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“With me manoeuvring my way out of a goodnight kiss.” I sighed. “He grazed my cheek. The end of his beard braid went down the front of my shirt by accident. It was weird.”
“I don’t mind a beard.” Nat cocked his head, not noticing the punkish ghoul staring at him in awe as he passed us in the park.
Nat turned heads a lot—just as much as me, in fact, and he wasn’t even an incubus—but he didn’t often notice. That didn’t mean he wasn’t aware that he was completely irresistible though. Because he was. Fully aware.
Nat was a shadowperson, and he loved to ham up that dark, smoky, Gothic-esque allure it gave him. He wore his dark hair in long, shaggy, rumpled curls that tumbled around his narrow face and made him look like a nineties supermodel. He told people that was just how his hair air-dried, but I knew he slept in rollers.
His skin was so pale it looked almost translucent, and in his true form, his dark greyish-navy veins were clearly visible just underneath the surface. Despite his natural pallor, his rosebud mouth was always a rosy pink. Again, he told people it was natural. It wasn’t. It was tinted lip balm. But with his long dark lashes and pale grey eyes, he was naturally stunning. And at six-foot-three with long, lanky limbs, he tended to stand out wherever we went, especially because his fashion sense sat somewhere between romantic goth and the nineties supermodels he idolised. Lots of billowing black velvet shirts, leather pants, brown lipstick and strappy crop tops.
Sometimes, I wished we were attracted to each other. Sure, it wouldn’t be the beautiful, passionate, melodramatic love affair of the ages that I craved, but at least I didn’t care about farting in front of him. And Nat had already seen me at my worst and my best, so I’d be unlikely to do anything too terrible that would drive him away.
Alas, we were only soulmates in the friendship sense. There was a deep well of love between us, but it had always been, and would always be, purely platonic.
“I don’t mind beards either,” I told Nat as we walked slowly through Tirnal Park. We called it our morning jog, but it usually took us a while to warm up to the jogging part, and then that part usually only lasted a few seconds before we stopped to get a smoothie.
“But I realised last night that I don’t overly like beards that are so long they can be braided,” I added hesitantly, wincing over at Nat. “Does that make me shallow?”
He made a face. “No, of course not. You’re allowed to have preferences, mouse.”
“That reminds me.” My lip curled. “He started calling me Niko.”
Nat glanced down at me with a raised brow. “Why?”
“Because he assumed Klaus was short for Nikolaus and didn’t listen when I told him it wasn’t.”
Nat snorted. “Okay, so the beard is irrelevant. That’s reason enough to never see him again.”
“Yeah.” I nibbled on my lower lip as we meandered down the path between the trees. “He seemed okay at the start of dinner though. And he didn’t get pushy when I ended the date, so… maybe he’s not so bad…”
“No, Klaus,” Nat said firmly, making me flush. He knew what I was like. Always backtracking. Always second-guessing. Always wanting to assume the best of people. “That’s the bare fucking minimum. You said he creeped you out. There is no way you’re considering seeing him again, right?”
“No, no, of course not.” I waved my hand dismissively, then started gnawing on my thumbnail as I stared at the ground. “Although, I mean…”
“Klaus!”
“It’s not like I’m getting any other offers!” Heat rushed to my cheeks when a human couple walking past us glanced over. “Maybe he won’t seem so bad when I get to know him a bit better.”
“First of all, that’s bullshit. You get other offers all. The. Time.” Nat jerked his chin at an older gargoyle sitting on a bench up ahead, drinking from a takeout cup and watching us. “That guy’s been staring at you since he spotted us.”
I perked up, eyeing the gargoyle back. He was hot. A silver fox. And he had a beard, but it wasn’t so long that the end of it would snake its way into my shirt like a living creature, which had felt so fucking weird.
Suddenly, my mind was rushing back to the glory hole in Gargy’s restroom. And that beautiful thick cock I’d stroked through it. It hadn’t felt weird at all. It had felt amazing in my hand, all hot and stiff and…
Heat built under my skin when I remembered the gorgeous guy I’d seen watching me back out in the bar. He’d been huge—tall, with wide, muscled shoulders, bulging biceps and a tapered waist, and thick thighs straining his jeans. Strands of his rumpled black hair had fallen over his face, shadowing the piercing blue eyes that had been focused on me. I was pretty sure he’d been a werewolf. His eyes had that keen, slightly predatory look that sent shivers down my spine and made my dick hard.
When I’d first seen him looking at me across the bar, I’d been convinced that he had to be the glory hole guy. But when I’d smiled at him, he hadn’t smiled back, just stared at me with that blank, uninterested expression until I’d looked away.
Seriously, what was wrong with me? Why did guys only like me if I was making them come?
Sometimes I hated being an incubus.
My mood a little bleaker, I glanced at the hot older gargoyle again. He was definitely eyeing me up, gaze trailing down my body and flaring with heat. I mean, I didn’t blame him. I looked great in my workout clothes—little running shorts and a tight, moisture-wicking long-sleeved shirt.
But now I wanted to scowl back at him. He was only interested in sex. It was so obvious. You didn’t look at someone like that when you were picturing a lovely, romantic date and getting to know someone over riveting conversation and maybe waiting a little while before fucking each other.
No. You looked at someone like that when you were already picturing what they looked like naked.
Yeah, well, now you’re never gonna find out, buddy, I thought at the guy, looking away dismissively and examining my fingernails instead. All I wanted was someone who looked at me both ways. Like they were picturing me naked but also wondering what my favourite flowers were so they could buy me a giant bouquet of them.
