Page 75 of Just One Little Bargain

The button clicks, and the machine begins its low, familiar gurgle. He sets the canister back in its exact spot, lining the label to the front the way I would have, and returns to his corner.

I adjust the flame under the cast iron and keep my mouth shut, because the only honest response is thank you, and apparently those two words are beyond me this morning.

“Let me do something. I’m just standing here.”

“You’re observing.”

“I’m useless.”

“Those aren’t mutually exclusive.” But I hand him the spoon anyway because my ankle throbs with every shift of weight, and if I don’t delegate something soon, I’m going to end up on the floor. “Fold, don’t stir.”

He drives it into the batter with all the subtlety of a cement mixer.

“Oh my God.”

“What?”

“You just obliterated four blueberries.”

“They’re in the batter. That’s where they go.”

“They go in whole. You made blueberry soup.” I gesture with increasing frustration. “Take the spoon down through the center, scrape along the bottom, bring it up and over the top. It’s not complicated.”

He tries again, sinking the spoon into the mixture, dragging it along the bottom, then rotating the wrong way and smashing three blueberries against the side of the bowl. Purple bleeds through the pale batter.

I limp over and wrap my hand around his.

“The motion comes from the wrist.”

I don’t process the full scope of what I’ve done until I’m already doing it. His hand is under mine, and large enough that my fingers barely span the width of his knuckles. I pull the spoon through the batter in one clean fold and his arm comes with me, the tension in his grip dissolving the moment I take over. He follows without hesitation, and the easy willingness of it sends heat up my arm.

“Now rotate the bowl.”

His bare forearm drags across mine. Beside me, his ribs expand with a breath, and this close, the flush spreading up his neck is impossible to miss.

I let go and cross back to my counter. The pain in my ankle when I put my weight down is a gift. Without it, I’d still be standing there, touching him, calculating how little effort it would take to slide my palm up his forearm.

He’s a demon. A fact I keep having to restate to myself with increasing urgency whenever he gets within arm’s reach. If he were a man who’d wandered into town, ended up helping me cook breakfast because my ankle was wrecked, and taken notes the night before because he genuinely wanted to learn, I wouldn’t be fighting this. I’ve never reacted to anyone like this. It’s unfair that the first person to make me forget every sensible rule I live by is someone I can’t want. His demonic origins are supposed to stop me, and they’re barely functioning as a speed bump.

Milo frowns into the bowl, attempting another fold on his own. His tongue presses against his lower lip in concentration.

“Better?”

“Getting there.” Apparently, normal speech has left the building.

He finishes the last fold and turns toward me, bowl cradled against his chest, looking proud of himself.

“You have flour on your face.”

My hand flies up. “What? Where?”

He sets the bowl down and steps closer. I don’t step back.

“Hold still.”

His fingers tremble against my jaw. His thumb traces my cheekbone, skims the corner of my mouth, then drags across my lower lip.

He jerks back.