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The man groaned.
On a squeak, Yesterday scuttled out the door and it slammed shut behind him, trapping her in the room with a naked guy.
Moaning, he rolled to his back.
Now Eddie definitely looked away. Her eyes threatened a mutiny and kept trying to sneak a peek. Digging in her robe pocket, she grabbed her phone to open the door. She and Yesterday were going to have words about his dash and door close.
“You,” the man rasped.
And Eddie’s head snapped up. She would know that voice anywhere. It had been whispering that one word in her dreams for weeks now.
His eyes were open and looking at her. Those eyes were so much more potent in real life, a perfect silvery gray ringed by thick, dark lashes. And judging by the gleam in them, he was pissed as…well, hell. Had he come through the hell gate? The same hell gate which now shone purest silver and swirled like liquid metal. The same hell gate Yesterday had helped her close.
Her gaze locked with Shade’s. For some inexplicable reason, her right hand raised itself and waggled its fingers at him. “Hi.”
She wanted to punch herself in the face.
The chiseled planes of his face stopped a hair short of being harsh.
“You,” he said again. “What have you done?”
Okay, as far as verbal variety went, he was not doing well. Her lame hi didn’t seem quite so inane now. Nope, it had still been dumb as fuck. And she would ask the questions here. Her basement, her hell gate, her rules. “Who are you?”
Those gray eyes stripped past her defenses and left her feeling naked. He took a slow perusal from her face down to her toes and up again. “You are not the hell guardian.” His voice was pure sex. Raspy, deep, and gritty.
Also, hold the phone there, Hotness. “Yes, I am.”
“No.” He narrowed his gaze at her. “You are something, though.”
She’d like to take that as a compliment, as in you are something else, woman, but she wasn’t getting the warm and fuzzies from the calculating gleam in his eyes. The horrible idea that she might be talking to a guardian pierced her brain. Going on the theory that a good offense was the best form of defense; she summoned all her sass. “I think the more relevant question is what you are doing in my basement.”
On a scoff, he shook his head and got his feet under him. He crouched, thigh muscles bulging, as if getting his bearings. “I am in your basement because you opened the hell gate and summoned me.” He locked those steely grays on her. “You’re a witch?”
“No.” Eddie was unclear on many details about the hell gate, but she was clear on not being a witch, and also not doing any summoning. Might not be the best time to mention Macbeth. “I didn’t summon you.”
“And yet, I am here.” He rose to what must be six three or four and worked a crick out of his neck. “I am here, and therefore I was summoned. I don’t journey to this realm for shits and giggles.” He sniffed. “Treacherous, miserable place that it is.”
On behalf of humanity, Eddie felt obligated to say, “I don’t think it’s that bad.”
“You don’t think.” His wintry gaze locked on her as he sneered. “How surprising.”
Well now, hot or not, the man was just rude. Eddie gathered her own frost as she said, “Is there a reason you’re hanging around naked in my basement?”
And there’s a sentence she’d never thought she’d say. Did that make her life pathetic or really narrow?
“We have covered this.” He examined a nasty gash on his forearm. “And you have, as yet, to supply a reasonable answer.” Cocking his head, he studied her. “No, not a witch. And yet, I walked in your dreams.”
“Uninvited, I might add.” She had definitely liked him better in her dreams. This new and verbal version of her dream lover—still maybe a tiny bit wishful—was a disappointment. Despite what he said, she was the hell guardian, or as near to it as either of them had right now and it was time to do her job. Hauling out every ounce of authority she had no right to use, she pointed to the hell gate. “You have no business here. You need to go back.”
He stilled and studied her. A smirk tilted his full, pouty mouth. “Are you giving me orders, little human woman?”
“Yep.” At five eight, Eddie didn’t hear little applied to her often, if at all. “And you need to hop through that gate again,” she couldn’t resist adding, “to wherever you left your pants.”
Speculation gleamed in his eyes. “Do you know who I am?”
Eddie had read too many memes and jokes not to answer that one. “Nope, and if you don’t, we can always ask someone.”
“Intriguing,” he drawled. “A being, who is not the hell guardian, but not entirely human either, who has the power to summon me, but has no idea who she has summoned. And a woman whose dreams I walked.”
