Page 63 of An Espresso Machine’s Guide to Love & Mischief

Her hand darts up to grab mine, misses, and lands in my hair instead.

The moment she touches me, a jolt travels down my spine and to my cock, making it twitch. My skin tingles, and I shiver. What the fuck? I frown as I try to ignore the sensation.

I hesitate, but she doesn’t. She grabs my fist—without missing this time—and her hand on mine sends an endless tingly warmth down my arm.

Fuck. I need to knock her out and get the hell out of here with my espresso machine.

“Why did you follow me here just to jump me?” she demands.

“I didn’t follow you,” I hiss.

“Yes, you did! You followed me from the clown car—not a literal clown car, but you know that—down to the waterfront. I saw you!”

“I wasn’t following you.” I was following my mate, the espresso machine, who shouted demands at her kidnappers as though she expected everyone to do whatever she told them—like this woman is doing now.

My mate drew me to her like a magnet to her metal side, the same way this woman is drawing me to her now.

“You’re a terrible liar,” she says.

“I’ve beaten lie detectors—”

“Me too!” she cries. “But no way you have. You lie like my friend Tiffany did when she got caught shoplifting from Tiffany’s. She claimed she owned the store because look, her name was above the door.”

She’s trying to distract me, and fuck, it’s working. I yank my fist free of her hand and pull it back to hit her. She flinches, and it’s as though she’s stabbed me in the chest.

I gape at her, and she meets my eyes with her wide ones, half scared and half angry.

“Mate,” I say without thinking. What. The. Fuck.

“Oh, you’re British now,” she says. “I can do a wonderful English accent from that week I was on Coronation Street—they never did air those episodes, though. Too bad, eh, gov’nor,” she adds in a terrible English accent.

A laugh escapes me, like she just reached down my throat and yanked it out. But I stop laughing when I remember what I just said to her.

Mate.

It’s undeniable that I feel the same pull toward this woman who poison-darted me as I did toward the espresso machine. But I didn’t feel anything like this for ol’ Lady Venom when I first saw her.

Something is definitely off here.

“What…” I take a deep breath, half afraid of the answer she might give. “What happened to the espresso machine?”

“The machine is over there.” She nods to the kitchen’s entrance. “I’m right here.”

I frown. “I’m not asking about you. What happened to her?”

“Who?”

“The espresso machine!”

“I’m right here!” she shouts.

“The fuck are you talking about?” I snap.

She frowns. “My spirit was in the espresso machine, but now I’m here. Yeah, I know. I didn’t think it was possible either, but here I am…”

“You… you mean…”

“Somehow, I body hopped. The actual body belongs to McKay. She’s still in here, but I’m driving this car. Person. Whatever.”