Page 24

Finally Dessert

“S o this is like the seven deadly sins?” Helena asked as she took a sip from the small cup of coffee Rafferty had made with the dessert.

“I’m sorry about the inferiority of the brew,” he said, indicating her cup. “You don’t have a French press, so I had to make do with your cof feemaker.”

“Why would I be upset about the coffee if I’m the one who owns the cof feemaker?”

“Well, then it’s me I’m apologizing to,” he said, taking his own sip and grimacing at t he taste.

They were sitting at her dining room table now, enjoying the coffee he made while going over the desserts that had been provided for them. And of course the conversation drifted back to the nature o f demons.

“It’s not by any means the only way to categorize all of us. It’s just a really handy guide to thinking about it.”

“Alright, I think I remember this. There is Anger, Gluttony, Lust,” she said, ticking off her fingers.

“Good,” h e nodded.

“Wrath.” She stopped furrowing her brows. “No, that’s the same as Anger.”

“You are correct.”

“Sloooooth,” she said slowly, though she didn’t mean it to be funny.

He chuckled anyway, clearly enjoying himself.

“Greed,” she added. Then she ticked off her fingers again because she forgot how many she had figured out. “Lust, Greed, Gluttony, Anger/Wrath, Sloth… Okay two more.” She wracked her brain, but it just didn’t com e to her.

“Ugh, okay, I give up. What are the last two?”

He raised his eyebrows at her, teasing that he wasn’t going to tell her. “Eeeeee-nnnn- vvvveeee—”

“Envy!” she shouted, which led her to “and Prid e. I win!”

He grinned at her. “I’m not surprised you struggled with those last two. You have nothing much to do with envy, do you?” Raffe rty said.

Helena shrugged. “I guess not, but Wrath? Oh yeah, be en there.”

“Really?”

“You should have met me in high school. Or actually it’s better that yo u didn’t.”

“Better for you that w e didn’t.”

That sobered the conv ersation.

“Like I said, will leave a bad taste in your mouth,” Rafferty said, and he wielded a fork on one of the three desserts waiting on the plate between them to try. “Which do you want first: the mini hazelnut dacquoise, raspberry macaron, or mini chocolate gana che cake?”

“Yes, please,” she said as a non-answer, smiling. There were in fact two of everything as the restaurant had sent home enough for her and h er guest.

He gave her a faux-annoyed look and picked the chocolate ganache. Stabbing the mini dessert with his fork, he lifted the whole thing as one large bite and held it out to her. She opened her mouth and let him feed it to her before she quickly did the same, stabbing the other mini ganache. Her feeding was a bit more awkward, however, since her little cake decided to try to split in half, but it just made them both giggle as he had to chomp at the air to keep from l osing it.

“Wow, that is rich,” she said around her mouthful as they both savored. “We don’t need wine. We ne ed milk.”

But as she got up to go get it, Rafferty stood quicker. “I’ll go get it,” he said and disappeared through the swinging door before she could eve n object.

“Well, okay,” she said to herself and sat b ack down.

Lacking anything else to do while she waited and not really willing to get up and go find her mobile phone to mess with, she looked down at the plate with the other two desserts. All the offerings were mini versions, again because the chef was trying to showcase what he could do. She was really curious about the mini Hazelnut Dacquoise which was a little meringue layered with chocolate buttercream, the layers on display inside an equally little shot glass. The other delight was a Raspberry Macaron. The chef had stenciled the restaurant’s logo on the top of each Macaron, probably with an air sprayer of food coloring, giving them a regal look. Wedged in between each of the dark pink cookies was a lighter pink Chantil ly cream.

She couldn’t wait to try them and soon enough, Rafferty returned with the palate cleans ing milk.

“Okay, so if I were to take a guess,” she said after a hearty swallow, “you would be a demon of Gluttony? Because of all the food?”

“Again, this is a hard and fast guideline, not really an official designation, but yes, I do tend to get people whose greatest desires tend to be around consuming more. But I do also get Prideful ones like you nearly as often.”

“Prideful?” Helena asked, surprised. “How am I prideful?”

“Well, you just couldn’t let yourself be embarrassed in front of your guests that you ruined the meal,” he sai d simply.

“I…” But Helena stopped at that thought, turning it over. “Okay, I can see how that is prideful, but I didn’t summon you on purpose because of it. It was an accident. And then once you were there, I didn’t know what to do about… well, you. I mean, if I hadn’t summoned you, yeah it would have been embarrassing, but I would have sucked it up and ordered Chinese or something. Though I’m sure that wouldn’t have impressed Scarlet so much.”

“And you wouldn’t be winning at life right now,” he po inted out.

“And that is the reason you, sir, are even here, being rewarded for helping me out, even though I didn’t need it.” She bowed her head at him. “I am very grateful for your as sistance.”

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “You’re welcome,” he muttered, then picked up a macaron and popped it into his mouth to cover his di scomfort.

“Wait, wait,” she said and snatched up hers to join him. “Oh, these are happy cookies.”

“All macarons are happy cookies,” h e agreed.

“Alright then, so you usually get either the gluttonous or the prideful.”

“I’ve seen them all,” he stated, followed by a ha lf-shrug.

Helena wrinkled her nose. “Lust?” she asked, ignoring her burning cheeks. “W ith food?”

“You act like you’ve never heard of such a thing?” With one finger, he slid one of the shot glasses over the plate toward her slowly to the sound of glass rubbing on glass. She looked from the dessert to him, wondering if what she thought he was implying was what he was implying or was she just reading into his human-like gestur es again.

“Last one,” she declared and picked up the dessert spoon that she didn’t even know she had until Rafferty pulled them out from where they had been buried in her silverwar e drawer.

“Try to get all the layers onto your spoon at once if you can,” he advised, and they scooped together.

“After this, I’m going to need to work out for a week,” but before she could take a bite, he took his spoon and slid it down the side of her face, spreading the creamy desse rt there.

“Hey!” she squealed at the sudden cold. Her hand reacted to slap to her cheek, but Rafferty caught it before she could. “What are you—” Then his tongue slipped up the side of her face, lapping up the cream. She went still, her eyes going wide as he removed the sugary damage he had done in one long, sensual swipe. Then he leaned back, smirking.

This time she moved to touch her cheek and he let go. “You… you should have asked for permission to do that,” she sai d softly.

His smirk dropped away, his eyes showing concern and maybe a little c onfusion.

“I showed you what a Lust summoner would want with food…” He sat back then. She could see his walls coming back up, but she did n’t care.

“I didn’t ask you to dem onstrate.”

They stared at each other for a very pregnant moment. Then abruptly, he stood up and backed away from the table. “I made a mistake. I apologize.” He bowe d to her.

Helena picked up her napkin to wipe at her cheek, unable to meet his eyes.

“I will leave you,” he said.

“No, Rafferty. Please wait,” she said, belatedly, standing up to stop him with a hand on his arm. He did, turning back to her but keeping his gaze over her head.

She took a breath, but it was hard. “It’s not … that I didn’t like it.” She still couldn’t look up at him. “You just didn’t ask me is all.”

“It would not be unreasonable for you to be disgusted by me,” he stated. He still wouldn’t look at her, just kept his gaze up over her head, staring into the middle distance, the formality hi s shield.

“I’m not disgusted by you,” she said and took his hand so he could feel her touching him. “You’re just a person.”

He flinched under her touch, and she pressed her warmth into his coldness.

“I…” he started. They both seemed mesmerized by where their hands connected. “I didn’t give you permission to touch me,” he said, the ghost o f a quip.

“Do you want me to stop?” she asked, matching his softness.

“I…” He cleared his throat. “You don’t need my permission to do anything. I am your demon, summoned to your will. You can do whatever you like with and to my body, make me perform any act, any deg radation.”

“Is that…” She stopped. She knew human nature had a capacity for a great many terrible things. A few of them she could only imagine, but even imagining them was terrible. “That is what has happene d to you.”

“Better to endure those things in reality than the alternative,” he said with the sort of strength that came because someone had suffe red much.

“I’m so sorry, Raffie,” she said and lifted his hand up to hold against h er cheek.

“Don’t. Don’t pity me. I dese rve this.”

She shook her head. “No, nobody deser ves this.”