Page 116 of Dragon Her Heels

I wondered how much it would bother him if I told him the truth regarding the times I’d gone a little too close to the Valley of the Shadow of Death. “I’m convinced Susie Marie and Donna Leanne have almost killed me a few times with their pies.”

“That I can believe.”

“I got sick a time or two—the kind where I probably should have gone to the hospital sooner but didn’t. Once, I recovered on my own. The other, I spent two days there before going home and regretting I’d left. There was also an accident—a hit and run. I was on the sidewalk. The driver was drunk. I got lucky there. I suffered from bruising and a head injury. The head injury about did me in, but I recovered in record time. I suffered, but I only missed one day of work.”

Yuless narrowed his eyes. “You didn’t have enough sick days to recover?”

I shrugged. “I milked those bastards for all they were worth, and that’s why I’m helping my boss tear their empire down around their ears. I’m targeting their suppliers and vendors first. If my boss owns those, he can transition away to other customers and leave them flailing. I can take their good fortunes and make them his—and that dragon is a lot of things, but he’s good at general destruction. And he seems to have good business sense. When I tell him to rethink something, he stops and does just that. And while he doesn’t always follow my suggestions, he does, ultimately, find a better way to handle the situation. If he keeps that up, he’ll conquer most of the world.”

“Most?”

“I am the one mountain he will never be able to climb. I will not be conquered, not even by my partner.”

Yuless chuckled. “How about temporarily and in the bedroom?”

“That is the only permissible conquering of my person, but only if I get my fair share of turns being the conqueror.”

“That seems fair and reasonable. Evening conquering is permitted, but we must share who gets to conquer and who gets to be conquered.”

I nodded. “And on really bad days, gentle and peaceful needs to be the appropriate pacing.”

“There is a time and a place for such things, yes. Anything else?”

“I really like racing my horses, so I’ll have to insist you come with me and serve as my groom.”

“Easily done. All right. My list is quite similar. Work won’t be an issue often, but it will be an issue sometimes, I’m sure. We’re on the same page, although I refuse to eat pies from anyone on the street other than you or Isaac. I value my life.”

“You won’t eat your pies?”

“I’m the first to admit mine are horrific. I just want to see if I can reinvent the pie from screwing around with the ingredient list. So far, no. I’m about to cave and read some instructions, though, especially if reading the instructions wins me more dates. I enjoy this sort of thing. It’s a nice escape from the world for a while.”

“The private dining parlor is nice, and we’re definitely going to have to impose on the forces of the heavens and the hells to arrange for us to go to restaurants with private rooms for our dates. Peace and quiet with good company is rare, especially in my house.”

“I propose we have a date like this at least once a month, and we abuse Lucifer for transportation as required.”

My wallet would weep tears of blood being fancy once a month, but as the date proposal involved abusing the Devil, I would accept the cost with a smile. “That sounds reasonable. Then we’re agreed. We feast, and tomorrow, we begin the careful explorations of personal chemistry. I don’t know about you, but my goal is to have as few leftovers as possible by the time we’re done here.”

“We’re going to regret this,” he warned.

“But we will earn our regrets joyfully. Just focus on what’s important, Yuless. We get to abuse Lucifer for our personal gain.”

“That we do. Whomever eats the most gets to conquer the other first.”

“You’re on, pretty boy. You are so going to lose, and your chance to conquer me in bed will be a consolation prize for your defeat.”