Page 58 of Just One Little Bargain

Put me down. I’ll count to three, and if my feet are not on the ground, I’ll make your remaining days on this plane so administratively miserable you’ll beg Hell to take you back early. Also, thank you for the honesty in the car; that was unexpectedly decent of you, but I need you to leave immediately so I can have my breakdown in private like a civilized person. And it can’t happen while you’re touching me because your hands are warm, and that fact is making it extremely difficult to remember that you are, by your own admission, a creature from the underworld who wants to acquire my soul.

Milo sets me in the kitchen chair with a care that has no business existing in someone I was actively assaulting thirty seconds ago, and every word I prepared scatters because he doesn’t argue. His hands steady my waist before he leaves to find an ice pack. When he returns, he has one from my freezer, wrapped in the dish towel from the oven handle. Before I can open my mouth, he drops to his knees.

Like men fall to their knees in front of me on a regular basis, and this is just another Saturday in the life of Evie Feywin: bed and breakfast owner, cat mother, and accidental demon summoner.

A demon is on his knees.

Between my legs.

I should be thinking about supernatural contracts and the fate of my immortal soul. Instead, I’m measuring the exact breadth of his shoulders against my knees and wondering when this replaced my survival instincts. The kitchen light traces the line of his jaw as he bows his head, the open collar of his jacket framing the faded band shirt underneath. I can see the tendon in his neck. The shift of muscle when he swallows. Somehow, the fact that he isn’t looking at me makes it worse.

My brain offers an image that has absolutely nothing to do with Milo icing my ankle.

I strangle it, shoving it into the furthest, darkest corner of my skull and bolting the door.

His glasses have slipped down his nose and he peers up at me over the rims. “Give me your foot.”

“I can do this myself,” I retort, my pride prickling.

“I know you can.” Milo holds his hand out, palm up in a silent plea.

There’s still enough fight left in me to make this difficult for both of us. But the ankle is throbbing in time with my heartbeat, and the ice isn’t going to apply itself. The alternative is bending forward, which would put my face far too close to his, and my self-preservation instincts are frayed but not dead.

His hand closes around my heel, his palm nearly swallowing it. Calluses drag against my skin as he adjusts his grip.

Milo’s thumb grazes the arch of my foot. The touch is incidental, and my body treats it like a full-scale emergency. My toes curl against his palm, and apparently my nervous system has chosen public humiliation. His gaze drops to the movement before returning to my face. One eyebrow lifts.

I want the floor to open and take me straight down. I’ll share the elevator with whatever lives in his version of downstairs.

It’s the loneliness. That’s what this is. I haven’t had someone take care of me since . . . I actually can’t finish that sentence, which probably proves the point.

“You can get up,” I tell him.

“Your ankle’s not done icing.”

“I can hold it against my body,” I argue.

“I’m here so you don’t have to.” He glances up, and light catches his pale blue-violet irises, framed by lashes so dark they look damp. “And I’m guessing you’d rather analyze what I told you in the car.”

I hate perceptive men. I hate them with the same fervor I reserve for people who show up to bed and breakfasts and complain about the breakfast. It’s in the name. You knew what you were getting.

“I’m not analyzing anything,” I say. “I’m compartmentalizing.”

“What compartment am I in?” There’s a hint of amusement in his voice.

“The one marked problems I’ll deal with after the Advil kicks in.”

He grins, quick and crooked, too pleased with himself. It sharpens his face, revealing a dimple on the left side that I hadn’t noticed and am now catastrophically aware of.

My gaze snaps to the ceiling, fixing hard on a crack in the plaster.

“I can still feel you watching me,” he says.

“I’m literally looking at the ceiling.”

“You were looking at me before.”

“I was assessing the threat level.”