Every Which Way But Dead. Ким Харрисон

wouldn’t dream of it.” The slow, soft tone of his voice said otherwise.

      “’Cause you’re not capable of being half the man Nick is,” I stupidly said.

      “High standards, eh?” Kisten mocked.

      Ivy perched herself on the counter by my ten-gallon dissolution vat of saltwater, wrapping her arms about her knees yet still managing to look predatory while she sipped her coffee and watched Kisten play with my emotions.

      Kisten glanced at her as if for permission, and I frowned. Then he stood in a sliding sound of fabric, coming to lean on the island counter across from me. His necklace swung, pulling my attention to his neck, marked with soft, almost unseen, scars. “I like action movies,” he said, and my breath came fast. I could smell the lingering aroma of leather on him under the dry scent of silk.

      “So?” I said belligerently, peeved that Ivy had probably told him about Nick’s and my weekend-long stints in front of the Adrenaline channel.

      “So, I can make you laugh.”

      I flipped to the most tattered, stain-splattered recipe in the book I’d swiped from my mom, knowing it was for sugar cookies. “So does Bozo the Clown, but I wouldn’t date him.”

      Ivy licked her finger and made a tally mark in the air.

      Kisten smiled to show the barest hint of fang, leaning back and clearly feeling the hit. “Let me take you out,” he said. “A platonic first date to prove Nick wasn’t anything special.”

      “Oh, please,” I simpered, not believing he was stooping this low.

      Grinning, Kisten turned himself into a spoiled rich boy. “If you enjoy yourself, then you admit to me that Nick was nothing special.”

      I crouched to get the flour. “No,” I said when I rose to set it thumping on top of the counter.

      A hurt look creased his stubbled face, put-on but still effective. “Why not?”

      I glanced behind me at Ivy, silently watching. “You have money,” I said. “Anyone can show a girl a good time with enough money.”

      Ivy made another tally mark. “That’s two,” she said, and he frowned.

      “Nick was a cheap ass, huh,” Kisten offered, trying to hide his ire.

      “Watch your mouth,” I shot back. “Yes, Ms. Morgan.”

      The sultry submissiveness in his voice yanked my thoughts back to the elevator. Ivy once told me Kisten got off on playing the submissive. What I had found out was that a submissive vampire was still more aggressive than most people could handle. But I wasn’t most people. I was a witch.

      I put my eyes on his, seeing that they were a nice steady blue. Unlike Ivy, Kisten freely indulged his blood lust until it wasn’t the overriding factor governing his life. “One hundred seventy-five dollars?” he offered, and I bent to get the sugar.

       The man thought a cheap date was almost two hundred dollars?

      “One hundred?” he said, and I looked at him, reading his genuine surprise.

      “Our average date was sixty,” I said.

      “Damn!” he swore, then hesitated. “I can say damn, can’t I?”

      “Hell, yes.”

      From her perch on the counter, Ivy snickered. Kisten’s brow pinched in what looked like real worry. “Okay,” he said, deep in thought. “A sixty-dollar date.”

      I gave him a telling look. “I haven’t said yes yet.” He inhaled long and slow, tasting my mood on the air. “You haven’t said no, either.” “No.”

      He slumped dramatically, pulling a smile from me despite myself. “I won’t bite you,” he protested, his blue eyes roguishly innocent.

      From under the island counter I pulled out my largest copper spell pot to use as a mixing bowl. It wasn’t reliable any longer for spelling, as it had a dent from hitting Ivy’s head. The palm-sized paint ball gun I stored in it made a comforting sound against the metal as I took it out to put back under the counter at ankle height. “And I should believe you because …”

      Kisten’s eyes flicked to Ivy. “She’ll kill me twice if I do.”

      I went to get the eggs, milk, and butter out of the fridge, hoping neither of them sensed my pulse quickening. But I knew my temptation didn’t stem from the subliminal pheromones they were unconsciously emitting. I missed feeling desired, needed. And Kisten had a Ph.D. in wooing women, even if his motives were one-sided and false. From the looks of it, he indulged in casual blood taking like some men indulged in casual sex. And I didn’t want to become one of his shadows that he strung along, caught by the binding saliva in his bite to crave his touch, to feel his teeth sinking into me to fill me with euphoria. Crap, I was doing it again.

      “Why should I?” I said, feeling myself warm. “I don’t even like you.”

      Kisten leaned over the counter as I returned. The faultless blue of his eyes caught and held mine. It was obvious by his rakish grin that he knew I was weakening. “All the better reason to go out with me,” he said. “If I can show you a good time for a lousy sixty bucks, think what someone you like could do. All I need is one promise.”

      The egg was cold in my hands, and I set it down. “What?” I asked, and Ivy stirred.

      His smile widened. “No shirking.”

      “Beg pardon?”

      He opened the tub of butter and dipped his finger into it, licking it slowly clean. “I can’t make you feel attractive if you stiffen up every time I touch you.”

      “I didn’t before,” I said, my thoughts returning to the elevator. God help me, I had almost done him right there against the wall.

      “This is different,” he said. “It’s a date, and I would give my eyeteeth to know why women expect men to behave differently on a date than any other time.”

      “Because you do,” I said.

      He gave a raised-eyebrow look to Ivy. Straightening, he reached across the counter to cup my jaw. I jerked back, brow furrowed.

      “Nope,” he said as he drew away. “I won’t ruin my reputation by taking you out on a sixty-dollar date for nothing. If I can’t touch you, it’s a no-go.”

      I stared at him, feeling my heart pound. “Good.”

      Shocked, Kisten blinked. “Good?” he questioned as Ivy smirked.

      “Yeah,” I said, pulling the butter to me and scooping out about a half cup with a wooden spoon. “I didn’t want to go out with you anyway. You’re too full of yourself. Think you can manipulate anyone into doing anything. Your ego-testicle attitude makes me sick.”

      Ivy laughed as she unfolded herself and jumped lightly to the floor without a sound. “I told you,” she said. “Pay up.”

      Shoulders shifting in a sigh, he twisted to reach his wallet in a back pocket, pulling out a fifty and shoving it into her hand. She raised a thin eyebrow and made another tally mark in the air. An unusual smile was on her as she stretched to drop it into the cookie jar atop the fridge.

      “Typical,” Kisten said, his eyes dramatically sad. “Try to do something nice for a person, cheer her up, and what do I get? Abused and robbed.”

      Ivy took three long steps to come up behind him. Curling an arm across his chest, she leaned close and whispered in his torn ear, “Poor baby.” They looked good together, her silky sultriness and his confident masculinity.

      He didn’t react at all as her fingers slipped between the buttons of his shirt. “You would have enjoyed yourself,” he said to me.

      Feeling as if I’d passed some test, I pushed the butter off the spoon and licked my