Page 84 of Just One Little Bargain

“Do you have fire-starting merit badges in Hell?”

“We have torture certifications. Does that count?” He pulls a lighter from his pocket, then pauses over the half-built structure. “The guests are still inside?”

“Yeah, getting emotionally attached to my maple popcorn.”

“Do you want to see how I would do this?”

I should say no. I should keep this normal, human, and safe. “Yes.”

He pockets the lighter and holds one hand palm-down over the kindling. The kindling catches at once, blue-white flame curling up through the wood. The firelight gilds the sharp angles of his face. When he looks up through the rising smoke, I forget what I was about to correct him on.

“You’re not terrible at this.”

It’s a lie. He’s devastating at this. The green flannel I picked out at Fran’s stretches across his shoulders exactly the way I suspected it would when I held it against his chest in the shop a few days ago. At the time, I told myself I was only checking the size, not wondering whether the color would make his eyes look even stranger and prettier.

“It’s the one thing I grew up understanding.”

Of course. Demon. Hell. Eternal flames. Naturally, he’d be flawless at the part that comes with the territory.

Milo reaches into the active flames and adjusts a log with his bare hand, fingers closing around burning wood as casually as if he’s moving a coffee mug off a coaster. His forearm flexes, firelight sliding over the exposed skin of his inner arm, outlining the veins and tendons beneath the surface.

“That’s hot,” I say, and immediately regret the phrasing. “The wood. Which is on fire. And that’s . . . a hot thing to touch.”

“Mhm.” The corner of his mouth tips up. “I’ve done it before.”

“Doesn’t that hurt?”

“No.” He glances at his hand. “Though I appreciate the concern.”

“I’m invested in this evening not ending with me writing up an incident report. That’s all.”

“Ah.” He feeds another piece of wood into the flames with infuriating calm. “Purely a logistics thing.”

“Exactly.”

Milo pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose with one finger. He glances over the frames, his attention slipping to my mouth before snapping back.

If he were human—simply some sweet, strange, disarmingly competent man—I wouldn’t stand a chance.

I’ve apparently been collecting a file on him without permission. He eats the burnt edges off everything, takes his coffee with an alarming amount of sugar and acts surprised each time that it’s sweet, and reads ingredient labels like they’re novels. At some point in the last few days, I also started baking cinnamon rolls before breakfast, batch after batch, because he reacts as if I’ve handed him something holy. I’ve decided not to examine why I keep making them.

But Milo isn’t some man I can fall for and figure out later. He’s a demon on borrowed time, with a soul contract I still don’t fully understand.

And I want him anyway.

***

The cider pot steams on the folding table I dragged out an hour ago, flanked by a stack of ceramic mugs. Cinnamon and apple scent the air around it, sharpening whenever someone reaches past the pot. The fire settles with a low crack every few minutes. All five guests have migrated outside, scattered across the flagstone patio.

Ivy is curled in a chair closest to the flames, both hands wrapped around her mug. Deep blue hair spills over one shoulder, and she hasn’t stopped smiling since she stepped outside.

“This is the most magical thing I’ve ever experienced,” she says, inhaling the steam from her cider. “And I say that as someone who once did a full moon ceremony in a thunderstorm.”

“High praise.” I cross the grass, still spongy from yesterday’s rain, and tuck a throw around Nadia’s shoulders. She accepts it without looking up, which for her constitutes effusive gratitude.

“No, I mean it.” Ivy twists to face me. “Evie, this is the perfect vacation spot.”

Across the fire, her husband is deep in a conversation that only one participant is enjoying. Caleb is broad through the shoulders and softer through the middle, dark blond hair falling into his eyes as he leans forward.