The weight of his gaze blanketed her. It dragged at her mouth, parting her lips. It turned her limbs heavy. It transformed her thoughts into a distant hum.
Then he finally glanced away, toward his laptop on the floor. Her next inhalation audibly shook, and her chest hurt—had she actually stopped breathing at some point?Wow.
No wonder the man got a huge freaking trailer. That was raw star power at work.
Thank goodness he’d chosen acting instead of, say, founding a cult.
He sat up, and the fleece blanket covering him fell to his lap. “Fanfiction. Discuss.”
Her muscles all seemed to be functional again. Which was convenient, since tilting her head in confusion required their assistance. “Huh?”
“Fanfiction.” He spoke slowly, as if to a dunderheaded child. “Fiction written by fans, featuring favorite characters from books and television shows and movies.”
“Oh.” Her best friend, Sionna, read fanfiction sometimes, if Lauren remembered correctly. “What about it?”
“I wondered whether you’d read any before. What you thought of it. If you subscribed to any specific writers.” He heaved a dramatic sigh. “I’d hoped for an intelligent conversation on the topic, but alas.”
Brushing the blanket off his lap, he stood. “Someone I know writes fanfic, and he—theywant me to help proofread and give feedback on their stories. But I can’t give useful feedback unless I know what a good story looks like, so I’ve been reading fics about Cupid. The ones with the most kudos.”
She rubbed her forehead, making a mental note to research fanfiction and its related terminology on the plane ride back to L.A. “Kudos?”
“Lord, you’re slow.” He rolled his eyes. “Kudos are basically a thumbs-up. The more you have, the more people who liked your fic.”
Ah. Those sorts of kudos. “And after all your reading, have you figured out what a good story looks like?”
His face split into a self-satisfied smirk. “Maybe not, but I’ve found out what apopularstory looks like, at least in the Cupid/ Psyche fandom. And I wanted to ask your opinion. When you think of Cupid, do you …”
He paused, lips pressed together.
“What?” Absently, she straightened the couch cushions and stacked the paperbacks on the coffee table into a neat pile. “Do I what?”
“No.” He gave his head a little shake. “I shouldn’t.”
Alex had hit some sort of conversational limit?Alex?
She had to know. “Tell me.”
“I can’t.” His voice wasn’t a purr or a whip crack now. It was a whine. “You’re not my employee, but you’re still working, and Ican’t.”
She studied him. “Is this something sexual?”
It was the obvious conclusion, based on one simple fact: Other than their very first meeting, when he’d sneeringly suggested calling her Mistress Lauren, none of his endless mockery had ever involved sex. Not a single time. Which didn’t precisely make him a saint, but it certainly removed him from the circle of hell reserved for sexually predatory men.
Come to think of it, ever since that bird reference during their first, fraught standoff, he hadn’t mocked her appearance either, other than her height. Alex Woodroe was damnably hard to pin down sometimes.
Not in this instance, however. He bowed his head, and that was her answer.
“So, yes, it’s sexual.” She closed her eyes for a moment, already knowing her next words were likely a mistake. “Fine. I won’t be offended. Just tell me.”
He peeked at her through a dangling lock of his obnoxiously lustrous hair. “Really?”
“Yes, really.” When he still hesitated, she spread her hands in exasperation. “Well, I’m not going tobegyou, Alex.”
“All right, then. But let the record show I tried to exercise some self-control. For once.” Straightening, he propped his fists on his hips and grinned at her. “Here’s what I want to know: Does Cupid seem like a bottom to you?”
“A bottom?” She frowned, lost. “Like an ass, do you mean? Because, sure, the way he treats Psyche sometimes—”
“Sexually,” he reminded her impatiently. “Sexually,you dense woman.”
