Page 111 of Death is My BFF

I was so stunned by the compliment that I almost overlooked the whole lop-his-head-off thing.

Feeling as though someone was listening in, I glanced back at the picnic tables, to find my aunt approaching the table with her food. I turned back to Death, playing with the cross around my neck. His head dipped down, and I could feel his shadowed eyes track the movement.

“This might come as a surprise to your enormous ego,” I said at last, “but I don’t need you to defend me.” I proceeded to fix the bottom of the apple basket by wedging a broken piece of wood into the circular frame. Then I bent down to pick up the apples on the grass, gingerly placing them into the basket. “Don’t you have anything better to do than stalk me all the time? Like, oh, I don’t know, do yourjoband collect souls?”

“Thanks for the concern, but I’ve already surpassed my quota.

Why don’t you worry about upgrading your pants situation?”

“They’re called ripped jeans.” I stood up with the basket, all sass.

“Calvin Klein’s. Didn’tDavid Stardo a campaign for them? I expect an employee discount.”

Death slinked closer to me, broad shoulders rolling in that delicious leather jacket and long powerful legs working a hell of a pair of dark jeans. He gestured to my T-shirt. “Hello, wife. Should I have worn my ‘I’m Batman’ shirt today?”

“Charming.” A sear of heat crept up my neck. I bent down again to pick up the rest of the apples to hide the flush he’d triggered. “Do me a huge favor? Perform your vanishing act and never return. It’ll be your best trick yet, I promise!”

“You’re mad about the kiss,” Death speculated in an amused voice, and my fingers paused on the skin of a McIntosh. “I’ll make it easy for you, forget it happened. It was a mistake.”

My stomach sank. As much as I didn’t want to admit it now, the kiss had meant something to me. “You must be dense in the head if you thinkyour kisswas my biggest takeaway of last night. You betrayed me, and you lied to me.”

“Go on,” he said with an encouraging wave of a gloved hand.

Like I wascomplimentinghim.

Oooh, he just made meso. . .

“What the hell’s the matter with you? This isn’t a joke. I’m not upset about the kiss, although it was the most disappointing portion of the night!”

He had the nerve to snicker. “You’re a horrible liar.”

“Good thing I have you around to give me plenty of pointers.”

“Don’t act like you didn’t enjoy kissing me, Faith,” Death purred, in a way that thickened his untraceable accent. “You loved it. It just shouldn’t have happened.”

“Always trying to validate something. Could there be confidence issues beneath his overbearing personality and veiled shadow?”

Death freed a growl. “Nothing to validate, sweetheart. In all my existence, a woman has never clung to my arms as desperately as you did last night.” He was a master at getting under my skin because I was already seething like a rabid dog from his taunting.

“If I was touching your arms, which I don’t recall doing, I was trying to push you away.”As if I could ever forget those sculpted biceps.

“Right, you don’t recall,” he said silkily. I hated how he could manipulate his voice like that. It did things to me. “Just like you won’t remember moaning into my mouth.”

“Okay, that’s enough of you.”

I couldfeelhis provocative grin. “Is it?”

“If you’re so hot and glorious like you claim you are, why don’t you take off that stupid hood and show me what the big deal is?”

“Because you couldn’t handle all of me,cupcake.” His voice was a mere purr again. “I’m doing you a favor.”

I couldn’t challenge that. To be honest, at the thought of him showing me his face, I started to get nervous. If he was as frighteningly hot as I believed, it would only make resisting him even more difficult.

“Last night, I tried to tell you to stop,” I insisted, continuing our cat and mouse game. “The last thing I wanted was your lying, two-faced, dead—”

“Undead,” he corrected.

“Undeadbreath in my mouth!” I finished with a huff.

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