When a demon wants his mate…

Here’s an unedited snippet from the next installment in my Demon series. I hope you like it…

XOXO,

SS

At first Miles didn’t know what was going on. Normally the most even tempered of men, he was short with someone in a store. It wasn’t awful – and the silly girl had it coming with her incompetent, starstruck nonsense – but it was enough to make his assistant stare at him in surprise.

“I’m sorry, mate. I barely sleep a wink last night.”

It was true. Dreams had him tossing and turning until the sun was rising. He apologized to the girl before they left. She was happy to accept, even cooing sympathetically when he wordlessly touched his forehead. She was perfectly willing to believe in his make believe headache. She even offered him some water, which he accepted and drained before handing back the empty bottle with smiling thanks.

His assistant rolled his eyes. “You’re a smoothie.”

Miles just winked. He wasn’t an award-winning actor for nothing.

Then his agent felt the harsh lash of his tongue. Rich was a pushy New York transplant known for wearing down his clients when they said no to jobs he felt they should do. Miles made it a habit to ignore most things that came out of his mouth, and had done so for years. So, when he told him off, Rich was understandably surprised.

“What’s got into you?”

Miles had the decency to look abashed. “Sorry, Rich. Tired I reckon.”

“It’s a good gig. Easy work, nice money.”

“Posing in my drawers is never easy.”

Rich snorted, busily scrolling through his phone for the next opportunity. “If I looked like you, there’d be nothing easier.”

“That baffles me. You used to be a model, a bloody successful one too.”

To this day when they walked down the street together, it was a tossup who got the most attention. Rich was only a half inch shorter than Miles’ 6’4”. And he’d heard more than one female rhapsodize over his agent’s thick, coffee-colored hair and warm, dark eyes with their long curling lashes – their words, not his.

Rich snorted again. “I’m better suited to making the cush deals for posh bastards like you than I am doing them myself. And this deal,” he said, returning to his favorite topic of the moment, “is not about posing in your drawers. It’s a global fucking campaign for one of the biggest lingerie brands in the world. You’ll be the face of their foray into men’s bits and pieces. You should fucking be proud they chose you.”

Now it was Miles turn to snort.

“But you didn’t answer my question.”

Miles sighed. Wear you fucking down. “What’s that?”

Rich shot him a look like nice try. “You’ve been huffing and puffing ‘round here like a bear with a sore paw for weeks. Snapping and snarling like somebody just stole the last honey pot. You even fell asleep on a call the other day. What’s up?”

Miles rolled his shoulders. He was tense lately. It felt like he was perennially braced to ward off a blow. He hadn’t known how much he loved sleep until he stopped getting it.

“I don’t know.” And it was slowly driving him mad, that and these half formed dreams. There was always a woman, but he could never see her face. He knew there was danger, and sometimes he got the impression that she was the danger. He always had the overwhelming urge to save her. Like she meant something to him, something life or death important, which was ridiculous. Right?