Free Monsters Under the Bed by Susan Laine Page A

swamped me at that moment made me all teary-eyed, and I didn’t care. I embraced him, shaken to the core. I buried my face in the crook of his neck, with his sweaty hair tickling me moistly, the smell filling my nostrils. I felt his body against mine, as solid and powerful as ever. Yet he had given in to me and let me pound the shit out of him. He trusted me not to hurt him, and I was grateful I hadn’t.
    “I love you, Ford. So fucking much.” It was just a whisper, but he heard me. And more importantly, he understood me. His arms tightened around me, as did mine with him.
    After a few minutes, or it could have been longer, we were brought out of our shared intimacy by the rattling of the mall speakers. “Ladies and gentlemen, the cupids have dispersed. The police and paramedics are on their way. Please, stay where you are and remain calm. No charges will be filed for any property damage or vandalism, and all injuries will be taken care of. Once again, stay where you are and remain calm.”
    As the crackling sound system died down, I felt Ford shaking.
    For a second I was worried, but then I heard his muffled giggles, and I had to join in. This was our world now that the Veil had been lifted.
    What a freaking mess.

Journal Entry 9, the Chance Case: Coming Down From the High
     
    “H OW are you feeling?” Ford asked me when we got home. I knew he was referring to the head injury from the beating I had gotten and not the horny, primitive, near-violent mating we had experienced as a result of the cupids.
    The cupids were fairy folk from ancient times, and their ethereal arrows were laced with potent pheromones and addictive aphrodisiacs. So far, there was no known counteragent. And whoever you were watching at the time was the object of your adulation for the next hour or so. The news usually gave out warnings of recent sightings of cupids, but sometimes the flying imps just came out of the blue, blew in under the radar.
    “I’m fine.” I brushed the back of my head. I felt the bump there, and there was a minor ache as I touched it, but it was gone the moment I moved my fingers away. “I don’t know exactly how that happened—”
    “How you got hit?” Ford sounded serious and incredulous, and with every right too.
    I snorted halfheartedly. “No. I remember that. A couple of professional enforcer types knocking me about, ordering me to lay off the Chance case. I meant I don’t know why I was hurt at first, and then I wasn’t. I feel fine.”
    He harrumphed as he escorted me to the bathroom. “Stand still. I’m going to check you out.”
    “A full physical?” I asked, getting frisky again.
    Ford laughed. “God, you’re incorrigible and insatiable.” But he didn’t push my hands away as I began to unbutton his shirt, although quite a few of the buttons were now missing.
    Though I wasn’t bleeding from the back of my head or my busted lip (I hadn’t even noticed it when kissing Ford) or my left cheekbone where I had been hit. It was as if I hadn’t been in a fight at all, though technically I hadn’t done any of the work involved, consigned to being a mere punching bag.
    Nonetheless, Ford made sure all my bumps and bruises were tended to before he let me get up from the toilet seat. He sighed then, rueful. “I swear, Sam, this job of yours was supposed to be a meal ticket, not a first-class ticket to the emergency room.”
    “Oh, come on, Ford,” I deflected and downplayed the whole thing. “It’s not like this happens to me a lot. It’s the first time since I started—”
    “Fourth.”
    “What? No way, man.”
    “Yes, way.” His chin jutted stubbornly. “The Pierson case? The bar fight?”
    “Hey, I didn’t start it. It was just a surveillance job gone awry. How was I to know he was a mean drunk with an indiscriminate taste for bar brawling? Anyway, that wasn’t my fault, and it’s not like I got any permanent—”
    “What about the Adderley investigation?”
    “Oh, Jesus fucking