Chapter 10
Megan
Dinner at Owen’s turns out to be simple—and stupidly, unfairly, criminally delicious.
Perfectly cooked T-bone steak.
Loaded baked potato with all the fixings.
Roasted vegetables that somehow don’t taste like punishment.
And let’s not forget the heaping side of unfiltered lust.
Every time he moves—places a plate down, offers me the salt, opens a soda—he touches me. Not overtly. Not enough for me to call him on it without sounding like a hormonal lunatic.
But it’s there.
The light brush of his fingertips across mine when he passes the pepper. The warm slide of knuckles over the back of my hand when he sets my glass down. A soft nudge of his thigh when he shifts in his seat and doesn’t move away.
I swear to God, he’s doing it on purpose.
And worse?
It’s working.
I’m practically vibrating in this chair. Every nerve ending on high alert, every cell in my body screaming Kiss him, climb him, ruin your career.
“Tomato?” he asks, pulling me out of my lust spiral.
“What?” I blink.
He nods toward the cutting board where he’s holding the biggest tomato I’ve ever seen in one hand and a wicked-looking knife in the other.
“Would you like a slice? They’re fresh from the garden.”
My eyes widen.
“My God, that thing’s the size of a cantaloupe.”
He grins.
“That’s what she said.”
I roll my eyes. “Har har har.”
“What can I say, Agent? I guess I’m still a little boy at heart.”
“I thought you were going to call me Megan,” I say, quirking a brow.
“I will,” he murmurs, not looking up from the slicing, “when the time is right.”
Well, shit.
My stomach flips.
I watch him as he places three thick, perfect slices on my plate.
Then he leans over me—way too close—and carefully sprinkles salt and pepper with the kind of reverence usually reserved for ritual magic or foreplay.
I think he’s going to walk away.
Bet he doesn’t.
Instead, he turns that molten golden gaze on me. One large, warm hand wraps around the back of my neck.
Not rough. Not threatening. But firm. Possessive. Like I belong to him.
He tilts my chin so I’m forced to look up at him, and holy hell, my heart slams against my ribs like it’s trying to punch its way out.
I want his mouth on mine so bad it’s embarrassing.
I swear I might be drooling.
And I never drool.
“Eat your dinner, Megan,” he says, voice like whiskey and want. “Only good girls get dessert.”
Then he squeezes. Just enough to make my thighs clench under the table.
Just enough to brand me with the promise in his words.
And then?
The man has the audacity to step back and return to his seat like he didn’t just light me on fire.
The dirty, rotten tease.
I take a bite of tomato and almost moan. It’s perfect. Ripe, juicy, sun-warmed.
And no, I’m not going to read into the symbolism.
I’m not.
Look—I know we have a job to do.
He’s right.
We can’t just throw ourselves at an angry Warlock ghost with nothing but salt and confidence.
We’ve got a meeting tonight with Preacher and Esmerelda. I’ve done the reading—Warlocks who go dark are bad news.
Twisting death magic, feeding off spirits, cursing bloodlines—yeah, we need a plan.
So really, this little dinner break is timely.
Necessary.
Smart.
And if I keep telling myself that, maybe I’ll stop imagining what dessert looks like with him.
There are other ways we could be spending this time—ways that involve a lot less clothing and a lot more noise—but damn it, I know better.
I’m a professional.
This is my mission.
And I’ve got to stop fantasizing about this man naked.
Stop it, girl. STOP.
Focus on the ghost.
Not the growly, golden-eyed Sheriff whose hands feel too good on your skin and whose mouth you want all over your—nope.
Nope nope nope.
I shovel a forkful of steak into my mouth and pray it helps me think about literally anything else.
Spoiler alert: It doesn’t.