5 Tree-Trunk Arms

Tree-Trunk Arms raised an eyebrow at her for a moment but then he proffered his bleeding arm to her.

She led him to the kitchen where she gently washed the wound and then applied antibacterial ointment on it. Then she placed a cloth bandage over the entire area.

"There you are. Good as new again."

He gave her a strange look but said nothing.

She rose and went to the closet and began yanking at various things.

"Now what are you doing?"

She pulled out the vacuum cleaner. "My vase broke into shards. I have to clean it up before someone gets hurt."

He threw her an exasperated look and pointed at the vase shards. It rose up into the air, whirled around a couple of times and reunited into a perfect, unbroken vase.

"Where do you want this thing?"

Candi rubbed her eyes and shoved the vacuum cleaner back into the closet. "Just put it on the table."

"Candace, you cannot just throw random things everywhere. It takes precious energy to restore broken things like this."

"It does?" She looked up at him with wide vague eyes. "But it's just a cheap $1 vase I got at the dollar store. You didn't need to restore it."

Tree-Trunk Arm flicked a finger and the vase gently set itself onto the coffee table.

"Well it is now worth a lot more than that. It has been imbued with the power of a Shadow Prince."

She closed the closet door and turned to give him a curious gaze. "Does the Shadow Prince have a name, or do I keep calling you Tree-Trunk Arm in my head?"

Tree-Trunk Arm's bright blue eyes sparkled with merriment.

"Tree-Trunk Arm? How did you come up with such an unusual name for me?"

"Remember the first time you met me?"

He nodded.

"All I remember is two huge arms the size and roughness of tree trunks, snatching me out of the air and squeezing my diaphragm until I almost died for lack of air."

She scowled. "You left some serious black bruises on my body too!"

He had the audacity to look ashamed. "My apologies. I had no idea who you were. I just knew you were a thief of my family's jewels."

Candi's face turned hot with embarrassment. She had been caught red-handed stealing something of great importance to his family. She had no right to complain about him tackling her to get it back.

"No. I should be the one who apologizes. I did a bad thing and I deserve what I got. I'm sorry. I will return your gem."

"No need to. The gem was the whole reason for the event. Since the gem wasn't there, the event was cancelled."

Candi swallowed. "I'm truly sorry. If I return the gem, could you reschedule the event?"

He laughed. "No need. There would be no point."

Candi wasn't sure what he meant by that since the whole point of the fundraising auction was to raise funds.

But what did she know.

She looked up. "What's your name?"

"My name is Slate."

"Slate." She repeated. "Just Slate?"

"Just Slate."

"You have no family name?"

He laughed. "I am still a single man, so no family name yet. Are you offering to be my mate?"

"Huh?" She scratched her head.

Since when did a man have to wait to marry a woman before gaining a family name? Didn't the man provide the woman with a family name?

But then she laughed.

He was a demon. His ways were different from hers.

Most likely, he probably thought that a woman having to wait to be married to obtain a family name was just as daft.

His face turned stiff and he looked away.

Candi pressed her lips together. He must have mistaken her laugh for something else.

"Ummm. Thank you for bringing me home."

"Show me your bruises." He mumbled.

"It's okay. It will heal soon enough."

"Show them to me." His voice broke no arguments.

"But they're in places that are a bit on the…private side…" she mumbled the last part. It flew right past Slate's head.

"I want to see where the bruises are."

Candi bit her lip. It wasn't as if she was a prude or anything. She also did have underwear on and they were the sports kind that covered everything quite well. Better than most swimsuits did in fact.

She slowly raised up her loose tee shirt to the bottom edge of her bra. From that point, down to her belly button, the black marks showed quite vividly.

Slate's eyes narrowed. He reached out and touched the areas that were black-and-blue.

Suddenly Candi gasped as something that felt like a hot molten liquid coursed out of his fingertips and touched the areas where her blood had broken from their tiny vessels.

Where they touched, the blood vessels healed. The flesh areas under her skin began to regenerate. Her skin had returned to that pale luminescent color prior to her injuries.

Her jaw dropped.

Forget this modesty bullshit!

She stripped her jeans down to her underwear and showed him the dark bruises on her hip. "Can you fix this one too?"

His lips pressed together as he tried to hold back a smile.

Reaching out, he touched her hip and once again, that hot molten feeling hit her skin.

She gasped.

It truly was an uncomfortable feeling although it wasn't the kind of hot that was scalding and extremely painful.

It felt similar to a heat that was just a tiny bit above the normal comfortable temperature that she liked in her warm showers.

"Oh, here too." She pointed to her elbows. They had gotten scraped to hell and back after she had hit the ground.

"And here." She pointed to more dark spots.

"Oh, can you take care of this part too? It hurts super bad." She turned her back and showed him some more black and blue spots.

"Anywhere else?" His bright blue eyes were now genuinely laughing.

"Yeah. My head. I think there's a bump there." She lowered her head and reached up to touch a tender spot.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Candi blinked, waiting for the hot healing heat from his fingertips, but it was not forthcoming.

She was about to look up to see if he was in some kind of trouble from having expended so much energy healing her when she felt something like a soft kiss planted on her sore head.

Her eyes widened. Did that demon just kiss her head?