Page 40 of Stalked By Pestilence

He chuckled huskily in reply. “But first we’ll need to do something a touch more important, love.”

“And what’s that?”

“A date.”

Confused, I pulled away as far as he’d let me go. “A date?”

“Yes,” he said firmly. “A date, Viper. A proper one.”

My lips kicked up at the thought. “What the hell, let’s do it. I’ll even cook.”

His cheeky smile made my stomach flip-flop. I felt like a total girl right now, and I didn’t hate the feeling like I thought I would.

“Oh yeah? You any good, love?”

Probably better not to tell him about the eggs I attempted and failed horribly to do barely a week ago. He’d be worried I only offered to cook so I could poison him. But honestly, how badly could I fuck up pasta, really? If we were about to take on a demon and stop the end of the world, I could handle cooking for one date.

“You’re about to find out. But not while you’re here. I need to concentrate, and you’ll be a distraction.”

“Is that so?” A devious grin split his face, and his forward lean had me planting two hands on his chest to fend him off.

“Yes, so go upstairs, and I’ll call you down when everything’s done.”

“Call me down?”

I rolled my eyes. “You and I both know you have snake monster hearing.”

That seemed to amuse him a lot more than it should. “You’re one of the most perceptive humans I’ve met in a long time, Viper.”

“Well, you’re the only snake monster I’ve met, so you have me at a disadvantage here, birdie.”

His laughing eyes met my annoyed glance. “I’m starting to wonder which one of us is truly the snake monster.”

I swear to all that is holy…

“Out,” I growled, shoving him again.

He seemed skeptical as I hurried him out of his seat and toward the front door. “Why do I need to leave, though? I wouldn’t mind watching you tinker away in a cute little apron fit for a housewife.”

“Um, gross. No. That would never happen, so put that thought right out of your head. And anyway, if this is a date, then it needs all the steps of one. I deserve to be wooed, dammit. And this is my first date in…well, a while. I want the whole fucking experience.”

He seemed to perk up at the mention of my dating history. Or lack thereof.

“Wooed? The whole experience, you say?” His eyebrow waggle earned another exasperated curse from me.

“I already regret this,” I murmured, pushing on the brick wall that was the man-beast in front of me.

His chest rumbled with more laughter. “Is this dinner foreplay then, Viper? How about we skip right to dessert?”

I tried to hide a smile because his happy laughter after nothing but grim lines and world-ending revelations was getting to me. “Wooed, Z. Motherfucking woo me.”

“Thought that was what I was doing, pet,” his hands were all over me, caressing, touching, grabbing, and generally up to no good.

I smacked them away. “Get the fuck out.”

He still didn’t have a shirt on or his boots when I kicked him out of my apartment, but he was a magical snake monster so he’d figure it out. And if not, his apartment was upstairs. He’d live without shoes or a shirt for a flight of stairs. Hopefully the demons took a night off so I could enjoy this one simple pleasure before taking on Hell.

After dressing up for our first official date—I swear I wasn’t excited or anything—I was nearly thirty minutesinto my pasta sauce creation that had splattered my face more than once when I heard someone open the front door.