Page 141 of Heart Over Heels

Of course.

Four days after welcoming the Dollhouse dancers into my home, I was still graced with their company. Most of them anyway. Beck and Colette had come after they were released from police custody to scoop up Zephyr, who was nothing short of delighted to be back in his boyfriend’s arms. Beck offered to put the others up at the hotel where he lived, but apparently my house had the better snacks and softer blankets. So I was left with five rowdy, affectionate, and borderline feral guests.

We’d managed well enough. The dolls were adept at entertaining themselves as long as I surrendered my television, my pantry, and my entire living area to their appetites andenergy. They were equally good at entertainingme. Sometimes it was even fun.

Other times, it was like living inside a tornado.

For instance, last night, when I resigned myself to eating pizza for the third time in a row because all my groceries had been consumed, restocked, and consumed again. Or the afternoon before when I nearly ran into Oz and Elliot using the coffee table and each other as exercise equipment while Elliot spouted off about “strong shoulders” being the foundation of good pole work.

All of that brought me to the present, when my bedside alarm clock read 7:00 a.m. and I had a demon rooting through my underwear drawer.

“Colt?” I scrubbed a hand over my face and squinted at him. “What are you doing?”

His back was turned, and his hat tilted forward. My eyes drifted downward, and my brain stalled.

Bare skin. From back to buttocks.

“Are you naked?” I blurted.

My question and swift rise to sitting roused Darby, who rolled toward Colt as if guided by eyes in the back of his head.

“Colt, honey,” he mumbled into the pillow. “This is an invasion of privacy. You know we could’ve been fucking.”

Colt snorted without pausing his search. “Oh, Iknowabout the fuckin’. I hear it every night. Soundtrack of my damn dreams.”

He turned fully then—still gloriously, unashamedly naked—and held up a pair of my boxer briefs. He shook the fold out of them and admired the fabric like it was haute couture.

“Hey, Darb, do you think these’ll fit me? I’m outta clean drawers.”

Darby pushed himself up onto an elbow and gave Colt a flat look. “You aren’t out; I just had some delivered yesterday.”

Colt clutched the underwear to his chest and glanced aside. His mouth twisted guiltily. “Maybe I lost ’em,” he muttered.

Darby frowned. “In the house? How?”

“I dunno.” Colt shrugged, and his tail swished. “They took a walk, I guess.”

Darby stared at him, unconvinced.

Colt squirmed under his scrutiny then sighed dramatically. “I’m sick of thongs and jockstraps all the time. I know they make my ass look perky, but these are real nice.” He looked fondly at the boxer briefs again then added, “Like a blanket for my butt crack.”

I slumped down in the bed and groaned into my hands. “Take them.”

With a victorious whoop, Colt bolted from the room, bare-assed and waving the underwear like a flag.

Darby snuffled a laugh, and I peeled my fingers away from my face long enough to ask, “How long did you say they’d be staying?”

“Until the police give us the all-clear,” he replied. “I doubt they’re in much of a hurry. Ours isn’t the kind of business deemed essential.”

“In Vegas? Are you sure? Clubs and casinos are the lifeblood of this town.”

“Not demon ones,” he replied dryly.

He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stretched. The comforter slid down his torso, baring him from his shoulders to his hips and pooling at the sensitive spot where his tail sprouted from the base of his spine.

That was one body I would never get tired of waking up to.

While I admired, Darby paused to adjust his satin bonnet. Besides the general mayhem, the past few days had also been chockfull of deliveries. Groceries and clothes were being offloaded on my doorstep what seemed like hourly, and therehad been more than a few creature comforts tucked in with the essentials. Face cream Darby insisted he couldn’t live without, the bonnet to keep his hair from frizzing, and a slew of beauty products the likes of which I’d never seen.