Chapter Fifteen
It took her a good few minutes to really process everything that had just happened.
So many minutes, in fact, that she could tell Jack was starting to get a little uncomfortable.
It was kind of funny to see, if she was being honest—that he was this incredible creature, this almost comic book–looking beast man filling the whole left side of the car, yet he still seemed to get a cramp in his lower leg.
Quietly, so as not to disturb her coming to terms with all this.
But she couldn’t have that. She had to go back to helping him get free.
Only when she did, he held up a hand. “Okay, I feel like maybe you can cope with this now, so I’m just gonna—” he said, then instead of ending the sentence he smacked the dashboard with one fist. Like he was trying to prompt something into happening.
Because he was .
Because the car wasn’t really a car at all.
Of course it wasn’t—she’d seen it wasn’t the moment she laid eyes on that weird stereo.
It was some kind of supernatural thing, that could apparently change shape the moment he demanded it.
And god, the shape it changed into. For a moment she actually thought she saw it grow legs where the wheels had been.
Spidery yet sturdy legs, that unfolded and found their footing on the dirt.
Then they stretched, and the entire front of the car lurched upward.
She put out her hands to hold on.
But found she had nothing to hold on to.
The dashboard was gone, replaced by a seething mass of black nothingness.
Like melted plastic, she thought—only of course it wasn’t plastic at all.
It was alive, in a way that made her scramble back in her seat.
Or, at least, she tried to scramble back in her seat.
She went for it, and almost plunged into what should have been the back of the car.
“Hey, asshole ,” she heard Jack bellow, and for a second thought he meant her, that she’d done something wrong.
And then some part of the not-really-car seemed to curve around her.
It caught her before she could fall, and set her back into a rapidly re-forming seat.
Because Jack was talking to it, not to you , her brain said.
Ridiculously, she thought. But it was also somehow completely true.
“That’s more like it,” he said, as it finished settling her in to what now almost looked like a truck again.
And a better truck than it had been before, too.
It plumped a cushion under her butt, and gave her an armrest where one hadn’t existed.
Then, just for good measure, it actually seemed to straighten her skirt and smooth her hair.
One of her shoes had come off; it slipped it back on with spindly fingers.
Actual fingers that dissolved into the floor the moment the job was done.
Nightmarish, she wanted to call it. Hell, anyone else in the world probably would have.
But apparently she wasn’t just anyone anymore.
Because all she could think was:
I have never felt more like a princess in my whole life.
Like this was the scene in the movie where woodland creatures made a dress for her, and tidied her up and fixed her hair.
She almost expected to look back and find a bow there.
Completely silly, really. But she knew it was how she truly felt.
She could tell, because when she looked at Jack, the happiness on her face was reflected in his.
He looked almost overwhelmed to see her delight.
Though nothing beat his expression when they got back to his.
Because she got out first, near desperate to see if his cabin was a similar thing to the truck.
Head full of the various items that had seemed to change in there—like the couch, and the soft furnishings, and sometimes even maybe the walls.
A million questions already on her lips, just waiting to be fired at him.
And he clearly wasn’t expecting her to turn and ask any of them.
She did it and he lurched backward, immediately, hands up. Shoulders going down, body hunching, as if he could somehow make himself smaller that way. Like he expected her to be terrified, seeing him at his full height, and didn’t want her to be.
Though she could see why. He had to be well over seven feet, maybe even eight.
The top of her head barely came up to his stomach.
And he wasn’t just tall, either, oh no. He was bulky, burly, fit to bursting with muscle and sinew and great glorious slabs of meat.
His thighs were thick; his stomach was a drum.
It was all she could do not to gasp.
If he’d lost all his clothes instead of some, she probably would have.
But oh, it wasn’t in the bad way. It was the good way.
The very good way. The way that made her think of what this beast had done to her barely a few hours ago.
God, no wonder he managed to make me come, he’s a demon full of every sexy trick in the book , she thought, and knew it showed on her face.
Not fear. Not agony.
Just breathless awe and depthless desire.
And she almost saw his heart swell to see it. It filled his face, this new-but-the-same face, and so poignantly she couldn’t resist. She went up on tiptoe and lifted a hand, and touched that lovely expression with her fingertips. Soft, soft, as the whole world seemed to stop around them.
The cicadas fell silent.
The breeze dropped.
Even the scenery around them melted away, until all that existed was the night, and the soft warmth of it enveloping them, and her gentle touch as his eyes drifted closed to feel it.
T HEY SAT IN the kitchen, across the table from each other.
Only the table wasn’t a table anymore. It had feet now, and they tried to scamper every now and then.
He had to tell them to knock it off, just like he had with his truck.
While she sat there, wondering how often things like that happened around her without her knowing.
“The answer is more than I want to tell you,” he said, when he saw her considering—like he could read her mind. Which, for all she knew, he could. She had to reassure herself by remembering how many things he clearly had no idea about, and could have discovered via telepathy if he’d been able to.
Like, say, how much he turned her on.
Dear god, he was turning her on now , in the middle of this maelstrom of brand-new information.
And not just because her head was full of that enormous demon body, and the fact that he had fangs, and oh, those horns .
Or because he had emerged from the bathroom in his restored human form, and his restored human form was all ruffled up, like he’d been through a blizzard.
Or because he was covered only in a robe that showed a ton of his hairy chest whenever he leaned over.
It wasn’t even the memory of that orgasm.
It was that bliss he seemed to have sunk into, over the idea of her acceptance and lack of fear.
The way it made his expression soft and warm; the amount of tension that appeared to have run right out of him.
She realized now that he’d been holding a lot of worry in his shoulders, his back. It had made him stiff.
Now he relaxed.
And it was so good to see, so sexy to watch him lean back in his chair—his gaze bright and just about eating her up—that she really didn’t want to disturb it.
You can ask him things later after you’ve ravished him , she thought.
Even though she knew that was nonsense. She didn’t even know if he really wanted her to.
Or if maybe he would be more of the ravisher now.
And besides, there were things she had to know.
She just had to make sure she asked them in a way that didn’t disrupt his calm. “So. Supernatural things are real. And I’m a witch. And you’re a demon,” she said, and it worked. He almost laughed and shook his head.
“I can’t believe how much you make being a demon sound like nothing.”
“Well, it’s not like you’ve given me any reason to think anything else.”
“Yeah, but you know what demons are, right.”
“Totally. You prick people’s butts in Hell.”
That’s it , she thought. Make it sound like a cheerful cartoon .
Though if she was being honest, she kind of knew it wasn’t much beyond that.
Splinters of suppressed memories were returning to her at a rapid pace, and some of them included imps and the like.
And every one of them was all pitchforks and primary colors.
It didn’t seem like a stretch to go with something like that.
Even though he looked outraged to hear it.
“ What? No. No ,” he protested, his face a picture of horror.
It was all right, though. It only gave her an opening to find out more.
“So a place like that doesn’t exist, then.”
“Yes, it exists, but nobody there does that.”
“Is it more like you go there and then everything is your worst nightmare?”
“I mean, that’s closer to the truth, yeah. There’s no giant forks. Or fiery lakes. Unless you’re afraid of giant forks or fiery lakes. In which case there might be. But either way that’s not really my department.”
She leaned forward at that.
Eyes already widening, before she could stop them. Of course she couldn’t stop them. Even as a kid she’d never been able to find out this much detail. She’d never had anyone who could explain.
“There are departments there?” she gasped, now thinking of a giant office block, floating out there in the universe or another dimension or something. Though just as she got to grips with that, he seesawed one hand at her.
“Sort of. I guess. You’ve gotta understand, honey, I’m saying this in human language.
And human language doesn’t quite cover what is really there.
If I tried to get it across to you, it would hurt your brain to hear it.
It would sound weird. So you just have to kind of conceptualize it the only way you can. ”
“Then tell me how to conceptualize what you actually do that’s so bad.”