’d had this sense she needed to move on. She needed to rediscover herself. To mend some of the wounds caused by Adam, and her parents’ deaths.

  He had to help her do that before he could do this job. He couldn’t think of any other reason for everything that had happened. Including the sex. She needed to rediscover herself sexually too.

  He considered sex pretty damned important. But then, he was a demon, so he would. But as he walked, and thought about the events of the art gallery, he also found himself thinking about those photos. Captured moments of human sexuality.

  And he realized that Poppy needed to learn to open up to that side of herself just as much as any of her other sides.

  Sex was important. And she needed to feel confident about that to move on too.
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  So he was going to talk to her right now about his plan. And it was a good one.

  Poppy answered the door on his second knock. She was still in her pajamas. The T-shirt clung to her slight frame, and he struggled, not letting his gaze wander downward to appreciate the way the fabric hugged her pert breasts, more revealing than any silk teddy.

  “Killian.”

  He couldn’t tell if she was pleased or not to see him. Her dark eyes regarded him, wide, maybe a little uncertain.

  He understood that feeling. Maybe for the first time in his existence, he wasn’t sure about his next actions. But he didn’t see any point in standing there, hemming and hawing. He knew this was part of what he was here to do.

  “Poppy, I think we should have an affair.”

  CHAPTER 29

  Poppy hadn’t known what to expect from Killian’s early morning visit. But she was fairly certain that announcement wasn’t it.

  No response came to her boggled mind as she stared at his expectant face. All she could do was gape at him as if he’d sprouted horns and turned into one of the demons he’d described to her from his paranormal research.

  He waited a few seconds, then realized she wasn’t going to speak.

  So he continued, “I know that sounds kind of abrupt and crazy, but I really think it would benefit us both.”

  Oh, she could well see the benefits. At least the physical ones. But … she just couldn’t wrap her mind around the fact that he’d even suggested such a thing.

  “You see,” he started, and suddenly a moment of awareness reached into Poppy’s scrambled brains. She grabbed his wrist and tugged him inside the apartment. It wasn’t likely that any of her neighbors would venture by, but if they did, she didn’t really want them hearing Killian’s theories on why they should become lovers.

  Call her old-fashioned.

  She continued to tug him with her until they reached the living room. Then she dropped his arm like he was on fire. She moved across the room as if more space would help her think straight.

  Killian watched her for a moment. Waiting again, she supposed, to see if she’d say anything, but really, still no words were coming to her. Well, none that she could string together into a comprehensible sentence.