We hardly knew each other. Stepping in when I knew nothing of his background was as insane as it was insulting. My assumptions were giving me a false picture of him, not at all taking into consideration his life before Ellington Heights that was completely unknown to me.
For all I knew, he was an expert at driving under disastrous conditions.
There was a lesson to be had here. I should’ve never promised to buy him another set of chains to begin with. Dipping my toes into uncharted waters had my mind racing to too many avenues it didn’t need to be going down.
This was supposed to be a cut and dry process. Both of us benefited from our sexual chemistry. Both of us had a good time letting loose for the evening and exploring each other’s kinks. Leaving it at that would save us in the long run when either party, eventually, wanted to cut things off and move on. Bedroom activities wouldn’t last forever. Sooner or later, they’d grow tiring and stale.
“Since when do you care what kind of cars the cops around here drive?” Avery asked.
“I don’t,” came my curt reply while I shoved my phone back into my pocket.
Too invested in something that didn’t matter. Too focused on the wrong thing. His safety was not my concern. He had an entire fucking precinct to look after him. A rotating door of visitors I’d seen come and go first hand while he’d been recovering.
That man had no shortage of people who gave a shit about him.
Why add myself to the list when I didn’t need to be in order to enjoy his body?
My frustration with not finding what I wanted here was beginning to bleed into other aspects of curiosity, piquing it where it didn’t belong. Terran was... an acquaintance I slept with once and would ultimately again if Wednesday went well enough.
I was looking forward to it—more than that if I sat with my feelings for longer than a minute or two before the familiar feelings of wanting to crawl out of my own skin hit me—and was interested to see what gifts he surprised me with this time around.
My going out of my way to purchase high-end gemstones to replace the ones that were lost when I’d disposed of his first set was simply me paying him back. I knew what it felt like to lose something valuable against your own accord and respected anyone who was willing to pay it forward with retribution.
The artisan I’d found overseas, while most likely not the same one he’d bought his first one from, had an incredible catalogue of work I couldn’t pass up commissioning. If I was going to be staring at this piece of jewelry permanently wrapped around that slutty little waist of his—my goddamn kryptonite, it seemed—for the rest of the time we slept together, then I needed to like it, too.
Sparing no expense in getting it made properly hardly mattered when Terran would be wearing it for the next few years, at least. More, if he took care of it like he had his last one. The devastation in his eyes upon realizing what had happened to it was something I still thought about.
Why not rectify it and call it even?
“Silas.”
My gaze snapped over to Avery, his brow raised high. “Where did you go?”
“What?”
He nodded toward the counter, Rebecca having returned with another tray of gemstones. “She wanted you to take a look at them.”
Oh.
To be frank, I was getting tired of that cop consuming my thoughts.
Last Friday was supposed to purge me.
In actuality, all it had really done was make the craving worse.
Hubris, clearly.
Leaning forward, I spotted a row of emeralds all cushioned perfectly in a straight line. They ranged from the sizes I needed to varying shades of color. All of them beautiful to look at and take in, especially under the professional lighting.
“How about any of these?” she asked, the whisper of a sigh clinging to the end of her sentence.
Fed up with me, apparently.
Oh well.
I ran my gaze carefully over the stones, and one in particular caught my eye. Snagging the tongs off of the counter, I used them to pick up the stone and hold it up closer to my eye. The brilliant cut was certainly refracting quite a bit of light, as was how well it was cut. But that wasn’t what caught my attention.
It was the exact same shade as Terran’s eyes.
