Midnight Magic, page 23
“Hang on. His name is Pyrone?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh god, this is gonna be good.”
Maddie laughed. “You say that about all of them.”
“Yeah, I do.”
“I hate you. You know that, right?” Maddie snickered, her words holding zero heat.
“Yeah, yeah.” Jen tossed the playfully dismissive retort right back. “Now tell me about Mr. Pyrone.”
Pyrone: Do you know what my name means?
Maddie: No.
Pyrone: It’s a chemical compound and I need your O to complete me.
“I don’t get it,” Jen said. “I mean, I get the whole ‘O’ reference, but…”
“Yeah, I didn’t get it at first either. I had to look it up. Apparently, oxygen is a crucial element to the chemical compound’s structure or something. So, here’s how I responded.”
“Oh my god! You responded?!” Jen was straight-up crying because she was laughing so hard.
Maddie: Clever. But with me, you’re getting N and O. In that order.
Pyrone: Th—
“Wait, he responded?!” Jen’s voice was barely more than a squeak of air.
Pyrone: That’s the best rejection I’ve had yet. You sure you don’t wanna complete me with your O? I’d give you many, many O’s.
“What in the hell?” Jen’s voice was more hilarity than anything at this point.
“I don’t know, Jen. I don’t know. But yes, there is one more.”
“More?! Oh, this is great! We need to save these and make a book one day. I bet you we’d make millions. And I mean, hey, at least Pyrone was going to be a gentlemale and give you many, many O’s.”
“Yes, such a gentlemale…”
Sol: T—
“His name is Sol? Does that mean he’s a steorrian?” Jen inquired way too enthusiastically, getting all Sherlock Holmes with the name being star-related, which everyone knew was a common tradition among steorrians since their abilities were rooted in the stars.
“Juuust wait,” Maddie said, knowing that would become very clear in a moment.
Sol: Twinkle twinkle little star. Let’s have sex in the bar. Up above the chair so high. Down below you’re wet inside. Twinkle twinkle little star. Let’s have sex in the bar.
“A poem. Steorrian—called it!”
Maddie waited a good long minute for the line to clear enough before she said, “You want to know how I responded?”
“Oh my god! You responded to this one too?!” Jen barely managed to get the words out.
Maddie: Up above my fist does fly. Down below I wish you bye. Twinkle twinkle creepy star. Please just leave in your car.
“Ohhhh, Maddie!” Another round of Jen losing her shit ensued. “And so violent. I love it!
“And no, I don’t want to divulge just how long it took me to formulate that response either.”
Jen kept on howling, which was fitting, seeing as her friend was a wolf shifter.
“I’m so glad my misery and sucky and nonexistent love life brings you so much joy,” Maddie said in jest.
The line filled with both of their laughter because, yeah, it really was that funny, and she had no problem calling a spade a spade. Besides, she liked to be a glass-half-full kinda female and see the positive in things. So, if anything, this truly horrendous dating scene served its purpose not to help her find love but to bring them their daily funny.
“Oh my god. Damn, I needed that laugh,” Jen said, tone evening out almost back to normal. “Shit. My mascara is running so bad now. I gotta fix it before I get back to work.”
“Go,” Maddie snickered. “We’ll catch up later.”
“K. Bye. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
Maddie ended the call, still grinning widely. And, no, she couldn’t help herself. She was scrolling through the dating app and scrolling through the terrible choices as if she were window shopping for (questionable) outfits online that always looked better in the picture than in real life.
And, yes, window shopping.
Because, even if these choices weren’t cringey at best and her and Jen’s source of entertainment, she really didn’t have any business being on the dating app, let alone in an actual relationship… as much as she wanted to.
And speaking of dating, well, her dating history was… pretty pathetic.
Sure, she dated a bit here and there. But, apparently, she was the complete opposite of an Everlasting Gobstopper—males lost interest in her after the flingiest taste. Yeah, flingiest wasn’t a word, but whatever. Like she should be serious when literally no one was serious in the dating pool.
And why should they be? Especially at her age… and when they were technically immortal and could live forever. When time was all one had, there was no need to get serious or tie oneself to another.
Besides, she was a hopeless romantic and was holding out for that special someone and, dare she even dream, to meet her life mate.
Life mate bonds were one of the most sacred in their world. Some spent their whole immortal lives hoping to find their mate (or mates) and, sadly, some never did… Maybe that was going to be her.
Healer’s hell, she really needed to stop being so soap opera dramatic. She was barely a century old. She had plenty of time to find her mate… really, she did.
Maybe she should practice patience. It was something she’d prescribed many a time to her patients. So, she should practice what she preached, right?
Besides, like she even had time for a relationship. Or anything to offer, really… besides her mountainous pile of debt.
Going to healer school and earning that prized title of “doctor” wasn’t cheap by far. Thankfully, she’d been granted that sponsorship, which was basically a loan with interest and a clause that said they’d also get a percentage of her income as a healer. Yeah, that income percentage stung a little, but it was wholeheartedly worth it and she’d do it again in a heartbeat. Because without the sponsorship, she may have been debt-free, but what would she have done to earn a living?
She purposefully ignored the “B” word flashing in her mind in answer: bartender.
She knew (probably more than most) just how common it was for mind healers who didn’t or couldn’t pursue healer training for whatever reason to use their gifts with emotions as bartenders and learn the skill to spike specialty drinks with certain emotions… in very, very small and precise doses. It was highly regulated for a reason.
Imagine an entire bar of specians doped up with excessive lust… Hello, orgy.
Thankfully, she didn’t spend her days dosing drinks—that was so not her scene by far and had never been.
In fact, she couldn’t even remember the last time she’d been to a bar… which was probably why she was still single with no prospects.
That and, again, she was up to her ears in debt, barely managing to stay afloat while she built her mind-healing practice from the ground up and also, she was still working on contract with SILE (Species Intelligence and Law Enforcement) on a case-by-case basis.
So, yeah, in a nutshell, she spent practically every waking hour working while counting pennies… A real catch in the eyes of a prospective lover, right?
And that was how she found herself, taking on this temporary client at the last minute. She was now officially covering for the previously assigned mind healer who had an unexpected emergency and was now on leave for an unknown duration.
And the pay… wow, was it good. Really good. Higher profile cases tended to have higher price tags. Plus, they were paying her extra to stay on the case for the duration of the sentence with a sign-on bonus. Double plus, she’d also earn travel pay.
Holy mother freaking score!
The fact that she’d be earning more than she ever had in her life and also getting paid to travel to the client’s home while she could prep for her other client cases on the commute? Yeah, it was an automatic agreement to take on the case as if placed in her lap by a guardian angel. No questions. No hesitations.
Even when she’d signed the agreement with the highly emphasized clause that if she backed out, she’d have to pay back a significant percentage of what she’d earned. Unless there was a justifiable reason that she couldn't fulfill her obligations any longer. Fine by her. She had no intentions of backing out of this deal that was going to put a serious dent in her debt and help give her a tiny bit of breathing room.
CHAPTER 3
“Okay, really though... Where am I?” Maddie asked herself as her car hung a Louie at the cross streets of Country Road and Nothin’ But Sticks. Fine, those weren’t the actual street names, but might as well have been.
Oh, and her car? It was a very practical and affordable little Putt-Putt of a thing. Well, technically, the real Putt-Putt car was a purple convertible that was permanently cheery and neighborly. Her car wasn’t a convertible, and it was white. But she could be cheery and neighborly. And since she bought it for its lower-end price tag and incredible economy value—traveling for clients might’ve gotten expensive otherwise—even if she floored the pedal, it would just be a slightly faster putt-putt pace.
So, her car was basically half a Putt-Putt.
What the hell was she even thinking about?
It was like her mind was trying to make up for the fact that there were zero distractions. Literally zero. All she saw for miles and miles were highways and backroads with the occasional passing car and most of them tipped their hats, nodded, or gave a friendly wave even though they didn’t know her from Adam.
And the houses were, well, actual detached, single-family houses and had considerable land in between each home.
She was used to the city. High rises. Boxed-in apartments and townhomes. Lots of walls shared with total strangers she didn’t know—except she knew what their favorite music, TV shows, and movies were because they had a kick-ass surround system and loved blasting that shit after they got home from work and ordered takeout from the local Asian or Italian restaurants that basically lived in the complex because they were delivering food there every day.
And maybe that should’ve been strange because if she saw them on the street, there was no way she could’ve known that the occupant of 2B—the apartment directly above her—was standing immediately next to her in the coffee shop on the corner.
But like that was her fault.
It wasn’t city life custom to be Putt-Putting from door to door and dropping off home-baked goods while sipping on freshly brewed iced tea. In fact, in some parts of the city, just knocking on someone’s door could have the occupant cracking open the door with the chain still firmly in place and giving you a suspicious side-eye. And they’d probably think the baked goods were poisoned.
So, yeah. She wasn’t used to this—friendly strangers and seeing more land than specians. Or how the homes could positively swallow her dinky apartment and her half a Putt-Putt along with it for breakfast.
Hell, was she even in the right place? She’d already made about fifty wrong turns—directions and unknown (practically alien) landscapes had never been her strong suit, even with GPS.
She checked the digital map displaying the route and her car’s location on the dash. Yup. According to it, she was still on track and would get to her destination in another sixteen minutes. In city life, that would get her all of three blocks. But in country road life? Hell, she’d go miles. Plural.
Fifteen minutes later, she paused her favorite romance audiobook as she turned off the main road and saw it. Woah, the house looked positively huge at the end of the long, long drive and—
All thoughts ceased to exist as her eyes landed on a male in the front yard doing something. She didn’t know what. But what she did know was that he was shirtless. Freaking shirtless. And the way his muscles gleamed in the early afternoon sunlight from what must’ve been a sheen of sweat—
He looked up. Eyes of golden brown honey instantly pinned her to the spot.
Her car kept putting along, and she felt her head crank around slowly to keep staring at—
What was she doing?!
Whipping her head back around like she hadn’t just been straight-up ogling the male, she pulled up to the front of the house and parked next to a huge truck that could easily plow right over her half a Putt-Putt without so much as the slightest blip in the truck’s suspension.
Okay, she told herself, taking a head-clearing deep breath and looking at the time. Damn, she was early. Really early. Oh well. But like hell if she was going to show up late and screw up this financial opportunity that she needed.
Checking herself in the rearview mirror to make sure she was presentable (and not drooling), she—
Oh god. The shirtless Adonis just so happened to be in perfect view from this angle. He seemed to have gotten back to whatever it was he’d been doing, minding his own business.
Checking out her client’s gardener? Landscaper? Farmer? She didn’t know what or who exactly but she did know that was inappropriate… very inappropriate.
Stepping out of her car—or more like unfolding herself because the thing was way too tiny for her, she straightened her professional yet business casual slacks and blouse, shut the car door, and then took a step toward the front d—
She let out a little cry as her black heel somehow tripped over who the hell knew what—a rock? Divot on the dirt road? Nothing? Highly possible.
Oh god, she was going to fall flat on her face—
Suddenly, her world tilted on its axis and she was upright again… and the male was standing right in front of her. Shirtless. Slightly sweaty. In low-slung jeans. And Holy Healer’s hell, he was big—like tall and broad big. And his muscles with that golden summer tanned skin were also… wow.
Not to mention that heat radiating off him or the fact that his large hands were on her waist and searing into her sides even through the fabric of her shirt.
Sure, she knew shifters’ body temperatures were on the hotter side of the scale, but he was like a freaking sauna. All hot and steamy and sweaty and—
“Hi.”
Healing Heavens! He has a Southern drawl—slow and sweet as molasses.
Her hormones suddenly went into overdrive, pumping out swoon-worthy and very inappropriate thoughts left and right.
“Hi,” she rasped out, breathless—way too breathless.
He smiled, those full lips curving up at one corner slightly, sexily.
She internally squeaked. And hell, had her ovaries just sighed?
“Steady now?” His deep voice slid over her skin, seeped into her bones, and landed in places it had no business landing.
She nodded, and a sound in the back of her throat accompanied it—a sound she literally had never heard herself make before.
His rough hands slowly peeled themselves away from her sides. Her skin was suddenly too hot, too tight.
And wait, where had he come from? He’d been way over there.
Hang on, she thought, her brain trying to do the math. Shifters were fast. And cats were quick and quiet on their feet—expert silent stalkers. Oh god, did this mean he was her client?!
“Miss Maddie, I presume?” Those eyes—big, beautiful orbs of golden brown honey—appraised her with open curiosity and calculation. It was very feline.
She did another nod. This time, her head bobbed a few times like she was one of those bobblehead dolls.
And she really should have him address her as Dr. Greyem. Not because she was all prim and proper—she had plenty of patients call her by her first name intending to help them loosen up and let her in so she could do her job more effectively—but surely she needed some semblance of professionalism going on right now. Except, the way he’d said her name just—
“Clyde.” He nodded. “Pleasure to meet you, Miss Maddie.”
He said it again. He said her name in that sexy-as-sin Southern drawl.
Oh god, say something, she told herself, realizing time was ticking by and she hadn’t responded yet. “Nice to meet you too, Clyde. And I look forward to working with you.”
Oh hell, now she was saying his first name. And what had she said? She sounded like they were going to be colleagues or something. What was wrong with her? She was supposed to be a mind healer who talked for a living.
“Well, Miss Maddie, I wasn’t expecting you until a bit later. Unless I had the time wrong? My apologies if that’s the case.”
He’s a hunky, swoon-worthy, Southern gentlemale with no qualms for apologizing. The realization had her hormones faint like they were in a western romance novel and just couldn't handle all the Southern swoon going on.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be so early. But since this is my first time being here, I wanted to plan for a time cushion in case I ran into traffic or got lost.” Or need to dunk my head in a bucket of ice-cold water.
“Did you?” he asked, his eyes still locked onto her in that way of predatory shifters, especially felines. “Get lost, that is.”
“Only a couple of wrong turns,” she admitted. Hey, she’d been a bit flustered in the hustle and bustle in the congested streets surrounding the teleportation station. “But thank the Healing Heavens for GPS, right?” Her lighthearted delivery sucked and her accompanying laugh sounded more like a bird convulsing mid-song.
His lips curved, revealing a perfect set of pearly whites behind those kissable lips.
No! she internally chided. Not kissable. Normal—not kissable—lips framing that not-sexy smile.
What the hell was she doing? He was her patient. This was so not allowed. Fine, looking was allowed, but that was all.
No, wait. Looking wasn’t even safe because he was gloriously half-naked and she had a freaking job to do.
“In this Clause, mind healer, Maddison Greyem, will be relinquished of her contractual obligations to pay back the agreed-upon percentage of her earnings in the event Maddison Greyem terminates the contract prior to the closure date due to an event beyond the control of Maddison Greyem and which prevents Maddison Greyem from complying with any of its obligations under this Contract, including but not limited to…”
Nowhere in the acceptable contractual reasons did it list she could back out because her patient was too sexy. Or that it was okay to just throw her healer training ethics out the window.
