Page 33 of Accidentally Engaged
Jared’s eyebrows fly sky-high. “Who?” he mouths.
“Incubus who lives out next to Jax Alley, the roadhouse that’s kind of dingy... but fun,” I mouth back.
“Pooka. Warlock. Incubus.” His brow is furrowed and his mouth hangs open.
“Banshee.” I beam. “Don’t worry, honey. Every monster I just mentioned is less evil than this thing,” I whisper, and nudge Patsy with my foot.
“I’ll be right over,” Artie sighs.
“I owe you anything in the shop, officer.”
“No, thank you. Just doing my duty.”
Note: Sometimes the Humans are the Monsters
Do I feel guilty that my ex-wife is sleeping off a banshee-induced mini-coma in the local jail?
Not even a little.
In fact, I’m turned on. Not by the jail cell (which I have been assured is reasonably comfy), but by the fact that Chloe put her there.
I know it’s stupid to think of it like this, but seriously... Chloe just kicked Patsy’s ass with her voice, and it was so fucking awesome to watch. She’s a superhero. Do you know what it’s like for a comic book nerd who spends hours playing games with mythical beings to suddenly find themselves dating a paranormal superhero?
Erotic combustion, my friends.
Do these thoughts make me a bad person?
I decide no, they don’t, because Chloe’s not a bad person for putting Patsy there in the first place. I double down on my decision when I see the bruise on my sweetie’s hip and under her ribs from where the car backed into her. When I realize that happened—I think about Patsy’s glove compartment full of speeding tickets and the way she loved to leadfoot around, and suddenly I’m holding Chloe’s hand in a hospital bed while machines beep and her heart rate ticks lower and lower from internal bleeding.
I know we’ve had a long day, I know tomorrow might be even crazier, and I don’t fucking care.
I finish my shower in Chloe’s pink and green bathroom and hurry to the bed where she’s sprawled out in a thin white nightgown, the kind that’s cotton but almost sheer.
“You could have gotten run over,” I whisper, eyes tracking the damaged spots I can’t see now, but I still see them in my mind’s eye.
“I could have. Didn’t.” She holds out her arms, and I crawl up the bed, my bulk seeming too big in this little space.
Chloe doesn’t think so, curling up tightly to me. I place my hand on her shoulder and rub gently, wishing my libido and stress could talk things out. My brain is going over horrible What-Ifs, and my cock is grabbing all the blood from my brain and sending it south, greedy for this soft, lithe body that fits perfectly against me.
“Love you,” she whispers.
I swallow hard, hard enough for her to hear. She said it. She said it first this time, or maybe she said it back from last time. Whatever, it doesn’t matter.
“Love you, too. So much.”
We just hold each other for a long time, and when I feel my eyelids getting heavy and sleep winning out over the aforementioned erotic combustion, I hear her voice. I hear it in my head, in the room, all around me, wrapping tendrils of notes around me as the pot of English ivy in the window starts to spread and creep gently along the wall. “Thiocfá agus aimsigh mé, chuirfeá i gcuimhne dom i gcónaí an áit a bhfuil mé i gceist a bheith...”
This time, I understand the words. I know them, and I sing with her.You'd come and find me, you’d always remind me of just where I'm meant to be...
Her eyes glow, and she looks up at me. “You are where I am meant to be, Jared. Do you know that?”
“I knew it before you did, silly.”
Chloe climbs onto me sleepily, until she rests atop. I rub my hands across her bare bottom, her nightgown now hiked up over two plump cheeks.
“We fit together,” she whispers, head over my heart.
“We sure do.”
