“Geez, man. You’re naked. Do something about it. You don’t come to the door like that. Nuns could be collecting for charity. Girl Scouts could be selling cookies.” Deimos kept his gaze focused somewhere over Con’s left shoulder.
“Give me a break, Deimos.” But he went back into the room, picked up his discarded towel, and wrapped it around his waist. Then he returned to the door. “How old are you anyway?”
“Four. Sparkle’s thousands of years old, that’s why none of this shit bothers her.” He sat down, prepared for full disclosure. “Tell me every little detail.”
“Can your young and innocent ears stand it?” Con propped his shoulder against the doorjamb. Deimos would be funny if he wasn’t such a pain in the butt.
“I heard that.” Deimos widened his yellow eyes in alarm. Probably just remembered Con’s threat about what would happen if he listened in to thoughts that weren’t his own. “But I won’t listen again. I’m permanently outta your mind. Promise.” His sly gaze said his promise meant squat. “To answer your question, I can listen to it, but I can’t watch it. Maybe when I get around to doing it myself I’ll . . .” His voice faded away as he realized what he’d revealed.
Con bit back laughter. “You’re a virgin? Let me get this straight. You’re supposed to be this hotshot manipulator of humans’ sex lives, and you’ve never done it yourself? Oh brother.” He bit his lip to keep from grinning.
Deimos narrowed his eyes to tiny slits of fury. “Laugh, jerk, and I turn you into a weed. We’re wasting time here. Details. Now.”
“No.” Con pushed away from the doorjamb just in case Deimos tried to follow through on his threat. “What Mandy and I do together is our own business.”
“But what will I tell Sparkle?” He looked horrified.
Sparkle must be one scary lady if she could terrify the little guy like that. Con stomped down on his flicker of sympathy. He shrugged. “Tell her anything you want. Gotta go now.” He closed the door on Deimos’s whining, and then chuckled. A virgin. Who would’ve believed it.
All thoughts of Deimos fled, however, as he turned to find Mandy coming out of his bathroom. As he turned out the light and then rolled over to take her in his arms, he realized he hadn’t felt this great in a long time. Ten years to be exact.
Mandy’s singing had been known to scare small children, but that didn’t stop her now. Life was good. She’d had an incredible night of love followed by a productive day of shopping. When she got home from Houston, she’d checked to make sure Con had followed through on his promise to get rid of the blue butterflies. Yep, gone.
They’d negotiated the blue butterfly deal after their third round of wild sex. He’d agreed to paint out the butterflies, and she’d agreed to let the snakes stay. In her new and giddier mood, she’d decided the snakes were kind of cute.
Then she’d gone up to her room and changed into the white shorts and purple clingy top she’d bought. The new outfit symbolized a woman in transition. The white was the old and elegant. The purple was the new and bold.
Mandy ratcheted up the volume on her song at the thought of her greatest triumph. After their fifth round of, by then, more leisurely lovemaking, Con had agreed to the cream walls. At first she thought he’d given in because he was too exhausted to argue, but he hadn’t tried to back out this morning.
Mandy was no dummy, though. She remembered what happened when he agreed to paint the trim white. She’d be on the lookout for a sneak attack.
Still singing . . . okay, it wasn’t technically singing. More like shouting off-key. But it made her feel good. Still singing, she hung up the red dress she’d bought today. A sexy little piece of silk guaranteed to bring Con to his knees. And who knew what erotic acts he could perform while in a kneeling position. She was dying to find out.
Her song wavered for a moment as she considered the path she was committing to. She was having too much fun. She was already too wrapped up in Con. What would happen when it was time to walk away from Con and Galveston? From the first moment she’d seen him again, she’d recognized the danger. But like the lemmings that came before her, she was swimming out to meet her fate. The strange thing? She didn’t care. Mandy Harcourt had turned into a fatalist. What would happen, would happen.
The tiny voice of reason hiding somewhere in her empty brain made a last pitch for common sense. You can still back off. Sleep in your own room. Stick strictly to business. Nope, wasn’t going to happen. She sang louder to drown out any other common sense her reason might throw at her.
Mandy was making so much noise she almost didn’t hear the knock on her door. Con? She hurried to the door and flung it open.
Sparkle Stardust swayed into the room trailing a sexual aura bright enough to blind Mandy. Short black skirt. Low cut black top. Gold sandals. Sparkle didn’t bend to seasonal fashion rules. She narrowed her spectacular amber gaze on Mandy.
“I was bringing a few plants up to Con’s room when I heard the noise. It sounded like someone was murdering a cat slowly and painfully. I had to peek in to make sure Deimos hadn’t made a nuisance of himself.”
Mandy wanted to be angry about Sparkle’s insult to her singing, but she knew it was true. “Plants? Why?” She peered around Sparkle into the hall where a cart loaded with greenery stood. “A few? Sheesh, there must be thirty plants on that cart. Does Con know you’re putting
