“Uh, well…” Noah suddenly wasn’t so sure about letting Reign help him with his suitcase. “I like to draw people,” he skirted around the truth but still stuck close enough as he drank in Reign’s bare torso.
Just like his angular face with its delicate features, his chest, abdominals and arms were a piece of art, sculpted as if he was a beautiful statue rather than a human. It was impossible not to look, not to imagine what they would feel like under Noah’s fingers, and once his mind went there, he couldn’t stop but wonder what touching Reign would feel like as well.
“How was your flight?” Reign’s next question dragged Noah out of the ensuing fantasy.
“It was good. I slept through most of it, though,” Noah offered over a nervous chuckle, watching Reign come to a stop in front of a gray modular sofa. He had his profile to Noah and Noah noticed the longer length of Reign’s hair, the lush mahogany locks no longer caressing his shoulders but hanging down to his narrow waist.Just like the demon’s.
Did hair even grow this quickly?
“Should I offer you something to eat?” Reign turned around, asking. “You look ratherhungry.” Their eyes locked and the intensity, the dark spark of lust in Reign’s garnetdepths, lit Noah’s body on fire, transforming completely the meaning of the diplomat’s remark.
Hungry wasn’t quite it. Noah wasstarvingfor Reign, craving him like he imagined an alcoholic despaired for a glass.
Through a thick throat, Noah smiled. “No, I’m fine.” His gaze stayed glued to Reign as he bent down and hoisted the suitcase on the small coffee table by the couch, his arm and back a mesmerizing play of toned muscles.
“Is it me you want then?” Reign countered, whipping his head back as his eyes drank in Noah, who was still awkwardly standing by the stairs.
He felt prickles along the tips of his toes and fingers first, then up his arms and legs, until they were all over him, coercing goosebumps and a flush of warmth he was glad his clothes obscured from Reign’s unwavering gaze.
Suddenly, Noah was overly aware of the fact that he’d been traveling for a day and desperately needed a shower.
“I probably need a shower,” he rushed out, biting off ‘first’just barely.
Reign gestured toward what looked to be a hallway on the right, just off the kitchen. “Through here.”
Noah followed the diplomat to a guestroom at the end of the corridor, the lights flickering on as they walked. Brown and gray made up the color palette of the interior, which comprised a double bed, a desk and a chair, a chest of drawers, a walk-in closet and an adjacent bathroom. Reign produced a fluffy bathrobe from one drawer and handed it to Noah.
“Thanks.”
Reign smiled and headed for the door, pausing as he held it open. “I’ll be curious to see your work,” he said outof nowhere, and it took Noah’s brain a few moments to realize Reign was referring to the paintings.
A frisson of panic lodged itself in Noah’s chest. Bearable, but uncomfortable all the same. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” he deflected.
“Oh?” Reign cocked his head, eyes roaming the entirety of Noah again. “Now, that makes me even more curious to seehim.”
The panic flared up like a wound reopening, the sensation creeping along Noah’s collarbones until it was climbing up and down his spine. He drew in a sharp breath. “Him?”
The smile that replaced the look of curiosity on Reign’s face was predatory. “Your ‘imaginary’ demon.”
An electric shock rushed through Noah, intensifying the tight sensation in his chest.How?How the fuck did Reign know about Noah’s secret obsession?
Noah took a step back, narrowing his eyes. “How do you…?”
“How do you think?” Reign challenged, voice low and eyes ablaze with promises.
It couldn’t be.There was no way anyone, much less Reign, knew about Noah’s paintings. They were his secret, one he would take to his grave if he had to.
“Did you… go through my things?” Could Reign have? While he was moving Noah’s suitcase? But they’d been together the whole five minutes since Noah’s arrival, so Reign couldn’t have possibly opened and peeked inside the suitcase without Noah noticing it.
“I didn’t need to,” Reign shot back.
So how then? How did Reign know if he’d never seen Noah’s pictures?
They watched each other for a few more moments, the silence stretching between them until Reign grasped the door handle and stepped into the corridor. “I’ll be in my room, Noah. Let me know if you need anything.”
Noah was still taken aback, shocked even, long after Reign left. His heart galloped and his skin felt too confining, making it harder than it was to crawl out of his clothes and move under the hot stream of water in the shower cabin.
It wasn’t just the paintings, Noah realized, his entire body tensing up. Reign knew about his fantasies, about the imaginary demon. Yet that was impossible, not unless Noah had let it slip. Which hehadn’t.
