A Fiend in Need

by Maureen Child

  I wasn’t wearing makeup. But he wouldn’t want to hear about the whole demon-and–Demon Duster thing again, so I let it go. Besides, it was nice of him to wonder if I was okay or not. “Thanks for checking on me, but I’m fine. So…”

  “You could let me finish my cinnamon roll before throwing me out.”

  I sighed again. My nice, private swing time was shattering around me. God, he smelled good. That cologne he wore was sort of spicy/musky delicious, and the wind seemed determined to keep pushing the scent at me.

  “So, you gonna help me move?”

  “Say what?” I blinked at him, and he grinned.

  He laughed. “It was worth a shot.” He looked from me to the darkened, empty house across the street. “I know you’re not crazy about me moving in over there…”

  Understatement of the century. Actually of all time. It was right up there with Noah saying, “I think it’s going to rain.” Or Custer muttering, “I think I saw an Indian.”

  “But,” he went on, oblivious to my thoughts, “it’s important to me. I want to be a part of Thea’s life.”

  “I know.”

  “Of your life.”

  “Logan…”

  “I’m back, Cassie.” He stopped the swing, looked me square in the eye and said, “And I’m not going anywhere. We could start over, you and me. Maybe we’d be good together.”

  “And maybe it’d be a disaster.”

  His mouth quirked. “Disasters can be fun, too.”

  He always had been able to make me smile. I pulled a piece of cinnamon roll free, nibbled at it and said softly, “Things are different now, Logan. You don’t even know me anymore.”

  He shifted on the swing to look deeper into my eyes. “Yeah, I do. You’re still Cassie. You’re still the only woman who haunts me.”

  Hmm. Good? Bad? “I’m not that sixteen-year-old girl you remember.”

  “I’m not a kid either,” he said, and nipped the piece of cinnamon roll from my fingers to feed it to me. “But we could find something together, Cassie.”

  Tempting. Too, too tempting. Which was pretty darn scary from my point of view.

  Oh, boy. “Jeez, Logan.” I took a deep breath, shook my head and said, “Why don’t you concentrate on Thea for now? You want to be a dad? Great. But you just moved back. Your divorce papers from Binky are still wet—”

  “Misty.”

  “Whatever. My point is, what’s the big hurry?”

  He leaned back on the swing and set it rocking again. “I feel like I’ve wasted a lot of years, Cassie. Years with you and Thea. I was a dick when I was a kid. When we were together. No question.” He squeezed my shoulder. “But that was then. This is now, Cassie. And I don’t want to waste any more time.”

  I felt a ping in my heart, and a rush of emotion charged through me. Logan was still the only man who could make me feel this much, this deeply. He scared the crap out of me. What if I softened up? Let myself get close to him again? And what if I screwed up not only my life, but Thea’s too?

  “I already have a life, Logan,” I said, taking another bite of the cinnamon roll. “And you’re not in it.”

  He winced. “Fair enough. But that could change.”

  I watched him watch me, and the sizzle in his eyes was pretty powerful. Logan had always had that certain something designed to drive me insane. When I was sixteen I’d fallen head over heels for him. I gave him my virginity; he gave me Thea and then life had rolled on.

  Could you really back up and start over again?

  And should you? I mean, I had just ended a fling with a demon. Did I really have the energy to try to get something going with my ex?

  When did I become Miss Popularity?

  While I was chewing and trying to unravel the secrets of the universe, he frowned and lifted his head. “What’s that chanting?”

  I waved one hand. “Thea and Brady are working on her cheerleader routine.”

  He frowned harder. “You really think it’s okay to have that guy living here? Spending time with Thea?”

  So much for me trying to find a way to fit Logan into my life. He’s been an official dad for, like, a month, and every time he offers his opinion, I want to shout, I’ve been doing this on my own for nearly sixteen years and I’ve done a damn good job of it, so butt out! Oh, yeah. We had a real shot at a future together.

  But all I said was, “Yes, and let me think about this…Yes.”

  He dropped the rest of his cinnamon roll back in the bag, wiped his fingers on his jeans and looked at me. “What’s going on around here, Cassie? Who is this Brady character, and why’re you pissed off at Cole?”

  “Brady is a Faery,” I said, just because it was fun and I wanted to watch Logan’s jaw do the twitch thing. I wasn’t disappointed. “And why I’m mad at Devlin is none of your business.”

  “Okay, but just so we’re clear, you’re not seeing Cole anymore?”

  I wished I could stop seeing him. But when I closed my eyes, I got the whole picture back in living color again. Probably not what Logan meant, though. “No, I’m not seeing him anymore.”

  “Good.”

  If I could have lifted an eyebrow, I would have. “Thanks for your support.”

  “Hey, never pretended to be anything but interested in you, Cassie.” He slid one arm along the back of the swing and stroked my shoulder. Even through the fabric of my gray sweatshirt I felt the imprint of his touch. Logan’s good like that.

  I stopped chewing and looked at him. In the wash of moonlight he looked pretty spectacular. His black hair was a little too long, hitting the collar of the dark red flannel shirt he wore jacket-style over a black T-shirt. His jeans were worn in all the right places, and the boots he wore were scuffed. He was the anti-Devlin.

  Devlin Cole was great suits and was polished perfection. Logan was down and dirty and way too touchable.

  God!

  I’m a horrible person!

  I did a mental Hail Mary and got stuck only once on the second stanza. It had been a while. But I was thinking maybe I should go back to church. Light a candle or a bonfire. I needed an intervention here.

  My hoo-hah got a little happy and all of a sudden I was hey-big-boy-want-to-play? This was sooooo not me.

  I’m a mom.

  A businessperson.

  A Demon Duster.

  For God’s sake, could I find a little self-control? Was that really too much to ask?

  I slapped one hand to his chest and held him off when he would have leaned in closer. I felt his heartbeat, and it was thudding hard and fast. Just like mine. “Look, Logan,” I said. “Just because I’m not seeing Devlin doesn’t mean I’m ready to see you.”

  “Would it really be so bad, Cassie?”

  That was the problem. I was pretty sure getting together with Logan wouldn’t be bad at all. It would probably be great.

  Then my life would just get even more confusing. And who needed that?

  My brain was racing like a mouse in a maze, going down one avenue after another, trying to find the cheese and only managing to stumble into one wall after another. Not a pretty image. I had to find a way to get us onto safer ground. Steer Logan off the subject of us and onto another one. So I blurted out the one thing sure to get his attention.

  “Thea’s in love.”

  “What? WHAT?” He looked panic-stricken—a good look on a man. His eyes were wide, and when he brought the swing to a sudden stop I almost tumbled off the damn thing. “Who is he? That thug’s not back in town, is he? The one with all the armor stuck through his face?”

  Ah. The unlamented Jett. Half-demon, Jett had had so many piercings I once watched him down a bottle of water just to see if he leaked. He didn’t.

  “Nope, it’s not Jett. Somebody new.”

  “Somebody normal?” he asked, and it sort of sounded like a prayer.

  “Depends on your idea of normal,” I said. “He’s a football player.”

  “Football?”

  “Yep. Whi
ch explains why Thea’s trying out for cheerleader.”

  Logan dropped the bakery bag onto the seat beside him, braced his elbows on his knees and cupped his face in his palms. Shaking his head, he kept talking, but his voice was muffled. “Football player. Jesus, Cassie. Why can’t she fall for some chess geek?”

  I sort of felt sorry for Logan. After all, he’d come into this whole parenting thing late. He’d hit the ground running, and he was still trying to play catch-up. And it actually felt good to be sharing the worry. Hey, if I suffer, everybody around me suffers. “She says he’s cute.”

  “God.” He lifted his head and glared at me. “Who is he?”

  I ate the last of my cinnamon roll, thought about polishing off what was left of Logan’s, then decided not to be greedy. “His name’s Ryan Butler. He’s a junior.”

  “He’s older than her?”

  Logan said this like I’d just told him the boy in question was thirty-five. “By a year, Logan.”

  “A year is a lot to a guy in high school.” He sprang up off the swing and sent me into a wild arc. The chains were screaming, and I grabbed hold of the arm of the swing and set one foot on the porch to stop the swaying. “Jeez.”

  He wasn’t paying attention to me, though; he was pulling a small memo tablet out of his jeans pocket and fishing for a pen in the pocket of his flannel shirt. “Butler, right? Ryan Butler, you said.”

  I watched him and shook my head. “What’re you gonna do? Arrest him?”

  He paused thoughtfully. “Hmm.”

  “Logan! He’s a kid.”

  “He’s a boy. A teenage boy. A football player,” Logan added on a groan. “He’s probably the king of the high school. Got girls falling all over him. Thinks he can get away with anything.” He nodded to himself, as if approving of this weird-ass train of thought. “Well, he’s not going to squash Thea like a bug. I’ll run him.”

  “Run him?” I repeated. “You mean, like, hit-and-run? Run him down? Over? Roadkill? Come on, Logan; isn’t this a little over the top?”

  “What am I, crazy?” he asked. “I’m not talking about running him down in my car. I’m going to run a check on him. Look into his record.”

  “He has a record now?”

  “See what he’s hiding,” he muttered, his eyes narrowing and a grim smile curving his mouth. “He won’t be able to get away with anything around me.”

  “Overreact much?” I said, and stood up. As much as I was enjoying seeing Logan go bananas, I had to try to dial him down a little. If he went nuts, Thea would go over the edge, and she’d make my life a living hell. And I so didn’t want that. “Logan, Thea says this guy doesn’t even know she’s alive. Relax.”

  “Relax? How the hell can I relax? You don’t know what this means, Cassie. I know guys like him,” Logan said, his voice rising. “I was him when I was in high school.”

  “Ahhh…” Suddenly it was all so very clear. Well, hell. No wonder Logan was panicking. He was imagining his little girl dating a guy just like him. Enough to make any man pause, I guess. As for me, I started thinking that maybe he was onto something.

  After all, I remembered falling hard for Logan. If Thea was anything like me…I grabbed Logan’s shirtfront and yanked him down to my eye level. “Run him.”

  Whether I was speaking to Devlin or not, my company, Clean Sweep, still had the contract to clean his club. I couldn’t exactly send Carmen in there alone to clean twelve rooms built for sin. Sure, I could have suggested she take one of her cousins, Rosario or Olympia, with her, but the truth was, I wanted to go. I wanted to see Devlin and walk right past him. I wanted to snub him so badly he bled.

  Good plan, in theory.

  “Damn it, Cassidy, you have to listen to me.”

  Hard not to when he had hold of my shoulders and was pinning me to the wall of the harem room. He’d ambushed me as soon as I entered the room.

  Lots of silk scarves hung from the ceiling. Oriental rugs covered the floors, and dozens of pillows littered the surfaces of the rugs. The bed was a king-sized mattress on the floor, covered with silk sheets and yet more pillows. And just in case the sheikh you were with got a little testy, there were chains and whips on hooks by the door.

  I tried not to look at the whips. I mean, come on. I like sex, but pain? Ew. No, thank you.

  Devlin was big, and he was pissed. His eyes were locked on mine, and I swore I could see red flashing in there again. It was a weird demon thing, I guess. No matter what color their eyes appeared to be, when they were pissed the red came out. Not that I was worried about handling Devlin. Just in case, I’d squirted myself with eau de Demon Duster before coming on this job. If he got too close, the demon spray on my skin would make him sizzle like bacon in a pan!

  He sniffed the air and made a face. “You sprayed yourself, didn’t you?”

  “You bet.”

  He dropped his forehead to mine. “Cassidy…”

  His chest was pressed to mine, his long legs aligned with mine, and I have to admit he felt good. Too good, actually.

  So just to make sure I didn’t change my mind, I gathered up my strength, gave him a push and sent him back a few paces. (Apparently the little battery charge I kept getting from a certain Faery was really topping off my new Demon Duster powers!) With space between us I could think clearly and had no trouble at all remembering exactly why I was so furious with him.

  While he glared at me, I flipped my hair out of my face and said, “Back off.”

  “If you’d listen to me for a damned minute—”

  “What could you possibly say that you haven’t said every time you phoned my house?”

  “How can you know what I’m saying when you hang up on me every time I call?”

  Had me there.

  He shoved one hand though his thick black hair and looked like he wanted to kick something. Join the club.

  “I didn’t expect to see you that day,” he started.

  “Oh! Well, then, that explains everything.” I pushed off the wall, stomped right past him and kicked a pillow into the far wall. It knocked a couple of scarves loose, and they fluttered to the floor. “You’re right. I feel so much better now. Thank God you trapped me here in Sheikhland to clear that all up. Don’t know what I was so pissed about. Wow. This is good. Thanks. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll just finish cleaning and get the hell out of here.”

  “Damn it!” His voice thundered out around me, and I was pretty sure I heard the glass in the windows rattle. “You make me insane!”

  To be fair, I get that a lot.

  “What do you want from me, Devlin?”

  “I want you to give me another chance.”

  I was speechless—for about two seconds. “HAH! Why would I do that?”

  “Because we had something.”

  Had we? Or was it more that Devlin had been there when the Duster thing first started? That I’d been grateful to have someone who knew what I was and wanted me anyway?

  I folded my arms across my chest, hitched one hip higher than the other and tapped the toe of my tennis shoe against the rug. “And how does Three Boob feel about this?”

  He rolled his eyes. “She’s got nothing to do with this.”

  “Not the way it looked to me.”

  He threw both hands in the air. “Fine. I fucked up. I made a mistake.” He came toward me, but I narrowed my eyes, and he was smart enough to take that for a sign that he should keep his distance. He stopped and nodded. “Okay. Just listen. I’m…not used to monogamy. It’s not the way we live. In the demon world that’s a rare thing.”

  “News flash. I don’t live in the demon world,” I said, and points for me. I must have been growing as a person.

  “I know.” He shoved his hands into his pockets and looked about as uncomfortable as a man-demon could look. Good.

  “Finished?” I asked.

  He blew out a breath. “Would it help to keep talking?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Okay, then, I’m
finished. For now,” he said.

  “You give up easily, don’t you?”

  “What?”

  “I tell you to stop so you stop?” Yes, I know I wasn’t making much sense. So what? Who said a rant had to be logical? “What kind of demon are you, anyway?”

  “I’m trying to be patient….”

  “Wow, thanks again. That’s just so special.” I bent down to my cleaning caddy and grabbed a pair of rubber gloves. I snapped them on. (This was a sex club, remember? I wasn’t touching anything in that room without a layer of latex between it and my body.) Then I turned and looked at Devlin, who was still standing there looking like he was torn between leaving and strangling me. I get that a lot, too.

  “Are you gonna let me get to work now?”

  “Are you going to think about that second chance?”

  If I could ever get the picture of him and his freakishly endowed demon slut out of my mind, then maybe. But until then it wasn’t going to happen.

  “I don’t know.”

  He scowled a little and finally said, “It’s all right. I understand. I can wait. You’re worth the wait.”

  Was it wrong to think that was really nice? Yes, it was wrong. And stupid.

  Yet he was looking at me, and my hormones were doing a skip and jump, and my hoo-hah was warming up, just in case I decided to forgive him. My heartbeat sped up a little, too. Jeeezz. All he’d had to do was say something sweet and endearing and I was a puddle of goo.

  Yes. I’m an idiot, all right? What’s your point?

  The important thing here is, I didn’t give in. I told my hoo-hah to go back to sleep, moved around Devlin and went for the vacuum. Keep busy, Cass. That’s the way. “I’d better get busy.”

  “All right. I’ll let you get to it,” he said, and started for the door. He stopped on the threshold, though, and said, “One more thing. The demon queen? She’s losing patience with you. Something about wanting her Faery back and you dead.”

  Good to be me.

  Chapter Ten

  The next few days were pretty busy.