Chapter 5
When I wake up, it takes a moment for me to realize what today is: Christmas Eve.?A warm glow fills my heart. Tonight, I’m bringing back my favorite family holiday tradition. Only this year, I’m going big.
As I stretch, I wince. My ass and inner thighs are tender and sore in a very naughty way, and the sensation triggers a flood of memories from last night. I can hear the obscenely loud sounds of Samite licking and sucking on me and feel his horns in my hands, his tongue thrusting deep inside me. I blush red hot all over, with a potent mixture of conflicted emotions.
On the one hand, last night was beyond words. A perfect dinner service, followed by a buffet of carnal delights. It was an erotic fantasy come to life, surreal and unbelievably hot.
On the other hand . . .
I pull out the drawer on my bedside table and reach in. I find the box I’m looking for and shake it. Mostly empty, but there are a few condoms still in there, like I thought. I could have told Samite I had condoms. It might’ve changed his mind about going further, but I was terrified it wouldn’t have. What if he genuinely wanted to stop, and he’d found a polite excuse? If I’d pushed condoms on him, would I have cornered him into telling me the real reason he didn’t want to fuck me?
My scars.
What a wonderfully humiliating reprise that could have been. He hasn’t even seen the worst of them, only the ripples visible across my neck and forearm. It’s my shoulder and side that scared Ryan away. He took one look at the patchwork of pinkish squares left from the skin grafts and bolted. No one before Ryan had ever minded my scars, not enough to say anything about them, anyway.
As soon as my shirt came off, he scrambled out of bed and gave a fake excuse about needing to be somewhere. He stopped answering my calls, and a few weeks later, a bullshit email showed up in my inbox. It said he’d taken his father’s advice and conducted a feasibility study. There was a twenty-page report attached full of jargon and charts labeled population density, average household incomes, restaurants per capita, etc. Bullshit.
Maybe the study’s conclusion was right. Maybe the little town of Winter Bliss wouldn’t have been able to support an upscale restaurant year-round, but I’m certain it had nothing to do with Ryan’s decision to bail. He wanted out and so he had the study done, not the other way around. One look at me topless, and it didn’t matter how much time and money we’d both sunk into the restaurant. He was gone.
I sigh and drop the condom box back in the drawer, slamming it shut. It’s fine. In a day or two, the roads will be clear, and Samite will be gone too. I’ll be alone, like I’d planned except I’ll have the scorching hot memory of last night to keep me warm. Just thinking about it makes me want to touch myself, but I don’t. I’m already anticipating an awkward morning, and I don’t think getting myself off to the memory of riding his face will help. Besides, there’ll be plenty of time for that after he’s gone.
It’s Christmas Eve, I remind myself. I have big plans for this evening and a lot of work to do. Up and at ’em.
The dishes are done when I step out into the kitchen. All of them. My fingers hover over my lips as a smile spreads across my face. That wasn’t the deal we’d struck. He was only responsible for half of them.
I catch the sound of a light snore and tiptoe over to the couch. Samite is stretched out on the cushions, stark naked, wearing nothing but his gold adornments, ear cuffs, and the double stud piercing above his right brow. My skin heats and tingles at the sight of him even as I chide myself. I should have brought him some pajamas and a blanket and shown him how to pull out the couch before going to bed. I’ve been a very bad host. And it seems I’m not done being one yet.
Instead of looking away or waking him, I eat him up with my eyes, newly appreciating how beautiful he is in the morning light. My pulse quickens as I bank these images away. More useful memories for when he’s gone. The curves of his calves, the strength in his thighs. I linger on his dick, and my breath catches as I remember how badly I wanted it in me last night. I let out a shaky breath and move on to his abdomen. If my eyes had nails, I’d be scratching a trail up his chest to his stunningly perfect face.
His head is adorned with the most beautiful horns I’ve ever seen on a demon. They’re the color of fire, a yellow base that fades to orange at the tip, and they curve from his hairline and loop back over his head, thick and strong. Again, I recall the roughness of their spiraled texture against my palms as I used them as handles to pump myself up and down on his tongue. Heat blooms low in my belly and travels up my chest and neck until the warm glow reaches the crown of my head. I let out another shuddering breath.
“Did you get a good look?” He opens one eye and smirks at me. I glance away, embarrassed he caught me.
“Thank you for doing the dishes,” I say, clearing my throat, but there’s no hiding the flush of my face. I looked at him for too long.
“There were a lot of them.” The couch creaks as he sits up. “You used nearly every dish in there.”
“Mm-hm.” I agree but don’t apologize. Last night’s menu was perfection and as my mind wanders towards food, my embarrassment lessens just enough that I can shake it off and shift my focus. I start to reminisce over the menu, recalling the delectable scents, the balance of tastes, and the exquisite textures. There’s nothing to apologize for.
“You owe me,” he says. My eyes snap to meet his, and I see the challenge flicker in his black eyes. A bargain so early in the morning? I raise an eyebrow, both at him and the unexpected tingle of excitement. This is new for me, but if this is how demons always feel when bargaining, I get the appeal.
“What exactly do you think I owe you?” I ask.
“Coffee?” He asks.
“Fine.” I nod, and my excitement flags. It’s too small, too easy to agree to. All those dishes for coffee? I’m definitely coming out ahead.
“And eggs.”
“Alright.” Still leaning in my favor, but there’s a flutter in my pulse and a smile teases at my lips. I can tell he’s not done.
“Bacon, sausage links, hash browns, a ginger scone with lemon curd, whipped cream on berries.”
Ha!I laugh out loud and cross my arms. “Coffee, eggs, toast.” My counteroffer.
“Plus bacon.”
“Deal.”
The exchange is oddly satisfying. We shake, and I feel a rush like I’ve downed a shot of espresso, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s because Samite’s a demon. It’d probably be rude to ask, so I move off to the kitchen to start breakfast. Naked Samite follows me.
“Aren’t you going to get dressed?” I ask.
“No. My clothes are dirty.”
“You know where the wash tub is.” I jut my chin towards the back porch.
“My sweater is cashmere,” he says, as if that’s supposed to mean something to me.
“How nice,” I say with a blatantly disingenuous smile as I get out the water kettle and start filling it at the sink.
“It needs to soak for at least twenty minutes in cool water before it’s hand washed with a very gentle soap, very gentle. It can’t be squeezed or spun. It just gets a gentle agitation and then a rinse.” He is as adamant as he is naked, and I’m confused, possibly distracted by the closeness of his torso and his exposed everything.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I need your help, obviously.” His hands fly up in frustration, but my eyes dart the opposite direction, more attracted to the swing of his dick than the movement of his hands. I get a quick eyeful before I force myself to focus on his face as he continues talking. “I need a safe place to soak my sweater. I’m not leaving it outside for rabid animals and grubby insects to crawl over. And it has to be a mild soap. Your bucket of blue-speckled, industrial-grade powder would absolutely ruin the texture. And once the texture is gone —” he shakes his head before finishing the dark thought, “there is no getting it back.”
I miss some of what he’s saying as I struggle to keep my eyes above his waistline, but I catch the last of it and pull up straight, ears perking. I’ve said that exact thing before in my kitchen. ‘Once the texture is gone, there’s no getting it back.’ I’ve screamed it in frustration. I’ve fired someone over it.
“The perfect texture is a thing of beauty,” I mumble, almost to myself.
“It is.” He sounds relieved.
“We’ll set up an indoor wash station for you,” I say. We find a basin that meets his exacting standards. Then run the tap for five minutes, adjusting the temperature up and down until it’s the perfect degree of cool. I find him a travel bottle of baby shampoo which I have to bully him into using.
“It’s gentle enough!” I insist.
“How do you know?”
“It’s for BAY-BEES. You know, perpetual whiners who cry when they don’t get exactly what they want. Sound familiar?”
He sucks in an offended breath. “I am not a baby.”
“Prove it. Make do with this.” I shove the bottle at him. He grumbles and swears under his breath, but he takes it.
While his sweater soaks, I get started on breakfast. Naked Samite offers to light the fire, and with alarm, I watch him do it in the nude. His thighs and dangling bits are so close to the lip of the brick hearth that I feel justified in staring, but he’s completely at ease, not worried in the least. I’m the only one on high alert.
He shifts his stance, and now I’m staring at his muscled calves, the toned back of his thighs, and his perfectly shaped ass. If he walked away right now, I’d follow like a rat after the Pied Piper. I bite down on my lip as I imagine grabbing a handful of that ass, maybe smacking it a little. I bet even with all that muscle; it’d have a nice bounce to it.
He pulls a page from my burn box and pauses to look it over. “What’s this?”
“Trash,” I reply, quickly coming to.
“It looks like a lease agreement,” he says and continues reading.
I spring to his side, snatch it out of his hand, wad it up, and shove it under the grate. “It’s just trash, good for starting fires.”
He’s already grabbed another page. “Ryan?” He reads the name aloud and gives me a curious look.
“Also trash,” I say through gritted teeth and pluck the page from his fingers. “That’s enough.” I grab the box and move it to the corner, where I give it a little kick just to make sure it stays put.
I turn back just in time to see him light the fire, not with a match, but with a snap of his fingers. A flame leaps from his hand to the pages. I suck in a breath as they smoke and then catch. Warmth pools between my legs. I wouldn’t have said I had a ‘thing’ before, but now I know I do. It’s naked demons starting fires in my kitchen.
He turns to wink at me over his shoulder. “You liked that.” The studs over his brow add a cheeky glint. It wasn’t a question. Somehow, he knows the answer is yes. It’s not just the fire. The points of his teeth, the twist of his lips, the tilt of his head, and the angle of his horns, it’s all adding to my new ‘thing’. And then there’s his shapely, red ass. But that might be a ‘thing’ of its own.
“It’s efficient. No need for a match,” I say. “I like efficiency.” We both one hundred percent believe me, and I go back to preparing breakfast.
He refuses to hang up his sweater when it’s done soaking, worried it will stretch out the material. So, fine, we lay it out on towels on the butcher block like he insists. It’s annoying and takes up a lot of my workspace. But to be honest, this is the kind of exactness and determination to do things right that I look for when hiring new chefs. I’ll take a fastidious pain in the ass over someone sloppy or careless any day.
We eat breakfast together, and it’s nice. Far more comfortable than I anticipated when I woke up this morning despite the fact that he’s still in the nude.
By late afternoon, his clothes are finally dry, and we can get started on my plans for the evening. We’ll be heading out to the lake. I’ve been cooking and baking, and I’ve packed a couple of sacks of food and other things to take with us. Tonight is very special, a revival of my favorite holiday tradition. It’s been a long time. This is the first Christmas I haven’t worked in at least twelve years. At sixteen, I followed my family, parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins into the hospitality industry. Tourism is the lifeblood of this town. It keeps Winter Bliss a thriving little slice of heaven, and holidays are peak season. Nobody in the industry gets it off.
I dress in layers, many of which are plaid, and I have to hear about it from Samite as soon as I step out of my room. “There are better choices for outdoor attire. All you have to do is go to any store that doesn’t have the word ‘bin’ or ‘outlet’ in the name. I’ll take you to one if you promise to never wear this again.” He plucks at my sleeve, then wipes his hand on his jeans.
I roll my eyes. “Are you going to be warm enough without a coat?” It’s mid-40s outside, and he only has the single layer of his perfectly textured, not at all ruined by baby shampoo, cashmere sweater.
“I’m a demon. We run hot,” he shrugs. “I don’t own a coat even though I’d look great in one.” Can’t argue with that. He looks sexy as sin in clothes, but not nearly as sexy as when he’s naked.
Outside, I deliver the bad news that he’ll be pulling the sled again, still weighted down with all the logs, and he’s outraged. But I promise him we’ll go slow so that he doesn’t break a sweat. He grumbles the whole way right over the jingling of La Roja’s silver bells, and it is the grumpiest, bah humbuggy-iest Christmas carol I’ve ever heard.
“Why are you laughing?” He shouts. He’s fallen a couple of meters behind me.
“I’m not!” I shout back, but I can’t keep the amusement out of my voice.
We arrive at the lake, sorry pond, twenty minutes later. It’s not that far from the cabin if you don’t take any detours. The sun is low enough to touch the tops of the trees and it casts a cheery, warm glow across the snow.
“This place?” he snorts, and little puffs of warm air shoot out of his nostrils.
“Yep, this place.” I nod. “I’m considering renaming it Samite’s Landing. What do you think?” I smile over at him.
He laughs, a really nice laugh, and then shakes his head. “Don’t you dare name this miniscule lake after me.”
“Aww, you called it a lake.” I press my hand over my heart in mock tenderness. “I knew you’d come around.”
The first thing we have to do is clear a large area along the shore and build a circular barrier maybe ten feet wide using scavenged stones. Next, we start unloading the sled.
I reach for the first log, and as my hand lands, I hear it again. Always know how and when you’ll stop a fire before you start it. I go through my mental checklist. This fire is allowed to burn until midnight, no later. The kitchen timer clipped to my jacket is set to warn me twenty minutes before. The fire ring is well away from the tree line and all the brush has been cleared away, even the stuff that was covered in snow. In my pack is a fire blanket and an extinguisher. I also packed two buckets for shoveling snow, just in case. We’re good.
“That was a lease for a restaurant space, wasn’t it?” Samite asks as, together, we carry the largest log over to our stone circle, one of us on each end. I wince but don’t answer. “You were burning it. Is that because your restaurant failed?”
His questions land like a punch right to my gut. I stumble and drop my end of the log. Coming upright, I glare at him.
“What? Most restaurants fail. It’s a fair question.”
I snort and shake it off and pick up my end of the log.
“Well?” he says. Clearly, he’s not taking the hint to drop it.
“It didn’t exactly fail. It never got off the ground,” I grit out as we lay the log across the middle of the circle. We keep carrying logs over, laying down a nice and stable crisscross base with large gaps for air to circulate.
“People underestimate how complex the industry is. There are a lot of moving parts and even incredibly talented chefs struggle to turn a profit,” he says.
“Can we not talk about this?” He’s poking at a very tender spot, and I’d rather he stopped.
“It’s notoriously competitive.”
“I know,” I say, wincing at another poke. Consumer preferences are unpredictable. They shift on a whim, blah, blah, blah. I already know all this. I’ve heard it from colleagues, friends, family, even my business partner. They all warned me over and over about the uncertainties, about how literally every single thing could go wrong.
That didn’t stop me from wanting it. My open-flame restaurant. I’d made it real in my heart, and I just had to see it with my own two eyes. I had to know if I could make it as magical and wonderful as I’d imagined it. I didn’t care about the odds of failing. I had to try.
Once the crisscrossed log structure is about chest height, we use it as a frame to support more logs, and it starts to look like a tee-pee fence, and oh yes, it’s as big and impressive as I was hoping. My grandma would have never let us build it this tall.
“Opening a restaurant is a huge gamble, incredibly risky.” Another jab, and again I wince, but I also grit my teeth against a snarl.
“I am aware,” I say, biting back the litany of curse words I feel like hurling at him. All I wanted from this evening was a giant bonfire and to relive the lovely Christmas Eve tradition from my childhood. Instead, I’m getting skewered in the chest by the guest I didn’t invite. Anger and irritation tense along my spine. He needs to shut up about this.
“Costs fluctuate. You never know what you’re going to be spending. And your marketing, fuck, that has to be pitch perfect. Operations, cash flow, staffing, there’s so much to manage. And even if, by some miracle, you do get all that right, you still have to be incredibly lucky.”
Right. That’s it.
I stomp over to him and, with all my weight and both hands flat on his chest, I shove him. “Shut up! It failed, okay? It burned up on the launchpad. Is that what you want to hear?” My voice is loud, but there’s a warble to it, and my eyes sting.
My shove doesn’t pack the punch I’d hoped for. I wanted to lay him out on his ass, but a faulty half step is all I get from him. A little stumble. Highly unsatisfying, and I’m considering pushing him again when he raises his hand in a pose of innocent-defense. “I’m just trying to make you feel better,” he says, clearly baffled by my response.
“What? How is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“Because you’re better off.”
I stare at him, bewildered. “In what world am I better off?” I’m broke with no restaurant, no job, and my current housing status is not not-homeless.
He grimaces and he huffs and turns away as if to stomp off. But he thinks better of it and turns back. “Let’s just say I speak from experience.”
“What experience?” I blink at him, confused.
“No,” he shakes his head. “A demon’s life is very private. You shouldn’t ask. It’s incredibly rude, especially if you ask about a business venture. Just, no. We’re not ‘sharers’ like you humans.“ He throws up air quotes around the word ‘sharers.’ “Just take my word for it. I know what —”
He cuts himself off and shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot. I can feel the tug of a bemused smile at the corner of my lips. I bite it back. His mouth opens with an inhale like he’s ready to say something, but then it snaps shut, opens, snaps shut, and I nearly laugh. I can’t put a finger on exactly why but, despite my raised hackles, I still manage to find his flustered discomfort amusing. He wants to tell me something, but he’s fighting with himself, and it’s so, well, cute.
“Stop looking at me like that.” He straightens up, brow furrowing.
“Like what?” I ask, and my smile grows even bigger. It makes him even more uncomfortable, and I cannot describe just how adorable it is to watch a big, black-eyed demon swing from offended to conflicted and back to offended, all with very little provocation.
“Like that. I don’t even know what to call it,” he points at my face, wiggling a finger at me. “But stop it.”
“Was it a restaurant?” I ask. “You opened a restaurant, and it failed.” It’s the obvious guess, but a good place to start.
He glares at me, but even with those black eyes and those great big horns, he doesn’t scare me. “It’s personal,” he growls, and this time, he flashes his sharp teeth at me. I pull up, squaring my shoulders and crossing my arms. I can’t believe his hypocrisy.
“It is personal, isn’t it? Incredibly personal. Now imagine how violating it would be for someone to stick their giant, red hands right into a box full of your business documents, read them, and then start peppering you with intrusive questions!” I’m back to being irritated, but I’m also a little smug because I’m clearly making an excellent point and that always feels good.
“You gave me the box,” he says.
“Not to snoop through!”
“You didn’t say that. I said I’d start the fire; you gave me the box. It was a fair exchange. If there were stipulations, you should have laid them out ahead of time.”
“Not everything is a bargain!” I throw my hands up in the air.
He rolls his eyes. “So say humans.”
“Okay, let’s say it was a bargain. I gave you access to my papers, but I called it a burn box, which clearly defined its purpose and established my permissions for use: you were allowed to burn anything within. But you read from the box, overstepping and violating our agreement. Which means now you owe me.” My smugness blooms, puffing my chest.
His eyes narrow, but his mouth twists into an incredulous half-smile that shows off the points of his teeth on one side. “Devilry,” he mutters and shakes his head, but there’s a touch of something in his voice that waters my blooming smugness.
“One question,” he says. It’s clearly an opening offer.
“Five,” I counter.
“Two.”
“Three,” I cross my arms.
“Two.”
“Three.”
“Agreed.” He extends his arm to me, and I reach for his hand, meaning to shake it. He pulls back. “No. Like this.” He grabs my forearm, and I mimic him, wrapping my fingers as far around his muscled forearm as they’ll reach. “If you’re going to bargain like a demon, you might as well shake like one.” My breath hitches unexpectedly at the minimal contact, and my fingers stroke his arm all on their own.
“Very nice texture,” I say, clearing my throat. Obviously, I was feeling the cashmere. He is zero percent fooled. I can tell by the smoldering-orange flicker I catch in his eye. I recognize it from last night.
We shake once and release.
“Ask,” he says, but the way he tightens up, I can tell his answers are only going to be as good as my questions.
“Let me think,” I say. I start stuffing the wood-frame bonfire structure with small kindling and tinder bundles made of dried leaves and the last of the paper from the burn box. I want the structure to burn evenly, so I’ve got to stuff it uniformly throughout. He joins me, helping with the work without my having to ask or bargain.
“Okay, here’s my first question,” I say. “What were the significant moments in the life of your business that either gave you confidence it would succeed or made you worry that it would fail?”
He freezes, mouth popping open and giving me a look that is somewhere between offended and surprised. “That is not one question.”
I blink at him innocently. “Just because it’s an excellent question, doesn’t mean it’s not a single question. Answer it.”
“Now who’s overstepping?” He grumbles. He’s quiet for a long time, but I can tell he’s getting his thoughts together, so I let him be.
“It was a decade ago. And it was a bar, not a restaurant, though we added a small menu at one point,” he says. “When I turned twenty-one, my father gifted me an ‘investment egg’. It’s a tradition in my family.” He’s starting at the very beginning, I note. I like that. “Having that much cash was the first thing that unduly inflated my confidence. With all that money, how could I fail?”
He describes in detail the classy, high-end club with roof-top access and downtown views that he and a friend opened together. By his account, it was very swanky with a cocktail program that I can’t help but be impressed by. Adventurous flavors, experimental textures. I would have loved to have tried them.
“We managed to keep it open for three years. It bled cash the whole time, and when it folded—” He shakes his head. “It was humiliating. My older brothers all listened to my father. They looked for quick flips and doubled their money on their first investments, but I opted for a passion project, like some bright-eyed, rosy-cheeked, imbecilic cherub. It was a horrifying disgrace. It embarrassed my whole family, but especially my father.”
I only nod. I have a feeling if I interrupt him, he’ll clam up, and I want all the details. I’m equally curious and envious. Three years? I would have killed for that long.
As he continues, he lays out the significant moments, the ups and downs, just like I asked for, but he peppers in warnings, determined to turn it into a cautionary tale. “It’s a lot like gambling. You lay your money down knowing the odds are stacked against you, but with a passion project, it’s a whole lot harder to walk away from the table. Even as you watch your stack of chips dwindle, you keep telling yourself it’s okay. If you just stick it out, in the end you won’t lose. But you do. Everyone does. That’s why only fools gamble.”
I’m quiet for a moment as I take that in. “I thought demons loved gambling.” The thought jumps from my head straight out of my mouth. I’m not sure if it’s rude to say, but they own all the biggest casinos in the country, including the one at the Emberlight Resort. It’s not unfounded.
“That’s question two,” he says.
“No, it’s not!” I protest.
“It is. And the answer is: not this demon. As a kid maybe, but not anymore.” He continues with his story, and I love all the details, the worry, the work, the hard decisions. It’s a story with an unhappy ending, but even so, I can’t help but smile at the vicarious thrill of someone’s dream coming to life.
He sees my smile. “It was a bad investment,” he says sternly.
“I know.” It’s true even if I don’t like hearing it.
“A gamble!”
“I know!”
“Then why do you look so, so… inspired?”
“I’m not! I’m the opposite of inspired. I’m—purging.” I gesture to the bonfire, pointing out the tinder bundles made of crumpled paper. “My menu ideas, floor plan, logo and website mockups, the start of a training manual, the last pages of the lease agreement, and every scrap of an idea that I ever jotted down. I’m letting it all go tonight. Satisfied?”
“Question three,” he says, pointing at me.
I roll my eyes. I got a lot of mileage out of my first question, so I don’t argue.
He looks at me, hard and assessing until he arrives at his verdict. “I’m satisfied. What are your plans now?” He asks.
“A question for a question?” We’ve come to the end of our bargain. So, I offer him new terms.
His eyes narrow at me again, a look I’m getting a lot this evening, but he agrees. “Fine.”
“You’re looking at it,” I say as I strike a match. I have no plans beyond this—hiding away for the holidays and letting a certain canceled opening date pass me by. New Year’s Eve. We were going to open with a bang, a huge party during the Truthfire Festival. Instead, I’ll spend New Year’s here with a case of wine and a five-pound block of cheese. After the first of the year, I’ll figure something out, but until then, just this.
I light the tinder bundles and they catch. I know it doesn’t make sense to most people, but fire is how I discovered myself. I feel a bond I can’t explain. Others say they feel guardian angels or the spirits of their ancestors guiding their steps. For me, it’s fire.
The pieces of kindling catch next, and maybe ten minutes later, the logs start to burn. Samite and I stand in the warm glow and comfortable silence broken only by the crackling and whispering of the fire, and I’m glad he’s here. It feels right. A bonfire is meant to be shared.
The sun sets, turning the sky overhead a deep purple, but the larger the flames grow, the brighter and lighter I feel. The crushing weight of disappointment that I’ve carried around for the last few months lifts off my chest, and I’m filled with a boundless sense of freedom.
I spread my arms wide, basking in the waves of heat rolling off the roaring fire, and out of the corner of my eye, I see Samite doing the same.