“Maybe more. You’d have to come closer for me to decide.”
The door swung slowly inward, and the love of my life, the boy, the teen, the man who had always held my heart, walked into the room.
He was tired and windblown, like he’d been standing in the sun all day. There was a fine layer of dust on his face. Maybe Mithra had made him do road work: shovel gravel. Ryder didn’t always tell me what the god made him do, just that it was usually menial tasks or enforcement of petty laws.
Anything to remind Ryder that Mithra owned him. That the contract Ryder had agreed to when he impulsively pledged himself to the god, was something no mortal could break.
But even tired, windblown, and covered in dust, Ryder was the most handsome man I’d ever laid eyes on.
“Hey,” I said. “Long day?”
He nodded, frowning. His steps were soft now as his gaze swept over my body, searching for injuries.
I smiled. It softened the look on his face.
“What did that jerk deity have you doing today?” I asked. “Digging ditches?”
“Judging a dune buggy contest.”
“I thought you were going to shut down a garage sale?”
“Did that too.”
He stopped in front of me. The smell of dust and motor oil, sweat and the deodorant he kept in his truck, filled my nose.
Beneath all that was the warmth of his body I had grown so used to, the slight hint of his shampoo he hadn’t changed for years.
I opened my arms, and he paused.
“I need a shower,” he said.
“You do.”
“I’m going to get you dirty, and you just got out of the shower.”
“I did. I don’t care.”
He stepped into my arms and wrapped his around me, holding me like one of us might break. “How bad?” he asked.
“Which part of the day?”
“All of it.”
“It doesn’t get five stars, that’s for sure,” I said. “Some of it was pretty good, though.”
“Which part?”
“This.”
He settled, holding me. Then, when I loosened my arms, he leaned back just a bit, his eyes such a dark green they were almost black.
“Tell me all of it. Jean, Myra, and Frigg went over some of what happened, but when they said attackers, everything else went blank.”
“Do you want a shower while I talk?”
“They’re making hot cocoa,” he said.
“It will wait.”
