Page 101 of Just One Little Bargain

I’m the picture of innocence.

She stops beside the couch, and even in the dark, I know she’s looking down at me. The night air clings to her clothes as I hold myself completely still beneath the quilt.

“I can tell you’re awake.”

Chapter 29

Evie

Inudge Milo, and his eyes open. He shifts upward, the quilt pooling at his hips, exposing the white slick of come across his stomach.

There’s a version of me who averts her eyes and pretends the last ten seconds didn’t happen. But my gaze is already tracing the ridge of his collarbone, dropping to the flat plane of his stomach, following the line of dark hair below his navel.

Milo tracks my stare down to his own body. The color drains out of his face and floods immediately back in, red climbing his throat. He grabs a fistful of quilt and hauls it up to his chest.

“Evie.” My name comes out strangled. “I wasn’t . . . This isn’t what it . . . I can explain.”

It’s written all over him, in the octave his voice just achieved, and the white of his knuckles gripping the fabric. And the thing is, I don’t want him to explain. I want to put my mouth to the flushed skin under his jaw and feel his pulse trip against my tongue.

“I’m so sorry.” The apology tumbles out of him in a rush. “This is your home, your couch. I violated your trust and your space. I have no justification for any of it. If you want me to go, I understand. I’ll go right now. I’ll—”

I straddle him and take his mortified, burning face in both hands. I kiss him with all the wanting I’ve been forcing down since the night he appeared in my living room and dismantled my life. His body turns to marble beneath me.

Milo makes a low, ruined sound against my mouth, and his fingers find my hair.

The glasses are gone. I’ve got no idea when that happened, only that without them the shy, bumbling demon I’m used to looks a lot less harmless. It’s doing dangerous things to my ability to think straight. I’ve spent my whole life keeping people at a manageable distance, and over the last two weeks Milo crossed it without me noticing. I’ve wanted exactly this and been too scared to admit it.

Our tongues slide together. Milo’s hips lift into me, and instead of the mortified retreat I’m braced for, he chases the friction, grinding the hard length of himself against me. His palm spreads across my lower back and pulls me down harder. The answering ache between my legs turns vicious.

My fingers slide lower, dragging through the sticky white streaks across his stomach. His head falls back against the pillow, and I almost pull away. I know what I’m doing. I just haven’t done it in a long time, and never with a demon, which makes the usual rules feel loosely applicable at best. That’s the thought that makes my nerve falter as I close around his cock and stroke.

A hiss slips through Milo’s teeth. He fills my hand by degrees, heavier with every pass of my palm, the shaft thickening against my fingers until I have to curl my grip tighter around him. The head presses blunt and swollen against my thumb on every upward stroke, his skin drawn tight. The panic disappears beneath a rush of filthy satisfaction. I tighten my grip just to see what happens, then drag my mouth down the straining column of his neck. Milo bucks hard into my hand, the movement punching a rough sound out of him and nearly knocking me off balance.

“Evie.” He catches my face between both hands and holds me still. His eyes are blown nearly black, only the thinnest ring of glowing violet clinging to the edges. “You’re sure this is what you want?”

There’s a sensible woman inside me filing objections. We haven’t been on speaking terms since the first night Milo showed up. I press my hips down against him, dragging the hard ridge of his erection against the wet ache between my legs. “What do you think?”

“Tell me. I need to hear it.”

“I want you, Milo.”

The restraint he’s been white-knuckling since I climbed onto this couch finally gives. He kisses me deeper, one hand sliding into my hair while the other locks around my waist and holds me against him. I had expectations. They involved a great deal more flailing. Instead, his mouth is patient and infuriatingly thorough, tongue stroking against mine until I’m the one chasing him when he pulls back half an inch. Milo kisses like he’s got all night and intends to use every second of it.

When I catch his bottom lip between my teeth and tug, a broken sound slips out of him. His hips jerk beneath mine and his fingers tighten at my waist. I do it again because apparently I’m a terrible person when rewarded properly. I’ve never in my life felt this powerful and this wanted at once.

“Tell me what you want.” His lips move along my jaw. “I need you to actually say it, because I’ll overthink every option and pick the wrong one. I can’t get this wrong. Not with you.”

My fingers curl into his bare shoulders. “I don’t know. Your mouth. Your hands. Just . . . all of it. Anything.”

A visible shudder travels through his body. He pulls back just enough for me to see the conflict in his eyes.

“I should tell you that I . . .” The flush on his chest deepens. “After what I did earlier . . . I’m not going to be able to . . .” He gestures vaguely at his own lap. “Not yet.”

“Milo.”

“But I want to.” The flush is still on his throat, but his eyes don’t waver. “I want to make you feel good. I want to learn what makes you arch, what makes you beg, every sound I can get out of you.” His hand tightens at my waist. “Will you let me?”

Heat floods through me so fast it’s almost dizzying. This is the thing about Milo. He second-guesses himself out loud. Rambles when he’s nervous. Asks permission for everything. And then he says something like that.