"Hotel?" he interrupts, already shifting his weight as if mentally calculating logistics.
"My apartment is closer." I press against him, feel his immediate response—that hardening against my hip that makes my breath catch. "Three blocks. We could run."
"Or I could carry you." He adjusts his grip with surprising gentleness, one massive arm beneath my knees, the other supporting my back, cradling me like I'm precious cargo rather than dead weight. Bridal style. In the middle of the sidewalk, where at least a dozen people can see us. "Faster. More efficient. I have researched optimal carrying positions for maximum speed."
"Thraka, I can walk—" I start to protest, but it's weak, perfunctory.
He's already moving, those long strides eating up pavement with terrifying speed. I yelp, grab his neck for stability, feel the cords of muscle there tense beneath my palms. The rain plasters his dark hair to his skull, runs down his green skin in rivulets.
"People are staring!" I hiss, mortified, aware of the shocked faces turning toward us, the phones likely already recording.
"Let them stare." He navigates around a businessman clutching an umbrella, who stumbles backward into a mailbox with a metallic clang that echoes down the street. "They see a warrior claiming his mate. This is natural. This is how things work in my tribe. Public declaration. No ambiguity."
"This is insane."
"You love insane. You said so yourself." He takes a corner without slowing. "Which building?"
"The ugly brown one. Next block." I bury my face in his neck, breathing him in. He smells like rain and that cheap body spray he bought because the bottle had a picture of an axe on it. "We're going to catch pneumonia."
"We will generate sufficient body heat to prevent illness." He bounds up my apartment steps two at a time. "Key?"
I fish in my bag, hand shaking. It takes three tries to get the key in the lock. The door swings open, revealing my sterile, minimalist apartment. Everything beige and gray and ruthlessly organized.
Thraka carries me over the threshold like I weigh nothing, like this is perfectly normal behaviour for a Tuesday evening. His boot comes up and kicks the door shut behind us with enough force to rattle the frame. The deadbolt clicks automatically.
"This is very you," he observes, those green eyes sweeping across my living space with the methodical intensity of a warrior assessing a battlefield for weaknesses and vulnerabilities. The observation carries obvious judgment, the kind that makes my jaw clench. "Sad. Depressing. Like a corporate tomb."
I bristle immediately, my spine stiffening with the kind of defensive posture I've perfected over years of boardroom combat. "It's sophisticated minimalism," I counter, my voice taking on that sharp edge I reserve for people who question my aesthetic choices. "It's called having taste. Design principles. Intentional curation." Even as the words leave my mouth, I hear how hollow they sound, how much like I'm reciting a marketing pitch rather than defending something I actually believe in. "Not everyone needs to live like they're squatting in a war camp."
"It has no personality. No life. No warmth." He turns in a slow circle, taking in the beige sofa I've never actually sat on, the glass coffee table with its single decorative bowl, the abstract prints in identical frames. "Like you before we met."
The observation hits harder than it should. Because he's right. This apartment looks like a hotel room. Like a staged photograph from a real estate listing. Nothing personal, nothing real, nothing that would indicate an actual human being lives here.
"Rude but accurate," I admit, fingers tightening on his soaked jacket. Water drips onto my pristine hardwood floors, forming small puddles. I don't even care. "Are you going to do something about it?"
"Yes." He strips off his jacket—the one with sleeves perpetually too short, the one I've told him makes him look like an overgrown schoolboy—and drops it directly onto my cream carpet. It lands with a wet, obscene squelch. A dark stain immediately begins spreading across the fibres. "I am going to ruin your organization."
Heat floods through me in a searing rush, sharp and demanding, urgent as a wildfire consuming dry timber. It spreads from my core outward, a primal response I can neither calculate nor control, the one variable in my meticulously ordered existence that defies optimization. My breath catches, and I feel the familiar war between my carefully maintained composure and the raw, unfiltered desire that only he seems capable of igniting.
"Promise?" The word emerges as barely more than a whisper, a challenge wrapped in vulnerability. I search his expression, those green eyes dark with intent, waiting for the assurance that he means every word, every touch, every dangerous promise hanging between us. Because with Thraka, unlike with the perfectly curated men from LinkedIn, I've learned that promises aren't just empty corporate commitments—they're oaths. Sacred things. And somehow, impossibly, he always delivers.
He reaches for me, and I step back, pulse hammering. Walk backward toward the bedroom, never breaking eye contact. He follows, predator tracking prey.
My shoulders collide with the bedroom doorframe, the impact sending a jolt through my spine. I'm cornered now, backed against the threshold between my sterile living space and the one room in this apartment that might actually matter.
"Nowhere left to run, Little Manager." His voice is low, rough, filled with promise and threat in equal measure.
My heart pounds against my ribs, blood singing hot through my veins. Every nerve ending feels alive, electrified. "Who says I'm running?" I reach up, fingers closing around his tie, the cheap polyester one from the discount store that he insists on wearing despite my repeated offers to buy him something better. I yank him forward, hard enough that he has to brace one massive hand against the doorframe beside my head to keep from crushing me. "Maybe I'm leading."
His laugh rumbles through his chest, vibrating against me where our bodies press together. It's dark honey and gravel, smooth and rough all at once, and it sends heat pooling low in my belly. "Then lead."
The permission, the surrender in those two words, the way he's giving me control while we both know he could overpower me without effort—it's intoxicating.
I do.
Pull him into the bedroom. Push him toward the bed. He sits obediently, looking up at me with those wild green eyes. Waiting.
I unbutton my blouse slowly. His gaze tracks every movement, hungry and focused. The fabric peels away from my skin, revealing the black lace underneath.
