Page 86 of Jinxes and Drumsticks

I’m not sure what my face looks like, but suddenly Damien cups my face in both hands and smooths his thumbs over the plane of my forehead, displacing my bangs a little. “What’s that look for?” he asks. “Where’d you go off to in that head of yours?”

I blink, chewing on the inside of my lip. “I just... uhm—anticipating relationship complications, I guess,” I mumble.

“You know that you can’t pregame that shit, right?” he asks.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that no amount of overplanning or worrying has ever stopped something from being hard when the time comes. No one has ever said, ‘Man, I’m so glad I spent weeks or months or years worrying about this thing before it happened; now I don’t have to feel any pain or discomfort over it,’” he says, with such a cheerful tone that I can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it.

“Right,” I finally say, my heart feeling a little more buoyant. “You’re right.”

“Let’s just... enjoy this as much as we can, Little Bird,” he says. “Let’s cross the tougher bridges when we get to them. We only get to be in the blissful honeymoon phase for a little while, so let’s just bask in it. Let me spoil you, let me crash in your annoyingly tiny bed, let me make you breakfast after I deny your orgasms all night—”

“Excuse me?” I interject. “You wouldn’t do that to me. That would be evil.”

“Depends how much of a brat you’re being,” he teases, cracking a sinister and yet impossibly charming grin before kissing the tip of my nose. “I think you’re losing the flogger for the tease right now, babe. We’re having a conversation here.”

“Yeah. That’s not how that idiom goes,” I say through another laugh.

“No? You sure?” he asks.

“Pretty sure,” I say.

“Huh—we’ll have to google it,” he says with a wink. Then he leans in to kiss me, slow and deep and... gods, his tongue. He kisses me just long enough for my breath to quicken, and my knees turn to jelly. When he stops and grins, he’s supporting my weight against his firm, large body, and I want nothing more than to go home and climb into my annoyingly small bed with him.

“So, you going to lead me to this Cat’s Cradle place or what?” he asks, his smile a little too knowing.

He brushes his thumbs a little firmly over my upper and lower lips and I realize his own mouth is smeared with my favorite merlot lipstick. I reach up to clean it off and he avoids my fingers.

“Leave it,” he says.

“Really?”

“I love wearing evidence that you chose to kiss me—or bite me—or generally mark me in any way.”

“But... but it looks silly,” I say.

“Do you still think I’m hot?”

“Yeah,” I say. Honestly, it’d be impossible not to think that.

“Then I don’t give a fuck. Now take me to dinner before I get cranky,” he says.

I scoff and then let out a full, rich laugh. He looks at me like he’s won the lottery. Maybe we both have. “Alright, alright,” I say, taking one of his hands in mine and leading the way. “Let’s go see Miss Floriana.”

We start walking and I feel him watching me, almost incessantly. When I finally look up at him, he’s smiling softly at me.

“What?” I ask, the word coming out a little breathy.

“I’m just...” He shakes his head. “I... have no idea why you’re putting up with me. I have no idea what a woman who has actual magic flowing through her veins wants to do with a horny idiot like me.”

I smile softly. “You ever heard of Occam’s Razor?”

His brow furrows. “Can’t say it rings any bells,” he says.

“When you’re out of town next week, you should Google it,” I say.

He huffs, his eyes narrowing. “Are you up to something?”