And here Duke had just wanted to protest that he thought he had been listening. He'd offered her boundaries when she'd asked. And when she didn't like them, he'd rephrased them. Then apologized when they said he needed to do that.

Now he flicked his eyes between the two of them, wondering how Lucifer would handle this part of the 'nitpicking words' argument.

(He felt frozen in place now, muscles tense in what had started as a relaxed sprawl on the sand.)