It didn’t, but I liked it enough to lean into his touch, as if I was drawn to him by a heat-seeking magnet. A moan built in my throat. I swallowed it down, but a strangled sound escaped me instead, and a little piece of me died. Was I making an arse of myself? More than likely. Did I care?
More than I should’ve.
Shaqueela came into the room, I could tell by the way Isha jumped back. I sighed and raised my head, pointedly not looking at him. “All right?”
“Yeah,” Shaqueela said slowly, or, at least, it appeared that way to me. “I’m just getting more calcium powder for the geckos.”
She rummaged around the supplement shelf and came up with a large tub. Given her usual obsession with new arrivals, I expected her to linger, but she left again, evaporating as though she’d never been there at all.
“I need to get the snake in the tank,” I said to no one in particular. I didn’t even know where Isha had put the box.
As though he’d read my mind, Isha pressed the box into my hand. “Do you need me to do anything?”
“No, I’m good—oh fuck.” I fumbled the box lid. It fell to the floor, leaving the snake exposed. “Unless you want to move old Milk here, I’m gonna need you get Shaqueela back for me.”
“I can move him…her, whatever it is.”
“Seriously?”
Isha shrugged. “You said it was too cold to move. Besides, I held that beast python the other day, didn’t I?”
I couldn’t argue with that, and a dozen dick jokes brought my brain back to life, but with the snake still vulnerable, it didn’t last long. “I’m game if you are. Just be careful. I don’t know how long it’s been outside for, so treat it like your favourite child, okay?”
“Where should I put it?”
“As close to the hide as possible.”
“The one under the heat lamp?”
“Yeah.”
Isha sucked in a breath, then scooped the sleepy snake and deposited it into the tank. It was over so fast I thought I’d imagined it, and my gaze flicked between the empty box and the tank so rapidly the nausea haunting me amped up a gear. “Wow. You’re a fucking pro.”
“An accidental pro. Now I think about it, I think these are the snakes Tam calls ‘milkshakes’ and they do bite, so don’t try and tell me they don’t.”
“They bite more than corn snakes who rarely bite at all, and ball pythons who are too lazy to bother. That doesn’t mean it happens often.”
“Uh-huh.”
I was beginning to hate the way he managed to argue with me without actual words. Another day, I’ve have pressed my point, but I didn’t have it in me. I locked the tank. “Whatever. Thanks for your help. You should bring the kids by to see Milk when he perks up.”
“He?”
“I think so. I’ll give him a proper look over in a couple of days when he’s settled. I’ll call him Milk for now, but maybe Delilah can think of something better.”
Isha’s gaze changed. It was infinitesimal, but I saw it as if it was an approaching storm.
I raised an eyebrow. “What?”
He shifted. “I don’t know if I want to bring the kids around here.”
“Why?”
“Because I can’t figure out if you’re someone I want in my kid’s lives, or if I want to suck your dick every time I see you.”
I had no idea what I’d expected him to say, but it wasn’t that. “Why can’t I be both?”
“I don’t have my kids around my sex life.”
