She smiled, again imagining the big dog waiting on the doorstep while Khash trudged home with his split pants. She realized she’d not seen him undress and had no idea what kind of boxers he wore…her musing was interrupted by another buzz of her phone
Can we have dinner this week?
Lurielle stared, not comprehending. The whir of the overhead fan was beginning to imitate something from a horror movie, setting her teeth on edge as her mind whirled. She had been a weekend fling, a piece of meat.
Tomorrow?
I can come to you
If you have plans already, maybe over the weekend?
She shook her head, attempting to clear her mind, in case she was hallucinating, but the text was still there when her eyes refocused.What is he doing?!Her heart was in her mouth, which explained why she suddenly felt it throbbing behind her eyes, in her ears, in her throat. The bathroom door opened again, the clipped voice of Silva’s boss in the marketing department echoing off the tiles as she scolded one of her children on the phone. The walls of the room seemed to close in on her, the drone of the other woman’s voice taking on an indistinct murmuration, and Lurielle gasped for air, suddenly feeling as though she were trapped in a great whirlpool, threatening to suck her down if she did not escape the bathroom’s confines. Throwing open the stall door, she staggered to the sink, gripping the sides of the porcelain for an interminable moment before taking up her phone once more.
Tomorrow sounds great
♥♥♥
“How are we supposed to know how to start this thing? Do they think we’re serving our own coffee at parties?”
Silva kept her smile firmly affixed, even though she was internally cringing at Lucidra’s words. The elf at her back laughed her agreement, adding that “next they’ll be expected to actuallybakesomething for one of these events!” Her two companions laughed, and she stewed silently, her smile twitching.They don’t need to be such snobs...
Silva leaned over the large coffee machine, shooing the other two volunteers away as she filled the water basin, expertly disassembling the stem and basket, as Tate had shown her the morning she’d spent with him in the empty restaurant. He’d stood closely behind her, a hand at her waist and his warm breath at her neck, instructing her step-by-step, before letting his teeth briefly graze her shoulder. She was nearly able to feel his warmth behind her now, flushing at the memory as she filled the machine on the fundraiser’s dessert table, was able to feel his heat and his nearness...when a hand landed on her hip, she jumped, whirling around with a startled yip.
“Whoa! Careful now. You’re quite the little expert, it seems.”
He was the kind of elf she would have been starry-eyed over in undergrad—white-blond hair and high cheekbones, emerald green eyes and a tremendous air of confidence. She had completely forgotten about this fundraiser after the weekend, had thought of nothing but sharp teeth at her throat and honeyed eyes beside her, sharing a pillow. When her grandmother had called that morning, asking Silva what she was planning on wearing to the event that evening, it had taken her several panicked moments to remember her commitment to the Ladies Club.
“I’ve done this before,” she explained to the handsome elf, smiling demurely, confident that he wouldn’t actually care enough to ask for details. She’d wondered, as she’d eaten the delicious breakfast Tate made for her at the little bistro’s bar, how different Silmë elves were where he was from. She couldn’t remember her father ever cooking for her and her mother, not even once, not even when she was very small. All Tate said, when she’d asked about his homeland, was that he’d emigrated from Ireland years earlier and had no intention of going back, giving her little clue as to the life he’d lived amongst the elves there. She wondered if this sort of elf—handsome and entitled, with the world at his feet—had existed in his world as well.You’ll meet and marry some perfect, purple-skinned prat. Silva swallowed, suspecting she’d already been given the answer.
“Well, it looks like you ladies have been working hard...can I get you a glass of wine? I’m interested in hearing about your other volunteer work.” Silva found herself being led across the big room by the handsome elf, abandoning her table, a glass of white wine pressed into her hand before she could think to protest.
Wynndevar was the kind of old Elvish name that hinted at an equally old, distinguished family, a family like hers, with deep roots in the community and deeper coffers. She learned he was from the larger city which bordered Cambric Creek and belonged to the club there; had grown up in the same world of cotillions and croquet and haughtiness that she had.
The right sort, she thought. It was almost as if her grandmother had created him in a lab.
By the end of the night he’d asked her out, and she’d gone home with dinner plans for the following evening and a twist in her guts.
♥♥♥
Lurielle bit her lip, glancing every few seconds to the tab at the upper left corner of her screen. She’d opened the text app on her laptop nearly fifteen minutes ago but had still not sent anything. She would see him tomorrow, this time at a restaurant in the city, not far from his apartment. A real date, in the real world, with both of them on the same page. She scowled, moving the cursor to open the tab before she could overthink things any further.
The previous evening Khash had come to Cambric Creek as planned, plans made over the ladies’ room sink and it had been a wonderful night until she’d almost gone and ruined everything. She’d watched in amusement as he polished off a second plate of pasta at dinner, in between asking her questions about the new hydroponic project she was starting. She should have realized, she’d thought, after witnessing him inhale an entire plate-sized steak fordessertthat an orc-sized appetite was considerably larger than that of an elf. They’d walked down Cambric Creek’s little Main Street afterward, her hand engulfed in his huge one. The sidewalk was evenly paved, but Lurielle had kept her gaze tightly trained to it, lest she look into the little shops and cafes around her adopted hometown, forever associating them with this moment.When you wake up from this dream, you don’t want real life to be ruined.
“Do you have weekend plans? Could we maybe do something Saturday night?”
She’d looked up sharply, finding his hooded eyes trained on her, his full lips pulled into a soft smile, and her stomach flipped.
“What are we doing?”
He was so handsome it had made her breathless, especially in that moment, as he twinkled down at her. His eyes crinkled in the lamplight and her lungs tightened.
“Making dinner plans, I hope?”
She’d spent the entirety of the weekend at the resort wishing she had met him under different circumstances, that he was someone with whom she could walk down the street of her little town, that they could go on normal dates and bicker and fight and make up and be in love, like a real couple, in the real world. The fact that they were doing exactly that, less than twenty-four hours after she’d resolutely put her feelings away, reminding herself it was a meaningless fling in a place designed for hook-ups, had completely thrown her for a loop, and Lurielle felt as though she were straddling the line of both worlds, certain that she’d fall gracelessly into the center.
“No, I mean...what are wedoing? I...I don’t understand. I don’t understand what you want, Khash, I don’t understand what you’re doing. This was a weekend fling!Notthe real world. People don’t have casual sex in nudist resorts and then start dating! I-I didn’t think we’d see each other again, a-and I don’t understand what you’re doing.” She’d watched as the smile dropped from his face, his wide brow furrowing. She hadn’t liked the look in his eye and hated that she’d been the one to put it there.
He seemed to be speechless, for the first time in their brief acquaintance, no syrupy quip at the ready as his square jaw opened and closed several times. She’d taken a step back as his arms opened in a giant shrug, holding them out like wings. “I...I’m sorry for wasting your time, then. It wasn’t just casual sex for me. That’s not what I want, Lurielle. That’s not what I thought this was...but I’ll respect whatever you want to do.”
