“I’m sorry I compared my sense of humor to your incredibly valid interests. I am but a humble peasant with humble dick jokes.”
I whip my head up. Is he making fun of me? He’s grinning, but there’s no malice in his expression. Luca and Frankie used to laugh at me. Tristan’s teasing isn’t cruel.
Better yet, he’s a little weird. Maybe not as weird as I am, but he never treats me like a freak or a specimen.
“I forgive you, peasant,” I tell him.
Tristan chuckles. “Are you hungry?”
“Like I said, my hands are—oh.” Tristan’s picked up a piece of cheese and holds it out to me. All I have to do is open my mouth, and he places the cheese on my tongue.
I chew while I work on the next few stitches. By the time I swallow, Tristan’s already holding up a grape.
“You don’t have to feed me,” I tell him.
“And here I thought every woman wanted a resident peasant to hand-feed her while she did her crafts. Have I been lied to about this phenomenon?”
“No, you’re right, that’s the dream.” I open my mouth again. This time, Tristan’s fingers brush my lips as he feeds me the fruit. If I wasn’t in the middle of something, I’d close my lips around his fingers, licking them the same way I licked his dick the other night, driving him into a frenzy until he bent me over the table and—
I shake my head and focus on my stitches. I want to finish this toy today.
“Why do you need a plush Kepler, if you already have the real thing?”
“It’s a toy for him to snuggle.” Kepler loves to cuddle, but he keeps calling dibs on Tristan. “Call me selfish, but I want you to save all your cuddles for me.”
There it is—the thing I’m not supposed to want. To be his favorite place to land. And I do. God help me, I do.
Chapter Sixteen
Tristan
By the time I reach the front door, I’m already half-hard, which is pathetic considering I’ve been traveling for six hours and my left shoulder feels like someone took a sledgehammer to it. But the second the door to the condo clicks open, the air hits me like a drug.
It’s her.
Not perfume, not candles, just Minerva. Coconut-milk shampoo, the faint vanilla of the lotion she rubs into her hands when she’s thinking, and something warmer, deeper, that lives in my sheets now. It’s in my walls. It’s in my bloodstream. I didn’t know I could miss someone like this. It’s not just her smell—it’s the way my shoulders drop the second I’m home. Six days on the road and I’ve been jerking off in hotel bathrooms to the memory of this exact smell like a teenager.
I drop my duffel. Kepler doesn’t even greet me; he’s passed out in his hammock, paws twitching in dreams. Smart ferret. He knows what’s coming.
There’s a sliver of light under the bedroom door and a sound, breathy, almost swallowed. A sigh that catches and turns into a dainty, helpless gasp.
My fists squeeze at my sides. I toe off my shoes, pad down the hall, and push the door open with two fingers.
She’s in the middle of my bed, knees drawn up, wearing nothing but my neon green Venom hoodie, the one that drowns her. The hem is pushed up to her hips, one small hand disappeared beneath black panties, the other clutching herphone. Her glasses are fogged, cheeks flushed scarlet, bottom lip caught between her teeth.
She freezes when she sees me, eyes huge.
“Min?” I have to brace a hand on the doorframe. No one’s ever looked at me like that—caught, wanting, and not ashamed. It feels like being chosen. Christ, it terrifies me how much I want her to want me back.
Her chest rises and falls fast. A shy, wicked little smile curves her mouth.
“I was just…” She has to lick her lips; her voice is wrecked. “Testing a theory.”
I shut the door behind me with my foot, lean back against it, and let my gaze drag over her slowly, deliberately, so she knows I’m looking. So she knows I like what I see.
The hoodie has slipped off one shoulder. Her thighs are trembling. There’s a damp spot on the sheets beneath her, and the air smells like her arousal layered over everything else.
A quiet, breathless, “Ma belle…,” slips out.
