“Is that your name, lovely?”
“Zephyr, you really don’t remember me.”
He chuckles. “It seems I made quite the impression on you. What do you say we do it again?”
K8 grips the box for dear life as the memory of their encounter washes over her. She’d been in her late twenties and wearing a backless dress when she’d first heard his voice. A low, smooth tone whispered into her ear, “Hello, mythical creature. You’ve caught my eye, and I can’t seem to look away.”
K8 shivered as she felt the heat of his hand hovering against her exposed back. “May I?” he asked.
She said, "Yes," without even seeing his face.
“What’s your name, Firelight?” he asked.
“Firelight?” she replied.
His fingers grazed her spine. “Your tattoo. They’re dragon scales, right?”
As she turned into his arms, meeting his gaze, her heart lurched. He was beautiful. Lustrous copper hair, matching eyes ringed in violet, and smooth, pale skin that her fingers itched to touch. “K8,” she said, a little afraid she’d fallen in lust at first sight. An unsettling proposition, considering how dangerous such strong feelings were. But the way he was looking at her . . . could he be feeling the same thing?
Her pulse skittered with excitement when he asked, “What can I do to set your world ablaze?”
He was stroking her back now, slipping inside the fabric of her dress. His tantalizing fingers teasing, leaving little sparks of anticipation for what was to come.
“A fantasy?” she yelped. Zephyr, what was this man doing to her? She needed to get it together. Think about it rationally.
“Tell me your deepest desire, Firelight,” he urged.
What was her greatest fantasy?
“Tell me and let me give it to you. Anything you ask is yours.” He leaned down to graze his lips against the shell of her ear.
What did she want? It struck her suddenly. “I want a boyfriend. A real human one like they had in the old days.”
The man’s posture stiffened for a moment, but then his body eased against her. “I think I understand what you’re looking for. I’m glad we met because I want that, too.”
From that moment on, her heart latched on to every word he spoke. She led him back to her unit, and all the while he said increasingly romantic things that filled her chest near to bursting.
When they were finally behind her closed door, she was aching with need.
The man took his jacket off, draping it across her desk chair. “So this is home,” he said, and her stomach flipped. Noticing her reaction, he drew her into his arms. “It could be our home.”
Her knees went weak. He chuckled as he caught her and carried her into the bedroom. He slowly undressed her, whispering about what a rare treasure she was and how he’d been so lucky to see her that night.
Then he crawled over her, never once breaking eye contact. When his fingertips brushed across her stomach, her chest squeezed in a way it never had before. “Maybe one day . . .”
Her pulse hummed. “Go on.”
“Maybe one day, your belly will swell with my child,” he finished.
She remembers whimpering, and he rewarded her by sliding inside. She doesn’t remember much after that. Only that right as she was about to climax, he asked her to marry him. “I think I fell in love with you the moment our eyes met,” he said.
Retrospectively, it was a ridiculous notion as marriages were no longer legal, but she said yes, then fell into unmatched bliss.
It was what came after that she remembers the most clearly. Within seconds of him rolling off her, he picked his trousers off the floor and slipped into the bathroom. He came out with a warm cloth, handing it to her. There was something off about his demeanor even before he said, “Will you need anything besides this before I go?”
She took the cloth with a trembling hand and said, “But I thought—”
“Listen, I have a manupartner kit at home halfway through its activation that I haven’t watered since I left. You know how finicky those things are.” He leaned forward, reaching toward her, but then he jerked his hand back and stuffed it in his pocket.
