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Dante watched the front door expectantly through the gap between his boots, the sprig of mistletoe taped over it. With only three days until Christmas, this had to work, and it had to work soon. Otherwise, he lost the element of surprise; mistletoe still decorating a home after Christmas just looked desperate. He expected his prey to kick open those doors any second now…
The rumble of a motor out front alerted him of her arrival, the engine cut seconds later. Heightened sense of hearing heard her boots stomp up the stairs to the front doors. Dante stood up and prepared to pounce.
The doors flew open, and Dante stepped out from behind his desk to meet Lady at the front door. Unfortunately, he miscalculated her frustration. Like a spurned cat tossed in a puddle, Lady cleared the space between the helf devil and the door, her bicolor eyes blazing. Out of range of the mistletoe. Damn it.
“Dante, what the hell is this?!” she demanded, shoving a piece of paper in his face. “Do you think this sort of thing is funny?”
Though he knew what was on the page, surprise knit his snowy brows together. “What’s wrong with it, Lady?” His lips twitched at the corners as he gazed down at his handiwork. In order to piss her off and ensure she would pay a visit to Devil May Cry, Dante had sketched a crude drawing of her with a few exaggerated features and wearing nothing but a Santa hat and taped it to her front door. At the bottom, he had written in red ink, “Have a rockin’ Christmas, Lady. Feel free to show up dressed like this next time you come to the shop. XOXO Dante.”
“What, you don’t like your Christmas card? It took me at least an hour to draw that!”
Lady snatched the drawing back from him and tore it to little bits. “Try another stunt like this and I’ll add interest to your debt, asshole.” She tossed the bits of paper in his face and stormed out of the office, leaving Dante amused but unsuccessful in his mission.
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It took Lady two days to finally cool off and pick up her phone when he called. Perhaps Christmas Eve had softened her up or she realized his card was actually funny after all. He guessed it was the former, but either way, he convinced her to help him wrap some presents, claiming he wanted to “do it the right way” this year, instead of stuffing gifts into bags or folding newspaper shoddily around it. Claiming his lack of wrapping skills really had gotten old, Lady agreed to help him out.
Opting for a new strategy, Dante hung the mistletoe over the kitchen doorway. The perfect place to employ a sneak attack that she would never see coming. He had just finished taping it up when he heard her motorcycle’s engine from down the street. Moments later, Lady entered the shop balancing a stack of boxed gifts in her hands. One threatened to topple from the top, and Dante leaped across the shop to catch.
“Show off,” Lady mumbled, dumping the packages in his arms. “You did buy wrapping paper, right?”
Dante carried her gifts over to the couch and laid them out on the coffee table. “Give me a little credit, Lady. I don’t always mess things up.” He grinned and nodded toward the multicolored tubes of paper leaning against the side of the couch. “I didn’t know what kind to get, so I just got your basic reds and greens with snowflakes and Santas. Festive shit.”
Moving back over to his desk, he started rummaging around, as if trying to locate tape and pins and anything else they needed to wrap presents. Lady peeled off her gloves and started for the couch. His moment. “Oh, hey, wait a sec. We gotta do this right.” The huntress paused, a dark brow raised in question. “There’s eggnog in the kitchen. You wanna go get us some while I get my gifts out?”
He was sure she was going to tell him to do it himself, snark him about how he has legs and if he wants eggnog, he can go get it himself. Finally, she rolled her eyes. “For future reference, I prefer hot cocoa.”
Dante waited for the sound of clinking glasses before making a swift and silent move to station himself outside of the kitchen door, just out of view. He listened to her hum “Carol of the Bells” as she poured eggnog for both of them. Her footsteps reverberated off the linoleum, closer, closer, one more step…
He slid from his hiding place into the doorway, ready to pull his fellow devil hunter into a festive smooch...but he didn’t calculate that the element of surprise might work a little too well. Lady gasped at his sudden appearance and jolted backward. Eggnog spilled from the glasses and soaked the front of her shirt, pooling on the floor at her feet.
“Dante! Ugh!”
She stomped back into the kitchen, Dante following close on her heels feeling like a guilty canine. “I didn’t mean to, Lady! Honest!” He grabbed up a hand towel. Ice blue eyes drifted to the stain, a smirk curling his lips as he extended the towel toward her soaked bosom.
“Give me that!” She snatched the towel out of his hand before he could make contact and angrily mopped up her front. “What the hell is wrong with you? You’re acting more like an idiot than usual!”
Dante rubbed the back of his neck, his smirk melting away. He really sucked at this surprise kiss business. He would probably have a better chance of landing a kiss if he just asked her for it at this point.
She sighed. “I’m going to have to go home and change. Throw this in the washer before it stains.”
“What? Aw, no don’t do that!” He caught the towel when she threw it to him. “I can get you one of my t-shirts and wash your shirt for you. It’s the least I can do.”
She eyed him, searching his face for anything that suggested he meant to further humiliate her. When she found only sincerity, she huffed. “Fine. Nothing red if that’s possible.” She pushed passed him and headed back out to the living room.
Without wasting any more time, Dante dashed up the stairs two at a time and dug through his drawers. Much of what he owned did fall into the category of some shade of red or another, but he managed to find a clean black v-neck t-shirt for her buried beneath the array of crimson shirts. He pushed away thoughts of Lady dressed in only his shirt and shoved the drawer closed. For once, he opted to keep his mouth shut and not suggest that to her; he had probably done enough damage for one holiday.
He headed back down to the main floor and found Lady waiting at the foot of the stairs, arms crossed and a disgruntled expression on her face. He extended the shirt to her and managed a small smile. “It was a tough search, but I think I found you something suitable.”
Lady took the shirt and turned it over in her hands with a thoughtful hum. “It’ll do.”
With a nod, Dante turned to head to the couch and actually wrap gifts like he promised Lady. At least she didn’t have her pistol on her in that moment. He would likely be walking swiss cheese if she did. Maybe next year he would be more successful. He could start rigging up some sort of mechanism where the mistletoe followed her around, meaning she was always underneath it when she was at the shop.
“Hey, Dante.”
He turned around only for Lady to tug him down by the collar of his shirt. Her soft lips meshed with his. He slid his arm low around her waist, coaxing her body flush against his and deepening the kiss. He relished the warmth of her and the naturally sweet taste of her lips. All too soon, she pulled away, releasing his collar and taking a step back. Her cheeks were tinted a rosy pink, but she wore a shit eating grin on her lips.
“If you wanted a kiss so bad,” she jerked her thumb back toward the mistletoe dangling over the kitchen door. “All you had to do was ask.”