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Yue is using one of the stolen stone dicks. Right now, she's probably in her bed, still damp from the shower with her white coils spread across her pillow.

The sensation intensifies. Her hand wraps around the shaft, beating my dick while warmth coats me from her palm.

I yank my jeans open and pull out my dick, already rock hard. I stroke myself in time with her movements, imagining her face. The tight, wet heat of her pussy and walls clench around me, like she's slamming the stone dick inside herself. I come with a groan, spilling into the fog. It falls like rain, disappearing into the mist below. When I finally catch my breath, I'm grinning like an idiot.

The final thing I remember before crashing into my bed is three weeks. In that time, I have to help Yue find my mate before my parents arrive.

Chapter 9 Yue

The night after the salt geyser, I'm determined to act like nothing happened. Like Ekon didn't wash salt from my coils with those careful hands. Like I didn't spend half the night replaying the way his fingers moved through my hair, while I tried not to moan. Like I haven’t fucked him twice now, and like I don’t want more.

I'm at my post by the door, checking IDs and expanding the entrance space while I vibrate with energy. Every time I touch my hair to adjust a coil, I feel phantom fingers threading through the strands. It's infuriating... intoxicating... all of that shit.

A group of women approaches, and I force myself to focus. I check their IDs, murmur the incantation to widen the club, and wave them through. The magic flows easily right now, but my concentration keeps fracturing.

"You good?" one of the bouncers asks.

"Fine," I snap.

I'm not fine. I'm thinking about Ekon's hands in my hair, and I hate it. It's obvious he's washed hair before, look at his damn locks. Yet the level of care he paid to my hair when his was worse... My mind wanders to the backroom, a space I won’t visit for a while. My thighs tense together, and I lock them on my chair, trying to push whatever is blooming out of me. Ekon needs me to help him find his mate. I can’t fuck him again. I exhale loudly and focus on my work.

Halfway through the night, he appears at my side. He's supposed to be on soon, yet he drags me halfway across the damn club. Worse is that I let him. Ekon tugs me toward the dressing room door, opening it so we can both slip inside.

"Why are we going in here?" I ponder.

"Quiet."

He presses my body against the door. His gray eyes catch the low light. For a second, he looks at me without a smirk or smart-ass movement. Then he reaches toward the side, his hand going behind a bunch of clothes stacked on a table before it returns with an orange glass bottle. Condensation beads on the surface of the bottle.

"What is this?"

"I got you a water bottle." He holds it out to me. "You didn't drink anything all night. You never do when you're working the door." I stare at the bottle. The condensation chills my fingers when I take it from him, and the glass is heavy in my palm.

Ekon remembered. He noticed something about my habits that I didn't think anyone paid attention to, and he went out of his way quietly, when no one was watching, to fix it. My throat tightens, but I don't know what to say. I unscrew the cap and drink, and the water freezes my insides. When I lower the bottle, Ekon stands there, watching me with those grayish-brown eyes. In this light, they look soft.

"Don't make it weird," I say after a while.

"I didn't say anything."

"You're looking at me like I'm supposed to thank you."

"You're dehydrated and stubborn." He reaches out and pushes a loose coil of white hair behind my ear. His fingertip grazes the shell of it, and my stomach drops through the floor. "Drink your water, Yue."

He grins and then he lifts me easily, placing his hands under my armpits and causing my mouth to fall open. Ekon casually pushes me into his seat and walks out, likely going toward the stage. No one is late for their dancing set, or that's their ass. I sit at his vanity with a bottle in my hand and something uncomfortable sitting in my chest.

I set the bottle down after a beat, glaring at it like it's the reason I'm here. I return to my post after a bit, and Ekon finds me later with a damn protein bar. An hour after that, he returns with a towel and a water refill. Each time he appears he sends my head into a spiral.

"Stop," I tell him when he brings me a sandwich near the end of my shift.

"Stop what?" He sets the sandwich down, his expression maddeningly neutral.

"This." I gesture at the growing pile of supplies. "Whatever this is."

"You haven't eaten in six hours."

"How would you know?"

"Because I've been watching." He says it like it's the most obvious thing in the world, then walks away before I can throw the sandwich at his head.