“My hairy arms now?” he said with mock indignance. “So I’m a Rumpelstiltskin and a great hairy beast. Wonderful. That’s just swell.”

“Never mind,” Sarah said, wiping moisture from her eyes. “Just forget I said anything.”

“I think,” he said, in a wounded tone of crushed dignity, “that would be”—he paused and tipped his face heroically heavenward with the slightest quiver of his lower lip—“for the best.” Which started her laughter all over again.

*   *   *

“It’s Rainsford, by the way,” Sarah said, biting into a double burger with all the fixings. Night had fallen, glossy black beyond the window, creating a cocoon-like atmosphere. As if the world beyond Daisy’s Diner had ceased to exist. Mick watched Sarah take another bite. He didn’t know why it made him so damned happy to feed her, but it did. He liked watching her eyes go hazy as she savored her food. Her eyelids fluttered shut, and he noticed that her eyelashes didn’t match her newly dyed hair. Her lashes were pale, almost invisible toward the tips, and there was something so beautiful, so vulnerable about seeing them like that. Made him want to reach across the table and run the tip of his finger in a barely there touch along the delicate hairs, as if gently caressing the wings of a butterfly. A soft moan escaped from between her lips, as if she wanted him to touch her, too. His logical mind knew her moan was one of enjoyment for the meal she was eating. Nevertheless, the breathy sound of it had his cock swelling.

“What is?” His voice had caused her eyelids to open. He tugged his gaze away from the spell of her gorgeous violet-blue eyes, picked up his burger, and took a bite. It was as good as he remembered. Big, flavorful, and sloppy, everything you could want in a burger.

“My last name. Earlier, you called me ‘Rainsforth.’ It’s Rainsford.”

“Ah.” He nodded. “Rainsford. Got it.” He watched her take another bite. A trickle of juices escaped and moved down her wrist. The tip of Sarah’s pink tongue darted out and lapped it up, and he needed to lay his burger on his plate so he could discreetly readjust himself.

“Sooo good,” she moaned, taking another bite. He felt sometimes almost as if she were a starving, stray kitten he had coaxed out of a dumpster with a saucer of cream. Terrified and pretending to be fierce, back arched, tail bushed out and sticking straight in the air, claws extended, lips drawn back, hissing ferociously, as if attempting to pass for a tough Halloween tomcat. Sarah smiled at him as if slightly drunk from the combination of delicious flavors.