“Ah,” she said happily. “That’s better!” Once the jacket was on, she put on the gloves.
“Now the boots,” I told her. “Here they are.”
“Ugh.” Her happiness from the previous moment disappeared. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I just put these gloves on!”
“So? What do the gloves have to do with it?”
“It made my fingers all tired,” she groaned. “Plus, my feet are so far away. Look at them!”
She wiggled her tiny toes, as if to provide evidence of how unreasonable my request had been. Unfortunately, all this did was make my cock ache with a new, inexplicable throb.
“I will do it for you, then.”
I really needed her to put those wiggly toes away. They were…doing things to me.
I found her socks inside the boots, much like the gloves. Putting on her socks proved more difficult than anticipated, as she started bucking like a spooked shuldu the second I touched her ankle.
“That tickles!” she snorted.
It took everything I had not to draw the pad of my thumb slowly along the arch of her sensitive foot.
Instead, I made use of both my hands and my tail to hold one foot still, then the other, so I could put her absurdly tiny socks on her. The boots proved a little easier for both of us. After zipping them up, I stood.
She blinked sleepily up at me. “Hallum?”
Hallum.
It was the first time she’d called me only by my name.
By the empire, how I loved the sound of it in her mouth. Even when slightly slurred the way she said it now. More like “Hall’m”
“Yes?”
“I think I might be drunk.”
“I think you might be right.”
I’d never actually seen drunkenness in a human before, but I could comprehend it on a theoretical level. And Lualhati was certainly exhibiting the symptoms as I understood them.
“I do stupid shit when I’m drunk,” she said. She focused her glassy eyes on my face. Or tried to, anyway. “Don’t let me do any stupid shit, Hallum!”
“You have already suffered through a dance with me,” I grunted. “So it may already be too late.”
She laughed, loose and loud.
“You are so funny. How the heck are you so funny? I never would have thought that you actually had a sense of humour when I first met you.” She shook her head slowly, the long strands of her hair shifting around her shoulders. “Dancing with you was the best part of my night.”
She was definitely drunk.
“Let’s get you into bed.”
When she didn’t move, I picked her up. I tried to help her stand, but I did not like the way she balanced – or rather, didn’t balance – on those spindly heels of hers. So I scooped her up and held her cradled to my chest. I would carry her to the sled myself.
When I turned around, I found all four of the others watching us in wide-eyed, slack-jawed silence. The music blared on, entirely forgotten by the dancers.
