My Dangerous Pleasure (33 page)
The next day
H
arsh called early the following morning, while he and Paisley were still in bed, because, yes, he was still more than interested in having sex with her, and he liked lying beside her while she slept. The phone woke her up, but he kept his arm around her while he answered.
“Hey, Harsh. What’s up?”
Harsh said, “Meeting tonight. Seven o’clock. Bring Paisley.”
“Bring the usual?”
“Yes.”
The meetings were potluck, which meant Harsh cooked something fabulous and just about everyone else brought takeout. Iskander was in charge of desserts. He looked over at Paisley and grinned. She looked so adorably rumpled when she woke up. “Will do.” He dropped his phone on the floor, rolled over to face Paisley, and told her about the meeting. “Can you bake some stuff? Something killer good.”
“Sure. What would you like?”
“A cake. A really awesome cake like those ones you make for me. Chocolate with that bitching frosting you do. Brownies. Gotta have brownies.”
“How about some tarts, too? Cookies?”
“Perfect.”
“For how many?”
“Fifteen or twenty.”
She pushed herself onto her elbow and brushed her hair out of her face. “Are they all bottomless pits like you?”
He laughed. “Yeah. Pretty much.”
“What time is it now?”
“Little after six.”
She snuggled back into the covers. “Good thing it’s Sunday.”
He turned onto his stomach and draped his body partly over hers. “You put in more hours than anyone else at the bakery. You should take some time off once in a while.”
“I’m the owner. That’s the way it works.”
“Tell me how I can help you get more time.” He was still racking his brains about what kind of things he could do for her that would show he cared. “If you need money, I have it.”
Paisley frowned. “I’m not going to take money from you.”
“Hire an accountant to do the books and payroll for you. Get a couple more bakers. Nikodemus has attorneys and accountants on staff. He’ll hook you up with good advice. ”
“I can’t afford advice that good.”
“If he doesn’t comp you, I’ll call in some favors and set it up at a price you can afford.” He slid his arms under the sheets and pulled her close.
“I’ll think about it.”
“That’s all I ask.” He kissed her ear and then her cheek and worked his way lower. “What else can I do for you?” he said. He moved his hand between them and waggled his eyebrows at her. “Am I getting close?”
“You wicked creature, you.”
“What’s your favorite color? Do you like jewelry? Did you used to collect anything? What if we got a dog? Do you like dogs?”
She touched his face, sliding her fingers along his tats, and it felt good. Really, really good. “My favorite color these days is blue.”
“What’s your favorite flower?” But he never got an answer. She was too busy making him forget his own name.
At six o’clock that evening, her ponytail made a streak of dark red over the crisp white of her shoulder, mysterious with strands of mahogany and gold. He wanted to undo her hair and bury his fingers in it. The cake she’d made at his request was boxed and taped down so he couldn’t peek at what she’d done. Three more boxes sat on the kitchen counter. His house smelled like a bakery, and it was awesome.
He took his time looking at her, thinking about peeling off her clothes and his and stretching himself out on top of that killer body of hers. She wore a black and white polka-dot dress and a pair of flat slipper-type shoes. She had a tiny purse under one arm and a jacket draped over the other. The dress was short. Or maybe it was just her legs were long. Plenty tight enough, though it looked to be made of a springy fabric.
“You look fantastic.”
“Thanks.” They loaded her boxes into the truck. The cake went on her lap and the rest of the items he put on the floor between her feet where they covered up the hole in the floorboard. Her dress hiked up another couple of inches.
He started the car and the engine about drowned out his words. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
Fifteen minutes later, he parked the Chevy in Harsh’s garage, next to Nikodemus’s Reventón. Now,
there
was a car. He wondered if Nikodemus would consider trading. He got out and came around to help Paisley with the desserts. She reached for the boxes on the floor, and he tried not to look down her dress while she was doing that. The neckline didn’t gape the way he’d been hoping.
She handed him the other boxes. Iskander balanced them on one palm while he helped her slide from the Chevy with the cake box firmly in her arms. Long, long pretty legs. Iskander thought of them with great fondness. With great lust.
She looked at the sleek black car and pointed. “That’s a twenty-first-century car. Harsh must have some serious money.”
“Probably, but that isn’t Harsh’s car.” Should he buy her one? If he had the money, would that be overkill? What about insurance and maintenance? He’d have to cover that for her. Which he could get away with if let her think they would share the car. “It probably means Xia and Alexandrine are here. Xia is having some kind of affair with Nikodemus’s car.”
“Nikodemus.” She shuddered, and he moved closer to her. “I can feel him. And others like you. Magekind, too.”
“Carson, Alexandrine, Maddy. Emily. Leonidas. Maybe some of Maddy’s wilders.”
“And Harsh. I thought he was one of you.”
“He is. Mostly.” Well, wasn’t that interesting? She was picking up on that about Harsh. He shifted the boxes he was carrying. “Just so there’s no surprises, Rasmus Kessler is Alexandrine’s father.” Paisley’s eyes widened. “They don’t get along. He tried to kill her once. More than once.”
“This is like walking into a minefield.”
He kissed the top of her head. “No worries. I’ve got your back, cupcake.”
Ashlin Lau was right. He needed to do something to prove to Paisley that he cared. He just didn’t know what that was.
P
aisley took a good look around on the way inside. This wasn’t a house. Harsh Marit lived in a mansion. An honest to goodness mansion. She happened to know the Gettys lived just a few houses down. She’d catered the desserts for a party there a couple of years ago when she was saving every penny she could in order to open up the bakery. Never once had she imagined she’d be a guest in any of these mansions.
If you had the ability to do magic that controlled other people and could do Lord knows what else, it must be easy to amass the kind of money that bought a house like this and a car like the one in the garage. Conversation got louder the farther inside the house they got, and her chest vibrated more. There were demons in there. Of course. Pretty soon the air smelled of curry and something cooked in garlic and butter.
Iskander led her into a living room full of people, and there was a dip in the sound level of the room. A sort of communal intake of breath. There was music playing, but it wasn’t loud enough to cover the quiet. Most of them weren’t people at all. Demons. They were demons. A few, very few, were magekind. There were no screamers here, thank God.
Maybe twenty people were here, mostly men but a few women. She’d met Carson before, but the other women were strangers. She stopped beside Iskander, holding the cake box with her purse squashed under one arm. They were going to have to walk the gauntlet all the way across the room to the table with food and drinks on it.
“Iskander!” someone said.
Iskander lifted a hand in greeting, not far because his arms were full, and headed for the table of food. She followed. The minute Iskander put down his boxes, a very tall and very big man clapped him on the back.
“Hey, Xia,” Iskander said.
While she tried not to stare too hard, Iskander and Xia did that male hand clasp, back slap thing. They stepped apart when they were done. Iskander opened the top box, then looked around the room and said loudly, “Dessert’s here!”
Xia rubbed his hands together. The ornately carved hilt of some kind of weapon was clipped to the side of his jeans. “Did you get those little brownies from the grocery again? I love those.”
Paisley put down the cake box and shoved her purse into her coat pocket. She found a clean plate and, from the box of supplies she’d brought along, took out a bottle of chocolate syrup and piped a decorative swirl on the plate. She arranged her brownies and added a dusting of powdered sugar, also from the supplies she’d brought. She set out the first plate, then did another with the cookies and tarts from the other boxes Iskander had carried in.
Iskander took one of the brownies and handed it to Xia. “My friend,” he said, “I have acquired the secret weapon of desserts.”
“What’s this?” From the corner of her eye, she saw Xia staring at the brownie he held with a deeply suspicious expression. She gave up arranging food to watch. She was always nervous when someone new was trying her food. There was, she knew, no accounting for taste, and some people flat out had none. He examined the brownie before asking in a worried voice, “Did you make this?”
“No,” Iskander said. He rolled his eyes. “I did not.”
“It’s not my favorite kind.”
Iskander glared at him. “This is better. Way better.”
Her heart pinched a little at how fiercely Iskander responded.
The big man looked over his shoulder and called out, “Alexandrine, baby, if I die, it was for a good cause. I love you.”
Alexandrine. Rasmus Kessler’s daughter. And the woman was involved with a demon. She tried to figure out which woman she was. A tall blonde who didn’t look anything like Rasmus except for the color of her hair seemed the most likely candidate.
“Try it,” Iskander said. “And prepare for heaven.”
Xia took a tentative bite. Good grief. He was almost as gorgeous as Iskander. She enjoyed watching the expression on his face go from worry to amazement to sheer bliss.
“Where did you buy these?” he asked Iskander.
Iskander jerked his thumb in Paisley’s direction and grinned. “My secret weapon made them.”
Xia’s head whipped around, and Paisley was speared by a pair of eyes too blue to be real. Nobody had eyes like that in real life. Neon blue. Not human. Her chest thrummed. He took a step toward her. She would have backed up if she wasn’t already against the table. Xia was really big, and though she knew Iskander would never let anyone hurt her, Xia didn’t look friendly. He jabbed a finger at her. “
You
made these brownies?”
“Yes, sir, I did.” Her accent turned as thick as her chocolate syrup. She wiped her hands on a paper napkin and held it out. “Paisley Nichols. Pleased to meet you.”
“You’re Paisley Nichols?” His eyes went wide, and he did a quick check of Iskander. “The human woman Nikodemus was telling us about?”
She nodded. “I assume so, yes.”
“You freed kin who were lost to us.”
“That’s her,” Iskander said.
Xia ate another bite of brownie. “And you made these?”