Page 89 of What Happens at Nightfall

Adam jerked away.

Jess’s lips pressed together. He could see her draw in a breath, her spine straightening. That beautiful spine his fingers had run down only moments before. “You can’t even touch me.”

“I want to touch you! I want—” The foul voice was in his head, enumerating the things it wanted.

Adam stared at Jess, focusing on her face. Jess the person, not a collection of body parts. The mind. The soul. The snark.

“I want it to be fifteen minutes ago. I want us back on this bed, where we were. I want the goddamned demon to leave us alone.”

“We were drunk. You were drunk. It was a moment. You don’t need to use the demon as an excuse to go.” Jess scooted off the bed, grabbing up her dress on the way. “We both had a lot of punch. We can call this—what’s the golf term?—a muggle.”

Adam watched with interest as she tried to maneuver the dress without dropping the sheet. “I don’t play golf, but I’m pretty sure Muggles are the non-magical people in Harry Potter.”

Jess clutched her dress in front of her. “Mulligan! A mulligan. I’ll go get you a glass of water and we can pretend you only just came up for the water and that’s the end of it.”

Adam straightened, disturbed in ways he couldn’t quite define by how quickly she was ready to erase the whole evening. “I don’t want to pretend. I don’t want it to be the end of it.”

“Then why?” Her voice broke.

He was hurting her and the last thing he wanted was to hurt her, in any way.

Adam could almost feel the thing in the air beside him expand with satisfaction. Whips, the voice in his head murmured. Think what you could do with whips. The Marquis de Sade is an old acquaintance of mine. The things you could do to her . . .

“It’s because I like you,” Adam blurted out.

Jess yanked her dress down over her head. “As a friend.”

“No! Yes. That too. I like you as a friend but also not as a friend. I like you.” At the moment, he wasn’t so sure she liked him, and the thought made Adam immeasurably sad. A month ago, there had been no Jess in his life, but now there was and he wanted to keep it that way. “I like the way your brain works. I like your black lace bra. I think you’re beautiful. And desirable. You remind me of a tree. Not that I’m sexually attracted to trees. I just mean—complex and wonderful and full of layers upon layers.”

Too many layers right now. The dress was firmly back on over the black lace bra.

Adam supposed it was probably for the best given the voice that was bleating in his ear. Strip her. Throw her down.

All things he wanted to do, but not like that.

“I want to have Sunday brunch with you,” Adam said desperately. “I want to go for walks with you and eat overpriced ice cream from Mister Softee trucks and lick the sprinkles off your lips. I want to watch terrible movies together—and good movies together—and SNL sketches and random YouTube clips that I’ll think are funny and you won’t. I want to lie in bed and read books together—and then not read books together.”

“Then—why?”

“I don’t want a one-night stand,” Adam said bluntly. “Particularly not when it’s also a ménage à trois.”

Jess froze in the middle of pulling her hair back, her face changing. “Wait. The buzzing. That’s what you said before. In your ear. The demon. Talking to you. You really mean it. It’s not an excuse.”

“It’s not an excuse. I wish I could make you hear what I hear. Actually, no. Scrap that. I don’t want you to hear what I hear. It’s too foul.”

Jess looked at the bed in consternation. “So, while we were—he was—”

“Making suggestions.”

Some humans are no fun at all, huffed the thing in his ear.

“I thought . . . I thought you’d just thought better of it all.”

“Nope.” Adam swung his legs over the side of the bed, flying pig boxers and all. “There is no better. You are the better.”

“Oh.” Jess blinked hard, before abruptly turning toward the door. “I think I need that water now.”

Adam stopped her with a hand on her shoulder, just a fleeting touch. He was afraid to touch too much, in case Belfagor decided to swoop back in and get in on the action. “If we’re ever free of this thing—will you come out with me on a date? A proper date? An actual ‘ask you out and pick you up’ sort of date?”