Page 50 of Vengefully Matched

“What are you, a doctor?” Priscilla’s voice was woozy, from the pain, the drugs, or both. It had to hurt. She had been taking a hell of a beating.

“No, just a woman who is now completely convinced that you are not trying to kill her.”

“Glad that my smallest finger’s sacrifice was not in vain.” Priscilla winked. Or winced? Agatha couldn’t be sure.

“You must be making it through if you’re cracking jokes, chérie.”

Priscilla grimaced. “Family problem, really. We joke through the pain. All sorts of pain, to tell the truth.”

“Well.” She chewed on her lip. “Hit me with your best joke. Or your worst?”

“This is going to seriously put a damper on my fisting game until it heals.”

Agatha bit out a nervous laugh, that grew into something real when Prissy laughed too.

The color was returning to her face.

“If only they hadn’t ganged up like that on the poor discarded fingertip, maybe we could have reattached it and kept your fist intact.” Agatha offered. The chainsaws had, horrifically, pounced on the amputated digit and had their gory way with it. “But I am sorry about the finger.”

“I’m not actually much of a fister,” said Priscilla. Hart, Agatha reminded herself. It would be easier, in the end, if she could only think of her as Councilwoman Hart. “But I do from time to time enjoy the joke that I’ll be the most generously endowed lover a gal has known, if she can just give me a few minutes to strap it on.”

Agatha’s breath caught in her throat at that. “Priscilla,” she breathed, unable to stop herself the informality or the mental picture. And wasn’t that out of line, to squeeze her thighs together while kneeling on the cement floor of the greenhouse, trying to make sure her fake girlfriend didn’t bleed out from a wound by a flock of horrifyingly indestructible enchanted chainsaws. “How big?” she found herself asking, voice husky. This time, Priscilla winked.

“Let’s just say big enough to rearrange your insides.”

Agatha squirmed, swallowing back a moan.

One shouldn’t get hot while discussing mangled body parts.

She tried to remind herself of the most boring facts. Like how an octopus had three hearts and a beak, and was definitely venomous. But only the blue-ringed octopus was dangerous to humans. It was good to remind herself of the fact that one blue-ringed octopus had enough venom to kill twenty-six people, and that it was a thousand times more deadly than cyanide. Still, only three people had been known to actually die; the big danger was absence of oxygen.

Which, actually, wasn’t dissimilar to what she felt at the idea of Priscilla wielding something big enough to rearrange her insides.

The problem was, some of her body parts wouldn’t mind being rearranged. Especially if Priscilla was doing the rearranging.

“You know what they say,” she said primly. Prissy looked up at her from under hooded eyes.

“No, what?”

“It feels wrong to say while you’re down a finger.”

“This is helping.”

She sucked in a breath, letting it out and committing to potential embarrassment.

“It’s not the size of the boat; it’s the motion in the ocean.”

Priscilla met her gaze for a long moment that dragged on and on. Was it just Agatha, or was it hot in this greenhouse?

“Oh, honey,” Priscilla said softly. “I can make sure you have both the boat and the motion you need.”

“I…” Agatha started, fingers scrambling at her throat, blood pounding. “I’m glad to hear it,” she finished weakly.

Priscilla wiggled her eyebrows and flashed her an irresistible smile, probably because of the painkillers.

“A secret size queen, then?”

Agatha felt her face go scarlet.