“Can we please, please pretend this never happened?”
Ryder locks his beautiful eyes on me, the amusement draining into an eager vulnerability. “Okay.” He drags the word. “But could we also pretend that the first time we met never happened?”
I blink. “What?”
“A fresh start.” He shrugs one shoulder. “We both get a clean slate. No assumptions. No?—”
“Founders jokes,” I finish for him.
“And no mentions of naughty fairies.” His lips twitch. But his face is hopeful underneath the teasing.
I’m not sure what I’m agreeing to. Or if it’s wise. But I give in anyway. “Okay.”
“Yeah?”
I nod.
“Good.” He holds my gaze with that simmering intensity for a beat before he adds, “I’ll finish up the bedroom and get out of your hair.”
He turns back to the AC unit, and I flee to the kitchen once again.
But as I sit at the table, staring blankly at my lesson plans, I’m still smiling.
Weirdly, impossibly smiling, even after the most embarrassing moment of my life.
10
RYDER
On Thursday evening, I’m driving toward Rhys’s school for a teacher-parents-volunteers meeting. I activate the blinker, wondering if I should keep going past the flower farm Rebecca manages at the edge of Hollow Creek or opt for a U-turn and drive back home.
Common sense and whatever delusion is driving me duke it out in my head. Common sense throws a solid right hook: this is a terrible idea. Delusion counters with an uppercut: but the meeting notice said parent volunteers are desperately needed. Common sense goes for the knockout: she doesn’t want to see you. Delusion plays dirty: but what if she does?
I continue down the road before I talk myself out of going.
Work’s done for the day. We’re almost out of daylight. And Rhys has a playdate at a friend’s house. Tommy Peterson’s mom is watching them until eight. I’d have to drive into town to pick him up soon, either way. I might as well swing by the school and make myself useful.
And if that comes with the side benefit of seeing Faye again, heck, I never was one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
It’s been four days since I stood in her bedroom listening to a spicy fairy tale blasting from her speaker while she got down on all fours and crawled under the bed, her perky ass in the air. Four days since she came out with dust bunnies in her hair and her face the color of the giant scarlet zinnias we grow on the farm and agreed to give me a clean slate.
Blessed naughty fairies.
I’ve thought plenty about that, too. My phone sits in the cupholder, screen dark, hiding my latest weakness. Sunday night, a quick online search for “Sarina,” “Ashren,” and “fae romance” led me straight to the title of the book Faye was listening to: A Court of Sea and Wings.
I bought a digital copy. For research, not because I tried and failed to fall asleep without knowing what happened after Ashren turned Sarina onto her stomach. Wondering if Faye was listening to that scene at the same time I was reading it.
After satisfying that curiosity, I went back to the start of the story and kept reading it in secret throughout the week. Now I’m down to the last few chapters, and I have opinions. Lots of them.
The plot has political intrigue between fairy courts. Well-choreographed battle scenes. And sex. Sweet merciful heaven, so much sex. Every position, location, with wings and tails involved in ways that required serious mental gymnastics to visualize. The male lead, Ashren, spends two hundred pages being an emotionally unavailable ass before the heroine finally gets him naked and he transforms into a lovesick puppy—if a puppy can also be a psychopath who believes “touch her and die” qualifies as healthy communication.
I’ve been reading late at night after Rhys goes to bed, well past the time I should’ve gotten some shut-eye. I’ve been extra tired all week. And extra fucking horny.
And damn me to hell and back if I haven’t imagined Faye and me in every single one of those positions.
Yes. Even the aerial sex. Guess I can have wings in my dreams.
The point is, I’m in deep. Drowning in fairy spice and complicated feelings about a woman who makes me want to be better and also makes me want to do very, very bad things.
