P.C. Cast - Mysteria Nights

The look on Damon’s face sent heat shooting up and down her spine. Harmony, behave yourself.

Do I have to?

It was almost like being a teenager again, except that the voice of reason she battled was her own.

She turned back to the stove and heard a loud scratching noise behind her. Damon growled, “Trolls—be gone!” Then there was a splash, a prolonged sizzle, and an abbreviated squeak.

Whirling around, she caught Damon just as he sat back in his chair. He looked shaken and was trying to hide the fact.

Harmony’s brows went up. “What was that? What just happened? What did you mean by a troll?”

Damon flushed. She’d never seen his face color like that before. “’Twas a . . . mouse,” he explained. “We call them trolls in Scotland.”

“Oh.” She pondered that. Then she glanced around her clean kitchen, the spatula gripped in her hand like a weapon. “Where’s the mouse? I haven’t had a problem with mice before.” That’s when she saw the puddle. And on the table, Damon’s empty glass.

“I chased it off,” he explained. “They dinna like water.” As if he were reloading a six-shooter, he refilled his glass from the pitcher on the table.

Harmony stared at the puddle. “That’s weird.”

“What is?”

“The water’s smoking. No, that’s steam.”

“Condensation.”

“Hmm. Well, it is a little humid tonight after that thunderstorm.” Before she could get to the puddle with a dish towel, it had evaporated. Humidity wasn’t the problem. But she wasn’t sure what was. Except that there had been a mouse that Damon called a troll that had disappeared as quickly as the puddle he’d made on the floor.

Keeping her eyes open for rodents, she mixed brown sugar, a half cup of brewed coffee, and a cup of water for the gravy, stirring until the sugar dissolved.

From behind, she heard Damon’s chair scrape backward. Not another one. A splash and a startled squeak signaled a hit. Almost too fast to register on her retinas, something larger than a mouse but smaller than a bunny darted out through Bubba’s doggie door, something that had appeared to run on two legs, not four, though she was sure it was a trick of the eyes.

Delighted barking from outside told her that the puppy had given chase to whatever it was. “Damon, I don’t think they’re mice.”

Panic flashed in his eyes, as if he didn’t want her going down that road. “What else would they be, lass?”

“I mean, I think they’re rats. Why are you acting so worried? Is my hulking, six-foot-five knight afraid of little rodents?”

“Nay.” I am afraid for you, his eyes said.

What a sweetie. He took his role of protector so seriously that it had extended to pest control. She wanted to hug him, but her hands were sticky with sugar. “I don’t like mice, but I’m not afraid of them, Damon. The desert rats we had in Iraq were way worse, and I saw cockroaches in Biloxi that were as big as small horses, so don’t worry about me.” Despite her big talk, she did react with a little shudder as she envisioned mice scampering through the house at night, popping out of the medicine cabinets in the dark, nesting between her bedsheets. “Do you know where they’re coming from?”

“I’ve seen one or two in the barn,” he mumbled.

Where he slept. Again, she shuddered. “I’ll buy some traps tomorrow. Or a cat—a hungry cat! I just want them gone before my family gets here.”

“Trust me, lass. I dinna want the little beasties around, either.” He said it like he meant it, too. She was confident that tomorrow, the rats would be history.

Harmony drizzled gravy over the ham steaks. Red-eye gravy was thin in consistency but potent in flavor. Her mouth watered in anticipation. Careful not to step on any stray creatures, she carried the platter to the table, setting it down amid bowls of mashed potatoes, vegetables, and biscuits.

“Oh, I baked us a special dessert, too.” She carried the cake to the table and announced proudly, “Devil’s food!”

Damon choked on the water he’d just sipped.

“What’s wrong? It’s just chocolate on chocolate, and I know you love chocolate.”

“Aye, I do,” he rasped. “The name—it merely startled me, lass.”

“You’re so darn cute sometimes, Damon of Mysteria.” Tossing aside her apron, she grabbed a book of matches and stood next to his chair to light some candles. He smelled clean, like coconut soap. His skin radiated heat and his personal scent that she found so distracting. She wouldn’t mind a chaste kiss. Get real. She craved a real kiss, a hot, deep, toe-curling kind of kiss, the kind she daydreamed about when she was supposed to be working on her sermons.

His hand slid around her waist. “Cute? I dinna know if I’m that, lass, but ye do make me happy. Very happy.”

He’s never felt like this before. He’s never been this happy. She shook off the strange, unbidden thought. Why were those things jumping into her head? It always seemed to happen when he touched her.

Harmony tried not to think about latent seer genes coming active, and instead turned around in the circle of Damon’s arms and slid her arms over his shoulders. “You make me happy, too.”

They’d never touched like this, so casually, so intimately. It had never been for the lack of wanting to, of course, but suddenly she wondered what in the world she was waiting for when it came to that real kiss she’d been wanting. And so she bent down and brushed her lips over his.

Just a taste, that was all she intended, but his lips were soft . . . warm. Perfect.

Damon made a soft sound of pleasure in his throat, opening his mouth to hers as his fingers slid into her hair at the back of her head to bring her closer. Her tongue brushed his, and soon they were kissing more boldly, her hands framing his jaw.

The next thing she knew, she was in his lap with her butt nestled between his hard thighs. Damon didn’t just kiss; he savored her, relished her, drawing out the tender kiss the same way he’d delighted in every morsel of food from the day he arrived. Maybe even more so, made her feel as if she were the best thing he’d ever tasted, that his appetite was endless, insatiable, and that it wouldn’t stop here, that he’d want more and more and . . .

Damon released her like a hot potato. “Good, good, good,” he mumbled into her hair.

Laughing and gasping, Harmony rested her cheek against his jawbone. “Good. It was definitely that. Good, good, good.”

“I dinna disagree. ’Tis why I’m trying to remind myself to behave.”

She rubbed her thumb across his lower lip. “A good man, you are, Damon. A gentleman.”

He glanced away, as if suddenly afraid of what she’d see in his eyes. “I haven’t always been good, Harmony.”

“The corrupt job with the corrupt boss . . .”

“Aye.”

“But you’re starting over. You have a new life.” You’re clean, she almost blurted out, but she couldn’t tell him that, couldn’t admit she’d checked up on him. It seemed a betrayal of everything he’d been so far, which was nothing less than, well, than good. “Only God’s perfect, Damon. The rest of us do the best we can.”

It always amazed her how his smile transformed his face. His bone structure was strong, and he could look almost cruel when his expression was serious, but whenever he grinned, he became so roguishly handsome it took her breath away. “I will always do my best for you,” he said, pulling her close again. “Better than best.”

Folding her in strong arms, he hugged her to his chest for the longest time, as if she somehow anchored him here on earth. The thought made her heart ache when she remembered how lost he seemed when he’d first arrived. Then, he pressed his mouth to her forehead in a kiss so achingly tender that it left her awash in goose bumps all the same.