“If we were dating, would you stop dreaming about him?”
“They’re dreams,” she said. “And he’s dead anyway. So no. I don’t think I would.”
“If we were married?”
Her eyes widened.
I snapped to my senses a little bit, but it was dangerously easy to imagine making this girl my wife. Coming home to her every day… But then, where would she be? Working on a house across the country while I was tied to my career. At least the ghost would be out of the picture. “That was too far,” I said.
“It’s the incubus in you talking,” she said, like nothing about me was a mystery to her now, now that she knew I was just horny all the time and said the same lines to all the girls.
She was wrong.
“It’s true, I am not short on experience,” I said. “But I’ve never met a witch before, and I still get the feeling you’re not like other witches. I wouldn’t have bought Deveraux’s house in Louisiana if I wasn’t thinking, deep down, that I could lure you to work on it with me.”
“Huhn.” She didn’t look as impressed as most girls probably would. “What about your career?”
“Maybe I’m meant for something else.”
“Okay, you are thinking with your demon dong and I’m gonna stop you right there. You’ve clearly worked hard and you told me you’re a proud civil servant and blah blah, so you’d better not even think of giving it up just to get with me. I’m not that great.”
She was right. The reality usually came the morning after, not before, but she was right. Was it just that? She was also afraid of getting too close, I thought. Her walls went up as soon as I started turning on the charm.
“What I mean is that I’m open to the world turning in ways I didn’t expect,” I said. “I didn’t think magic was real either. Obviously that’s going to affect some of my life plans. If fate ends up pointing me to you, I won’t fight that.”
Her eyes grew a little softer, more willing, and my loins ached with need. I slipped my hands over hers, engulfing them, dirty fingernails and all. “I want to see where it takes us. I want to help you find out all the mysteries of the Sons of Pandora.”
Attuned to the slightest hitch of her breath, the slightest yielding of her hands to my grip, I moved in closer. I kissed her, gently, my lips barely grazing hers.
Her mouth was like a door—shut one moment and then opening a crack. Enough to let me know that her words could be tough, but her body was gentle and it wanted me like I wanted her.
I kissed her again. Now my cock was swelling, throbbing with urgency. Soon it would get what it wanted. But I had to be patient first. I had to prove to her that I wasn’t just a demon. Or as I used to think of it, an asshole.
My tongue slipped into her soft mouth, my knees spread around her legs as I sat on the very edge of my chair to get close to her. Her mouth opened wider for me, her tongue silken and hungry. After the initial exploration, she pulled back just a little, as if to breathe. After a beat, I captured her mouth against mine. I took one of her messy braids and wrapped it around my hand, a leash that bound her to me.
Her breath came quicker, her body leaning closer.
Damn, this was good.
Soon I would have her. All of her. The panting breaths, the pleading, the caresses, the sweet tight intimate places…
Abruptly, her hands slapped on my chest and pushed me an inch back.
“Damnit. Your chest is so hard and yummy,” she said. “But you know what? No.”
“No?”
“You haven’t proved yourself worthy of getting into this,” she said. “You’re an incubus. You love ‘em and leave ‘em.”
“I’m not going to do that to you.”
“I’m not convinced yet.”
“You prefer a ghost to me.” I suppose I’d never had to compete against another incubus before. Not that I would know. Usually I didn’t have much competition out in the real world, though, no denying that.
“It’s not that I prefer him, but I have to be more careful with you. I could have a future with you, but I suspect that I don’t. It’s probably not in your nature. So let’s keep it professional and figure all of this out first, and see how that goes.”
My body was in shock. This girl was giving me blue balls with a smile. This never happened to me. She knew it, too. That was why she was doing it. It was plain on her face.
Fuck. Now I wanted her even more.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
HELENA
TURNING Graham down after a kiss like that had to be one of the hardest things I’d ever done, but—go me!—I had some sense left. We had a job to do together, but I also had a job to do alone. I still needed to flip this house. If I got tangled up with him now, I would lose focus, and then I would lose money, and then I wouldn’t have anything for the next house. Unacceptable.
Even if it left my lips tingling with a need that coiled down through my entire body. I thought maybe I would be satisfied if I experienced incubus sex just once, but it seemed like it might be addictive.
Well, it was nearly worth it for the look on Graham’s face when I said no.
No one’s ever turned him down before, have they? Whatever happens, he’ll remember me forever.
That was my last thought before things got deeply awkward.
There was a knock on the door.
I stiffened, thinking it might be a visit from the council law enforcement. If they couldn’t get the Thing by theft, they could always try to just take it. I tried to remain calm. Maybe one of my workers decided to get some weekend
