Middy was still lost in the rapture that had been his hand on her body. She was suddenly afraid. If just that simple contact had done that to her, what would a full-on encounter achieve? Could one die from an orgasm?
She supposed it had to be possible. What brought her back down to earth was the knowledge that if he succeeded in murdering her by orgasm, there would be no containing his ego, and women would line up around the world twice for that kind of death.
No, no. She couldn’t have that. After all, he was still a dark warlock and evil right down to his perfectly manicured toenails. She’d read that in the magazine, too. He liked pedicures. How metrosexual and un-Alpha was that? Yeah, she just had to keep her brain on that train of thought.
He smiled at her and she fell out through the baggage car and the train left without her. He was angelically handsome when he smiled. The warmth crept up into his eyes, melt-ing the arctic tundra there and making him almost human.
He was talking to her, but she still had no idea what he’d said. It was completely unacceptable for her to have this reaction to him. That was it, the magazine had to go. No more jilling-off to real people. Then situations such as these could be avoided.
“So, you were saying, Miss Cherrywood?”
“Middy, please.” Every time he said “Cherrywood” she kept expecting to hear the last part of that thrice damned taunt.
“Middy? That’s rather old womanish of you.” He took a sip of wine.
“Oh?” She took umbrage. Middy liked her name. “Dred is any better? You sound like some emo goth hanging out at Hot Topic to pick up a suitable princess of the night to share your darkness, or some other tripe.”
Of course, she wasn’t going to tell him that the shoes she was wearing had come from Hot Topic. Nope, or the fairy pen she had in her purse. Of course, the magickal model could hold a real fairy. She didn’t keep hers stocked; it seemed wrong to keep them there just to light up her pen when they had the stars to look after.
“You’ve got me there.” He smirked at her again, the corner of his mouth curling up. “Though I have to say, I like it better than Mordred.”
“Mordred does have that dark warlock ring to it.”
“It’s a family name. My mother says she can trace our family’s roots back to Arthur through Mordred and LeFey. If you prefer it to Dred, then you may use it.”
“Now you’ve got me,” she said smiling.
“Do I?” he asked casually, but his eyes were like hot coals as they burned into her.
“I was just going to say that I like Dred better.”
“Is Middy a nickname?”
“For Midnight.”
“Now who’s hanging out at Hot Topic?” Dred smirked again.
Middy swore his face was going to freeze like that if he kept doing it. Not that it would be awful because it wasn’t like he was slack jawed and algae toothed or anything. It was that devastating smirk.
Couldn’t the man have had a bad hair day in all of his life?
He’d probably had grooming charms since birth. All of the highborns did. Hell, this one might have had it in the womb given how beautiful and forever perfect his mother, Aradia Shadowins, was rumored to be.
She’d never seen the witch up close, so Middy couldn’t say with any certainty. Looking at the fine specimen of the son, she had to imagine the mother was beautiful. Aradia contributed money to various charities herself, but didn’t attend social gatherings much since the Gargoyle War.
“I love their music selection.”
Dred Shadowins had just admitted that he did, in fact, shop at Hot Topic. She’d dated one warlock who’d teased her mercilessly about it. It was mortal alternative culture couture, something most of the highborns frowned upon.
Not to mention that she was years older than most of the other shoppers. That’s what was embarrassing. Dred’s admission could be a trap to get her to admit something else about herself that he could use to taunt her.
“Shall we get on with it?” Middy knew the sooner she was done with this, the sooner she could get away from him.
He was looking at her as if he knew what she looked like naked and was pleased with what he saw. She’d dreamed of this, but she’d never thought it would actually happen. She wasn’t sure that she wanted it to happen. Some things were better as a fantasy. There had to be more to his interest than his suddenly waking up and deciding he had to have a piece of Miss Midnight Cherrywood.
Even if there wasn’t, which there had to be, she didn’t see herself falling into bed with Dred Shadowins. Middy was smarter than that. Plus, she didn’t even like him. It was important to like the person that you let into the holiest of holies, wasn’t it?
She pulled out her folders and packets of information about the foundation and the work it did. Middy was sure that he already had the research, as he’d donated before, but since this was a much more sizable amount, he would have gone digging with a fine-toothed comb.
“I’m going to be blunt. We need the Gargoyle Masque.
If it doesn’t happen, many of our projects are going to fall through. Lots of needy children won’t get clean drinking water, food, or a chance to go to school. We haven’t even begun to talk about sending these kids to Academy. This is just a mortal education, simple things that we take for granted, but that could change circumstances for these kids in a dramatic way.” Middy pushed the figures over to him.
“What about health care?”
“We have a witch and warlock team who go to these places and offer mortal and magickal treatments to the pop-ulace on a monthly basis, but it’s not enough.”
“What about the gargoyle population?”
“I’m not going to lie. We offer care and treatment to all magickal folk. We also offer integration classes and other services to help promote acceptance on both sides. I hope that’s not a problem for you.”
“No, it’s not a problem, Midnight.” He flipped through the papers she’d given him. “You’ve got your cost estimate planned down to the very cent.”
“I’m thorough and efficient. Full disclosure of how your donation will be used is part of my charm,” she said with a smile.
Stop flirting. Right now.
“It certainly is. Tell you what. I’ll double my donation if you go as my date to the Masque.”
Middy choked on the apple-cranberry spinach salad she’d ordered. Time seemed to stop as did that devil-spawned cranberry that had been between her molars, but was now somewhere between her throat and her tongue.
She inhaled deeply, but that didn’t help. It seemed to make that satanic berry quadruple in size and she hawked like a lumberjack with too much chew, trying to dislodge the thing. It was to no avail. She knew the other patrons were looking at her, but she couldn’t breathe. Dred was going to be no help because he was watching her quizzically as if she were a new sort of bug under glass. Middy hawked again with such force that it sent the berry on an ill-fated path, bypassing her mouth and up into her nose just as she was managing a particularly forceful exhale.
That cranberry shot out of her right nostril like a bullet from an M-16. It hurt like, well, shooting a cranberry out of your nose. Too bad that wasn’t the end of it. The cran-bullet shot straight at Dred’s wineglass. With the amount of force behind it, Middy watched in slow motion as it connected with the delicate glass. She was expecting the glass to shatter and stain the tablecloth. Embarrassing, yes. But not the sort of mortification that would make you pray for an asteroid the size of Los Angeles to end it all so no one else would ever know about this particular misadventure.
No. The glass didn’t break; the cran-bullet bounced from its clear and delicate surface like a rubber ball and was cat-apulted right into Dred’s eye. She saw his eyes widen as it sped toward impact, almost as if he were giving it a better target.
Middy watched in horror as he leaned back, as if he could escape his impending doom. He’d leaned so far back that his chair was perched in a precarious position at the moment of impact. He flipped the chair over backwards and landed with his hand over his eye and his ass in the air.
His chair dropped into a sort of makeshift shelter over his head. Ironic, given it was after the fact.
Middy didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She was frozen to her chair as waiters and management came running to the rescue.
She didn’t mind all the commotion though; as long as they were fussing over him, they were ignoring her. Too bad Dred had teleported them to the winery. If she’d had her broom, she could have made a very quick escape and never, ever had to look him in his good eye again.
Because Middy was sure, he would only have one good one left. The bastard would probably wear an eye patch and get even more ass because he looked even more dangerous.
Dred had regained his seat and was now perched across from her with only one, steel-gray eye open, appraising her.
Middy was sure that if her cheeks got any redder, she’d look like a Red Hot.
“You were saying?” Dred said casually.
All Middy could do was shake her head. She couldn’t pry her mouth open with a crowbar. Not that it mattered in any event. No sound would be issuing forth.
“Miss Cherrywood, I asked you a question. Please do me the courtesy of answering.”
He still wanted to go with her to the Masque? What perversity was this? She wanted to ask why, but the look on his one-eyed face was enough to strangle that question in its infancy.
She pried her mouth open and was surprised that it didn’t make a sound like a rusty hinge. Middy told her voice to say no. She demanded it, but her vocal cords were ever rebellious organs. No sound came out, but she realized that she was flopping her head around in the affirmative.
“I’m glad that’s settled. Now, if you please, could you get your meal to go?”
He was so polite, it was making the situation worse. She felt a little titter tickle the back of her throat. It was a giggle. He was so correct, so proper, and he still had one eye closed. It was swelling now, which she felt bad about, but she could see it growing like a tumor as she stared at it, dar-ing her to laugh.
“Miss Cherrywood, if you laugh right at this moment, there will be certain hell to pay.”
That made the tickle grow to more of an itch and she tittered out loud this time, but with her teeth biting down on her bottom lip.
“I am allergic to cranberries.”
She snorted again, choking on her cough, and damn the man if he didn’t duck. Middy didn’t even see him fly around the table and she didn’t even realize that he’d dragged her from the dining room and out through the front door, it all happened so fast. She did realize when his arm was around her again and she was plastered to his body.
Middy prayed to anyone that was listening that she didn’t hurl on this trip either. Again, being next to him was so nice, but she’d already shot an allergen right into his eye.
She didn’t quite wish she was dead yet, but that was all it would take.
Then she realized she’d just challenged the universe. The path of her thoughts was just the same as muttering aloud that it couldn’t get any worse. It could
always
get worse. She made bargains and pleaded, she promised never to jill-off to Dred again, even though she knew it was a lie, if she could just make it through the teleportation without spewing apple-cranberry-spinach horror all over his Cavallies. Her stomach settled and she prayed the universe wouldn’t hold her to her promise.
They appeared in the Broom Closet and he did not offer his hand this time to help her mount her broom. She wasn’t sure what to say.
“Thank you for lunch and your donation,” Middy said weakly.
“I’d like to say my pleasure, but I won’t. I will see you at six o’clock on October thirteenth.”
Middy let out the breath she’d been holding when she’d departed, but found that she didn’t want to laugh anymore.
She had a date with Dred Shadowins. A casual lunch had resulted in a disaster that could live on in infamy with its own name, like a war movie with John Wayne. What did the Masque have in store?
Nothing good, of that she was certain. Especially when she got home and found her housemate, Drusilla “Tally”
Tallow, waiting for her.
“Martin told me that you were having a pitch session with Mordred Shadowins. Quite frankly, I’m surprised you’re back this early.” Tally eyed her with disapproval.
“And looking so fresh and uncorrupted.”
“Oh, it’s Martin now, is it?” Middy teased as she kicked off her heels and they marched themselves back to her closet.
“You have to cast that spell on my shoes. They just won’t obey me.” Tally sighed. “And yes, it’s Martin. I rather like him.”
“Do you?” Middy asked, a warm happiness suffusing her.
Tally had been lonely and unhappy for a long time. “Last I knew, you were still calling him Chancellor Vargill. Spill. I need details.”
“Well, you knew he flew me home after that Beltane charity thing.” Tally bit her lip, as if there was something else she wanted to say and for a moment, Middy thought she saw a shadow in her eyes, but it was gone as quickly as it had come. Midnight chalked it up to everything Tally had been through with her shitty taste in warlocks. They used to joke that she could bring out the zero in any hero.
“You said nothing happened.” Midnight raised a brow in faux disapproval.
“It didn’t. Not that night. He asked me out to dinner and it went from there.” Tally smiled. “I didn’t tell you because he thought it would be akward if you knew. But I can’t help myself, Middy. I really like him.”
“I’m happy for you.” She smiled.
“And he gives the best—”
“I really don’t need
those
details, Tally. I need to be able to look him in the face,” Middy interrupted with a blush.
“No, you don’t, do you? Not unless you’re planning on stealing him away from me.” Tally eyed her again.
“Goddess, no!”
“Just checking. I know he’s incredibly reserved and not just a little bookish, but he’s so kind.” Tally got a dreamy look on her pixie features.
“I know you need someone to be good to you after that crap cauldron of an ex-boyfriend, Tristan Belledare. War hero, my ass,” Middy said. “A man who says ‘I love you’ just to get in your pants certainly wouldn’t sacrifice anything to save someone else.”