He nodded, studied her intently for a moment, and then closed the distance between them, ignoring both Andy and Darrak. “Then I think it’s best to get this out of the way right now so it doesn’t become an ongoing issue between us.”
“What are you talking about?”
He captured her face between his hands and kissed her very firmly on her mouth. Her eyes widened at the feel of his lips against hers before he let go of her.
He grinned. “See, I feel much better now.”
“Uh… wow, I didn’t expect that.”
“Less time for you to build up a defensive tactic.” His grin disappeared. “Does that mean I shouldn’t do it again?”
“No, I’m definitely not saying that. You have my full permission to do that again.” She cleared her throat. The cop could kiss very, very well. And he looked extremely pleased with himself considering the fact he had a fiery-eyed demon now standing directly behind him with fists clenched at his sides.
“If I wasn’t so busy,” Andy said from across the room, “I’d be very curious to know everything that’s been going on with you lately, Eden. Okay, maybe I’m a little curious. Who’s this guy?”
“Oh, uh… this is Ben Hanson. Or, rather, Detective Ben Hanson. Ben, this is my partner here at the agency, Andy McCoy.”
Andy drew closer and extended his hand. Ben shook it. “Good to meet you. Nice to see that somebody’s willing to give our little recluse Eden a good time.”
“Andy!” Eden’s face flushed.
“Well, you know what I mean. You can’t always depend on your brother, especially considering his special condition.”
“I didn’t know you had a brother,” Ben said.
“Right.” She cleared her throat again. It helped to give her a moment to think. “Uh… this is Darrak.”
Ben turned slowly to see the demon. Eden breathed a sigh of relief to see he’d changed his eyes back to their normal blue color. Flame-filled eyes might be hard to explain away.
They were exactly the same height. She hadn’t realized that until seeing them side by side. Ben had short blond hair, while Darrak’s was dark and unruly. Ben wore faded jeans and a white shirt under a dark brown leather jacket. Darrak wore head-to-toe black. They had similar builds to go with their similarity in height. Hard, lean muscle. Broad shoulders and chests.
Ben was smiling. Darrak was not.
“Hey there.” Ben extended his hand in greeting. “Good to meet you.”
Darrak didn’t shake it. “You go around kissing a lot of women without their permission?”
Ben’s smile faded at the edges. “I guess that might not have looked very good to you, did it?”
“No, it didn’t.”
“It’s fine,” Eden interjected. “Really.”
“You’re interested romantically in my… sister?” Darrak asked.
Ben let out a small laugh. “Didn’t know I’d be meeting the family today. But, uh… sure. I’ll play along. Yeah, I like Eden. A lot, actually.”
“But you don’t like psychics. You’re turned off by the supernatural.”
“Well, I wouldn’t say turned off, exactly. But I am a skeptic. Besides, Eden herself doesn’t claim to be able to bend spoons with her mind or anything crazy.”
Darrak crossed his arms. “Crazy, huh? Bending spoons is serious business. If you ever come face-to-face with a true spoon-bending telekinetic, I hope for your sake you don’t piss them off.”
Ben’s eyes shifted back and forth. “Are you being serious with me right now?”
“Deadly.” Darrak eyed the cop distastefully. “Do you normally abandon the women you like at restaurants so they can find their own way home?”
Ben glanced at Eden then back at Darrak. “I can tell we’re not getting off on the right foot here. Last night was hard to explain. There were some issues I had to take care of.”
Yeah, and one of them was Malcolm. Eden was very curious to know what had happened there.
“Did everything turn out okay last night?” she asked.
He nodded. “It’s taken care of. He says he won’t bother you again.”
She had a hard time believing it was that simple. “Well, thanks for talking to him.”
“Maybe the three of us should go out for drinks some time.” Ben looked at Darrak. “It would give you the chance to get to know me a bit better and see I’m not a bad guy.”
“I’m going to be leaving town very soon,” Darrak said. “So that won’t be possible. All I want to make sure of is that Eden is safe and in good hands when I’m gone.”
“She is,” he grinned, with a flick of his eyes to Eden. “My hands have never gotten any complaints before.”
She almost smiled at that but it was chased off when she saw the fire return to Darrak’s eyes at the casual innuendo.
“I think you should leave now,” Darrak suggested firmly.
“Oh, do you?” A less than friendly tone had gathered in Ben’s voice as well. “Look, man. I know you care about your sister, but I don’t understand this attitude. We just met. You don’t know me. So I would prefer if you keep that judgmental tone out of your voice. I might not be perfect, but Eden could do a hell of a lot worse than me.”
“Or, much, much better,” Darrak said dryly.
Ben took a step closer to Darrak, his eyes narrowed, and he cocked his head to the side. “Oh, yeah?”
Darrak pressed his palm against Ben’s chest and shoved him back a step. “Yeah.”
“Okay,” Andy said, “I think that’s good enough. We’ve had one broken door this week. Let’s not make it a double. If you two are going to go to fisticuffs, then you should leave right now.”
“Fisticuffs?” Darrak repeated.
“Besides,” Andy continued, “Darrak is very special and I would assume sometimes he doesn’t realize what he’s saying. He’s just very protective of his sister.”
“Special, huh? That’s debatable.” Ben glowered. “Eden? Tell your brother to get away from me. He doesn’t know who he’s dealing with.”
That made two of them, actually.
“Darrak,” she said with a warning tone to her voice. “Back the hell off. Right now.”