I think he did good work.
But he looked familiar.
I almost type more, though I decide to leave it at this for now.
Locke:
People often do.
My thumbs hover as I contemplate my response, but I hit send before I can overthink it.
Eris:
Let me rephrase…
Do I know him?
There’s a longer than normal pause.
Locke:
Would it change anything if you did?
I stare at the words until the screen dims.
The answer hums on the tip of my tongue and at the edge of my fingers, quiet and certain.
But I don’t type it.
Because I don’t know how to admit that maybe, just maybe, I like being seen by whoever this is.
Even if it means I can’t get a single thing done in this apartment until I get rid of those goddamn cameras.
It hits me the second Eris opens the door, feet bare, hair messy. Her baggy sweatpants barely hang on her hips, fitted charcoal t-shirt clinging to her curves. My breath stalls for a second too long, chest tightening in a way that’s absolutelynotprofessional.
I shouldn’t have agreed to do the installation.
But the moment Silas mentioned her address, I said yes before he finished the sentence. I didn’t think—not that I ever do. I just needed to see her again, to prove that I could stand in front of her and not fall back into the pull of her gravity.
Now, I know I’m not that strong.
Her perfume is the same soft scent as the night I met her, floral but not innocent. Like jasmine and something savage,something that makes heat flood my skin and blood rush to my dick.
The second she steps aside to let me into her personal space, I walk in as if I’m not already breaking and ready to beg. Every nerve in my body remembers her… The sound she made when I kissed her neck, the way her hands fisted in my shirt.
The way she felt wrapped around me, under me.
Eris doesn’t look at me like she remembers any of it.
And somehow, that makes this worse.
She appears tired, guarded, like she’s hiding too much and sick of it. Yet, she still feels silently dangerous in a way that makes me ache to test how bad she really is, to unravel her secrets.
Her walls are up, but her eyes linger long enough to have me wondering if she’s holding a mirror instead of a shield.
My walls are up too.
I keep my voice even, gaze neutral, hands busy… Anything to stop myself from staring at the curve of her waist as she leans against the door frame, arms crossed like she knows I’m watching and isn’t exactly happy about it.
