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Honestly, bringing anything was pretty much a waste. It would get wrecked in the Aboa, no matter what.
When we first got back, Flood had made sure I was assigned to an adorable little beach house with plenty of privacy. Honestly, I’d always felt safe there. I appreciated that tremendously, too.
Since I couldn’t come up with anything else to pack, I got out my darkest-blue dress, hoping the fabric would survive the muddy parts of the Aboa better than light colors would. It was probably my skankiest dress, too, so I wouldn’t mourn its loss if it didn’t survive.
I’d only insisted on leaving to pack because I felt like I needed to get away from Zoran so I could think clearly for a few minutes. The man was so damn confusing. And I was struggling to work through my feelings about everything Ivy had told me, so… yeah, I needed time.
After I found the blue dress, I decided I needed a shower to quiet my racing mind, so I stripped, shut the door to my bathroom, and slipped under the water.
“There’s no way around a physical relationship,” I whispered to myself, trying to process the information about fae males’ instincts as I scrubbed Zoran’s scent off my skin. “His nature will insist he claims me. So we need to be… friends-with-benefits?”
I made a face at the thought.
I’d never been interested in the idea. I was attracted to people not because of what they looked like, but because of their personalities. Their hearts, too.
And damn, I hated how attracted I was to Zoran for both of those things.
“We can’t just wait for him to lose control, can we?” I asked myself. “It could lead to something extremely horrible for both of us, so… that’s not an option either. Maybe we could just have sex once, and it would fix us permanently?”
I considered it, but remembered Ivy saying that having sex intertwined two people’s scents, which marked them as taken, and satisfied the possessive parts of a male fae.
So a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am thing wouldn’t work, either.
“We need a better solution,” I said to myself.
But there was none.
So… friends-with-benefits won, I supposed.
I tried to imagine what life would be like if we continued living separately but met up once or twice a week to do the deed.
My body heated as I imagined Zoran carrying me back into his room and pinning me to his door again.
My hand slipped between my thighs as I pictured him touching me like he had earlier. I rarely got myself off, but hot damn… I needed it.
I pressed my other hand to the wall like I had in Zoran’s room, and remembered the way it had felt when he—
A knock at the door ripped me out of my fantasy.
“Hello?” I called out, over the sound of the falling water.
There was no response, so it was either a murderer, or Zoran.
Probably Zoran.
I heard the front door open, and I slipped my hand out from between my thighs, ignoring the uncomfortable clenching in my lower belly.
“Just a second,” I called out, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around my torso. My hair was dripping wet, and I hadn’t shampooed it, but it was good enough.
I stepped out of the bathroom and found Zoran glaring down at the dark blue dress I’d tossed on the edge of my bed.
He looked up at me, and his glare softened slightly. The water on my skin evaporated, and hot damn, a girl could get used to that. My hair dripped forhourswithout his intervention.
“Thanks,” I said, striding over to the dress.
Zoran put a hand on the fabric, pinning it to the bed as he signed one word. “No.”
I signed back, “No what?”
