Brave the Tempest (Cassie Palme) - Karen Chance Page 0,81

a—”

She cut herself off, pulled a wallet out of the back of her jeans, and handed over a twenty.

“It’s fat,” she told him sourly.

“Cop a feel and find out, sweetheart.”

“You’d like that too much.”

“And I wouldn’t,” Saffy said, draping an arm around her girlfriend’s waist.

“What I’d like,” Tami said loudly, “is to finish up sometime tonight.”

“You’re gonna be next,” Fred told Pritkin, who turned his blindfolded face to look at him.

“You do realize that potions are my specialty?” he asked.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“To properly mix a potion, even a simple one, you have to have what they call a potion maker’s nose. I’ll put it up against a foodie’s palate any day.”

Fred started to look worried.

And, sure enough, Pritkin kept up with him, bite for bite, through cherries, Nutella, and marshmallow on cinnamon bread; cheesecake, dark chocolate, and raspberries on a graham cracker; broccoli, melted cheddar, and chili on bacon—“almost made broccoli palatable,” according to Fred; peaches, honey, and brie on a crostini; asparagus, ricotta, and caramelized onions on phyllo; ricotta, honey, figs, and crushed pistachios on a chocolate wafer—“the pistachios almost got me,” Fred said, looking panicked; and white chocolate, pineapple, and marshmallow on a graham cracker.

“All right, it’s getting late,” Tami finally announced. “Last round.”

“No, wait! What if he gets it?” Fred demanded. Because his title was on the line.

“Then it’s a tie.”

“A tie? I can’t go down in a tie to a war mage! I’ll never hear the end of it!”

“Got that right,” one of the guys said.

“Better get it right, then,” Tami warned.

“Shit! I mean poo!”

“Don’t try to save it now,” Marco said, snapping his fingers.

Fred sighed but ponied up a twenty.

At this rate, we were going to be able to buy the court a limo just from the swear jar, I thought, and then I noticed Pritkin looking smug.

“Don’t expect me to go easy on you,” I warned him.

The blindfolded face turned unerringly up to mine. “Actually, I prefer it rough.”

I dropped a spoon.

And came up scowling. So that’s how it was, huh? Because the first time might have been an accident, but that . . . that had been deliberate.

Okeydokey, then.

I went to the bar.

While I was gone, Fred correctly guessed blackberry, lemon curd, and white chocolate on shortbread and looked like he was making a mental note for future reference. I grabbed a toasted marshmallow from one of the guys, put a naked knee on the seat of Pritkin’s chair, between his legs, dipped the ooey gooey item in Baileys, almost burning my fingers, and fed it to him. Slowly.

“All right, that’s my idea of a s’more,” somebody said.

I didn’t see who. The balcony abruptly receded—the kids talking and laughing, Rhea and Hilde coming and going, taking the smaller ones to bed, and the vamps drinking and clandestinely smoking, because Tami was distracted and the firepit covered the smell. For a moment, there were only Pritkin’s lips, wet and shining from the alcohol, the warmth of his mouth, closing around my fingers, and the feel of his tongue, working the last remaining sticky marshmallow off my skin, making sure to get every . . . last . . . bit.

“Okay,” Tami said dryly, shocking me back into myself. “Time for bed.”

Couldn’t agree more, I thought dizzily.

“Wait—we’re not done!” Fred said, looking at Pritkin. “You didn’t guess that last one; what was that last one?”

“I have no idea.” It was rough.

“Woo-hoo, I won!”

“I think he won,” somebody said.

And then dinner was over.

But, unfortunately, my responsibilities weren’t. Because Augustine, who’d come in late, wanted to bitch about the mess we’d supposedly made in his workroom and get his key back. And Rhea cornered me to talk about one of the girls, who was acting out by stealing everybody’s stuff, which had been found under her bed. And then Hilde followed me in my room to talk about Rhea—and she wasn’t taking any hints.

“I don’t understand it,” she said, striding back in forth in front of my bed. “The girl has the talent—I know she does—but there’s some mental block in the way.”

“I’m sure she’ll, uh, deal with it eventually,” I said, pondering my sleepwear.

It consisted of old T-shirts and a pair of flannel pj’s I’d bought in anticipation of cold winter nights. I picked them up. They had little moose on them—mooses? Meece? And were about as unsexy as it was possible to get.

I’d had some nicer stuff, but it had all been bought for me by Sal, one of Tony’s