Kieran pulls his truck into the Pike's parking lot and turns off the engine. We sit in silence for a minute before he unbuckles his seatbelt and turns to me.

"I have to get back to work, but you're welcome to come inside and hang if you'd like. Drinks are on the house."

My heart thrums in my chest. This is suddenly feeling like a real date, and I can't let myself get confused. Kieran and I are friends. Friends with benefits? Maybe. But friends.

"I should probably head home. Pumpkin gets grumpy when I'm out too long."

"Fair enough." He opens his door and steps outside as I do the same. He appears on my side almost instantaneously and offers me a hand to help me out of the truck.

"How gentlemanly of you," I say, taking his hand and hopping down to the pavement.

"I've been called many things, but gentleman? That may be a first." He smiles and closes the door. I realize that he hasn't released my hand from his grasp, and instead has laced his fingers between mine. I do my best to push down the butterflies rising in my stomach at the gesture.

Friends. Just Friends.

He tugs me toward a nook near the front corner of the building. It's shaded from the glowing Pike's sign and the lights that illuminate the sidewalk—not impossibly dark, but enough that it feels a bit more private and secluded.

"I like you, Sam," he says. He stalks toward me like a predator until I'm cornered against the wall. Any sane person would probably find it intimidating, but I find it... weirdly hot.

I open my mouth to speak but find myself just mumbling in reply.

"I uh... uh..."

"I'll take that as an 'I like you too, Kieran,'" he says with a proud smirk.

"In your dreams," I tease with an eye roll.

"How bout in yours?" He licks his lips and I swallow hard.

I definitely set myself up for that one.

"Do you ever dream? I mean... can you even?"

"Not in the way you do. Demons don't really dream themselves, but I can enter that dream realm on my own and create whatever I want. I've never really needed to do that much in the past."

"So you dream about whatever you want? That must be interesting. What do you dream about, then? I mean, when you do dream."

He smirks but his eyes dart to the ground, making me think he might be a little shy about it.

"You sure you wanna know?"

He moves his hands to my waist.

"Tell me."

I assume he's going to say something sexual, probably something kinky, but I'm no prude—I can handle it.

"I've been dreaming about you, Red. I can't help it. Sometimes after I see you... I want more."

I swallow but my throat suddenly feels dry.

"You dream about... me?"

"But I like this better."

"What?"

"Seeing you in the real world." He brushes the backs of his cold fingertips along my collarbone. "Touching you in the real world."

His eyes flick down to my chest, then to my lips, then back to my eyes.

"Haven't you had enough of me?"

"Enough of you?" He raises a brow and gives me a skeptical look, like I've just said something absurd.

"Yeah, I mean... You already have to babysit me every night. Do you really want to see me during the daytime too? Aren't you getting sick of me?"

He laughs, almost like he's scoffing at the same time.

"Not even a little bit, Red."

"You were one of those kids who would eat candy until they made themself sick, weren't you?" I tease.

He does his best to bite back a smile and his eyes linger on my lips a bit longer.

"What can I say, Doll..." He pauses as he brings his hand up to my face, lifting my chin with his fingertips and catching my bottom lip with his thumb. He leans in, his lips just inches from my own. "I love a good sugar rush."

He closes the distance between us and a flood of sensation overwhelms me—cold soft lips moving in perfect rhythm with my own, hands running up and down my body searching for slivers of bare skin, his hard chest rumbling as he hums out a deep groan. He kisses even better in real life, if that's even possible.

I pull his bottom lip between my teeth and bite down, which elicits another throaty moan. He bends down to kiss my neck, but our height difference makes it a bit of a stretch, so he grabs my ass and hoists me up further. I instinctively wrap my legs around his waist as he kisses and bites up from my shoulder to my neck.

The noise from the bar is nearly drowned out by my pulse roaring in my ears. Shouting and the occasional breaking of glass seem like just whispers.

He pushes himself harder against me, pinning me to the wall with a delightful friction that obliterates my ability to think clearly. I rock my hips into him and he throws his head back.

"Kie-... Kieran?" a voice calls from just outside the door to Pike's.

"What?" Kieran snaps, his voice gravelly and his eyes eclipsed by black as he whips his head toward the person who called his name.

The guy is relatively young, no more than 22, with a tall thin frame and an apron wrapped around his waist. I'm guessing he's a busboy or something similar.

"Carrie says she needs your help with the crowd in the bar."

Kieran looks back at me for a moment and digs his hands further into my rear. He pinches his eyes shut and sighs. When he reopens them, the whites have returned but his irises still look deep black.

"Tell her I'm busy and I'll be there when I'll be there," he says, his eyes not leaving mine.

He still has me pinned against the wall and two handfuls of my ass.  A bit of my dark lipstick has smudged onto Kieran's lips and his hair looks freshly tousled; I can't help but laugh at the sight.

"I guess we gave him quite a show," I say.

Kieran laughs and I unlock my legs from his waist as he lowers me back down. He rests his hands on my hips and I pretend not to be solely focused on the very obvious erection now pressed against my stomach.

Is it illegal to have sex outside a bar? What about in the back alley of a bar?

Oh my god what's wrong with me? What am I, a horny teenager?

"Next time we should charge admission," he says with a smile. Even disheveled with smears of lipstick around his mouth, he's still unreasonably attractive.

"You got a little something on your face," I say, reaching up with my thumb to wipe away some of the transferred lipstick.

"Well what'd you do that for?" he asks. "Now I guess I'll just have to go back for more."

He wraps one hand around the back of my head and pulls me in for another kiss, this one slower and more deliberate than the last. His other hand creeps up my side until his thumb brushes the side of my breast, rubbing back and forth just softly enough to make me shiver. I hum softly against his lips and push my chest into him, urging him to continue. He seems to get the message, because he pulls my nipple between his thumb and index finger and rolls it.

The sound that leaves my mouth is somewhere between a squeal and a moan. He licks his lips and opens his mouth to speak, but the front door swings open and we hear loud shouting from inside the bar as Carrie walks out.

"Kieran!" she shouts. "I need you inside, now!"

Same, girl. Same.

He pulls back, his jaw tight and his eyes pitch black. A low growl rumbles from his chest and his hand drops to my ribcage.

"What the fuck, Carrie," he snaps. "Does this look like a good time?"

"I'm sorry, man, I really don't mean to interrupt, but the customers are going nuts tonight. There's a couple practically fucking on the pool table and I've tried to handle it but... things are getting really out of hand in there." She's breathing heavily and sweating like she's just run a marathon, and as much as I don't really want to stop what we're doing, I realize that we probably should.

It's not that I don't love some good, no-strings-attached sex, but I can tell something like that wouldn't be so easy with Kieran. If he didn't walk away with my heart, then maybe I'd take his. It doesn't help that he's a literal sex demon—talk about big, flaming red flags.

"It's okay," I say. "You should go. I need to get home anyway."

He lets out a heavy breath and his chest visibly deflates.

"Fucking..." he curses under his breath. His midnight-black eyes meet mine and he grits his teeth. "I'll see you tonight?"

I nod.

He gives me a slow, soft kiss then rests his forehead against mine and closes his eyes.

"See you then, Doll."

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