I set down the white carton and push the last of the food away.

“No,” I say.

He shouldn’t be offended, but I should be worried. The same things that made me fall for him long ago are getting to me all over again.

“Hmmm,” he says, holding my stare for several seconds.

Then, with a wave of his hand, the cartons of takeout disappear from the dark wood table.

“You didn’t want any?” I ask.

“I’m not hungry.”

Then why is he here with me?

“You didn’t have to sit with me,” I say. “I’m no longer a needy teenager.”

I cringe to think of that girl who carelessly collected beads from the Bargainer to get just a few hours with him.

“Trust me, I know.”

Silence falls thick over us. In the past, it had never been this way. Then, the silence was always comfortable. Hell, there were evenings I’d ask him to stay and we wouldn’t talk at all.

But now the two of us have all this unresolved baggage.

“What are we doing here?” I finally ask.

Anything to lift this weight off my chest.

The Bargainer crosses his muscular arms over his chest. “You’re repaying your debts.”

“Stop it, Des,” I say. “You and I both know that’s not what I meant. Last night, you were going to tell me.”

He leans forward, resting his forearms on the edge of the table. “But only if you stayed, Callie. You didn’t stay.”

“I could say the same for you.” All those lost years. “Do you even like me?”

“I’ve kissed you, I’ve begged you to stay with me, I’ve spent most of the last week with you. What do you think?” he says softly.

How can an answer manage to be everything I want to hear … while also making me want to pull my hair out?

“What do I think?” I say, swinging my legs off the table so that I can lean forward. “It doesn’t matter what I think. That’s all I’ve been doing for the last seven years—thinking about what went wrong. I’m tired of trying to figure you out.”

Des stands, towering over me even from across the table. He rests his hands against the surface. “There is something, Callie, that you’ve never asked me: how I felt about our seven years apart.”

The audacity! “That’s exactly what I’ve been asking you,” I say.

“No, you’ve been trying to figure out why I left. Not how I felt.”

Only a fairy would make this sort of distinction. And for my part, I always assumed that how he felt was tied up in why he left.

“Ask me, Callie,” he says softly, his luminous eyes beseeching me.

Just looking at him … it’s hard not to be sucked in by his ferocious beauty and his velvety voice. It’s all so achingly familiar.

And now he’s trying to deconstruct our past and make it something it wasn’t. And I’m just enough of a sucker to allow it to happen.

I can’t believe I’m about to say this. “How did you feel, leaving me?” I ask.

He holds my gaze. “Like my soul was ripped in two.”

I still.

Is he serious?

I feel like my world’s being overturned.

“And the seven years that followed?” I breathe.

He stares at me, unwavering. “A nightmare.”

He’s taking a hammer to the walls I’ve built around my heart, and he’s systematically smashing them down. And I want him to. If what he’s saying is true, then maybe I do want him to get past all my defenses.

By his own admission, his experience sounds worse than mine.

“If it was so bad, why didn’t you just come back to me?” I ask, my voice pleading.

The Bargainer opens his mouth, and I think he’s going to answer, when instead he says, “Truth, or dare?”

You have got to be kidding me.

“Seriously, Des?”

Just when two of us begin to disambiguate our relationship, he stops it dead in its tracks.

“Do this for me, and I’ll give you something in return.”

“Fine,” I say, fixing him with a challenging look. “Dare.”

His lips curl up into a satisfied smile, relishing my answer.

“Do something to me that you’ve always wanted to do.”

Well shit.

That’s what I get for daring the King of the Night.

I swallow.

There are so many inappropriate responses to that command. Because there have always been an unending list of things I wanted to do with Des.

Des waits for me, his arms hanging loosely at his sides.

Gingerly I walk around his dining room, his magic compelling me onwards.

This is going to be embarrassing.

I stop in front of him. When I glance up, he wears a serious expression.

My gaze drops to his jaw. That strong, razor-sharp jaw of his. Carefully, I wrap and arm around his neck and pull his face closer to me. He bends to accommodate me.

Our eyes meet briefly, his glittering as he stares at me.

This feels too raw. Like we aren’t bound by debts. Like I’m something other than his client right now.

He didn’t want to leave me seven years ago.

Softly, I brush a kiss along that defined jaw of his.

I forgive you for breaking my heart, I think as I kiss him.

Angling his face to the side, I press another kiss to his jaw.

I still want you.

Another kiss.

I think I always will.