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Something had shiftedbetween Laeth and me over the past several days. Something I didn’t altogether understand.
He’d gone from avoiding me at every turn my whole first week, to being everywhere this past one.
That first week he’d been gone before Cash and I woke up, and worked until after dark, missing dinner.
This week he’d been at the table for both meals every single day. He went from grunting and grumbling to speaking in a normal tone, initiating conversations like he hadn’t spent the first half of our time together communicating through glares and scowls.
Cash and I had lunches while Laeth was a work, but breakfasts and dinners were eaten at the dining table that separated the kitchen and living room, the three of us eating while indulging in casual small talk or in companionable silence. There was nothing awkward about it, which only made things that much more difficult.
Because, while I’d felt an irresistible tug to Laeth while he behaved like a caveman, it was so much worse now that we were spending time together.
I should have been embarrassed after sharing some of the darker times in my past, and maybe I would have had Laeth shown that he pitied me even a little. But he didn’t. He hadn’t treated me like I was made of glass or like he needed to handle me with kid gloves. I was still Deva. I was still capable in his eyes. So the embarrassment never came.
I lost count of the number of times I’d been transfixed watching his pronounced Adam’s apple bob up and down as he talked or swallowed. And I couldn’t stop staring at those tattoos! It had started as fascination because, of course no one who was a part of the Fellowship was allowed to have tattoos, but it had quickly grown into something else.
I couldn’t say I was a fan of them in general. It was more that I was slightly obsessed with the ones onhim.
I’d tried losing myself in my books night after night in an effort to get Laeth out of my head. Unfortunately, that didn’t work. If anything, it made itsomuch worse.
One night, I’d reached a particularly steamy scene in my romance book. The author had gone into vivid enough detail that I started to fantasize about acting out with Laeth what the characters had done.
That night, I’d dreamed about Laeth coming into my room and stripping me naked while saying the most delectably filthy things as his fingers played between my legs.
In the dream, he’d driven me to countless orgasms, and I’d woken up panting and sweating, my panties drenched and an unrelenting ache in my core.
From that moment, I’d felt like a live wire. I couldn’t stop thinking about that dream and had been walking around with this unquenchable...needfor days. I felt like I was going insane, and I didn’t know what to do to make it stop.
It was currently Saturday, and I’d tried to make myself scarce by hanging out in my room. Unlike the weekend before,Laeth hadn’t taken Cash the moment they’d woken up and disappeared. Oh no, they were both home, and I could hear them on the other side of my bedroom door.
I wasn’t sure what they’d been up to, but I would have been lying if I said I wasn’t curious. More than once I’d heard the peel of Cash’s shrill laughter—that sound never failed to bring a smile to my face—followed by a rich, husky chuckle from Laeth. I’d heard the TV but couldn’t make out the sound. There had even been a moment where I thought I smelled something cooking. But as much as I wanted to investigate, I wouldn’t let myself.
Instead, I’d taken a nice, long soak in my bathtub, using the bath bomb that came in the box of at-home spa treatments Myra had gifted me earlier in the week when Cash and I had met up with her for lunch one day.
I stayed in the water until it had turned cold and my skin took on the consistency of a withered grape. Poppy and Farah had schooled me on the ways of something called YouTube during dinner at Myra’s last week, so I’d spent some time watching different videos and decided to try and blow my hair out like the woman I’d started watching did. Maybe I’d even try my hand at makeup... eventually.
Once that was done, and my hair was straight-ish—and only a little frizzy—I’d started back on the book that had caused all these problems to begin with.
Eventually, even that wasn’t enough. For the first time in my life, I wasbored. I didn’t have anything to do. I’d just had the thought that if I had to spend one more minute in that room by myself, I was going to go insane, when I heard the tinny sound of the doorbell chiming.
I shot up from my cozy little reading chair and moved to the door, pressing my ear to the wood in an attempt to hear what was happening on the other side.
I heard muffled voices, but couldn’t make anything out, so I decided to squeeze my eyes closed, thinking that cutting off one of my senses would make the others stronger.
And that was exactly how I was standing when a loud knock vibrated through the door, sending me jolting back on a yelp, my heart lodged firmly in my throat.
The door flew open, and Laeth stepped in, concern etched into his features as his steel gaze bounced around my room. “What’s wrong? Why’d you scream?”
“Oh, uh...” I couldn’t possibly tell him it was because he’d scared me while I was trying to eavesdrop, so I spit out the first thing that came to mind. “There was a bird,” I blurted. “It, uh, ran into the window. Gave me a start.”
He stood there, staring at me like I was crazy, before shaking his head. “If you say so. Get your shoes on, Bambi. Let’s go.”
My chin jerked back at his odd order. “What? Go where?”
“You’ll see. Shoes. I’ll meet you out front.” Then, with that, he spun and disappeared down the hall.
I moved fast, sliding on the first pair of shoes I came to, my curiosity demanding I chase after him.
When I hit the mouth of the hall I saw Myra in the living room, sitting on the couch beside Cash.
