“I do okay.”
Lamé squints at me through a virtual forest of fake lashes. “What is it you do, outside of this place?”
“I paint houses.”
Their eyes widen. “How butch.”
“Thanks?”
Someone walks in. Lamé says hello and gets sucked into conversation, waxing dramatic about their epic fall.
Just as I’m about to return to the counter to make a coffee, Lamé stops me. “No, girl. Nah ah.” They point at the man who walked them in. “Jonas, you’re up. Get on back there. Do your hot coffee boy magic.”
He scurries to do their bidding.
“Thank you again.” Lamé opens their arms for a hug. “You are a jewel in my crown, honey. A jewel.”
“I’m glad I could help.” I let them drag me into their fragrant bust for a second before they push me gently away.
“Now go and get fucked or something.”
I think of the way things ended last night.Or somethingseems more likely.
“Okay. Sure. On it. Bye Lam—” Laughing, I spin right through the door, where I smack straight, mid-twirl, into a big, hard wall. All the air gets knocked out of me, with an audible, “Oooof!”
Hands catch me around the waist before my feet get any more tangled up.
Dazed, I grab onto the wall, which isn’t, in fact, a wall at all, but a chest. I’ve got one hand wound up in soft cotton, the other gripping hard muscle. For a few stunned seconds, I can do nothing but cling and work to get my breath back.
I unwind my hand from the fabric and rub my jaw. Along with my shoulder, it took the brunt of the hit. “Oh, ouch.” I shut my eyes, waiting for my head to stop spinning. What is wrong with me?
“Don’t move.” The chest vibrates against mine.
“Okay.” I sound weak, which is ridiculous. You don’t get head trauma from bashing into people in doorways. I open my eyes and shut them again. “Uh oh.”
Unless it’s this megalith. Then it’s possible there’s head trauma.
The hands at my waist shift until I’m being held tight in two sturdy arms and, for a handful of seconds, I’m back under the trees in the dark.
I force my eyes open. Sky blue cotton, a peek of dark chest hair, a thick, angular collar bone framing a wide neck, the sides wrapped in tendons, Adam’s apple textured with a dusting of rough-looking stubble that runs up to a square, immovable jaw—carved from stone. Above that, a tight-lipped mouth, a hefty nose, and faded-denim eyes that look somehow young and like they’ve seen too much. Above it all is dark brown hair I want to ruffle with my fingers.
Heat rushes my cheeks and I know for a fact that I’m blushing. It’s the guy. The shower guy, the Dungeon guy. The man I kept picturing while humping my stranger to orgasm last night. The Overlord.
His features are spare, as if the years have taken their toll, only instead of adding the usual soft layers, they’ve weathered him down to sharp bones, deep dips, harsh angles. Time’s sanded away the extraneous and left nothing but this unpolished version. Despite the thick muscles packed into his body, he seems pared down to the bare minimum. Bleak. That’s how I’d describe him.
Bleak and so fucking beautiful.
I have no idea why he appeals to me so much, but he does. And not just to my eyes, but to my body, as well. It’s responding to this man’s embrace the way it did to my stranger’s last night in the woods.
Maybe it’s time to admit that he’s one and the same.
It’s a good thing he told me not to move, because I can’t. I’ve got my hands on his shoulders and my boobs pressed flat up against him and he smells good. Like really,reallygood. He smells like Lava soap and dust, the sun-warmed musk of skin.
Maybe I don’t want to move.
And yeah, I know exactly who he is.
“It’syou.” I’d know him anywhere, could feel him from the other side of a crowded room. I’m a celestial body in his orbit.
