Page 49 of Dating the Dealing Demon

“It’s different,” he insists.

“It’s not.” I push my fingers through his hair, wondering why it’s a brown and blond in his human glamour but red and black his demon form. “You keep trying to save me.”

“Because you’re my mate.” He leans into my touch, and I melt a little until he opens his mouth again. “And it’s my fault you’re in this mess.”

I cover his mouth. “Should’ve quit while you were ahead.”

He mumbles around my palm, “When was I ever ahead?”

I’m tired, wired, and already lost the buzz of interest in my new projects. Laying my cheek against his chest, I say, “Your mom’s curse doesn’t work here.”

“You’re not cursed.”

“Then a jinx. Whatever, it’s gone in this realm. I can work in the lab, and chemicals react how they’re supposed to.”

“Think the mating magic had something to do with it? Even without a completed bond?”

“Maybe,” I admit. “It created like a dozen new Brimstone Bell blooms. I had to get Shadowvale to repot them all.”

“Mother will be jealous.”

I perk up at the chance of spiting his mom. “With what she has said about me so far, I’m okay with that.”

“Back to the lab?”

I open my mouth to say yes and yawn. Not a dainty, delicate yawn. No, it’s one that cracks my jaw and makes my ears pop. “Let me shut down my experiments and then I’m ready for bed. You?”

“Only if you’re in it.”

My cheeks heat. Why can’t he be snide, easy-to-hate Theo? This Theo is hard to resist, yet I try as I check the half-done experiments, shoving the rest of the smoke reaction under the hood and checking the top-of-the-line DNA extraction and sequencer machines as they whir around us. There are definite perks to being with a demon prince and his magic castle. Monty sleeps curled in a cozy cave of fleece, only the tip of his tail visible.

Theo stands near the door, his hands in his pockets.

“What’s with the human glamour?” I ask him.

“Less tendency to break things.”

That’s it. His confession to being worried about something so un-prince-like as being a klutz? It kills me. “Then let’s get you away from the beakers.” I take his hand and walk to his bedroom like we’ve done this a thousand times instead of twice.

Somewhere along the way, I lose my bravery. Or my good sense. “About that kiss…”

“It was a fucking amazing kiss.”

My heart kicks into ahell yeahdrum beat. “Yes, it was.” So much for me staying strong. “Wait, no, what I was going to sayis I’m worried about your mom’s prophecy about me wrecking your world if I trap—her word, not mine—you into a mating bond. I wouldn’t have considered it a possibility before I saw you heal or the flowers multiply.”

“She meant our union would metaphorically risk the kingdom, and she’s wrong.”

“What if she’s not? What if she meant it literally?”

He tenses. “Are you saying no to completing the mating bond for now or forever?”

“How about until we figure out whether or not we destroy worlds if we screw?”

“I’ll live with that.” He smiles, and damn, his dimples and those crinkles around his eyes slay me. I don’t even protest when he pulls me close and asks, “What about another kiss? Think that’ll set off an apocalypse?”

“Willing to risk it?—”

He cuts me off with a press of his lips to mine in a kiss that tiptoes the line between savage and sweet, possessive and pleading, teasing and take-no-prisoners conquest. Despite his human glamour, he still smells of Theo, and I want to inhale it deep into my lungs to cover the sulfur and ammonia of my experiment, but my breath stutters as I fall into the kiss. I crave him.

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