Page 15 of Raising Hell: MMF Edition

Chapter 7

Casimir

“Ruby!” My head is dramatically draped back over the edge of the bathtub as I stretch out her name.

“What?” she shouts, voice far away. There’s a tinge of irritation in her tone, although I find it hard to believe. I’m delightful.

“Can we please go do something? I’m so… bored!”

Several days have passed since our escapade in the bedroom, and she’s committed to pretending it never took place, while I pretend something inside me didn’t irrevocably shift. It’s been business as usual as I taunt and tease, keeping up the aloof air she expects from me. Flirting and offering my services whenever an opportunity arises to no avail. Twice now she has banished me to the bathing room to do my business instead of offering a helping hand.

Rude, honestly.

“You can’t be trusted to leave the house,” she says, her voice growing nearer.

“Can’t be trusted to leave the house,” I mimic under my breath, rolling my eyes. “Of course I can,” I say louder, my tone taking on a touch of indignation.

A shadow falls under the gap at the bottom of the door, and I grin as I sense her hesitation. She finally walks in and lets out a very loud,verydramatic gasp. “Cas!” She sounds so panicked, it startles me.

“What is wrong?” I ask, jumping to my feet as water sloshes over the edges of the bathtub.

Her eyes are enormous as she scans the bathroom, then turns her gaze at me. The intensity of her glare makes me feel like I’m in the crosshairs of a sniper rifle, my defenses rising. “What… what did youdo?”

I frown, glancing at the tub, wondering if maybe her eyesight isn’t great. “I ran a bubble bath.”

“Why…” Her hand hits her forehead and drags all the way down her face. Slowly. Like, really,reallyslowly. “Why are there bubbles all over the floor, Cas?”

I shrug, scanning the frothy bathroom. “It said to add a cap full, but I couldn’t find a hat, so I guessed.”

She mutters a string of angry words that might be curses, causing me to furrow my brow and step out of the bath. An angry witch is a dangerous one, no matter how adorable. The soapy tile makes me frantically windmill my arms as I try to regain stability, my feet sliding on the slippery bubbles until I catch myself.

Somehow, she looks even more annoyed. I heave a sigh, my shoulders slouching. “What have I done now?”

It seems I’m not very good at being a human.

“A cap means… the lid, Cas. The tiny, itty-bitty little white lid that screws onto the bottle. Not ahat.” My lips purse, andI pull one side between my teeth, staying silent. I have my suspicions about which one of us is right, but I don’t want to argue with her in her own home.

I scoop a handful of bubbles from the countertop and hold them in my cupped hands. “Would a bubble bath make it better?” When I raise my arms, her eyes narrow into tiny slits, mean little shards of glass.

“If you put that on my head, I willend you,” she growls, sounding more like a demon than any actual demon I’ve ever met.

The bubbles float to the ground as I nod innocently. “Right, I wasn’t going to… do that…”

That’s a lie.

I was.

“You seem upset and kind of stressed,” I point out, and her eyes somehow narrow even further as they meet mine. “Do you need another orgasm?”

“No!” she snaps, and I take a protective step back from her wrath. “No, Cas, I don’t need an orgasm. What I need is for the troublesome demon that showed up at my house…”

“You summoned me,” I interrupt, but she ignores me.

“… to leave so I can get back to having a real life!” Now, I like Ruby. Care about her a great deal, even, and definitely want to have sex with her. Her stress and anger are not something I enjoy witnessing.

But—and this is a big, italicized but—I’m not ready to return to Hell when I haven’t had a chance to experience the world beyond these four walls yet.

“Why don’t you get out of the house?”

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