by Lexi George
Sassy snatched her hand off the door like it was red hot. Wes was exercising, all right. Just not the kind of workout she’d imagined.
“I can’t believe it.” Pink and red sparks of anger whizzed around Sassy’s head. “I am such an idiot.”
“You are not an idiot,” Grim said. “He is a beslubbering, useless dog pizzle not worth the sweat on a gnat’s wing. Give me leave and I will thrash the swag-bellied measle within an inch of his life.”
“You knew.” Sassy’s skin glowed like a banked furnace. “That’s why you tried to get me to leave. I’ve been kicking myself for hurting him and the whole time he’s been with someone.”
She blew the door open with a wave of her hand and was slapped in the face by the odors of sex, mildewed carpet, and industrial-strength toilet bowl freshener. Clothes and takeout containers littered the floor. Wes was on his knees on the rumpled bed going at it doggy-style with a chubby woman, her large breasts swaying as Wes pounded her from behind. He was naked but for a black cowboy hat and a pair of black and turquoise tooled-leather cowboy boots.
Shock replaced anger. Wes. In cowboy boots and a hat. It boggled the mind. The closest he’d come to a cow in his life was the dairy aisle at Publix.
“Sassy.” Wes shoved the woman face down onto the bed and jumped to his feet. “I can explain. It’s not what it looks like.”
Wes looked three kinds of ridiculous in the hat and boots. Mr. Happy bobbed hello and promptly deflated.
“Really? Because it looks an awful lot like you’re having sex with my real estate agent. Correction—make that my former real estate agent.” Sassy spared the naked woman on the bed the merest of glances. “Hello, Dab. How long have you been slamming my fiancé?”
Wes grabbed a pillow and slapped it over his junk. “Seriously, Sassy. I am shocked by your language.”
“Seriously, Wes, is that my engagement ring she’s wearing?” Sassy pointed to the sparkler on Dab’s ring finger. “Your grandmother’s ring, the one you were supposed to be having sized for me?”
“She . . . uh . . . wanted to try it on before I took it to the jewelry store.”
“And you let her because you wanted to have sex with her, a woman you hardly know.”
“He knows me plenty.” Dab tucked the sheet under her arms and gave Sassy a defiant glare. “We’ve been together since December. Since Wes drove to Hannah for you, little Miss Fairhope, and hired me to put the house on the market.”
“Since December?” Sassy’s jaw went slack. She stared at Wes. “She’s married. And she’s ten years older than you.”
“Sassy,” Grim murmured behind her. “It matters not.”
Sassy inhaled and counted to ten. Grim was right. Wes could take a flying leap.
She lifted her chin. “Good-bye, Wes. We’re done. The wedding is off.”
As Sassy turned to leave, Wesley’s words stopped her.
“Don’t be a child,” he said. “My father has a mistress. Lots of men have mistresses. It doesn’t mean anything. She doesn’t mean anything. She’s nobody. A little something on the side.”
“Wes,” Dab wailed. “You said you loved me.”
“Shut up.” Wes gave Sassy a cold look. “You will marry me, Sassy. My father has made some bad investments. I need your money.”
“And if I don’t?”
“I’ll tell everyone in Fairhope I found you shacked up with two studs and a dyke. People will think you’re a slut. Your mother will never be able to hold her head up in society again.”
Bum brrum brrrumble, the sound of drums filled Sassy’s head and ears, drowning out Grim’s growl of fury. And to think, but for providence, she would have married this louse. Wind swirled through the door, knocking over the lamp and blowing the stained coverlet off the bed. Wes’s cowboy hat flew off his head and rolled across the carpet.
“You are a jackass, Wesley Eugene Bodiford,” Sassy said. “A complete unmitigated jackass, and I wouldn’t marry you for all the tea in China.”
Ping. A chime sounded and Wes sprouted donkey ears.
Sassy turned to the woman on the bed. “Keep the ring, Dab. I insist.”
Ping. The chime sounded again.
“Ow.” Dab pulled at her finger. “The ring’s stuck. It won’t come off.” Her voice rose. “What am I going to tell my husband?”
Wes gaped in the mirror. His donkey ears were beauties, long, brown, and expressive. The inner folds bristled with thick, white hair. At the moment, they were twitching in alarm.
“My ears,” Wes croaked. “What the—?”
Sassy whirled around and slammed into Grim’s broad chest. He stepped aside and she followed him onto the sidewalk.
She closed the door, muting the noise and excitement in room number ten. Someone sounded unhappy.
Make that two someones.
She smiled up at Grim. “Guess what? I’m not engaged anymore.”
“Thank the gods,” Grim said, and kissed her.
Sassy melted against Grim and kissed him back. Grim’s body tightened at her nearness. She smelled of summer roses and amber and something else, a trace of something crisp and green, floral sweetness warmed by earthy musk and the refreshing clean scent of spring grass and growing things. All things Sassy: laughter and warmth, purity and power, joy and seduction in one delectable, maddening woman.
Rage, revenge, and guilt had been Grim’s reality until this small, blithe woman had spun into his life, knocking him off balance and disordering him, shining a light on his bleak existence. In the span of a few days she had changed his world. There was no going back, with or without her. The thought of returning to the way he’d been before was unbearable. Grim’s fierce, possessive warrior spirit had railed at him to take what he wanted.
What he needed.
But the choice had to be Sassy’s . . . though he’d thought ceding her to Wesley would kill him.
Sassy had chosen, and she had chosen him.
The vise that had squeezed Grim’s chest for days eased. His knees buckled and he sat down on the pavement. He pulled her onto his lap and held her close, burying his face in her fragrant hair.
“Sassy,” he murmured. “I have suffered agonies picturing you with that worm Wesley. You cannot imagine.”
“I think I have a pretty good idea. ‘Beautiful beyond compare’ is how you described the thralls.”
“No thrall can match your warmth and loveliness. Theirs is a cold beauty, the faint, distant glimmer of an evening star. But you . . .” Grim nuzzled her ear. She shivered in response. “You glow with the light of a thousand candles.”
“Humph,” Sassy said.
His lady pretended to be unappeased, but her body language said otherwise. She lay soft and pliant in his arms.
Grim grinned against the soft curve of her neck. “You are jealous?”
“Darn tooting.”
“I am glad of it. I would not suffer alone.”
The manager stepped out of the office. His unbuttoned shirt flapped in the breeze, exposing his flaccid belly.
“No canoodling in the parking lot,” he hollered. “Get a room or get out. Them’s the rules.”
Taking Sassy by the waist, Grim lifted her from his lap and got to his feet. Sassy placed the flat of her hand against his chest and met his gaze. The sultry promise in her eyes made his heart skip a beat.
“You heard the man,” she said. “No canoodling in the parking lot.”
“Where would you like to go?”
She lowered her lashes, her cheeks flushed. “I don’t care, as long as I am with you.”
Grim wanted to throw his head back and roar in triumph. Taking Sassy in his arms, he reached out with his mind. There was a startled shout from the manager as they shimmered and disappeared.
They reemerged in a leafy bower deep in the forest. The wind ruffled the treetops and the waterfall in the nearby grotto played a merry song. Sassy slipped from his arms. Turning slowly, she took in their surroundings.
“It�
��s beautiful . . . so peaceful and quiet. Like we’re the only people on earth.” She whirled about, her violet eyes wide. “We are still on earth, aren’t we?”
Her rosy lips were parted. Grim wanted to taste them again, to trace her dimples with the tip of his tongue, to kiss away the faint worry line between her brows.
“Yes.” Without taking his gaze from her, Grim raised his arm and pointed. “The river house lies but a few leagues that way.”
Folding her arms tight across her chest, Sassy gazed in the direction of the river. “Oh.”
She was nervous. Sudden panic slammed into Grim. He was a warrior. Harsh. Uncompromising. Brutal. A man of action. War, he knew. The hunt, he knew. Sex, he knew, though only as a bodily function. A means to rid himself of emotion, emerging calm and emptied. Ready to face the enemy without distraction.
Sassy was not a thrall to be casually used and forgotten. She aroused him, delighted him, confused and frustrated him. He was easily three times her size, maybe more, but she terrified him. Sassy was a fever in his blood, a balm to his weary soul. He wanted her. He needed her.
Losing Gryff had driven him into exile. Losing Sassy would end him. What if he bolloxed things? What if he’d done so already? What if she changed her mind?
He needed guidance, but from whom? Conall, perhaps.
Grim considered the notion and rejected it. Admit to his captain that he, a warrior renowned for his tenacity and ferocity in battle, was petrified by this dab of a woman?
Nay.
Who, then, to offer him counsel? Someone who knew him and Sassy, someone dispassionate.
“Abide here but a moment,” Grim told Sassy. “I would place wards around us for protection.”
Turning, Grim fled to the edge of the clearing, away from Sassy but not out of sight. He looked back. Sassy watched him, anxiety writ on her face. Cursing himself for a bumbling fool, he set about raising a shield, though his mind was not on the task.
Provider? Grim sent the thought outward.
There was no answer.
“Dell,” Grim hissed aloud.
He glanced back again. Sassy had wandered over to the little pool. She gazed up at the waterfall. If she’d heard him, she gave no sign.
You called? Dell responded at last.
Where have you been?
Observing the mortals on this plane. Their lifespans are brief, their shells breakable, and yet—
Dell. Grim was in no mood for a lecture. There is something I would discuss with you.
They comport themselves with reckless abandon, Dell rattled on, ignoring Grim. I find them a conundrum of conflicting desires and emotions, seemingly undiluted by logic. It amazes me that they—
DELL.
Yes?
Sassy and I are about to . . . That is, we are . . . Grim faltered. Heat crawled up his neck. We are about to consummate our physical attraction for one another.
There was a startled pause.
You wish instruction on the mechanics of sexual congress? I know it has been some time since last you visited the thralls, Grimford, but to my knowledge, the process has not changed.
The heated flush spread to Grim’s face. It is different with Sassy.
How? She lacks the requisite parts?
Of course not. She is perfect. Grim hesitated. I want our first time together to be . . . special.
Indeed? Do you think it wise, then, to couple in the woods like a rutting stag?
Hot images flashed through Grim’s mind. Images of him and Sassy engaged in coitus, their sweat-glistened bodies moving together in a sexual dance.
Inside, out of doors; it mattered not. Grim burned for Sassy. He forced his mind from his lustful thoughts.
I hoped the quiet beauty of this woodland sanctuary would please her fae nature.
That, and he wanted her to himself without interruption, selfish beast that he was.
At the risk of sounding obtuse, why not consult Sassy on the matter? Dell asked. It seems to me the vast majority of misunderstandings between corporeal beings arise from a lack of rational communication.
I wanted to—Grim kicked at the leaves, feeling awkward and stupid. Gods, he was anxious and shy as a virgin. In truth, he was a virgin, for nothing before Sassy mattered. I wanted to surprise her.
You wish to—as the poets would say—woo Sassy?
Aye. That and so much more. Grim longed to demonstrate, in some small measure, the shattering depths of his feelings for her.
Bah. This was a waste of time. The Provider was not flesh and blood. He could not understand.
Never mind. Grim turned to go. My pardon for disrupting your ruminations.
Hold, Dell said. I have an idea. Here is what I think you should do . . .
Chapter Thirty-Two
Grim set to work putting up the shield, and the air shimmered with magic. Always the warrior, Sassy thought. Always protective and in control.
She, on the other hand, was a nervous wreck. Mother-of-pearl, what a time to develop the jitters. This beautiful, stubborn, impossibly wonderful man wanted her—and God knows she wanted him—so why was she acting like a wallflower at a middle school dance?
Terrified no one would ask her to dance. Petrified someone would.
She hadn’t been nervous the first time she and Wes had sex. Why now?
Because you weren’t in love with Wes.
True story.
Because you told Grim you love him and he hasn’t said it back.
Was she on a roll, or what?
Because you’re head over heels in love with a man you’ve known three days, which is plain old nuts.
She preferred to think of it as spontaneous.
Because there’s no going back. Grim has your heart, and you’re scared to death he’s going to break it.
Well. Give her a big ole prize for self-awareness.
Grim glanced over his shoulder at her, and Sassy’s pulse rate kicked into high gear. Heat spread from her breasts to the place between her legs. Her skin felt tight and tingly. He was so big and unrelentingly male. What would sex be like with him? Did he like it hard and fast or exquisitely slow?
Either one would be Jim Dandy fine with her. No, both, one after the other. Again and again.
Meredith was right. She was a sluthole when it came to Grim. Her fairymones were out of control.
Sassy removed her sandals and retreated to the edge of the quiet pool to cool off. She took a seat on a mossy rock. The water was deep and clear. At one end, a rocky bluff rose some ten feet. At the summit of the crag, two trees clung together across a split boulder, trunks and limbs entwined in a lover’s embrace. The little stream flowed between them and danced down the face of the cliff. Fish darted along the bottom of the pool.
Vroom, vroom, vroom, a large green bullfrog called from the opposite bank.
The bullfrog plopped into the water; its strong back legs propelled it to the bottom of the pool. The frog resurfaced not far from Sassy. Crawling out of the water, the big croaker hopped up with something flat and rectangular in its wide mouth.
Buhdurp. The bullfrog deposited its find at Sassy’s feet, slid back in the water, and swam away.
Sassy picked up the frog’s gift and examined it. It was her driver’s license, the one she’d lost in the creek. The girl in the laminated photograph smiled back at her, a stranger with flawless hair and makeup and a magazine smile. The life mapped out for that girl would be smooth and seamless. No big surprises, no terror or major troubles. No lost love or heartbreak.
No magic or giddying joy, either.
Sassy pressed the driver’s license to her cheek in farewell. That girl and her life were gone. Sassy wouldn’t go back if she could. She was done playing it safe. She was in love, gloriously in love with Grim Dalvahni. She would open her heart to her demon hunter. She would love him so hard, so completely, so openly and without fear that the universe would shudder at her recklessness.
She tossed the card in the water. It floated on the surfac
e for a moment and sank from view.
Eager to find Grim, Sassy leaped to her feet and whirled around. She gasped in wonder. The glade had been transformed. Slender pillars sprouted at the four edges of the dell, soaring stone fronds of rose and silver marble crowned by a glass dome. Pink and cream roses hung in fat droplets from the willowy columns, their intoxicating scent thick in the air. The afternoon light sparkled on the crystal roof and danced in prisms across the alabaster floor.
The room was open on four sides to nature. Flowing drapes of gold, silver, and pale green hugged the fluted columns and pooled onto the floor, waiting to be drawn against the night. A staircase with quartz steps and a silver rail curved to a cozy alcove with a bookcase and a sprawling white chaise lounge. Perched atop the gleaming bannister, a snowy bird with a sleek head, jeweled eyes, and extravagant tail feathers trilled softly.
A white piano with a conch shell lid sat on the right side of the downstairs space. To the far left was a large sunken marble tub and a basket overflowing with plush towels. Dominating the space between the piano and the bath was an immense bed of bleached wood with tree trunk posts and a headboard of windblown branches. The bed linens were purest white, the mattress high and luxurious. Rose petals were strewn across the coverlet and fluffy pillows in invitation.
A memory tugged at Sassy. She had seen this room or something like it in a dream.
No, not in a dream; in a book, her favorite childhood story. Clever, wonderful Grim to have known.
Sassy flew down the short path. The stone pavers were cool beneath her feet. She crossed the threshold of the folly and felt the brush of magic, and looked down. Her jeans and top were gone, and she wore a sleeveless gossamer gown in muted shades of blues, greens, and apricot. The diaphanous garment, woven from fabric as thin and delicate as dragonfly wings, clung to her breasts, and was fastened at the shoulders by wisps of silk ribbon. Her feet were bare, and so was she beneath the flowing dress. She’d had more ball gowns in her life than she could count, but none of them had made her feel this beautiful, this wild and sensuous.
Where was Grim? He was nowhere in sight.
