Chapter Sixteen #2
“So it’s not just that the universe is some big ridiculous game show.”
“Well, yeah, it is, but in this case that’s just how you’re interpreting things.”
She sat back in her chair. Breathless, a little stunned. Half of her trying to remember if it had worked that way before. Most of her knowing it hadn’t. It had been more instinctive as a kid, she was sure of it.
Though that told her something. “Then on some level I know what’s right and what’s wrong.
And I just have to keep trying until I find the answer.
Until I find the right way to put it. Okay.
Okay. Here I go. I’m going to try again,” she said, and wrote underneath the first sentence.
The one that now looked melted, unintelligible, in a way that creeped her out.
But it didn’t deter her.
When the pact is broken there will be no bad consequences , she wrote.
And this time it was like a clown, honking its nose. Jack actually had to try not to laugh. He looked away, one hand over his mouth. Much to her irritation. “All right, all right, smarty pants. Maybe it’s just not about the words I’m using,” she said, as he looked back, mostly with a straight face.
“It’s not. You’ve got to believe it will work. That’s the most important part. You can write down my mother is a potato and if your emotions and your intentions align with what you’ve put, it will do what you want it to. But if they don’t, it won’t.”
“You make it sound super easy.”
He half laughed, shook his head.
“It really isn’t. Most humans simply can’t believe in that way.
They can’t feel things so finely, so perfectly.
Emotions are messy, and they make messes of things.
Intentions are weird, they’re not always what you are sure they are.
And the doubts, the doubts, the doubts. Nothing has ever crushed me as totally as all the doubts that being human forces on you.
And I say that as someone who has been actually crushed by stuff.
A giant’s foot once pancaked me, and I would still say the human version is worse,” he said, cake now completely forgotten.
All his focus on this. On her, on one last thing she could tell he didn’t want to add, but had to.
“And doubly so when you’ve been burned as badly as you have been. ”
He did it gently, however.
It didn’t sting.
Not even as it fully sank in.
“Because they convinced me it was all just me being insane.”
“Yes. You’re afraid, and you’ll doubt yourself, and even if you don’t, this isn’t a simple thing to do.
This is arraigning yourself against all the powers of Hell.
It’s trying to make you impervious to the consequences of someone reneging on a deal with the devil, essentially.
And that’s before we even get into the fact that the original magic is pretty spectacular and airtight.
It came from a very powerful witch, and she essentially countermanded Hell to call the soul of a demon and give him the human body he wanted. ”
“Called? So it’s against your will, then.”
He hesitated. She saw him do it. In fact, it almost looked like he went to say something in particular, something complicated, then held back. Before he settled on a shake of his head. “Not exactly, no.”
But maybe slightly yes , she thought.
Maybe enough that we can carry on as we did.
That I can have something in the meantime.
“All right, then. We stick with the original plan.”
“And what exactly was the original plan here?”
“I help you be whatever you need to be to make her say she loves you,” she said. And she did it very casually, as she did. Not like she was just trying to get drive-ins and dates and kissing and his hands, oh god, his hands. No, no, she was just being helpful. That was all.
Though he didn’t seem to notice if she was or not.
He didn’t seem fazed. “I don’t know, honey. That seems pretty impossible, too, when I shift forms the moment you kiss me a little too passionately. Nobody is going to say they love me if I almost impale them every time we make out.”
“Yeah but I think we did a little bit more than making out.”
He rubbed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose.
And she could see he was blushing underneath that hand.
“I know, I know, and I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to get so carried away.
But then you reacted like that , to so little of anything, and I just couldn’t resist giving you more.
I couldn’t resist giving you whatever you wanted. ”
“So that’s what made you go like that, then? My reaction?”
“Of course it was. I mean, lord, the way you moan—”
He bit his lip. Made a frustrated sound.
Then tried to go back to his cake.
But she really couldn’t let him do that.
“It’s okay, you can say it,” she said. “You can tell me.”
“I don’t want to. I don’t want to talk like this with you.”
“Because I’m not someone you really desire like that?”
“Because you don’t desire me . You’re just trying to help.”
“I’m pretty sure trying to help didn’t make me come like that,” she said—mostly just because she wanted to correct him. She didn’t want that to stand, that idea of him not being desired. And this seemed like the best way to say it without really saying it in the moment.
But then his gaze snapped up to her on the last word.
At which point, she processed what she’d actually told him. The word she’d used—the one that made a little sound kick out of him. You just shocked a demon, you dirty thing , her brain scolded her. Then all she could do was go to apologize.
Only he got there first.
“So it was good for you, then,” he said, so low and husky suddenly that she couldn’t quite hang on to the idea that sorries were in order. Instead, she found herself thinking about what she had in the car. That there was nothing wrong with enjoying whatever they were doing.
Doubly so if he liked the idea that she did.
Triply so now that all the cards were on the table.
“I’ve never known anything like it,” she said. A little too breathlessly, it seemed like, to her. Yet somehow he didn’t seem to think so. His eyes flashed bright, then dark. And for a moment she could have sworn she saw pride lift the corners of his lips. Hot damn , that look seemed to say.
Before he gathered himself. “Well, to be fair, most human men seem lacking in basic carnal knowledge,” he said, with a dismissive wave of his hand. Like he didn’t want to take any credit he might not deserve.
But all that did was lead her further down the garden path.
“I wasn’t just talking about what men do. I was talking about what I do, too.”
“And by that you mean you’ve never achieved those heights alone.”
“I’ve never achieved any heights, period. Despite much effort expended.”
He closed his eyes on hearing that. And now there actually was a whole smile on his lips—though it wasn’t a pleased one. It was rueful, agonized; he made a humming sound alongside it, as frustrated as she’d ever heard anyone be. Then, just for a good measure, he cursed under his breath.
Gosh darn it , she thought he said.
Before he shook it off, and straightened. He slapped the table.
“Okay. All right. If a woman like you wanted something like that to happen again, how would you like a man to go about it? Be very specific. Like, would there have to be another date, what kind of date, when, how, the works. Lay it all out for me,” he said, so fast and fierce and direct she didn’t even have time to think.
She answered like he’d hit some nerve and made honesty lurch out.
“Well, I don’t think there’d have to be another one.”
“And by that you mean that it would happen right now.”
“Yeah. I would have come inside, hoping he’d do it again.”
“I see. And how would you imagine that would work? Would you make the first move? Like you did in the car—would you kiss him? Would you put his hands on you? Or would you want him to just get ahold of you, get you up on this table, maybe, get those panties off, spread your legs?”
You’re not really gonna do that , she thought at him.
But god, he was looking at her steadily, intently. He didn’t blink, didn’t waver. He just waited for her answer, as if it didn’t matter what the answer was. She could reach across and kiss him now, and that would be okay. It was all okay. Make hay while the sun shines , she thought.
Then answered honestly again.
Only this time, it wasn’t a kneejerk response.
It was as considered about anything as she had ever been.
“The last one, oh yeah, the last one, that one,” she said, and the second she did, it was like something just went .
As if a wire had been pulled too taut between their locked gazes, and her words took it past the point it could stand.
She spoke them, and it snapped. He stood, so fast his chair clattered back into the wall.
Hard .
She actually saw the legs punch into the plasterboard.
The whole thing hung there, at an angle, like something that had been nailed in place.
Then, just as she was busy goggling over that, he swept the table.
He sent the plates and food and glasses flying, all in one go, and before they’d even finished smashing and spattering on the linoleum, he had his arm around her waist.
Honestly, she didn’t even know how he did it.
The table seemed enormous—until he reached over it, and simply scooped her right up. Right out of her chair, all in one move, and every part of it so fast she had to whip her legs up as he hauled her across. She wasn’t sure how he avoided her heels dragging over the wood.
But he did.
She felt nothing but air, motion, his big arm around her. And then she was sprawled on the table in front of him, her legs spread around his body before he’d even tried to make that happen, one hand bunched in his robe in a way she didn’t even recall doing. She didn’t recall at all.
But she was sure glad of it now.