Demon Hunting with a Dixie Deb - Lexi George Page 0,98
this place.”
“The car—” Sassy said.
“Leave it. Taryn will see to it.”
Grim took her by the hand. The busy yard swirled and melted in a smear of yellow, red, brown, and green, and Sassy fell into the void. She closed her eyes against the streams of starlight and the gaping blackness. When she opened her eyes, she and Grim were standing in the living room of the river house.
Grim had done it again. Yanked her around in highhanded fashion without consulting her. She was starting to get the itsiest bit annoyed.
She pulled free of his grasp and marched over to the fireplace.
She braced her hands on her hips. “Grim, I love you, but you have got to stop bullying me.”
Grim stilled. Then he stepped closer, his expression intent. “What did you say?”
His amber eyes blazed so bright that it hurt to look at them. He was angry. Too bad. She was a person, not a piece of luggage.
She thumped her fist on the front of her coveralls, raising a small cloud of dust. “I said stop bullying me. Ask me if I want to go someplace. Don’t yank me around without a by-your-leave.”
Grim’s big body practically shimmered with tension.
“Before that,” he said. “What did you say before that? Think on it, Sassy. It is most important.”
Sassy frowned. If he’d been listening he’d know what she said. She’d said—
Her fingers flew to her mouth.
“Mother-of-pearl,” she whispered.
Grim crossed the space between them in a blur of motion and pulled her into his arms. His woodsy, spicy scent enveloped her, and the combination of his nearness and the realization of what she’d confessed made Sassy light-headed.
Grim tilted her chin. “Say it again, my heart.” Lowering his head, he brushed his mouth against hers. “I would hear it again.”
His heart. He’d called her his heart. Joy bloomed inside Sassy and threatened to overflow.
“I can’t,” she said. “I’m still engaged.”
Grim stiffened. Then a smile warmed his ochre gaze. “Still?”
Sassy nodded.
Grim rested his forehead against hers, his muscled chest rising and falling as though he’d run a marathon.
“Thank the gods,” he said. “But for that one word I would despair.”
Meredith materialized on a blast of citrus fragrance. “W-e-l-l, aren’t we cozy?”
Grim and Sassy broke apart and turned to meet the ghost. Meredith was wearing a sleek black pencil dress with a round neck and cap sleeves. A white dragon pattern was mirrored, front and back, on the jacquard knit. She balanced, one hip out, on a towering pair of black python and leather heels.
“I am not—” Sassy shook her head. She refused to dignify such crudity with an answer. “What do you want?”
“I finally got in to see that numb nuts shrink of mine.” Meredith tapped one elegantly shod foot. “He had an interesting theory regarding my recent lapse into congeniality. Leonard Swink, licensed professional counselor to the dead but not quite departed, seems to think somebody put the whammy on me.”
She glared at Sassy. “Somebody sweet. Somebody bursting at the seams with sugary goodness. Any idea which treacly twat might have—to paraphrase a hero of mine—dicked with my beautiful wickedness?”
“That would be me,” Sassy said. “You wouldn’t stop calling me names.”
“We are so done. You’ll pay for this. Nobody messes with me.”
“Piffle,” Sassy said. “This is my house. Give me trouble and I’ll boot you to the curb.”
Meredith’s blue eyes narrowed. “I’d like to see you try, fairy fart. I eat gumdrops like you for breakfast.”
“Is that so? Mess with me, Meredith, and I’ll dress you in spandex and pleather.”
Meredith gasped. “You wouldn’t.”
“Push me, my peep, and see. You’ll have beavage, panty lines visible from the moon, and terminal toe hang in your cheap plastic shoes.”
“Bullshit,” Meredith said. “I’m dead. You can’t do a damn thing to me.”
“I sweetened your sour, didn’t I? Granted, it lasted a hot second, but I did it.”
“It was a fluke. You’re bluffing.”
“Really? Okay, you asked for it.”
Raising her hand, Sassy flung a fistful of dusky purple sparkles at the ghost, and Meredith’s sexy black pumps were transformed into a pair of black orthopedic old lady lace-ups with thick bottoms.
“My shoes,” Meredith shrieked. “What the hell have you done to my shoes?”
“I’m just getting started,” Sassy said. “By the time I’m through with you, you’ll have belly cleavage and enough muffin top to make a baker’s dozen. For eternity. Still want to chance it?”
“I hate you.” Meredith’s face scrunched in a death mask of fury. “I hate your sugar coated guts, you