Page 36 of Far From Center
Chapter 14
Terrelle managedto catch the bus just as it was about to pull away from the curb. She plopped down in the seat next to Gabriel, breathing heavily. Her hair was mussed, her shirt with several interesting stains on it, and her right eyebrow singed.
“Do I want to know?” Nyalla asked the demon.
“No. No, you do not. Let’s just say that professional kitchen equipment has changed significantly since I was last in the employees-only area of a restaurant.”
Nyalla nodded. “Was it worth it?”
The demon grinned. “Ask me how to make a flambé. Go ahead, ask.”
“I’d rather you demonstrate once we’re back home.” Nyalla smiled. “I love flambé.”
Terrelle leaned back in her seat and patted Gabriel on the arm. “Flambé for everyone, even you, sexy, G-man. That’s assuming you’re coming back with us. Are you and Nyalla an item? I saw you rush to her defense back there, so I suppose you’re going to be banging her tonight.”
Gabriel looked appalled. “I’m not banging anyone, whatever that means. And I won’t be coming back with you. I’ve got pressing matters to attend to.”
But the demon’s words made Nyalla wonder once more what to do with Gabe if his angel-ness hadn’t returned by the time they were to leave Aruba. She couldn’t leave him here with no ID and no money, trapped on the island. She’d need to get him a plane ticket. And to do that, she’d need to contact her brother, Wyatt, to provide a passport to get the angel back into the States. As an angel, Gabe was incredibly powerful, but he had no idea how to negotiate life in the human world. And Nyalla could sympathize. When she’d first been brought here after eighteen years as a slave in Hel, she’d been terrified. She couldn’t speak any languages beyond Elven and a bit of Demon. She didn’t know how to drive a car, use computers or phones, operate the toaster. All the food tasted strange. All the beverages, beyond water, juice, and wine, were unfamiliar. There were laws against public nudity that made absolutely no sense to her.
She didn’t want Gabe to have to go through that. Yes, he knew the language and she’d been teaching him how to be a human just as quickly as she could, but she was still willing to bet he’d have no clue how to operate a toaster. Food was a new experience for him.
The bus pulled up outside the hotel and the four of them climbed down the stairs, Snip nearly falling on his face at the curb. Nyalla paused inside the open-air lobby, admiring the soft lighting along the garden path that led to the beach and the sound of the waterfall fountain just out of sight. The evening felt anticlimactic. She’d not gotten the artifact. The Gormand had stolen half of her tuna steak. She was wide awake and not sure what to do with the rest of her evening. Head to the pool-side bar? Read a book up on her room balcony?
“Welp, I’m headed to bed.” Snip announced. “Gonna end the day on a good note and not risk getting rejected at the casino. Bed. There I can choke my chicken and think about that sexy waitress.”
“That waitress was ninety if she was a day,” Terrelle said. “I don’t think even other ninety-year-olds would call her sexy.”
“You’re just jealous because you haven’t gotten laid yet.”
“I could if I shelled out a fifty, so don’t act all smug. You probably had to pay that waitress, and she wasn’t close to being as sexy as Marco.” Terrelle’s expression turned thoughtful. “Nyalla. Loan me a fifty, would you?”
Nyalla sighed and reached into her purse only to see Gabe looking at her in horror. “What? She wants sex. Marco evidently needs money. What’s the problem?”
“I think she should wait until a prospective partner comes along who doesn’t want to be paid for services rendered. Isn’t sex supposed to be about intimacy, about establishing a bond, no matter how fleeting, between two people.”
“I’m trying to establish a bond,” Terrelle retorted. “The bond of his cock and my vajayjay. Unless you’re offering, G-man, this is the best deal I’ve had since my plane landed on the island.”
“Here.” Nyalla thrust the fifty at the demon. “G-man is most definitelynotoffering. Go have fun with Marco.”
The information demon snatched the money, skipping down the pathway as Snip, Gabe, and Nyalla headed toward the elevators.
“Have you ever paid for sex?” Gabe scowled down at her.
“No, but I’m not going to fault Terrelle for doing so.”
“Nyalla doesn’t need to pay for sex, because she’s a smoking-hot babe,” Snip chimed in. “She has them lined up, begging for it. Then she bangs them and tells them to hit the road. And they cry and mope and have to sleep in the stable, or they call her so much that she needs to change her phone number. Nil–”
“Stop. Snip, just…go to your room and dream of your waitress or something.” This was so embarrassing. Gabe must think her a loose woman with no morals whatsoever.
Sure enough, the angel was staring at her, his expression horrified. “How many men and women have you had sex with? Were they all these ‘bang-and-leave’ types of encounters?”
Nyalla felt her face heat up. “I don’t count them on a score card. And even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”
“There was the cop, that guy you met at the beach.” Snip ticked off on his fingers. “The dude from the band, that werewolf in Candy’s pack–”
“Snip! Go away.” Nyalla pointed down the hallway. “Now. Go.”
The Low grumbled, but did as she said.
