She popped off of Clyde’s back, once more silently thanking Pilates for her core strength—for any strength that allowed her to unglue herself from him and his tasty bod.
Her hands fumbled for a towel, yanking it off the rack with hasty fingers and wrapping it around her. She turned her back to him, handing the other towel to him over her shoulder. “Put this on.” And make it snappy, she thought, or all this pent-up sexual energy was going to become a long-ignored, libidinous shitstorm worthy of the apocalypse.
Clyde’s groan signaled he’d untangled himself from her shower. The dogs began to whimper their love for Clyde’s return with whining joy. He cleared his throat. “I’ll wait in the bedroom.”
With the sound of the bathroom door closing, she covered her face with both hands. She’d just plastered herself to a demon—and had liked it. There was nothing about this that was good. Nothing.
Squaring her shoulders, she wiped the condensation off her bathroom mirror so she could untangle the mess her hair would surely be in without having been conditioned. She frowned at the reflection peering over her shoulder, perfectly cool, perfectly blonde. “Ah, Miss I Vant to Be Let Alone, now isn’t a good time. I’m taking a page from your book. I’m a sopping-wet, half-cleaned mess, and I’m sure you wouldn’t have been caught dead looking like this—even at your worst.” When a girl really wanted to experience low self-esteem, all she had to do was get a little visit from Ms. Garbo to set her straight. Whenever she appeared to Delaney, she was permanently the bodacious babe of her 1920s fame.
Her ruby red lips moved before the whisper of her voice flitted to Delaney’s ears, the striking clarity of her cheekbones adding to the stunning entity, paling Delaney in comparison. “Flesh and the Devil,” was her less than remarkable, but suggestive advice.
Delaney wrinkled her nose at Greta. It’d taken some time to understand exactly what her otherworldly celebrity clientele were trying to tell her, but once she’d figured out they all spoke in reference to their famed movies, it had made conversations much easier to participate in. What Greta was suggesting was—was—gasp worthy. There’d be no getting a freak on with Clyde just for the pure pleasure of freaking. “You bet your silent movie bippy he’s the flesh of the devil. And I know exactly what you’re thinking when you suggest such a thing, you risqué broad. No. Absolutely not. I work for the other side. There’ll be no hanky-panky with his flesh—especially because it’s from the devil’s.”
Her thin, pencil-rounded eyebrow arched in mockery. “The Kiss.”
Okay. So there was that. It had been a stellar kiss even though the reasons for it were hardly based on anything more than necessity. “Guilty. It was fantabulous—he’s a consummate kisser, okay? Now quit making me feel worse than I already do, and while you’re at it, take your perfect size zero butt outta here. I can’t concentrate when you’re all looming over my shoulder being so coolly blonde and breathtakingly gorgeous.”
Greta smiled with warmth and sympathy, winking an eyeliner rimmed eye at Delaney before she faded.
A grip she hadn’t even realized she had on her sink tightened, then released, leaving the muscles in her hands jittery. She dried her hair, dragging a brush through it, fuming the entire way right up until she yanked her nightgown down from the hook on the back of the door.
Her behavior had been appalling, she acknowledged, reaching for the bathroom doorknob. But that was all going to change right now.
Clyde was on her bed, a pile of puppies surrounding him, wearing her pink bathrobe.
“If this keeps up, you’re going to owe me a trip to the bathrobe store,” she remarked before picking her discarded sweater off the floor and pulling it over her head.
“If this keeps up, I’m hoping we’ll find something that’s more suitable to my coloring,” he joked.
Laughter burst from her lips while weariness implored her to just give in. “Look, Clyde. I’m ass fried from our shenanigans. I don’t know that I believe your story, but if I’m honest, I will admit to having reservations about disbelieving you, too. I don’t know why, I just do. Don’t screw that up. We’re precarious here, you and I. We’re teetering on the brink.”