Descent (Black Heart Romance presents Heaven & Hell)

Chapter Fifteen
Calvin
“You win.”
I smile as I read the message a second time, then I type back, “Good. You know how I like
winning.”
I know it’s dickish to rub her defeat in her face. I don’t even mean to be cruel, I just want to see
if she’ll keep bantering with me or if she’s truly done. I only let a few seconds pass without a
response, then I shoot her one last message to end the conversation myself, just telling her I’ll see her
tonight.
I can’t wait.
I don’t tell her that, but I really can’t.
It’s fucking absurd to waste my last promised date with her tonight when I just spent last night
with her. Typically, I have better control of my impulses than this, but I can’t stomach the idea of not
spending tonight with her.
Then what will you do tomorrow?
Since my date supply is running dangerously low, I have to start setting up plans C through Z.
Typically, my battle plans would be laid out long before I would ever need to enact them, but
everything about this woman has me going off-plan, to say the very least.
I glance toward my open office door to see if Arson is here yet, then check my watch again
because I don’t even see him at reception.
He’s late. He usually is, so I don’t know why I’m surprised. Men in his line of work tend to
work on their own time, and they don’t mind letting people wait for them.
Five more minutes pass before Arson darkens my doorway. Jodi, my assistant, accompanies him
down the hall. She looks so uncomfortable in his presence—with her hair pulled back in a tight, neat
bun, her pencil skirt free of a single wrinkle, her heels without so much as a scuff. Jodi is the
meticulous type of person who would spend all day agonizing over a run in her stocking that she
hadn’t noticed before she left for work. She’d spend her lunch break running to buy new ones instead
of eating, and she still wouldn’t feel settled the rest of the day, imagining anyone who smiled at her
might have seen her disgraceful error.
Meanwhile, Arson looks like a disgraceful error.
He wears an expensive three piece suit, but it fits him like a cage fits a big, aggressive dog. The
materials might match, but there are ill-fitting pieces of him that can’t be covered up—the ink