Page 83 of Just One Little Bargain

I step forward. Evie reaches up, and her fingers find the fabric where it’s folded against the nape of my neck. She smooths the collar around to the front, and her knuckles graze the hollow below my Adam’s apple. My pulse beats into her palm. She has to feel how fast it’s going.

My hand settles on her waist, just above her hip. She steps closer instead of backing away, and her hips are inches from mine. Her pupils are so wide that the green is barely a ring.

“Milo.”

Her lips part, but whatever she meant to say next doesn’t come. Then her gaze drops to my mouth and stays. Nobody has ever looked at me like that.

I’ve got a list of reasons I shouldn’t do this. It’s long, well-researched, and carefully maintained. Unfortunately, I can’t remember a single item on it.

I lower my head until there’s barely an inch between us. Her fingers slide from my collar to the back of my neck and pull me closer until my nose brushes hers. If she makes one more sound, I’m going to kiss her. And once I start, I don’t think I’ll stop.

The shop bell chimes, sudden and loud enough to wrench us apart. Evie stumbles back two full steps, her hip knocking against a rack hard enough to rattle every hanger on the rail. I catch myself on the mirror frame, chest heaving.

A man steps out through the front door, letting it swing shut behind him.

“That was . . .” She shakes her head. “We don’t need to make it a thing.”

I open my mouth to tell her I want it to be a thing, but the man in the dark jacket crossing the street outside catches my attention. He glances back, and for half a second, his eyes flash deep red. A smug grin hooks his mouth before he turns away.

Demon.

“I’ll be right back.” I’m already heading for the door.

“Milo.” Evie steps away from the rack she’d been gripping. “What’s going on?”

“I know that guy. Give me a second.”

I push through the front door, where the sidewalk stretches in both directions. Morning sun warms the brick facades. A woman with a stroller crosses toward the bakery while an old man locks his bicycle to a post outside the hardware store. Krell should be twenty feet ahead of me. He had a ten-second lead, fifteen at most.

The street holds nothing of him. No retreating back, no jacket turning a corner, not even the sulfuric trace I should be able to track with my eyes closed. He stepped off the threshold of this shop and vanished into Brindlewood as if he’d never been there.

A passing woman gives me a curious look before I force myself to move.

Krell is a soul collector. One of the best, if you measure by volume and don’t bother examining how that volume is built. But he’s also a thief. That’s the cleanest word for what he does. His specialty is finding demons who are failing and taking their assignments before the deadline hits. He moves in on the target, secures the contract, and walks away with the prize while the original demon gets dragged back to Hell empty-handed.

I check the alley past the hardware store and find no trace of him.

I’ve done nothing but hesitate since I arrived. It’s my fifth day in the mortal realm, and I haven’t even begun to negotiate a contract with Evie because I’ve been too busy falling into her life to remember I’m supposed to be taking something from it. Krell would have seen all of that. That gap between what I should be doing and what I’ve actually done is his entire business model.

Another demon being here means Evie isn’t safe.

Chapter 23

Evie

Iadded the firepit two years ago when bookings were thin and I needed something to justify the “charming seasonal experience” line on my website. Now, once a month, always on a Sunday, I host a bonfire evening for whoever is staying at the Foxglove. String lights loop between the posts, mismatched chairs circle the stone ring, and cider warms over the grate while the lawn slips into the dark shoulder of the forest beyond.

Guests love it. I’ve hosted dozens of these evenings without a single incident. Which makes Milo appointing himself firekeeper tonight, while I sit in a chair issuing corrections nobody requested, feel personally designed to drive me insane.

Daisy’s been telling me for years that I don’t have to run every evening down to the last log. I’ve spent just as long refusing to test that theory. But it isn’t losing control that’s undoing me tonight. It’s who I’m handing it to.

Milo takes things out of my arms before I know they’re heavy. He notices when I’ve been on my feet too long, and finds a reason for me to sit that lets me pretend it was my idea. I keep waiting to resent it, but I don’t.

Most people help me and make me feel like a burden for needing it. Milo treats what I built as the impressive part, not the fact that I need help running it. I don’t know what to do with a man who thinks my ordinary life is worth paying attention to. I’ve never had to figure it out before.

“The logs need better airflow,” I say, unable to stop myself. “You’re stacking them like you’re building a tower.”

Milo’s hands move with precision, arranging kindling in a perfect teepee structure. “I’m aware of combustion science, Evie. We have fire in Hell. Quite a lot of it, actually.”