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“Traitor,” Willow snapped. “Just remember who feeds you.”
“That would be me,” said Montgomery.
“You feed my cat? He’s going to get fat by eating double.”
“Oh I pour that atrocious dry food back in the bag. He doesn’t like it.”
“Are you kidding me right now? What are you feeding him instead?”
“Usually chicken and whatever vegetables you have left over.”
“Unbelievable. You’re just a regular Bobby Flay, aren’t you?”
Montgomery sniffed derisively. “You may wax poetic about Patrick Swayze or this Bobby fellow, or any other of your male suitors for all I care, but I am just a poor soul who never sleeps. And now you have a happy cat. You’re welcome.”
Willow snorted. “Male suitors. Your mind would go there, wouldn’t it? Still in the dark ages where a woman is nothing without a husband.”
She stalked toward him hotly, and even though he knew she’d just walk right through him if she continued, he backed away by degrees until she was close enough to slap him if she wanted to.
“Oh how we lie around all day on our fainting couches, darning socks and waiting for a gentleman caller,” she continued, still advancing and he, still shuffling backward.
“Darning socks is a good skill to have,” he said pragmatically, although Willow didn’t seem to be in a mood to be reasoned with.
“And I suppose you think a woman should stay home scrubbing toilets and folding her husband’s underwear,” she said. “And when he gets home from work, she should have dinner ready, put a cocktail in his hand, and look like a pinup girl.”
Montgomery sensed a tall bookshelf behind him and braced himself for contact. “What is a pinup girl?”
He could have shifted his energy to pass through the shelf, leaving Willow unable to follow. But he hadn’t walked through walls in ages, at least not on purpose. And there was something about the rage in her hazel eyes, and the way her wild, copper hair seemed to churn like the turbulent waves of the sea, as though it was responding to her mood. She was a storm and the wind and the sunshine.
He couldn’t take his eyes off her. So he let his back nudge the shelf and fancied himself in quite the compromising position. It was not entirely unpleasant.
“I have news for you, corpse boy,” she said, pointing at his chest. “Women of my time are independent, have careers, own property, vote, even run for president. And we don’t need a man to do it.”
She was right up to his face now, and being at least half a foot taller than her, he grinned as he looked down upon her.
“You are quite the suffragette, Miss Ravensong. But you missed something in your research. The Moonstone was a safe haven for women activists. They congregated here and held meetings, and anyone who complained was shown the door.”
Willow’s mouth pressed shut with such ire, her bottom lip jutted into an adorable pout. So perfectly pink, those lips—pleasingly full and rounded with a cupid’s bow. And also laced with venom.
Why did he find that so alluring? How could anything at all get a rise out of him? After all, he was not made of flesh and blood. However, feelings and emotions followed the soul into eternity. And right now, his feelings had a mind of their own.
He had never touched a woman in the heat of passion, nor did he consider force of any kind the gentleman thing to do. But Willow aroused a compulsion in his core, and he felt the overwhelming desire for human touch.
His fingers twitched at the shelf behind him until they found purchase on the spine of a book. Sliding it off the bookshelf, he lifted it so it was at Willow’s shoulder height, holding it between them as both a barrier and form of contact. On the cover, a woman was engaged in a passionate embrace with what looked like a demon.
Apropos, he thought, considering Willow thought of him as a demon.
A little nudge of the book, and Willow’s shoulder reeled. One more nudge, and she careened back.
“And another thing you’re wrong about,” he said, gently guiding her body to sway in a half circle so she was now back to the bookshelf. She let out a small gasp as she bumped against it—her palms spread out on the spines behind her. And if he didn’t know better, he’d have sworn he saw sparks igniting at her fingertips. “A womandoesneed a man, just the same as a man needs a woman.”
Montgomery shifted the book to press flat against Willow’s chest applying the tiniest amount of pressure with his index finger, pitching her against the bookshelf. As he leaned in to whisper in her ear, her breath hitched deliciously, and a healthy bloom of strawberry spread across her cheeks.
“It is natural to need the opposite sex,” he whispered against the shell of her ear. “It is natural to live in harmony with them. It is natural to love and to quarrel and to burn with desire. It is not weakness to give yourself fully to another. As long as there is friendship. As long as there is respect and mutual understanding.”
She gulped audibly, practically heaving the words, “And… chemistry?”
Montgomery’s gaze dipped to take in her features. Her flushed skin, her chin tipped back, and her mouth parted ever so slightly.
