She had her arms folded, one hip cocked defiantly, and brows furrowed accusingly at me.

I grinned smarmily. “You do realise that your brother thinks we’re having some sort of sordid bathroom romp, don’t you?”

She let out a very unladylike snort. “I don’t give a flying fuck what my brother thinks about me right now!”

My brows flew up. “And here I was, assuming you were in a melancholy mood today, but there’s the feisty Jemma Bliss I’ve come to know.” My grin widened of its own accord. “Do you save all your snark just for me, Mouse?”

“Oh, spare me your flirtatious nonsense,” she stormed towards me, giving me no time to ponder the fact that apparently, she believed me to be flirting with her, of all the ridiculous notions … but thoughts flew out of my head when her body pressed up against mine. “Did you orchestrate this?”

She was very worked up, her breasts heaving with angry breaths, squished up against my chest, her warmth seeping into me. My fingers twitched. I wanted to step away, to get some all-important distance between us.

I wanted to do other things, as well … things that would be even worse for my sanity. And either way, it was giving into an urge that I shouldn’t feel. And it would be showing weakness, which was not something I could allow myself to do with Jemma Bliss.

Not even when her perky little body was making me think very wicked thoughts about sordid bathroom romps.

“Well?” she demanded, poking me in the stomach with a very pointy finger. I hissed, and I did take a step back then, weakness be damned.

“Well what? That hurt, by the way!” I complained, rubbing at my stomach.

“Did you somehow make it so that my brother would force me to sit across a table from my lying, cheating, thieving ex-boyfriend to tell me I should be more like him? Is this my next task? To get through this ordeal without being the one to storm off? Because if it is, that’s … well it’s fucking unfair! You can’t sneak this up on me! You can’t just start a task without laying out the rules first!”

My hands snaked out, gripped her waist and spun her. She let out a little squeak as her back bumped against the wall.

“What are you⁠—”

“I might be a devil, Mouse, but this was not my doing. Your brother managed this all on his own.”

“You …” she bit on that pink bottom lip, her eyes wide behind those big glasses. “You didn’t set this up as a FiendPay task?”

My thumbs skated over her waist. She was so soft. I shook my head slowly, some unnamed feeling bubbling up from my stomach. “I promise, if I am here on FiendPay business, I will always be honest with you about it, Jemma.”