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“Hmm.” Rather than put the book back in the cupboard, he briefly flicked through it.
She put a hand on her hip and cocked her head. “So, what, you want my demon to hurt you?”
“Not especially.”
She blinked. “The answer should really be an absolute ‘no’.”
“Meh.”
Lowering her arm to her side, she slowly shook her head and turned away. “Sometimes, when I consider that your sense of self-preservation is shaky at best, I have no clue how you’re alive.”
“It is a conundrum,” he allowed as he replaced the book and dragged two towels out of the cupboard. “But no one will come at me when I’m fake-dating a badass harpy who’d kick their asses or let loose her nutcase of a demon on them.” He closed the cupboard, frowning as her expression changed. “Why are you smiling at me like that?”
Her lips twitched, widening her smile a little. “Like what?”
“Like I’m clueless or something.” It made his beast bristle.
She cradled his face with her hands. Cradled. His. Face. “You’re just so cute,” she said, squishing his cheeks as if he was five or something.
He drew his head back, making her hands slip away. “I don’t think anyone has ever described me as cute before. Hot. Sexy. Big-dicked. Never cute.” He wasn’t certain how he felt about it.
“There’s a first time for everything. Right?”
Narrowing his eyes again, he pointed an accusing finger at her. “You’re just trying to distract me from my line of questioning.” It made him so proud that she’d picked up that habit from him.
She gave a breezy shrug. “If you say so.”
“I do say so, and I won’t be sidetracked this time. No way.”
“Good for you.” She swiped a towel from him. “Now, are we taking a shower or what? I want to put that big dick of yours to good use, but I can’t right here and now.”
And he lost his grip on the question he’d meant to ask. “Wait, why can’t we have sex here and now?”
“We’re covered in blood.” She didn’t add obviously, but he heard it in her tone.
Teague felt his brow furrow. “So?”
“So I don’t want to have sex while smears of blood are all over my skin and that of the person who’s fucking me.”
“Why not?”
She fired a disbelieving look at him. “Because it’s icky.”
“Icky?”
“Yes, icky.”
He did a slow blink, struggling to follow her line of thinking. Finally, he shrugged. “All right, if it’s really such a big deal for you . . . ”
Her eyes flashed. “How could it not be a big deal? Like, for anyone?”
Teague opened his mouth to speak but then bit down on his bottom lip. “I get the feeling that I don’t have a response that won’t irritate you. Which would normally please me. But I want to fuck you, and I don’t think you’ll let me if you’re mad at me. You didn’t last time.” Which was completely unreasonable.
Her eyelids lowered slightly. “Because last time, you tried sticking a mini marshmallow up my nose while you thought I was sleeping.”
“It was an accident.”
Her brows snapped together. “How does one do that by accident?”
Scratching his nape, he raised his shoulders. “Okay, so I wanted to wake you up,” he admitted with an incline of his head.
“And you couldn’t have just, you know, gently shook me or something?”
Well . . . he supposed he could have, now that he thought about it. It just really hadn’t occurred to him at the time.
Closing her eyes, she slammed up a hand—something she did a lot around him in pure exasperation, which he really loved. “Just don’t try stuffing things up my nose again,” she said. “That’s all I ask.”
“What do you have against things being stuffed in holes? I still can’t believe you’re not open to figging. You can’t be scared of a little ginger peel.”
Her eyes flipped open. “I’m not scared of it. It just isn’t going up my ass. Ever.”
“But—”
“No.”
“Just give it a chance.”
“No.”
“You’ll like it.”
“Uh, no, I won’t. At all. Not in the slightest. Now can we end this pointless conversation and just. Go. Shower?” Her hand clenched around the towel. “What, why the fuck are you grinning like an idiot?”
“I can’t help it, I plain love it when you snarl and—fuck, don’t throw shit at me, Lark!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Two months later
Standing in one of the racing stadium’s VIP boxes, Larkin watched through the glass wall as twenty hellhorses trotted onto the oval dirt track. Whistles and cheers split the air, loud and laced with anticipation. Their heads proudly held high, the steeds came to a smooth halt near the start line. Among them was Teague’s beast.
Larkin cricked her neck, edgy with nerves. How could she not be, given how dangerous the sport was?
Even before she’d crossed platonic lines with Teague, she’d felt a little nervous when he raced. It was worse now that they were mates—something he wasn’t yet aware of, but she didn’t feel that his obliviousness was necessarily important.
