“Oh my god, Van, what the hell?” Audrey gasped. She kept glancing at Liam, though. Embarrassment and arousal flushed her face and neck.
Liam choked as he studied her flustered behavior. “That so?”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s none of my business, but it’s a small apartment. You’re both very, um,heightenedright now.” They didn’t say anything, but based on their expressions, they agreed with me. “What if you two just need to bang one out? Then you can have a rational conversation about, you know…” I waved my hand between the two of them.
Audrey’s eyes were wide, and she opened her mouth to say something to me. However, her attention was diverted to Liam, because something feral and hungry coated his face as he stared at her. Whatever protest Audrey was about to give me quickly died as her gaze became hooded.
Oh god, they were really about to just go for it.
“But it’s none of my business.” I lifted my hand and mug up in the air as a surrender, “I’ll just go to my room. Goodnight.” I smiled at a conflicted Audrey before strolling past the two of them toward the hallway. “I’ll wear earplugs,” I called over my shoulder before I closed my bedroom door. I lingered by the wood, listening to see what would happen. There was uncomfortable silence for a while, until Liam finally broke it.
“Should…I mean…”
“Not here,” Audrey snapped. “I’m not—with you—with her just down the hall?—”
Her voice got cut off, and I would bet all the money in my account that he had interrupted her with a kiss. I found myself pressing my fingertips to my own lips, a pang of longing cutting through my chest at the thought.
When was the last time a man interrupted my rambling with a kiss? When was the last time a man kissed me in a way that made my toes curl? The last time a man’s lips came close to mine was when I bit Drustan’s lip.
Drew still hadn’t even really kissed me yet.
“Not here—” Audrey panted again, confirming that her lips were otherwise occupied before. “The—the boat—” The front door creaked open before slamming shut, and silence filled the apartment. I stepped out of my room to lock the front door before returning, locking my bedroom door behind me, too.
I was used to spending nights alone in the apartment after years of Audrey ghosting me every other day.
But now, I didn’t quite feel lonely. If anything, I felt a bit of relief that this all finally came to a head. Audrey and Liam both knew they were mates. The awkward tension between them might not be as unbearable. I knew Audrey would come back.
Sure, Liam would be right on her heels, but she’d come back.
We’d talk about their first kiss, their first hookup, everything we usually did whenever one of us was dating someone new.This felt more permanent, though, which I guess made sense if they were mated magically.
While I sent a silent prayer up to any higher power that Liam knew what he was doing and that their first time wouldn’t be a bust, I donned my headphones and focused back on my composition.
Adding the sounds from the Hyvenmerian string instrument I had recorded earlier.
Chapter 18
Ididn’t see Audrey for several days. I texted her to check in, and all I could get back were quick responses. A thumbs up. A simple, “I’m alive.” Nothing else. I jumped in my seat on the couch when she burst through the front door four days after she and Liam ran off to my boat, flushed, rushing to the kitchen to grab water.
“What happened to hello?” I turned around on the couch, digging my knees into the cushions so I could rest my arms and head on the back of the furniture, facing the kitchen.
Audrey grinned before filling a glass with water and draining it in three gulps. She sighed dramatically before leaning against the counter.
“Hello.” She laughed, fanning her neck. “God, I’m so drained.”
I lifted an eyebrow at her. “Why?”
She shook her head and pulled her hair back in a ponytail, before rummaging in the pantry for food. “The heat.”
I frowned at her. “What?”
“The heat.” She leaned out from the pantry door to tell me, before hiding behind it again. The sound of bags and boxesof snacks rustling accompanied her explanation, “The mating heat.”
It took every muscle in my body to mask my facial expression to a normal one, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “What are you, farm animals?” Audrey cackled before kicking the pantry door shut with her foot, her arms full of boxes of cookies and popcorn and other snacks she unceremoniously dumped on the folding table.
“I mean, I’d heard about how intense it was.” She waved her hand in the air before she ripped into a box of cookies and started shoving some in her mouth, letting crumbs spill out of her lips as she continued, “But I had no idea it was like this.”
“So, like…” I waited for her to finish another mouthful of cookies before I finished my question, “I take it the sex is good, at least?” Audrey’s eyes widened as she nodded her head enthusiastically, her cheeks puffed out with cookies before she swallowed.
