Chapter Eighteen
Allie
Dylan hadn’t taken my suggestion of staying at Trevor’s very well, despite the fact that it made perfect sense. Trevor’s home was in a secure community, much like the one Dylan lived in. When he hadn’t responded to my perfectly logical argument, I’d decided to point out that Trevor’s home was closer to the bridge, which would make my commute easier. If I weren’t mistaken, Dylan had actually started grinding his teeth when I’d added that to my list of reasons.
“I can’t stay with you,” I told Dylan for at least the tenth time in the last fifteen minutes. After I’d finally finished packing, I still had no idea where I was going. Since I was sitting in Dylan’s car at the moment, I felt kind of ridiculous arguing with him. For some reason, I was a very argumentative person around Dylan. It had to be his fault since I was known for being agreeable and even-tempered. If I weren’t, I would have punched Marcos in the junk months ago. “This is not how one-night stands work,” I added, slumped down in my seat with my arms crossed in front of my chest. “People call them one-night stands because you only have one night together.”
I could swear I heard Dylan grinding his teeth again. That was a habit he needed to break before he ended up damaging his perfect teeth.
“We didn’t have a one-night stand,” Dylan said in a calm voice, which was at odds with his death grip on the steering wheel.
“You’re tired,” I said when he yawned. That probably explained his crankiness.
“Exhausted,” he admitted with a sigh. “Why is this so difficult?”
“Driving?” I asked and didn’t wait for a reply. “You’re too tired to drive.”
Since we were at a stop sign, he turned to give me an annoyed look.
“I meant, why is getting you to come home with me to hard?” he clarified. “I’ve never had this much trouble with a woman before.” At least, the moron had sense enough to figure out how stupid his comment was. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” he quickly added.
“Yes, you did,” I said with a humorless laugh. “Women don’t give you problems. Then again, you never want more than sex, so we don’t know if they’d be a problem the next day or not. I think it’s safe to assume they wouldn’t give you any trouble if you asked them to stay at your place.” I let out a frustrated breath. “It’s not that I’m not grateful to you for saving me and wanting to help me. This is just not where I saw things going with us. In case you hadn’t figured it out, I don’t date often.”
“Who’s Chet?” Dylan asked.
“Chad is my ex-boyfriend,” I replied. “He’s mostly human, and we dated for about a year.”
Chad was a strange mix of human and demon that resulted in him having a long lifespan but little else in the way of demon abilities.
“And he was stupid enough to break up with you,” Dylan added.
I nearly laughed at the way Dylan sounded almost angry on my behalf.
“Trust me. It was for the best,” I said, deciding to elaborate. “Chad is the most uptight person in the world. Sex was never anything other than missionary, and I’m just lucky I can orgasm if my partner does.”
“Why’d you stay with him?” Dylan asked.
This was the part that was a little embarrassing to admit. “It was just easier that way, for both of us. I didn’t have to find men to feed my sexual energy. Believe me when I tell you that gets old fast. Chad had a date for events he needed to attend. It wasn’t until he started having more involvement with the demon community that we had a problem. He was embarrassed to be with me.”
“Chad is an asshole,” Dylan muttered, gripping the steering wheel tightly.
“No, he’s not,” I said. “That’s how it is in the demon world. Sex demons are ranked pretty low. All species seem to want to fuck a sex demon, but they wouldn’t want to marry one.”
There was a beat of silence before Dylan spoke. “Witches are just assholes in general. They don’t want anyone marrying outside of their species. Hell, most of them don’t want anyone marrying outside of their rank.”
I already knew that, and this was the perfect opening to tell Dylan how I knew about witch society, but I had no idea where to start. Of course, when I revealed the truth about my father being a warlock, Dylan would probably be ready to drop me at Trevor’s house, which was what I wanted. Or, was it? There was no way this could end with a happily ever after. Dylan wasn’t looking for anything permanent, and I still didn’t fully understand what he wanted with me, other than the great sex we’d been having.
“Talk to me, Allie,” Dylan said, and it was then that I realized I’d been lost in my own inner-musings.
“I don’t want to get hurt,” I said, not sure why I’d decided to lead with that.
Dylan didn’t say anything as he pulled the car into his garage. He actually remained silent as he parked and unbuckled his seatbelt. Finally, he looked at me, and the force of his stare made me suck in an involuntary breath. “And you assume I’ll hurt you? Just because some other asshole hurt you, you assume I will, too?”
“You’ve hurt more than one witch in your time,” I said softly.
“What exactly are you basing that on,” he asked, and I couldn’t figure out if he sounded hurt or angry. “Is this based on the two days you’ve known me? Or, could it be based on the short time we went to the same high school?”
“You remember me?”
“No,” he admitted. “I was an asshole back then, and I never noticed anyone who couldn’t do something for me. Worse, I was a rich asshole who thought he could do whatever he wanted. It wasn’t until tonight that I realized we’d gone to school together. Fuck! I don’t even know if we ever talked in school.”
I shook my head, staring down at my hands, which were clenched in my lap. “Not much. I mean, you didn’t hang out with people my age, anyway. I was actually three years behind you. You weren’t really rude to me or anything. If you were, I probably wouldn’t have been flirting with you at Trevor’s. I was quiet in school, and there weren’t many of my kind there, which was hard. Trevor talked to me, but most people didn’t.”
“So, that’s how you met Trevor,” he mused, as if I’d just solved some great mystery. “I’m surprised he only just recently started talking about you. Wait! I thought he said he met you at SpellBinders.”
“We reconnected recently. I didn’t talk to Trevor much in school, but he was the first guy to ever tell me I was pretty,” I admitted. Funny, I’d never had a crush on Trevor, even though he’d been nice to me back then, but Trevor had always seemed more like a brother to me.
“That’s his gift,” Dylan admitted. “Trevor can see the beauty in anyone.”
“It’s also his curse,” I said, earning a curious look from Dylan. “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen how much trouble it causes him.”
Dylan raised an eyebrow. “I’ve seen it, but I’m curious what you see.”
“Trevor falls for women based on the good he sees in them,” I began. “He doesn’t see any of the bad stuff until he’s already involved. That’s why he goes through so many witches. I’ve always wondered how he ends up with the craziest witches around. The last witch he dated went through his closet, donated all of his clothes, and replaced them with things she thought were more appropriate. I got a frantic call, begging me to run to the store to pick up clothes so he could go into the office. That is not the sort of thing a sane woman does with a man she’s been dating a week.”
Dylan’s eyes widened. “I remember that day!” he said with a chuckle. “Trevor never told me why he came in so underdressed.”
“It’s hard to find business attire at eight in the morning,” I explained. “My options were limited.”
Dylan looked thoughtful. “I wonder why he didn’t tell me about that.”
I shrugged. “He was probably afraid you’d tease him about it. It is funny that he only sticks to witches, when he’d have an easier time ditching demons or humans.”
Dylan shrugged.
“Maybe Trevor is secretly a hopeless romantic.”
I hadn’t expected Dylan to figure that out. Trevor was a hopeless romantic, expecting to find his perfect witch and live happily ever after. He ran his mouth about how he didn’t believe in forever, but if that were true, he would stay far away from witches, just like Dylan. Instead, Trevor practically had every witch he dated living with him within a week. He never gave himself time to really get to know them first. That was the big difference between Dylan and Trevor. Trevor believed in true love to the point of foregoing all logic. Dylan didn’t believe in love at all.
And there was my wake-up call. I undid my seatbelt and climbed out of the car. “I really need to get some sleep,” I said. The sun was already up, and I’d only had a few hours of sleep in the last couple of days. Despite what this weekend suggested, I wasn’t much for late night parties.
Dylan nodded and walked around to take my bags out of the trunk before letting me into his house.
“Where should I sleep?” I asked.
“My bed,” Dylan growled.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I started to argue, but Dylan cut me off.
“I am exhausted and really on edge after saving your life,” he began. “At the moment, I’m seriously tempted to put a binding spell on you so you can’t get more than five feet away from me.”
I sucked in a sharp breath, unable to decide if I was angry or a little turned on. I’d liked the binding spell quite a bit when he’d used it on me before, but this threat wasn’t about sex. “You wouldn’t dare.”
Dylan moved so quickly, I didn’t have time to react. His hard body pressed me against the wall, and his fingers threaded through my hair, holding my head in place. “Don’t fucking push me, Allie. I’m not feeling very civilized at the moment.”
I tried to nod, but it was impossible with Dylan holding my head in place. For a moment, I thought he was going to kiss me. Based on his labored breathing and the way he stared at my mouth, I could tell he was considering it. In fact, I could see him struggling with his own desire just as much as I was.
Letting out a shaky breath, I worked to get my own body under control. “Let’s just go to bed,” I finally said. “We both need sleep.”
Dylan released me, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed.