Midlife Demon Hunter: The Forty Proof Series, Book 3

by Mayer, Shannon

  Crash blushed and that only made me go all hot, my own skin answering with a flash of heat so strong, I wondered why it didn’t light my clothes on fire and burn them right off into a pile of ashes.

  Now, just a warning, this is a moment where those of you with prudish tendencies might want to flip ahead a few pages. In fact, it might be best if you mosey along to the next chapter.

  I’ll wait for you to go.

  Go.

  Seriously.

  Okay, I assume those who are still reading are all in for this next bit.

  I tightened my hand on his and took a step back, drawing him with me. “Why are you blushing, Crash? Worried I won’t be impressed with what I see? ’Cause let me remind you, I’ve seen it all.”

  He chuckled. “You make me feel young again, Bree. Like I haven’t seen centuries pass, like I’ve never been with a woman before. Like I’ve never been hurt. I can’t explain it.”

  I kept backing, walking through the open door to my bedroom heading toward the ensuite bathroom. With every step, my heart pounded a little harder. Should I have been trying to figure out what was happening with Grimm and hiding what he’d given me?

  Yes.

  Or making myself open the contents of that envelope with the information about what had happened to Gran and my parents?

  Also yes.

  Or figuring out how to stay safe from the goblins that were now gunning for me?

  You bet.

  But not right then. Not when Crash’s finger was sliding around the bottom of my shirt and tugging it upward. Yeah, any thought of responsibilities, of what could have been, of what should have been fled my mind.

  I looked down at the old, worn out, and stained with sweat bra I was wearing. “As you can see, I wasn’t expecting to put on a show.”

  Crash’s hands slid up my forearms to my shoulders and across to my neck. He stepped closer then, one hand sliding down my back to the clasp of my bra as the other dipped down to cup one breast. “I think I can manage,” he murmured. Blue, gold-flecked eyes bored into mine and the heat flared between us so hard and fast that I thought we might both combust with that single touch.

  “I really need to shower,” I managed to say. “Like, I’m filthy.”

  His mouth tipped upward in a grin. “I can help with that too.” I took note that he was repeating himself. Hell, we both were. Was it possible he was as flustered as I was? That only added to the flutters in my belly, because if he was flustered . . . maybe that meant this was something more than just a fling.

  His fingers worked the back clasp of my bra, then he slid it off, one shoulder strap at a time. I could feel the weight of the girls’ downward trajectory as they were released. Crash stepped back, and I looked up at the ceiling as if the peeling paint there was suddenly all I could think about.

  “You are beautiful, Breena,” he said, and the Irish accent that sometimes popped up lay heavy on his words. “Don’t let anyone, including yourself, tell you otherwise.”

  I did look at him then. “I’m—”

  “You don’t see what others see. It took me a long time to understand that. But maybe that was the best thing your gran could do for you. It made you . . . a better person.” He paused before adding, “I don’t think you see what most fae want you to see either.”

  That caught my interest. Like seeing Grimm as a bat-eared goblin instead of as a handsome pretty boy?

  “I see you,” I said.

  “I know. It surprised me even on that first day,” he said. “Most see only the darkness that is wrapped around me. Few see through it.”

  I reached for his hand and tugged him forward. “Enough talking.” He stepped closer, and I looked up at him as our bare chests pressed together. He lowered his head to mine, and the same fire rose between us when our lips touched—a low burning in the center of my belly that spread outward in pulses of sweet decadence. A promise of what was coming if I let this go too far.

  Yeah, I was going to let it go too far, maybe even push the whole situation right off the cliff.

  We stumbled backward into the bathroom, and I almost fell over my own feet. Crash caught me and our mouths parted. I giggled, and he laughed with me.

  “Don’t fall,” he whispered.

  “Too late,” I said and his eyes sobered, the laughter fading, leaving behind only the heat that flared once more.

  His big hands, rough with work, slid carefully over my body as we flicked the shower on, his touch as light as could be despite his years of working with his hands. He unbuttoned his jeans and slid them over his slim hips to the floor. The man had been going commando, there wasn’t a brief in sight. The flames of his tattoo curled downward over his hip to a pile of black coal that settled on his upper thigh. I let my fingers trace the design, reveling in the way his skin trembled under my touch.

  I shivered and his hands slowed, lowering to circle my waist, and then he lifted me into the shower. “Where’s the soap?” he asked as he followed me.

  Oh, Jaysus help me, the fire had gotten so hot I worried I might spontaneously combust, and that was with the water flowing over our very naked bodies.

  Holy Christmas toast, I was naked with Crash.

  Naked.

  I backed up against the shower wall and he followed, a loofah sponge in one hand and a quizzical look on his face. “What the hell is this?”

  His question broke the tension and I took the loofah from him. “Here.” I poured liquid soap into it and got the bubbles going, then ran it over his chest, following the path of the sponge with my free hand.

  His eyes widened. “Clever.”

  I lifted it and smooshed it into his face, leaving him covered in bubbles. He wiped his hand over his face and growled. “Oh, you’ll regret that.”

  I squealed as he pinned both arms above my head and took the loofah from me. He ran it over my body, indeed getting me clean. I was groaning as he made a second pass with his free hand, sliding through the bubbles, smoothing them away. “Crash.”

  “Bree,” he growled my name as his mouth dropped to my wet nipple and pulled it into his mouth. I cried out and arched against him, all thoughts of playing gone in a flash. His hand slid down from my other breast to my hip, then lower, to the V between my legs, effortlessly caressing the sensitive skin there.

  He groaned as he pulled more of my breast into his mouth, then shifted with a trail of kisses across my chest to the other.

  Fingers slid into me, tentative and careful at first as though he was gauging my comfort level. I wriggled, trying to open myself up to him, wanting the heat radiating off his body. Wanting everything he had and more.

  He still had my hands pinned above my head, which meant all I could do was squirm under his touch, moaning his name over and over as again his fingers slid over my lips, finding that sweet spot that Alan couldn’t have found with a compass, map, and detailed set of directions.

  Crash’s fingers pulsed in and out of me, slow and rhythmic, while his thumb rubbed at the center of every hot need he’d set off in my body.

  He moved his fingers and mouth leisurely in an exquisite kind of torture, sliding over and in me, increasing the pressure a little more each time, and always easing off before I was ready. Yes, this was torture, this was the best kind that I wasn’t sure I’d survive, and I didn’t much care if I died right there. My legs shook, and all those muscles that had been tense and complaining just ten minutes before were more than happy to shake for a different reason.

  The heat of his mouth on my breasts brought me up onto my tiptoes, and the pressure from his fingers cut through any lingering worry I had that this might be a bad idea.

  I wanted to touch him, but he kept me pinned to the bathroom wall, the cool of the tiles on my back giving me the only sense of reality to standing there with him, his dark head bowed over my body, the curl of pleasure rippling outward, pulsing with the fire he stoked in me, the water dancing across his back and sliding over his bare skin.

  A gasp e
scaped me, and he groaned, that deep rumble vibrating from his mouth and over my nipple. I thought he’d pull away, I thought he’d push himself into me and lift me onto his hips to finish the job in the most mind-blowing shower sex I’d ever experienced.

  Hell, I’d need a hand hold for that, maybe some footrests. Maybe he’d put some in?

  Crash let go of my hands as he went to his knees, and I might have squeaked in anticipation, my muscles clenching even harder at the thought of what he was about to do. Where his magic mouth was about to go.

  A brief thought was simple and to the point: Gawd in heaven, don’t let me fart.

  And just like that, I could do nothing but stand there and think about not farting. About not letting something squeak out through the bands of muscles that had been ravaged by years of not being fit. I found myself pulling back, even though it was the very last thing I wanted to do.

  Crash looked up at me, one eyebrow raised, but said nothing. He simply leaned forward and placed a kiss right below my belly button. He sucked the skin in, leaving a slight mark, and whatever fear I had dissipated in a rush of new heat that pooled wherever his mouth went, marking me.

  Kiss after kiss, he made his way lower and I dropped my hands to the top of his head, sliding them through his wet strands, relishing every strand on his full head of hair.

  He settled his mouth on that magic spot, and damn, it was like a direct line to every nerve in my body.

  For a moment—although admittedly a brief one—I wondered again if this was a bad idea. What we were doing would surely tie me closer to Crash, but he was maybe not as bad as I’d first thought. He’d helped me reclaim my gran’s house, and I genuinely believed he’d do anything to protect me. I leaned my head back as he growled, and the vibration sent me over the edge, waves of desire pulsing in increasing intensity with each flick of his tongue, with each stroke of his fingers, until I wasn’t sure I’d be able to survive him and his mouth.

  A last flick of his tongue, a last curl of his mouth, and all that heat . . . I couldn’t help crying out his name as I found myself spiraling upward, unable to think straight as I hung there, pleasure pinning me against the wall as my hips bucked against his mouth, my body clenching out every last ounce of pleasure.

  The shower water sprayed over us and I blinked a few times, trying to think straight and failing.

  Hands under my ass held me up as I slumped against the wall, my body nothing but a bundle of Jell-O barely held together by bones and skin. Crash stood, a rather self-satisfied grin on his face as he grabbed the loofah and tugged me close to him. Pressed up against a warm, wet, grinning Crash was all it took for my libido to remind me that we weren’t done.

  He soaped me up, turned me around and scrubbed my back, all the way down my ass and the backs of my legs. “Beautiful,” he murmured.

  I tried to turn around to face him, but he kept me facing the wall as he started in on my hair, pulling out each of the braids Kinkly had put in, then scrubbing it. Helping me rinse it out. All very sweet, but while the heat between us hadn’t cooled exactly, it was no longer the frantic need that had consumed us both.

  “Crash?”

  “Hmm.” He put his mouth to that place where neck meets shoulder and pressed his lips hard against my skin.

  “You . . . are you not . . .” Damn it, spit it out, girl! “Are we not having sex?”

  He turned me around and kissed me. “When you’ve made your choice. Corb is right—I don’t share well. It’s why Karissa and I parted ways. She wanted a true harem.” He paused, his eyes drifting up and down my body. “If I’m not enough on my own, then I’m not the right one.”

  I blinked up at him, the water splashing droplets all over my face. “You know I was teasing about the harem thing earlier.”

  “I know you were. But Corb doesn’t. And his kind are more than able to share.” He bent his head and kissed me again, lazy, deep, and the fire rekindled between us, hotter even than before, and once more he was pushing me against the wall. I hooked a leg over his hip, welcoming him to come just that last little bit closer.

  I think he might have taken me right there, his body was poised to do just that, and I wiggled to get my legs around his hips, to draw him in. I could have made my decision right there and been happy as a pig in shit for the rest of however long I had Crash.

  But, of course, that’s when someone just had to knock from the bedroom.

  “Breena, I know you’re in there.”

  My ex-husband was at the fricking door.

  13

  For those who skipped the rest of the last chapter, here’s the recap: Crash and I were getting busy, and we were about to seal the deal when someone knocked on the door.

  Anyone would have been upset by that kind of interruption.

  But did it really have to be my ex-husband banging on the door? Yelling at me to get my fat ass out of there?

  “Who the hell let you in?” I yelled back as I slid down Crash’s body, feeling every inch of him as I went. I whimpered at the loss of what that moment had almost been. He flicked off the shower, bent, and kissed me on the cheek.

  “Rain check.”

  Rain check indeed. I swatted his ass as he stepped out ahead of me.

  Alan banged on the door again. “I have a key. Get out here. What did you say to Corb? I caught him snooping around my place!”

  Now, part of me was impressed, because the last time Alan had been here, he’d been stealing my gran’s spell book and the talisman that I wore around my neck. I’d caught him and threatened to make his twig and berries shrivel up and fall off if he ever came back. Not to mention he’d peed himself because Eric had literally scared the piss out of him.

  Yet here he was, being a pain in my ass again. That was dedication, I’d give him that. He banged on the door, rattling it hard. “What the hell? Why am I even here? I don’t want to be here!” he yelled.

  I blinked and looked at Crash. “Did he just say what I think he said?”

  Crash tossed me a towel and wrapped one around his waist. I bundled up and opened the door to see Alan pacing my bedroom, grabbing at his mostly bald head. He wore the same outfit he’d worn to the auction the week before, and he had his hat in his hand. My mouth dropped open. Because . . . well, not because he was there, which was bad enough.

  But because he was a damn ghost. “Alan.”

  “You did this to me, didn’t you?” He spun and pointed an accusatory finger at me, but my gaze was fixed on the gaping wounds in his neck, like an animal had chewed on him and torn his throat out. I put a hand to my mouth. Blood dripped down Alan’s body, and while it didn’t leave a mark on the floor, I kept glancing at the floor, waiting for it to happen.

  “He doesn’t know.” Crash stepped up beside me. “I can only see him a little, but I can tell he doesn’t know.”

  Alan pointed a finger at Crash. “Who the hell is this? Are you seriously banging a freak like that?”

  I gave my head a little shake as I tried to catch up with this sudden and shocking reality. But a distant part of me wondered what Alan saw in Crash. What did he mean about him being a freak?

  But that seemed like a minor question in light of the fact that Alan was in my room, dead. Hating Alan as I did, I didn’t feel terrible about the fact that he’d died, let alone in an obviously shitty way. But it was a problem that he was here. My gran usually didn’t let other ghosts intrude on her territory. “Gran, can you help me out?”

  Oh, she’d get a kick out of seeing Crash in nothing but a towel. Almost as if he knew he was in for teasing and a tongue lashing, Crash stepped back into the bathroom. “I’m going to get dressed.”

  “You do that,” Alan snapped. “This is ridiculous, you shouldn’t lower yourself to—”

  “Shut your piehole.” I snapped my fingers at Alan and his mouth clamped shut, to both of our surprises.

  I strode to my dresser and yanked clean clothes out while I waited for Gran to make her appearance.

 
Alan stalked in front of me, hands waving, mouth not moving, blood everywhere. I mean, not real blood, but still. “Alan. Go stand over by the window and don’t move,” I growled.

  He backed up quickly, anger flashing on every part of his face. It was strange to think that at one point I’d loved this man enough to give up my gran, to give up my life here in Savannah. I shook my head. “I was a fool.”

  Crash stepped out of the bathroom, jeans on, but the way his eyes heated as he looked over my chest, still topless, told me he’d prefer to have them off. “Do you want me to stay here, while you . . . interview him?”

  Alan couldn’t seem to take it anymore. “Interview me? Interview me? What the hell is going on?”

  That was a question I wanted answered too. I pulled on my bra and shirt and buttoned my jeans, amazed at how loose they were in the waist and thighs. I’d been so busy the last few weeks, I hadn’t bothered to put on anything but the special leathers Gerry had made for me. Leathers that magically adjusted to my body as my musculature and weight changed.

  “Alan, what happened to you?” I turned to face him, motioning for Crash to stay with me.

  Alan huffed for a minute. “Well, I was at my rental place working on the computer.” I think he blushed, although it was a little harder to tell with a ghost.

  “You mean you were looking at porn,” I drawled. “I caught you more than once, you nincompoop. So you were playing around with yourself and your fake girlfriends. And then what?”

  He glared at me. “I do not look at porn. I don’t need it. I have plenty of women who want me.”

  I rolled my eyes to the ceiling. What was it about the ceilings in this house that just begged me to stare at them when I couldn’t find the right words? “Look, you were on the computer, and then what?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, and there was nothing more pitiful than those three words. “I woke up and everyone acted like they couldn’t see me, including Corb, so I . . . well, I didn’t choose to come here. But I figured you put a spell on me, like you threatened. Because I was just here, and now I can’t leave!”