Free Kiss & Hell by Dakota Cassidy

came to stand behind Delaney, letting her chin rest on her shoulder and looking directly at Kellen. “She does.”
    Delaney could hear the chuckle in her friend’s tone, the taunting clarity of the joy she took in sparring. She loved to bait Kellen. Lived for it. Might one day find herself with the unlife choked out of her for it.
    Kellen hitched his clamped jaw at her. “I don’t see why. I mean, what good are you to Delaney when all you do is set shit on fire and float into walls?”
    The smile never left Marcella’s face. But Delaney knew without even looking at her—the instant tension in her body told her—that Kellen was pushing all of her friend’s touchy buttons. “If you keep it up, I’ll set your shit on fire.” Marcella wiggled a finger in the general direction of Kellen’s groin.
    The dogs began to bark, whining that high-pitched yap of distress, ending the threat of someone’s junk going up in flames.
    Delaney skirted around Kellen and made a beeline for the bedroom to find that Clyde was gone—in all his duct-taped fabulous-ness. Her sigh was ragged.
    “Holy frijoles. He can disappear already?” Marcela skidded to a halt at the spot where Clyde had been attached to her radiator. “Very, very nice. I still have trouble with that—even when I squeeze really hard.”
    Delaney rustled the dogs up, scratching heads and hindquarters. “Well, he’s gone for now.”
    Marcella gnawed the tip of her fingernail with a sheepish look at Delaney. “Maybe one roll of duct tape wasn’t enough?”
    Kellen barked a laugh, gruff and cynical. “You used duct tape to capture a demon?”
    Delaney held a hand up, palm facing Kellen. “Shut it. Not another word, Kellen. It’s not like you have a better solution, now, do you?”
    Kellen was immediately silenced.
    Marcella stuck her tongue out at him before asking, “So now what, D?”
    Her teeth felt gritty, and she needed some tea and a shower. “I have no idea. He’s gone for now and that’s all that matters. How he got gone is a mystery. All I know is, it’s Saturday, and if I hope to rope some customers in, I have to shower and get dressed. I lost eight hundred bucks because of that asshole last night. I can’t afford to whittle away another day worrying about something that hasn’t happened. I have rent to pay, and you know how slow the fall and winter are for me.”
    Marcella’s face was sympathetic, her blue eyes warm. “You know it doesn’t have to be like that. I can lend you the cash.”
    Delaney frowned, though her friend’s concern never failed to touch her. She reached for the clip she held her hair up with, wrapping a fist around the thick width of it and securing it behind her head. “Oh, no, sistah. I’m not borrowing money I might have to pay back well into the afterlife. But thank you. Now go. Both of you.” She waved her hands at them, shooing them from her room. “Go beat each other down with your snark.”
    Marcella blew her a kiss. “Oh, I’ll go, but while I’m gone, I’m going to do some digging to see what I can find about this particular demon.”
    Fear assaulted Delaney again, fresh and pungent. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—allow Marcella to become tangled up in this. Yet she kept her tone nonchalant to keep Marcella’s alarm bells from ringing. “Don’t bother, Marcella. Just stay out of it and do what you do best—buy things.” Delaney smiled, giving them each a quick hug, watching as they left, the silent tension between them as thick as it always was. But no matter how much Kellen claimed he couldn’t stand Marcella, it didn’t stop him from eyeballing her stupendous ass on his way out.
    And if Delaney were a man, she would, too. ’Cause Marcella was ass-tastic.
    And she’d hate her for it, but she didn’t have time for one of the seven deadly sins today. She had a business to run.
     
     
     
    A shower and two cups of green tea later, she was ready to do the day. Penning the dogs in her living room