C
HAPTER
T
EN
Banishing Cream
G
race was delighted and terrified all at once to see two-hundred-some-odd pounds of raging, well-built demon charge her. She would have tittered like a schoolmarm in a too-tight corset if she could have laughed at all. But, nope, she couldn’t laugh too hard when she was unceremoniously hauled over Caspian’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes. She was reminded of Petru, with his hand on that dead—
Except, she felt very much alive, and Caspian was only making that feeling increase. His fingers seemed to have doubled in number before creeping into places they shouldn’t. Was he trying to pick her up like a bowling ball or a six-pack of Budweiser?
She slapped at his shoulders and biceps, but this was ineffectual at best. She wasn’t sure what would happen if she got any of the smelly goo she’d been making on herself, so she didn’t struggle too much. If there was a way for a witch to banish herself, Grace figured she’d be the one who discovered it.
Sometimes she wondered if her name was a curse. She’d learned a lesson while naming her pets: Giving a cat a name like Diablo was always a bad idea—the animal invariably felt a need to live up to it. Her first familiar, which she’d unwisely saddled with that name, always bit her on the backside whenever it was time to get up. Correction: He’d bit her when
he
decided it was time to get up.
It was the opposite with humans. Name a girl-child Helen for Helen of Troy and she’d end up not just ugly and dumpy, but with an
assalanche
—an avalanche of buttocks that just sort of sagged down past her knees
Of course, it could simply be the klutz gene she’d inherited that had landed her in Caspian’s arms. And she was lucky. If she were honest with herself, she wanted this. She liked the feel of his large hand splayed across her backside. He knew exactly what he was doing with those fingers, and she knew what was coming next.
Grace sighed, but her languorous sigh turned into a howl as that large hand smacked her soundly on the rump.
“What was that for?!”
“Because you’re a bad girl.” His hand cupped the rounded globe of her buttock before he slapped it again. He rubbed like he was sizing up the target for a more serious assault, and Grace wasn’t really sure if she was into that. She’d liked being handcuffed and told what was what in the Avenue dressing room, but spanked?
Suddenly, the most curious throbbing began where he’d swatted her. Radiating inward, the sensation moved from her bottom to between her tightly clamped thighs, and tightly clamped or not, she couldn’t have blocked his fingers if she’d wanted. One slipped inside her, and her body tightened as if to trap it and force it to continue delivering those delicious sensations.
He pulled out slowly and then pushed back inside with two fingers, then smacked her ass again. “Yes, you
are
a bad girl,” Caspian said.
“No, I’m not,” Grace replied, breathlessly shifting against his fingers. “I’m so very good.” And to prove it, she turned her head to nip his earlobe and pressed her lips to the corner of his jaw.
“I guess I can’t argue with that.”
He leaned over, with her still on his shoulder. Grace thought for sure he was going to drop her, but neither his balance nor his grip wavered. She could feel his biceps working and wondered dreamily if he was using his perfect abs and hard thighs, or if he was lifting incorrectly with his back. She noticed that he was still wearing her goo hat. She had to bite her lip to keep from giggling.
Caspian promptly dislodged her from her perch and dumped her into the shower. “You made the mess; you’re going to clean it up.”
“You can’t just . . . ? You know.” She made little motions in the air.
“Why do you always seem to think I can ‘just . . .’?” He mimicked her gestures.
“You’re a demon. I thought you were supposed to be all-powerful.” Grace shook her head and fought off a grumble. The potion she’d been concocting obviously didn’t work, because she still had a Crown Prince of Hell staring at her naked self in her bathroom, wearing a whole batch of the stuff on his head like a
ushanka,
one of those furry Russian ear-hats. What was even funnier, he was now otherwise naked.
Wait, maybe that wasn’t so funny. They were both naked but she was trying to get rid of the guy, not ride him like a mustang. Naked proximity didn’t tend to make a man go away. Neither did squirming against his fingers when he was fondling places he shouldn’t.
Wicked inspiration struck like lightning. It did make them go away if it was
bad
. How did one ride a pony badly? An improper seat? Grace supposed she was lucky that she didn’t know. Whom could she ask?
Caspian stepped into the shower stall with her, interrupting her thoughts. “I don’t know what’s going through that devious brain of yours, but let’s get to it.”
Against her will, the slick walls of her sex tightened. Why did everything this demon said have to go down like a Fuck Smoothie infused with
yes
? Couldn’t he just speak the way normal people did? Getting rid of him was going to be so very hard. Hard, thick and . . .
Damn it! Difficult. It was going to be
difficult
. It was going to be especially difficult, since he was hard. She glanced down once. Twice.
She was daring a third peek when Caspian lifted her chin with his fingers. “Up here, sweet face. It can’t talk.”
Grace seemed to remember telling him the same thing about her boobs. The shoe was on the other damn foot now, wasn’t it? And it was certainly a big shoe—
“Grace. Goo. Hair. Not a happy demon,” Caspian reminded her.
“Well, don’t get your thong in a knot. Jesus Harold, you’re worse than a woman. You better remember denying me later when you’re trying to hide the bald-headed hermit. Because it’s not going to happen.”
Caspian smirked, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to; she knew she’d be on her back like a turtle as soon as he snapped his fingers. She only hoped that Caspian wasn’t a Mack truck that would turn her into turtle soup. Or a mean kid with a magnifying glass. The truck would be quicker.
Caspian touched her cheek. “Look, Grace, I apparently can’t just will this crap off me. It’s magick. And you are the magick weaver, so you need to unweave it, got it?”
Grace considered. “Does it hurt?”
“No, it just stinks like an outhouse. So that means
I
stink like an outhouse. Why you’d want to climb on before I have a shower is beyond me . . . Though, I suppose it does explain the attraction to Michael Grigorovich.”
The demon closed his eyes and bent his head like a supplicant, waiting for her to clean him off. Grace narrowed her eyes. His arrogance was staggering. He just expected her to wash his hair like he was some kind of prince and her a serving wench? Oh, hell no.
Though, he was a prince—a Crown Prince of Hell no less. But that didn’t matter to Grace one bit.
She flattened herself against the stall and angled the showerhead just so, then flipped on the cold water full blast. It shot Caspian in the face, a payback that some woman somewhere surely owed him. To counter his annoyance, however, the spray and her general intention took the magick goo off. Mostly. When she turned down the cold and made a big show of adjusting the hot, she chanced a glance at him, seeing his hair standing up like a crazy anime character’s. A blob of the magick-banishing goo was plastered like a centuries-old gum ball to the back of the shower.
Caspian hadn’t made a sound when the cold water hit him, but he was wearing a look of startled incredulity.
“Grace,” he growled through gritted teeth.
“Yes, my lord Caspian?” Grace replied in the sweetest voice she could manage.
“If you were a man, I would strangle you. Slowly.”
“If I was a man, I don’t think you’d be naked in the shower with me.” She paused and looked contemplative. “Would you?”
“The hair, Grace.”
“I was trying, but then you got all growly.”
“Grace.” He took a deep breath and, if he were her gran, she would have sworn that he was praying to the saints for patience. She wondered to whom he did pray for patience. If he prayed at all.
“Stop fucking around.” Caspian punctuated this with another slap of her ass. The blow stung a little bit, but that didn’t stop the heat that went spiraling through her—which pissed Grace off even more. She didn’t want to feel this way. She
couldn’t
. Not considering Michael’s threat.
She slathered almost half the bottle of her Burt’s Bees pomegranate shampoo on Caspian’s head. Too bad it wasn’t something like Head & Shoulders that, when it ran into his eyes, would sting like being stood up on prom night. His nose twitched peculiarly as the fruity scent filled his nostrils. Good. Grace hoped he hated it.
She was doubly mad at him—for being so grumpy and also because she had to get rid of him while she still felt desire. She wasn’t used to that. Grace was always the one to send lovers packing. She didn’t want Caspian to go, and she’d never had to face that before. She’d been
quite
finished with Michael when he’d given her the boot.
This was all Caspian’s fault. Why did he have to be so damn hot? Worse, why did his hair have to feel like silk when she ran her fingers through it, even fully loaded up with her banishing cream like a blue plate special? She allowed herself to enjoy the sensation just a tiny bit as she raked her fingers through his locks, massaging his scalp and giggling at making him smell like a girl.
Such yummy pomegranate shampoo. And the banishing cream smelled like mangos to her. She moved Caspian beneath the cascading water and rinsed it all away.
This was such an intimate act, washing someone’s hair. Not to mention the delight of ogling him at her leisure—which was completely counterproductive to what she should be doing. But that cherubim-molded mouth was open in blatant pleasure as he enjoyed her ministrations.
The water sluiced down his tanned skin, and as his eyes fluttered closed, his black lashes swept the curve of his cheek. A rivulet of water ran down that hard, defined line of his jaw, down the corded muscles of his neck, farther down those Goddess-sculpted pectorals. They
were
Goddess sculpted, because no man would be able design a creature so perfect and pleasing to the female eye. Caspian had been designed by a woman, for a woman, and he was built for pleasure. Everything about him screamed sex, like an alarm clock she couldn’t shut off. Grace lost track of the rivulet of water in her contemplation of his physical deliciousness, but she soon found another. This one was gliding down his abs to—
She was lucky that she could multitask. She was still rinsing his hair, and Grace saw something that he would enjoy as much as a trip to a drunken proctologist. Slipping away with Burt and his fruit-flavored bees was the dark color of Caspian’s hair. Some witch she was! She tried to banish a demon and she banished his hair color? Pathetic.
But, perhaps this would be the catalyst for getting rid of him. He was clearly fussy about his hair, so when he found out that he was blond he would have a stroke. It’d be the end. Kaput. They’d be through. He was worse than a woman in that respect—unless he’d just been annoyed because he realized she was planning on banishing him. She imagined if she was on the receiving end of said intended banishment, she would feel insulted, too. Either way, he’d soon consider his part of their contract fulfilled and would be done with her completely.
But . . . if that was the case, she might as well grab a one-off. It’d be their last, so she could wholeheartedly enjoy it. She was secretly thankful that she wouldn’t have to try to figure out bad sex. That research would have been a jewel in the Hurts-Me-More-Than-You crown, of that she was certain. She was also certain she needed an unholy good time.
Since his hair was now clean, she looked down at her demon’s pitchfork and contemplated her next move. She debated sinking to her knees and taking him into her mouth . . . or maybe she’d just reach out and grab herself a handful. He seemed to think that it was fine for him to do with her, so why not turn the tables? Sometimes she thought that penises were separate creatures from the men they belonged to, anyway. His seemed to beckon her, whether he mentally wanted her to grab him or not. It had been staring at her for the entirety of her contemplations.
Grace splayed her hand across his abdomen, her fingers teasing Caspian as they slid toward her target. “Is your hair clean enough now, Miss Priss?” she asked with a playful curve of her lips.
His eyes were dark with desire, and there was nothing light in the hard set of his jaw, the sculpted perfection of his face. His responding kiss was brutal, his mouth demanding, yet his grip on her was tender—something entirely at odds with their previous encounters. Each time with Caspian was new and exciting.
She melted into his embrace, wondering if he was going to spank her again and deciding that she would let him. Everywhere their skin touched was afire, her nipples tight peaks scraping the broad expanse of his chest, her belly joined to the thick length of his erection. The back of her thigh tingled where his fingertips skimmed, guiding her leg up around his waist. She laid claim to the hard planes of his water-slicked body with her hands, tracing the lines of his back and shoulders, his hips.