GRETA perched on a kitchen barstool with a plate of bacon, and scrambled eggs covered in maple syrup. Her long tanned legs were crossed, flip-flops dangling off her feet. Mink stood on the counter eating off the side of her plate.
“That’s disgusting,” Dayne said. She wasn’t sure if he was referring to her habit of eating maple syrup on her eggs, or sharing food with the cat. Mink hopped off the counter and fled to the other side of the room.
Dayne poured a glass of juice and took a packet of instant muffin mix from the cabinet. Greta tensed as he brushed past her to retrieve a bowl, muffin tin, milk, and a measuring cup. He took a chocolate cookie out of the cookie jar and chomped on it as he worked. A stubborn crumb stayed on the corner of his mouth, and Greta wanted to lick it off.
She was slowly losing her mind. He was dangerous. Probably. He was part of the ritual. Maybe. She wasn’t sure anymore. In the daylight it didn’t seem possible he’d do that to her. Two nights before she’d dreamed purple clowns were chasing her down an alley made of Swiss cheese. Some dreams were just dreams.
“Is something wrong?” Dayne preheated the oven and was engaged in pouring the batter into the muffin tin.
“Why are you doing that?”
“Doing what?”
She gestured to the batter. “Can’t you just zap them?”
“Only an amateur magic user uses a spell for such a petty thing.” He sounded like he was reciting from a textbook.
Greta spun on the bar stool, first one way, then the other. Some- thing she hadn’t done since she was a kid at Simon’s house. She wanted blueberry muffins. It was getting close to the full moon and she was still hungry. But Dayne made her skin itch, and the kitchen was suddenly too hot and confining.
Her eyes cut to the doorway to see Mink slipping out of the room. In a minute, the cat would be back, whining to be let out. Greta left her plate on the counter and, without a word, followed after her.
Dayne took the blueberry muffins from the oven and dropped the tray. Dammit. Was he developing some type of mental retardation? She’d deflected his question about what was wrong by asking why he didn’t use magic to make muffins. She had a point there.
And since when was he eating instant blueberry muffins and chocolate cookies? Her poor eating habits were beginning to rub off on him. He never should have sprung for the cookie jar. All those simple carbs.
He was going to have to resort to magic to stay in shape if he kept eating like this. Only two more days, then she was on her own and he was back to the regimented diet. He plucked one of the muffins from the tray and ate it anyway, then went to look for her. Whatever was causing her anxiety needed to be resolved, at least reduced. Otherwise, it could affect the ritual.
He found her in the garden. “Greta . . . ”
She shrieked and covered herself with one of his bright fluffy beach towels. Dayne looked away, his hand over his eyes.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“Give me a second. Okay. I’m decent.”
She hadn’t been kidding about a second. She could put clothing on as fast as most people could take it off. Dayne wondered if she was holding out on him about her magical abilities.
As to her decency, that was a matter of perspective. “You avoided my question earlier in the kitchen.”
“Oh?” She sat on the ground and picked a daisy, tearing the petals off one by one. Her eyes followed each petal as it fell onto her shorts, and the warm breeze carried it away.
“I asked you if something was wrong.”
She looked up at him, her eyes guileless. “Wrong? No. Why would something be wrong?”
Dayne felt his face darken at the same time Greta’s aura did. “You’re lying.”
She shrugged and picked another daisy. He felt the tension roll over her as her eyes flashed to gold and then back to brown so fast it could have been a trick of the light.
He sat on the grass a few feet away and uprooted a daisy, starting on the same mindless ritual Greta was focused on. When she looked up at him, her shoulders relaxed.
He sighed. “What are you afraid of? You know they can’t get to you, not even in the garden. You’ve been safe here the entire time, and the clock is running out. You’re useless to them after tomorrow night.”
He reached out and settled a hand on her knee. “Are you afraid of me?”
Greta’s wide eyes rose to his. “No.”
“Is it because of the way I behaved when you first got here? Or anything we’ve done since then?”
“No. I’m not afraid of you.”
He watched as her eyes drifted to his hand, then away, then back again, but she didn’t ask him to remove it. He laid his other hand against her cheek.
“You really are safe with me.”
She rubbed her cheek against his palm and scooted to close the distance between them. Her mouth latched onto his. He returned the kiss; his hand settled on the back of her neck holding her firmly in place while his tongue explored.
In the next moment, she’d scrambled off him. “Greta, what?” He touched a finger to his lips.
“I don’t need to be starting something up with someone who may or may not be evil.”
“Who said we were starting anything up?” Her face flushed. “I’m sorry, I forgot.”
“Forgot what?” He didn’t know what she was apologizing for until he saw the signs of the heat.
“I was supposed to take it after breakfast. And then you came in and distracted me.”
“It’s all right. I understand this. I don’t think badly of you. Let me help you.”
She held a warning finger out to him as she struggled to her feet. “You stay the hell away from me.”
He edged nearer. “You are afraid of me.”
Greta didn’t trust herself to speak. She needed him now. Her body sought his. After the first day, he’d been nothing but kind to her. Never raising his voice, never grabbing or threatening her. He’d gone shopping for her; he’d done everything right. Dreams were often a jumbled mixture of all the things people experience, desire, and fear. It made sense Dayne would get jumbled in too.
She had no illusions he wanted to keep her around, and she didn’t want to sleep with him again if it was going to be just another meaningless ritual biology had set up as a physical act with no feeling. If she was going to be physical with someone, she wanted the feelings that came with it. She wanted him to care.
“I’m not afraid of you.”
He cocked his head to the side looking past her, and she wondered what had caused the confused expression to come to his face.
“You’re conflicted,” he said after a moment.
“I’m not conflicted. I just want control of my own damn body.” Her voice quivered more than she liked. She darted behind a row of hedges and passed through the gate before detouring to her room. She shut and locked the door.
Moments later there was a quiet knock.
Greta’s need flowed through her. It thrashed about like a live wire demanding satisfaction. The arousal was so strong it was becoming painful. A rumbling purr started in her chest, trying to soothe it away. She needed him inside her now.
“Greta, let me help you. You can’t make it until tomorrow,” Dayne said reasonably from the other side of the door.
She sat on the edge of the bed, her nails digging into the sheets, rending long tears in them. Dayne didn’t seem conflicted at all. Greta was glad at least one of them wasn’t suffering from that problem.
“I don’t want to frighten you. I don’t want to open the door with magic. But I’m not sure I can stay out here and listen to you howl like that.”
She hadn’t realized she’d been making vocalizations. Sounds that could be either pleasure or pain. At this point, even she couldn’t decipher the tangled web of sensations running through her. She left the bed without conscious thought and crawled to the door. Her fingernails dug into the wood as she pressed her ear to the flat panel listening to him while he spoke soft words of reassurance. She panted as she breathed in his scent.
Greta ripped the clothes from her body. The room was becoming too hot. She couldn’t think. A horrible sound tore from her throat.
“I’m coming through the door if you don’t open it.”
She wanted him to. Anything so she wouldn’t have to make the choice to throw herself at him. Let him be the one on a conquest, not her.
“Greta.”
She couldn’t form a thought that would translate itself into a sentence. The only words that wanted to work their way through her brain were, “Please fuck me now.” She knew he was more than willing to oblige. All she had to do was move a few inches, and unlock the door. One tiny little turn.
Her hand reached out, and she pulled it away, biting her bottom lip.
“I’m counting down, and then I’m opening the door. ten . . .
nine . . . eight . . . seven . . . six . . . five . . . ” She unlocked the door.
“ . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . ” She opened the door.
Dayne’s clothes had already been stripped off. She wanted to say he’d been presumptuous, but large words like presumptuous couldn’t be processed in her near feral state. She pounced on him and wrapped her legs around his waist.
He walked them backward to the bed. “I’m never buying Egyptian cotton sheets again.”
“Please,” she breathed. They both knew she wasn’t asking for sheets.