“Yes, sir,” Tommy says as he grabs Mickey, and though Mickey is a smaller guy, Tommy is scrawny and struggles to drag him to the car. Mickey doesn’t care. He enjoys getting dragged while Joy picks up any item of clothing that gets pulled off his body during the journey, including a shoe and a sock.
“How the absolute hell does he think we’re weird?” Torin asks.
“I have no answer to that,” I say as I watch Tommy buckle Mickey in. It kind of looks like he chokes him a little with the seat belt, but Mickey doesn’t seem to care.
“Let’s go.”
“Where exactly are we going?” I ask.
“Somewhere,” Torin helpfully supplies.
Chapter Eighteen
Torin
My eyes are drawn to Riley, and I watch the human think. I consider dragging him back to the wall and pinning him there myself to finish what we started before Mickey showed up, but I know that we really can’t waste any time if we’re going to secure this Door. I don’t want Riley to go through what I did, but more than that… I don’t want to watch him die like I watched everyone around me die.
I don’t want to dig that hole for him.
I’ve already dug too many holes for people I care about.
But my heart has always been full of many. I rarely called the same person to my bed two nights in a row… so why am I so fixated on just this one human when there’s a world of people to enjoy? Maybe I just need to briefly step away from him and find someone else to enjoy?
I hesitate as I realize that the problem isn’t that I haven’t found anyone. Hell, the succubus was practically begging for it, the druid from earlier would have followed me off anywhere, and I bet I could have flashed a look at Mickey and he’d haveallowed me to carry him off to his bed… probably for a nap. Yet I haven’t chosen to do any of that.
What… what the hell is wrong with me? Is the lack of my power the problem? But my sex drive sure isn’t down. I’d fuck Riley into oblivion if he’d let me. What is happening to me?
“What’s that look on your face? It’s creepy,” Riley says. How in the world can I be fixated on his sarcastic ass?
“This is the look of a crisis.”
“What are you having a crisis about?”
While I want to blurt out that it’s because I don’t have a harem of men and women dying to join me in bed, I find that I don’t want to say that to Riley. I feel like he wouldn’t take it well. So I grit my teeth and give him a look.
He asks, “Now what isthatexpression for? You trying to look sexy? Stoic? Constipated? I’m confused.”
Is my mind really fixated on this man?Thisman? This sarcastic, sassy, and strange man?
“I need a horse,” I demand. Yes, a horse will make me feel better so I forget all my woes.
“You don’t need a horse. Do you even know where we’re going?”
“A horse.”
Riley sighs as he folds his arms over his chest, and I find myself staring like it’s some fascinating thing. Maybe I should have stayed with the others, given my brain time to remember that I am a god of love. I draw everyone in and never…
Never what?
Never focus on one single person in my thousand years of life? Is it just because I’ve gone so long without contact that I’ve fixated on the first person I’ve interacted with? I’m sure that’s it. That’s definitely it.
Riley looks up at me and pats my face. “Do I need to smack you back to normal? What’s going on? Are you anxious aboutthe Door? You killed the person who destroyed your world. This could just be some asshole who thinks he’s tough shit and doesn’t really amount to anything.”
But we both know that’s not true. Not with the magic that seeps through that Door every time it opens.
“Now use that brain of yours and tell me where we should go next,” Riley says. Then he smacks my ass and takes off toward the sidewalk.
And just like that, I trot right after him like he’s hypnotized me. When the hell was an ass smack all I needed to suck me back in?
