A pause.
“Is that it?” He sighed.
“No.” Of course not. I stepped closer, letting him feel the weight of my presence. “You will tell me everything Al likes.”
Lai blinked. “Well, his favorite color is blue and his birthday is in May. Anything else?”
I smiled. Sharp. Certain. “What Al likes in his lovers.”
He stared at me for a second. Then, slowly, a grin spread across his face. “No—he didn’t…”
“I’ll be,” I declared, voice low and proud, “the best ride he’s ever had.”
Chapter Seven
Al
I sat at my desk, reading and re-reading the same damn paragraph in the paperwork in front of me, willing it to sink in. It wasn’t even a hard read: a basic incident report, minor property damage, student negligence. The kind of thing I could normally skim, sign, and forget in under a minute.
But not today.
Today, every time I finished the first line, my attention frayed before I could make it to the second.
Constant little interruptions didn’t help, either. A knock at the door, a student needing approval for a project, a faculty member dropping off another stack of paperwork like I didn’t already have enough to bury a body under.
By my sixth attempt to read the first page, the words had started to blur together into an irritating blob. I leaned back in my chair, rubbing my hand over my face, my cold coffee sitting untouched at the edge of my desk.
The door opened again, and I was ready to launch the cup at the intruder, but I paused as I registered Lai’s lavender hairand red robe. It was never a good idea to throw anything at the ex-assassin, not unless I wanted to be picking shards of porcelain from my skull for the rest of the day.
“Please tell me this is important,” I pleaded instead, waving my paperwork in his general direction, begging him to take it off my hands.
“It’s not.” Lai pushed my hand down. “I’m just here to judge you.”
“Judge me? What for?”
He didn’t even hesitate. “You fucked a car.”
I froze.
Oh gods. Don’t tell me Lai actually spoke with Fox.
But, then again, their talking might actually be a good thing. If Lai was standing here, alive and un-crushed, that had to mean Fox wasn’t too mad about the whole “ugliest Mustang” thing. Maybe they’d managed to talk it out; maybe Fox could be rational, and he could meet my family after all.
“The car fucked me,” I corrected with a sigh.
“And you didn’t resist,” Lai shot back, laughing as he moved closer, completely at ease in my space. He dropped into the chair across from me, lifting his cane and pressing the tip lightly against my chest.
I didn’t push it away, instead leaning back in my seat. I let out a slow breath. There was no point denying the accusation; Lai knew what I liked. ‘Adventurous’ was the polite description; ‘reckless’ was the honest one. The car wasn’t the weirdest thing I’d stuck my cock in. It didn’t even crack the top three on the list of my questionable choices, but I knew it was only a matter of time before Lai started up the horse jokes again at my Mustang’s expense.
Look,” I said, trying to get ahead of his amusement. “I know it’s weird, but we just kind of clicked.”
Lai’s brow twitched. “That’s not helping your case.”
“I first saw him months ago,” I went on anyway, my wordspicking up speed now that I’d started. “On the dealer’s lot, and I knew I had to have him. I just didn’t know he was sentient: you know I don’t fuck anything that can’t consent. I never planned on–”
“You made him that way.”
Lai’s interruption broke my concentration again, my brain blanking for a moment in confusion, trying to work out what he was saying. “What? What do you mean?”
