Accidentally…Over? (Accidentally Yours #5)(23)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

“So you’re a superhero, Máax? You think you can stop the planet from spinning, change the order of the seasons, stop time?” she asked.

“But of course. I am a deity.” Had he not said this already? What was the matter with this woman? “However, this does not signify that I do not encounter my fair share of challenges. Such is life. Complications are to be expected. For example, I cannot be allowed to encounter myself. It would be very destructive for the order of the Universe, which is yet another reason we should leave.”

She grabbed a pen off the counter and marked a giant X on her puppy calendar. “Okay, then.”

“What is the meaning of that?” Did she want to play tic-tac-toe?

“Today is the day I’ve heard it all,” she explained.

Oh. Good. Because tic-tac-toe was his competitive Achilles’ heel. Once he started, he couldn’t stop until he won. “In actuality, you have not ‘heard it all.’ You haven’t begun to scratch the surface of my world; however, that will have to wait. We must leave.”

“You don’t actually expect me to pick up and go? Who’ll take care of the café? Fernando’s new; he can’t run the place by himself.”

“This is why I did not return to you immediately. I have made arrangements for your café and home to be looked after for as long as you are away.”

“By whom?” she said bitterly.

“We call them Uchben,” he explained. “They are our human allies and manage our affairs in this realm.”

She laughed and put another X on her calendar. “Sure. Why not?”

She was mocking him. And sparking an urge in him to draw a circle on her calendar. “Do you truly find it hard to believe?”

“I can’t just let some strangers take over my life, Máax.”

“Then we shall stop by your café, and you will meet our most valued Uchben soldiers: Brutus and his men. Then they will no longer be strangers. I have also arranged for the Uchben to take us to my brother’s home in Arizona. It is the safest place I know. There is a large Uchben encampment a few kilometers away, along with our private hospital, underground bunker, and 24/7 security.”

She frowned and rubbed her temples. “I’m not going.”

“Of course you are; I told you so.” Was her hearing impaired by the head injury?

She gasped. “You can’t expect me to uproot and leave behind everything I love because you mistakenly believe I’ll save the world someday. Or because you tell me to. This. Is. My. Home.”

“And I. Am. A. Deity. I am never mistaken, and it is my job to tell you what to do.” Ridiculous woman. Does she not understand the order of the Universe?

“I will say this once and once only”—she lifted her index finger in the air for emphasis—“I don’t care if you’re the pope who’s got a magical lottery wand powered by unicorns, you don’t rule me.”

Infuriating woman! What importance do Minky and the ruler of the Catholics have to any of this? He took a step toward her, barely resisting the urge to shake her by the shoulders and spank her silly. “You are a human. Hu. Man. Simple. Mortal. Naive. I am a god. Immortal. Ancient. Wise.”

“You’re an ass. That’s what you are.” The smoldering fury in her hazel eyes caused him to take a step back and check for any shovels. Coast was clear.

“You call me an ass, yet you are the one fighting to stay inside this hovel. It doesn’t even have air-conditioning.”

“This hovel was built by my parents. I love this hovel!”

“It is still just a home. A material thing that can be replaced like any other. Your life, on the other hand, cannot.”

“I’m. Not. Leaving.”

He sighed. This conversation wasn’t going according to plan. Perhaps if he explained his superior rationale, she’d understand why his plan was best. “Ashli, can we please cut the crap?”

“Finally! A word I understand! Crap. Which you’re totally full of.” She crossed her arms and leaned her weight on one foot, causing her hip to jut out. He couldn’t help but note how her feisty, defiant nature made him hot under the collar. Metaphorically speaking. The fire in her hazel eyes, her heaving chest, the blush on her outraged cheeks were enough to make his c**k turn into a sold brick.

Sonofabitch. He stepped back, not wanting to poke her with the f**king thing. He glared down at his throbbing erection. Not that he could see it. Really? Can you not wait until we are somewhere private? Though he could not leave her again to take care of business. With his luck, a 747 packing piranhas would crash into her house and take her out.

Dammit. He needed to calm her down. He needed her to cease this exasperating—okay… stimulating—behavior lest he be forced to bend her over the kitchen counter and f**k her like a mindless beast, possessed by lust.

Breathe, breathe, breathe. You will not think of mounting her like a randy little dog. You are a god. Divine. Above your physical needs.

Tell that to your raging erection.

“Ashli,” he said in a forced calm, “I merely wish to provide the optimal circumstances for your survival.” Without her, the world was doomed. She had to see that.

“Poke my eye.”

“Sorry?”

“Poke it,” she said. “My eye.”

With what? Because surely, she can’t mean what I think she means. “Care to elaborate?”

“I’d prefer that over listening to the stick up your ass talk to me.”

“Grrrr…” He was a deity. Not to be defied or trifled with. Why would she insult him? “You cannot see me, so I will tell you that at this very moment, I am looking at you in such a way that would convey utter fury. You are insolent, ungrateful, and rude. I cannot, for the life of me, understand why the Universe thought to pair us. But I will tell you this: your unappreciative, peasantlike attitude only affirms that I’ve made the appropriate decision to have all memory of you wiped from my mind once I have saved you.”

Ashli’s eyes opened wide and then narrowed into tight little slits. “What did you just say, Casper?”

“I know not who this Casper fellow is, but I am more suited to be mated with a festering pile of cow dung than to you. I plan to save you, then have you forever removed from my mind.”

“Couldn’t agree with you more! Festering pile of shit would be perfect for you!”

“No,” he clarified. “Better than you. A festering pile of dung is better than you because it doesn’t waste its time with silly, irrational attachments to houses when the fate of all life hangs in the balance.”