“My turn,” he said, and I shut my mouth. “I’m not sitting in your kitchen because I’m new in town and looking for a curvy body in my bed. I’m here because I like you. I only talked to you for a few hours on my boat, but in that little time, I was seeing you as you. No pretenses, no games. You know how rare that is?” He gave my fingers a gentle squeeze, and my gaze rose. “You never see a person like that on a date, not after a dozen dates. Sometimes, you can spend years with someone and never really know what they’re like under the veneer we put on to make ourselves feel better. I liked what I saw when you were under pressure. The last thing I need is a steady girlfriend.” He let go of my hand and slid to the back of his chair. “My last one was a nightmare, and I’d just as soon keep things casual. Like tonight. Minus the demon.”

He smiled, and I couldn’t help but smile back. I’d been around too many guys to take his words at face value, but he was stifling a shudder born from something in his memory. “I don’t want you to get hurt,” I mumbled, embarrassed now. The quickest way to get a man interested was to say you weren’t.

Marshal sat taller. “I’ll be okay,” he said as he looked out the dark kitchen window and shrugged. “I’m not helpless. I’ve got a degree in low-level ley line manipulations. I ought to be able to manage a demon or two.” He smiled. “Short-term anyway.”

This wasn’t going well. “I’m not…I can’t…” I took a steadying breath. “I’m still hurting. You’re wasting your time.”

He looked at the window and the dark square it made. “I told you I’m not looking for a girlfriend. You women are all nuts, but I like the way you smell and you’re fun to dance with.”

A quiver rose and fell in my middle. “Then why are you here?”

Marshal’s eyes came back to mine. “I don’t like being alone, and you look like you need to be with someone…for a while.”

Slowly my gaze dropped and then returned to his. Could I trust that? Seeing my compact, I picked it up, weighed it in my palm, then tossed it into my bag. Somehow I didn’t feel like I needed to prove anything to him anymore, and the entire idea had been bad to begin with. God, no wonder I kept getting into trouble. So I couldn’t go out? So what?

“You, ah, want to watch a movie?” I said, embarrassed for having bared my soul, though it had left me feeling refreshed.