He shrugged. “Sorry. I’m not going to dress in the closet for a plant.” Lifting his gaze to hers, he smiled. A slow slide of heat. “Or you.”
Amanda could feel the artificial layers of her New York self peeling off to reveal the real woman beneath. Desperately, she tried to pull them back on, but they didn’t quite fit anymore. The scary part? Underneath the layers was someone she recognized from a long time ago. And there was nothing neutral about her.
She was a woman who was heating up just fine at the sight of a beautifully sculpted male body. A woman who could get down and dirty with a lean mean loving machine. A woman who’d scream her joy as she climaxed, and trace a black rose tattoo with her tongue. Sheesh, she was seventeen again.
He must’ve seen something in her eyes, because his smile turned predatory. “Have a seat.” He gestured toward a blue chair. “I’ll sit on the bed, and you can tell me all about why you think the walls in the great hall should be cream.”
Amanda perched on the edge of the chair while he settled himself on the bed. Settled? Ha. Displayed would be a better word. As he sat cross-legged, his towel rode up so high that only shadows kept both Jessica and her from bursting into bloom.
She needed to get to the point of their conversation before she forgot what it was. A calm discussion about cream walls first. Then lots of shouting and arm waving about blue butterflies.
“I assume you’re going to use your extensive knowledge of interior design to explain why the walls should be bloody red instead of cream.” Okay, sarcasm would only beget more sarcasm. “Cream is a quiet color that doesn’t have the sterile feel of white. It lets the warmth of wood, and the colors of furniture, paintings, and accessories come forward. Cream is always quietly powerful without fighting for supremacy.”
“Wow, I’m impressed.” He studied her a little too long and made her a little too uneasy.
“Well, what do you think?”
“I think a rich red would express what this castle is all about. Think, Mandy. We associate red with some of our deepest emotions—anger, passion, hate, and love. The Castle of Dark Dreams should reflect those emotions.”
He had a surprising grasp of color, but then he’d taken art classes in high school. It didn’t matter what he thought, though, Con’s red-wall idea was going down. This wasn’t about the castle at all. It was a defining of who they were.
His sudden smile was impossibly sweet and incredibly insincere. “Haven’t you figured out by now that I didn’t ask you to my room to talk about walls?”
Yes! That truth was from the sluts who lived in her basement. “I think the walls should be our only topic.” That was from her penthouse dwellers who had a close working relationship with her brain.
“Later.” A lot later. He supported his argument for later by leaning back slightly so that his towel slid even higher.
Sure, using his body was cheap, but after a week of hard-ons thinking about Mandy in his bed or any other place he could get her naked, he didn’t give a damn.
She stared at his towel with wide-eyed alarm, and something else. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but he’d swear he saw hunger in her gaze. She’d better say something soon, because he was fast outgrowing his towel.
“Don’t move. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Mandy almost ran to the door and was gone. She’d been in such a hurry she didn’t even close it behind her.
Well, hell. What was that about? Before he had time to think about closing the door, Darth Destroyer padded into the room. Con had avoided the cat for most of the week, because he was still way into denial. But now that he was faced with Deimos, Con had to find out once and for all if he needed a shrink.
“How’d you get into the castle, pal? I locked all the doors.” He wasn’t big on praying, but Con was praying right now for a simple meow.
“Trade secret. How’s the sex thing going? Are you two gonna hook up?” Deimos clawed his way up the bedspread and then sat facing Con. “Still can’t jump. The four legs don’t want to work together. So let’s talk sex. When’re you gonna do it? Where’re you gonna do it? Why haven’t you done it yet? I need details, man.”
Sheer willpower kept Con on the bed. “Who are you? What are you?” He braced his hands on his knees to keep them from shaking.
Deimos cocked his head to study Con. “Sorry about scaring you, but Sparkle said the cat form was best for spying. That first time, when I ended up wearing the paint, I didn’t mean to talk to you. It just happened. You must have some old magic in your past, or you wouldn’t have heard me.” He stretched out and made himself comfortable. “Maguire. Irish, right? Any Druids in your past?”
Con nodded. He gripped his knees so tightly his knuckles turned white. “Who are you?”
Deimos eyed Jessica with interest. “If Sparkle finds out I’m telling you this, she’ll kick me off the job. But she’s already pissed, so what the hell.” He yawned. “We’re both cosmic troublemakers, supernatural beings who get off on causing trouble. Sort of the badasses of the universe.”
Con swallowed hard. This was not happening.
“It’s happening. Believe it. My job is to make sure you copulate, fornicate, conjugate . . . all those ‘ate’ words. So let’s talk about what a woman wants.” The expression on Deimos’s
