She swivels to meet my eye. “An HEA. It stands for Happily Ever After.”
I can’t help but smile. “You really are a romance book lover, aren’t you?”
A pretty blush springs to her cheeks. “Yeah well, I think the HEA is a goal for most love stories, fictional or nonfictional.”
“You are very right about that,” I add, tilting my head in deference so she knows I’m not teasing.
An unsettling pressure pushes at my chest. Not just because I missed a detail that helps the plan, but because now Cinder’s naked finger legitimately bothers me. The need to circle that digit in some kind of binding metal to show that she is taken swells in me.
For the plan, I try to remind myself.
Not because I want to broadcast that she is off limits.
The memory of her normally placid face fighting off any indicator she was coming at the table next to me heats me from the inside out. A considerable feat since I’m always room temperature.
But fae fucks that was hot.
Normally after something salacious like that I’d happily wave goodbye to my partner and head off in pursuit of more depraved activities with others, but I’m hungry. Hungry to get her alone, to explore all her piercings and tattoos. I want to make her scowl, make her smile—like really smile. And I want to annoy the ever-loving shit out of her with the million more nicknames I cook up.
Hell, I could have grabbed any number of willing partners to take to my room and have them suck me off seven ways from Sunday. Instead, I jerked off in the shower, not once but twice, thinking only of those cupid-bows lips, violet eyes, and the smell of vanilla and charred cedar.
Even now, I can barely take my eyes off her perfect pout and flat gaze as she takes drink orders and effortlessly moves back and forth without even the hint of a smile.
Where I must constantly perform, pasting on a smile, schmoozing the masses of Midnight and the Common World, she doesn’t perform for anyone.
Cinder doesn’t do shit she doesn’t want to and that hits me like a hammer to the chest. Is it envy, admiration, respect, or something else?
“You,” a voice calls, “Come with me.”
I turn to find the mohawked owner of Poison Apple crooking a finger at me with sharp, narrowed eyes.
Speaking of people not giving a fuck of what others think. . .
I follow the original badass of the bar to her office where she barks to shut the door behind me. Despite the rich, magical opulence of the bar, her office is minimalist and clean. A sleek laptop sits on the desk and a file cabinet is tucked into a corner. The only signs of personality come from the kitten calendar on the wall. The kitty hanging onto a ledge encourages me tohang in there.
Taking one of the seats across from the desk, I consider the possibility that Rap may literally hang me, judging by the dark thundercloud over her head. She’s human, but I can’t rule out the possibility she’d strike me with lightning from sheer force of will.
And I can’t help but feel like she might be more than human, though I can’t put my finger on why or what.
“Does she know about your connection to the Mice? What you are trying to pull? How you are using her?” Questions shoot out of Rap’s mouth like speeding bullets.
Ping ping ping.Each question hits me dead center in my forehead.
“Uhh. . .”
Rap stands, slamming her hands on the desk with a loud thwang. “Don’t fuck with me, Charming. You may be a prettyplayboy prince, but no one messes with my girls. I’ll cut off your little prick before you hurt Cinder.”
I recoil into the tiny office chair as much as I can, even lifting a leg and crossing it over my precious bits protectively as I hold up my hands. “Whoa, whoa, I’m not trying to hurt her.”
She snorts. Unlike Cinder’s little huffs, this is that of a pissed off bull.
“We have a mutually beneficial arrangement here.” Even as I explain, my brain is racing trying to figure out how this human bar owner knows about Mice, much less my involvement. “When we’ve reached our respective goals, the engagement will be dissolved.”
Still bearing over the desk and me, Rap bares her teeth. “I asked if she knows.”
Dropping my arm and legs slightly, I drop all measures of my likeable façade. “No, but I decided she didn’t need to know.”
Rap sucks in a breath as if ready to blowtorch me with the fire in her body, but I cut her off.
