It’s strangely adorable.
We don’t stop at any of the restaurants, though. Instead, we walk for about ten minutes, until we step onto a street by the riverside that’s lined with food trucks, all gleaming in the sunshine.
“What do you fancy?” he asks, gesturing around. “Pick one or as many as you like. We’re going to be eating on the move.”
I eye the trucks and rub my stomach, pausing once my nose fills with the delicious scent of spices.
“Falafels.” My mouth is already watering as I head over to the truck. Within a couple of minutes, we’re both holding a foil-wrapped flatbread with tangy yogurt covering the perfectly crispy balls of deliciousness.
Dorian gets the same and we both stand there, moaning at the taste for a moment before he swallows and adjusts his food in one hand, before putting his free arm around my waist.
“Did you know that Hattie Morgen was from Hawthorne?” he asks.
“The engineer?”
“The Gorgon engineer,” he corrects with a slow grin. “The first after we integrated with humans. My mom had a book on her when I was a kid and she’d read me bits when I was growing up.”
I don’t know a huge amount about how the Gorgons came to be here or how hard it was for them to integrate with the mostly human society. But what I do know came from what I read from Hattie Morgen.
“I’m pretty sure I had that book,” I tell Dorian. “Back when I first realized how much I enjoyed taking things apart and then building them up again. I was ten years old, and I used to borrow it from the library all the time.”
He lets out a little huff of breath. “Thank fuck. I was hoping you’d like this. We can do a landmark tour that’s based around her. It’ll take us all around the city—places she worked and lived or that were influenced by her.”
I’m quietly blown away by how thoughtful this date is. It’s exactly my jam, and Dorian somehow gets that, even though we haven’t known each other that long. I don’t tell him that, because I’m not sure how he’d take it. But I’m fighting the urge to squish his cheeks together and plant a kiss on his perfect, sculpted lips.
“Let’s go.”
We spend the next hour wandering around the city. Dorian shows me the shitty apartment block where Hattie lived for the first twenty years of her life, where an enormous piece of graffiti now adorns the outer wall. It depicts her working at her bench while simultaneously the snakes on her head chew on a bunch of severed dicks.
“That’s, er, striking imagery,” Dorian mutters. “Maybe this tour isn’t as romantic as I thought it was going to be.”
Then he takes me over to the university, where they named the engineering department after her. We continue on to the manufacturing district of the city—where every factory still uses at least one of her machines. Finally, we pause beside a massive metal sculpture of Hattie, which reminds me of Micah’s work, and I turn my body toward Dorian.
He nods toward the sculpture. “She kind of reminds me of you, you know? Not just how your minds work, how you see the parts that make up the whole, but also because she worked damn hard and was smart as hell and—”
I can’t stop myself from kissing him. Something inside me draws me closer and my inner voice is screaming that if I don’t get the taste of his lips on mine right now, then I’m a fucking idiot.
Our lips make contact gently at first. His breath warms my face, and I can feel the heat of his body against mine. He cups my jaw with his palms and pulls me closer, parting his lips and letting out a guttural groan as I slide my tongue into his mouth and twine it with his. He sucks on my tongue and the movement goes straight to my clit, causing me to squirm. Then, as he cups my ass, I have to fight the urge to writhe all over him.
When we pull back, we’re both slightly breathless, staring glassy-eyed at each other.
That’s the moment I realize we have eyes on us.
Someone’s filming on their phone, or taking an extensive set of pictures from the other side of the street.
“Oh, shit.”
In fact, a bunch of people have their phones out, like we’re some kind of spectacle on display. Fucking dickheads without boundaries. Who takes pictures of people in a private moment like that?
“Fuck this.” Dorian grabs my hand. “Shall we try to lose them?”
I nod mindlessly. Seems like my brain’s not quite recovered from the kiss yet, but right now I’d go anywhere with him.
“Come on.”
He tugs on my arm and we set off at a run, heading down one side alley and then another. In the back of my head, I hope we’re heading in the right direction for the stadium, but I trust Dorian will get us there.
“Is it always like this?” I ask when we come to a stop, panting for breath. After last night’s date with Micah and Cal, and now this, it’s frustrating as hell.
