I touch one of the marks on my neck, feeling the tender skin, the slight indentation where his teeth pressed in. There are probably more on my chest. I hope there are more. I want to see them, catalog them, press on them tomorrow and remember how it felt.
Tomorrow,I type.
You okay?
I think about it. Am I okay? I'm lying on my couch fully clothed and more turned on than I've ever been in my life. A lion shifter just had me pinned down and was dirty talking me toward the best orgasm of my existence before his phone cockblocked us both.
I don't know,I admit.I think I'm ruined.
Good ruined or bad ruined?
I close my eyes, replaying every moment. His hands. His mouth. The weight of him. The way he looked at me like I was precious and edible and his.
Good ruined,I type back.Definitely good ruined.
TELL ME EVERYTHING WHEN I GET HOME.
I let the phone drop to my chest and stare at the ceiling.
Tomorrow.
I can survive until tomorrow.
Probably.
Chapter 8
Knox
I've rebuilt three carburetors and it's only 10 AM.
The work isn't hard—routine maintenance, nothing that requires real thought—but that's the problem. My hands know what to do without my brain's involvement, which leaves my brain free to replay last night on an endless loop.
Toby's face when I kissed him. The sound he made—needy, desperate, like no one had ever touched him right before. The way he arched off the couch when I bit his neck. The way he said please like it was the only word he knew.
The way he looked when I had to leave—wrecked and wanting, marks blooming on his skin, so hard I could see it through his jeans.
I should have ignored the phone. Should have made him come first, watched him fall apart, then dealt with whatever emergency the pack had manufactured. Because it wasn't even a real fire—just Ezra's experimental cooking setting off the smoke alarm, which he could have handled himself.
The wrench slips. I catch it before it hits the floor, but my grip leaves dents in the metal.
"You know," Jason says from somewhere behind me, because he has a death wish, "it's Thursday."
"So?"
"Drag queen story hour is Thursdays."
I don't respond. I'm not thinking about Toby. I'm not thinking about how he looked last night, spread out beneath me, begging so pretty. I'm definitely not thinking about the marks I left on his neck—the ones he's probably covering right now with some high-collared shirt, the ones I want to add to until he can't hide them anymore.
"We should go," Jason continues, undeterred by my silence. "Support the community. Show our civic pride."
"Since when do you care about the community?"
"Since they started having hot librarians and Robin's ice cream sandwiches."
My head snaps up. "What?"
"Oh, didn't I mention?" Jason's grinning, that shit-eating grin that means he's been saving this information for maximum impact. "Ezra did some research. Robin makes themed snacks for every story hour. Today's book is about a mouse and cookies or something, so—"
