by Cate Lawley
With a shove, I pushed him back. I hadn’t intended to cop a feel, just to give myself some space, but my palm might have lingered for a split second on his (warm, firm, fondleable) pec.
I looked up into his amused eyes. Yep, maybe more than a split second. One quick step back, then another—and maybe a third to be safe—and I started to breathe again.
“Is that how you always talk?” Not what I meant to say. I’d intended something more along the lines of “stop stalking a girl” or “I didn’t mean to make you a real man.” That last one was a little too Pinocchio and all sorts of wrong, so it was just as well it hadn’t made it past my lips.
His eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“You sound like an evil villain from an old movie.” And the words, they just kept a-coming. “A really old B-movie.”
He stretched to his full height. “I do not.”
At which point I completely gave in to my inner critic. “See, no one talks like that.” Mimicking his stilted tone, I said, “I do not,” then shook my head. “I don’t. Use contractions like a normal person, buddy, and people will take you more seriously.”
Except maybe he didn’t use contractions because he wasn’t a “real” man. Maybe that was how inanimate objects brought to life spoke?
“They will?” He cleared his throat and seemed to melt. Okay, not melt, but he wasn’t so rigid and stiff. “I’m not really like that.”
I grinned at him, because it was like a switch had been flipped. No steel rod rammed up his back...or other places. And the expression on his face was softer, more open. This more relaxed guy, he was better than hot. He seemed like he might be kinda sweet.
And, surprise, surprise, he grinned right back at me.
Extending my hand, I answered the question he’d asked when last we’d met: “Kayla Coleridge. Nice to meet you.”
He grasped my hand, engulfing it in his much larger one. “Kayla.” He seemed to savor my name as it passed his lips. It was weirdly hot. But then he said, “Abaddon, Prince of Darkness and Destruction—but, ah, Don works, too.”
Well, hell. That I hadn’t anticipated.
He waited, as if he realized the magnitude of his revelation.
“So, uh, I didn’t, uh...” I bounced my head from side to side as I tried to get the words out. I took a breath and then took a plunge right into crazy land. “So what you’re saying is that I didn’t bring you to life. You know, that whole ‘make me a real boy’ thing.”
Oh yeah. I totally went there: Pinocchio and his real-boy dilemma. It gets worse: I also used air quotes.
On the upside, Don thought I was hilarious, and he had a really nice laugh. Deep and mellow and not at all like the uptight, authoritarian dude he seemed to be pretending to be.
Another upside, since I knew his name was Don, Prince of blah, blah, whatever, I could stop coming up with names for him in my head that objectified and sexified him.
Or not.
My eyeballs were glued to the strong column of his neck, currently on display. His head was thrown back as he laughed. Yep, he was still laughing.
He was a hottie, and until proven otherwise, he was a chunk of metal I’d brought to life, probably with equal parts lust and magic. So I was just gonna objectify away—in my head, of course. Voicing those thoughts would make me—I snorted—a man? No, that wasn’t fair. All men weren’t like that. Even cheater Grandpa Tom didn’t make those kinds of comments, and he was super old and old-fashioned.
With thoughts of cheating, lying Grandpa Tom on the brain, I’d been a little distracted. I’d missed the fact that Don had stopped laughing. When the silence registered, I lifted my gaze from his yummy neck—and let’s be real, I’d also totally been scoping his scrumptious chest—to his eyes, now twinkling with a different kind of mirth.
“From your response, I gather I didn’t Pinocchio you.” Which was a huge relief, even if I had managed to embarrass myself in the process of learning this vital piece of information.
“I was always a real boy.” He tipped his head and, with a shrug, said, “Man.”
“Mkay.” I took a step back, because I was getting a crick staring into his gorgeous green eyes. The man was tall. Five eight had me looking most guys right in the eye with no effort at all, so it was a little weird—maybe intimidating?—to be loomed over. Looming or not, I needed answers from him. “Why are you not a statue anymore?”
He started to speak, but then stopped. His eyes narrowed. “You do not... You don’t know?”
I shook my head. I didn’t know. How could I? I didn’t even know I’d inherited any of my mom’s magic mojo. Thus far, there’d been no indication that I’d landed those particular genes. Her medium brown, practically nondescript hair—yes. Her imperfect vision—yep. Her height—also a yes. But thus far I’d been pretty sure I’d escaped the faery genes.
He took my hand and kissed my knuckles. It was so completely unexpected that I didn’t immediately snatch my hand back. Okay, I didn’t snatch my hand back at all. Give me a break. His fingers were warm and dry, and he had manly hands. I liked manly hands. It’s a thing. Not quite as much a thing as arm porn, but women dig hands, too.
“Thank you.” His voice was still deep, and I guessed that gave it a commanding kind of tone, but he sounded different than before. Especially now that he wasn’t hollering “woman” at me.
“Uh, you’re welcome? Seriously, though, I don’t know what I did.”
“Ah.” He released my fingers. “You bent a curse placed upon me by a vengeful demon.”
My eyeballs felt like they might pop out of my head. “Wait a sec. A vengeful demon? Is this vengeful demon going to come after me?”
He seemed to consider the question. “Unlikely. She’s busy being wooed by her new beau, so I don’t think she’ll have much time to follow up.”
Bonus: Don had started speaking like a completely normal person. Problem: Don’s ex had bronzed him. Big problem: Don’s ex happened to be a vengeful demon.
“Your girlfriend did that to you? Your girlfriend? What the heck did you do to her that she felt the need to encase you in metal?” My voice had been steadily increasing in volume. Could you blame me? I’d just entered hell’s version of a telenovela. Lots of people died in telenovelas.
I gave an older woman with improbable blonde hair a polite look when she walked by and stared at Don and me. I couldn’t be sure whether it was our spat drawing attention or just Don. He’d draw attention about anywhere he went.
Don winced and rubbed the back of his neck. In a low, barely discernible whisper, he said, “My fiancée.” He looked at me and quickly added, “Ex. My ex-fiancée.”
I grabbed his hand—for expediency, not because I wanted to fondle his manly man hands—and dragged him to my car.
When we arrived, I pointed to the car and said, “Get in.”
He gave my econo-rental one look and frowned. “I won’t fit.”
Raising my eyebrows, I said, “You will fit. Get in.”
He sighed and pushed the seat back as far as it would go, but to give him some credit, he didn’t complain after he’d wedged himself in and it was quite clear that he barely fit. His knees were shoved up against the dashboard.
“I’m driving to my rental cabin. By the time I get there, you better have cleared up all of this confusion.” I whipped out of the parking spot and headed back the way I’d come just a few short minutes ago.
Don crossed his arms. “No.”
I tried not to drool, because he was wearing a T-shirt, and that made his biceps look...lickable. Squeezable. Fondleable. All of the -ables. Maybe I was into arm porn after all. In short, I was distracted, so it took a second for his refusal to register. “Sorry—no?”
“No. I refuse to have an important conversation while you drive. It’s not safe.”
It’s not... “Safe? Seriously? Your ex-fiancée could be lurking around the corner ready to bronze me—or worse, for all I know—and you’re worried about safe driving.” I glanc
ed at him just long enough to see his grim nod.
“You appear to be mostly mortal.” And that was all he said.
Mostly mortal? And he could tell that by looking at me. Weird. Super weird. I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel. Also, kinda cool. Maybe I could learn to do that.
Eyes on the road, I concentrated solely on my driving for the remainder of the trip. I would not get in an accident and give this guy any kind of “I told you so” leverage over me. Also, I didn’t want to die a horrible, fiery death in a car crash. Since I was “mostly” mortal and all.
A few minutes later, I pulled into the drive of my cabin. I put the car in park, steeled myself against the hotness that was the man I shared a teensy, tiny space with, turned to him, and said, “Spill.”
And he did.
There was quite a lot of spilling. More than I’d expected.
He told me about the Dread Pirate Roberts-like scheme (I’d seen The Princess Bride at least a half-dozen times, so the basic concept was pretty familiar), the evil and menacing act, the manipulation of his reputation (he swore he was a decent guy, really), his engagement to Annabeth (who the big guy claimed was quite nice when she wasn’t being a vengeful demon), and Baba Yaga’s interference.
It was this last bit I found most interesting. From the way Don spoke of her, it sounded like she could have broken the curse. I filed that away for further consideration. But first, something had been bothering me.
“You said before that I bent the curse. What does that mean exactly?”
“Can we go inside?” He glanced at his knees, pressed up against the dash. “Where there’s more room.”
“Sure.” He opened the car door before I finished. “After you tell me about what you meant by bending the curse.”
“It’s not gone. You paused it, for want of a better word. I can feel it buzzing around in the back of my mind like a persistent, hungry mosquito, threatening to take over. But every time I touch you, the buzzing pressure fades into the background.”
I blinked at him in confusion.
“You’re an antidote—your touch is—but a temporary one.” He looked at me like I might pummel him.
I considered whether he had a valid concern, but no, I didn’t want to beat him up.
That Annabeth lady—her I might beat the crap out of.
And that thought had me eyeballing Don, Prince of whatever, whatever, something evil, with a great deal of suspicion.
What did I care about Mr. Hunkalicious? He wasn’t anything to me. And I only had his word that he hadn’t gone all Grandpa Tom and cheated on his lady. His fiancée. Ex-fiancée.
“Ugh!” I thumped the steering wheel with my open palm, except it didn’t make me feel better. It just made my palm hurt.
What the shoot-man-heck was I gonna do with Don?
Just my luck that I met a guy who was hotter than hell, and he wanted me to touch him to prevent him from getting all hard—I mean, bronzed. Yeah, that was where my brain was, folks. Give a girl a break. I was in a really long dry spell, super stressed, and sharing a miniscule space with a gorgeous man.
All of which made think and say ridiculous things, but also greatly annoyed me.
I glared at him. “And now you have me thinking dirty thoughts. I am not a dirty thoughts kind of girl. This is all your fault.”
He looked back at me like a giant kid who’d had his puppy stolen.
CHAPTER FOUR
Once we were in the cabin, I told him to stop giving me sad puppy-dog eyes.
“I don’t know what that means.” And then he crossed his arms and gave me arm porn instead, so I groaned. He shook his head. “Women are confusing.”
“We’re not, Don. Not really. We just want...” Love, a reliable guy who didn’t cheat on his wife with the first pretty faery to wander by, someone to keep us warm at night and smiling during the day.
Was that so much to ask? I guessed it kinda was, because I certainly hadn’t stumbled upon that magical unicorn guy, and neither had Cricket.
“What did I say? You look sad.” He uncrossed his arms—goodbye arm porn—and then looked around the cabin. He stopped at the tiny kitchen, his gaze hovering over the kettle on the stove. “Can I make you a cup of tea?”
I almost said yes. But then I firmed my resolve. “Explain how my touch is a temporary antidote to, uh, bronzing.” Avoid sex analogies. Avoid anything related to stiff, hard, or rigid. Dangit. Too late. At least I hadn’t spoken my thoughts aloud.
“So, no tea?” There were those puppy-dog eyes again.
“How in the world did you ever pull the wool over anyone’s eyes?” When he shot me a confused look—while filling the kettle, because it looked like I was getting tea whether I wanted it or not—I jogged his memory. “Your evil and menacing act?”
Because I believed him when he said that part was an act. This guy, huge and muscular as he was, seemed more like a teddy bear than a thug. My eyes fell to his rear. Hm, not in all ways. He was a manly man, but with a gooey center. Or so it seemed. I couldn’t really be sure, since I’d known the guy a whole two seconds.
“Ah, yes. I haven’t shown you my evil and menacing façade.” He didn’t switch the electric stove on, just rapped the kettle with his knuckle a few times, and steam drifted from the spout.
As he rummaged for tea bags, I asked the obvious question: “So what façade am I getting, Don, Prince of Bad Things Below?”
He stilled for a heartbeat, then turned to me. “None. You’re just getting regular, normal me, Kayla.” And after I met his intense green gaze for three very erratic heartbeats, he turned back to his tea-making task.
The super weird thing? I believed him, and I was definitely a hard sell.
Since poking and prodding wasn’t getting me anywhere, I retreated to my squishy sofa and flopped down in a pile of sprawled arms and legs. Not like I had to be on my best behavior for the Prince of... “Hey, Don, what’s your title again?”
He shrugged. “The Prince of Darkness and Destruction—just part of the menacing gig, you know? Cultivate a terror-inducing image and suddenly the minions are quivering in fear and the lesser demons quit hassling you.”
“So you’re saying being good at being a bad demon is basically all marketing?”
He joined me in my tiny living area. He could either sit on the ottoman or my bed. He delivered my tea and sat on the ottoman. “For me it was marketing, but that’s because I don’t want to beat people up.”
“Why in the world do what you do if it doesn’t suit your personality?” I eyed his earnest expression and sipped my perfectly steeped and sweetened tea...that I hadn’t asked for. It was really good. “If your job doesn’t suit your nature, why do it?” Because I was beginning to suspect that Don might be a lot of things that had nothing to do with being evil or menacing.
He gave me a sheepish look. “Good health care? Grass-fed beef?”
Yeah, I had no clue what that meant. “Um, okay. So about me groping you being the antidote to your bronziness...?”
“Temporary antidote, and you don’t have to, ah, grope me.”
Oh. My. God. He was blushing.
If I wasn’t careful, this guy would charm the panties off me.
The socks. I totally meant socks.
His pink-cheeked visage made me question if that was such a terrible thing. Would a faery-chasing player blush over a little fondling chitchat? My gut said no, but Grandpa Tom had also been one of my fave relatives up until I learned about his philandering ways.
“All right, big guy. What exactly do I have to do to keep you from turning into the main attraction of small-town Texas?”
He grinned. “The main attraction?”
“Oh, yeah. You’re super hot. You know it, so don’t pretend like it’s some kind of surprise that all the women of Bandera, Texas wanted to tickle your tush.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “And the tourists. It was actually pretty uncomfortable. Would you want strangers touching you without permis
sion?”
My gaze drifted down to his crotch.
“Whoa! No one groped my...”
Watching him struggle for some appropriate verbiage was entertaining, but I put him out of his misery after a few seconds. “Man jewels?” I provided helpfully.
He chuckled. The sound was deep, delicious, and felt like it was touching my innards—in a shivery, girly, good way.
“Sure. No one got quite that familiar. And I know they couldn’t have any idea there was an actual person trapped inside the bronze, so I don’t blame them. But it was uncomfortable.”
“Now you know how pregnant women feel. They don’t even have a sign hung around their neck, and people they barely know get all up in their space and creepy with the bump-touching.”
He winced. “I’ve never done that.”
“I believe it. Seems to be a woman thing, mostly.” And just like that, we’d established a comfortable, easy vibe. Like I was chatting with one of my girlfriends over margaritas. Except a super-hot girlfriend...who was a dude. Riiight.
“Any contact does it,” Don murmured.
“Sorry? Oh, the de-bronzing! Cool, right.” And I nodded, because now I was all awkward and weird and thinking about how yummy he was. Manly hands—check. Square jaw—check. Arm porn—dangit, even without his arms crossed, check. I knew his bum was nice, because I’d molested him while he’d been trapped by a vengeful demon’s curse. “Hey, about that touching, you know, that I did before? When you were piece of art. Sorry about that.”
“No problem. You weren’t nearly so aggressive as some, and you freed me, so that’s a huge bonus.” He tipped his head, something I noticed he did when he was sorting through a problem. “One question, though. Couldn’t you tell there was a person in there?”
Pushing my glasses up my nose, I considered his question. Should I have been able to? There had been this weird feeling that I was doing something wrong by touching what I’d believed to be a statue, but I couldn’t attribute that to some greater knowledge. “Nope. How would I do that?”
He blinked, clearly confused. “Aren’t you part faery?”