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Chapter 9
The thought of leaving the other collection technicians in a lurch had her returning to the farm, despite her heart wanting to hide away to lick its wounds, and soon she was finishing off her first Earner of the afternoon, listening to his Bluetooth conversation as he dressed and she scanned in his bottle.
“Maybe you can talk some sense into him. Jannith, I’m just saying—the second that ring goes in, that’s it, it’s all over. They can still do the whole ceremony and vows thing, and if it’s not a huge fucking mistake, he can get the ring put in for their anniversary. He’s your brother, you need to talk to him. It’s not too late to back out.”
The last client’s voice trailed as he exited the upper portion of the collection room, leaving her alone. She had wondered about the ring he—Rourke—wore in his nose. The accouterment was sported by many of the minotaurs who visited the farm, and she’d assumed it was for cultural reasons, like the intricate braids worn by orcs, but it had seemed insensitive to question.It’s fine, it’s going to be fine. He’s a client, and you can make small talk with him like a normal client today, and put in for an availability change first thing tomorrow.
She half-expected him to still be gripping the same coffee cup as she entered the room. The same furrow rested between his eyes, tightening his features, and she pushed her heart back down her throat.You can do this.
“Long time no see!” she called out cheerfully in the same, cheery customer service voice she’d used earlier. His mouth pressed in a firm, flat line, his eyes tracking her movement around the lower portion of the room.
“I have a cultural question for you,” she said, deliberately turning away to pull a tank from the rack.Make small talk, don’t talk about this afternoon.“If it’s not disrespectful to ask. What does the ring in the nose signify? I’ve always wondered, and the client before you was talking on the phone about convincing someone not to do it. Is it a religious thing?”
He stiffened, the weight of that afternoon and that great gulf of distance still sitting between them. For a weighted moment, he said nothing, his hands unbuckling his belt in slow motion. When he spoke at last, his voice was low and clipped. “Historically, it’s a symbol of ownership, being bound to another. The modern usage is almost always to signify being bound to another in marriage.”
She nodded, her suppositions confirmed.Don’t cry, there’s nothing to cry over. Maybe you can change your availability on the portal as soon as you get home.The thought that this might be the last time she saw him—the last time she would talk with him and flirt with him, the last time she would hold his heavy cock, the last time she might see that transforming smile that made him seem so much softer—made her throat stick, and she quickly moved beneath the table to shuffle papers on her clipboard. Although, he’d not yet smiled at her, hadn’t given any indication that he was going to do anything more than glower from the top of the room, and in all likelihood, the last time for all the things she would miss was probably last week.
“I’ve been divorced for about two years now . . . just haven’t had the damned thing taken out. At first, I wasn’t ready, now I’m afraid it’s going to hurt.”
The air in her lungs seemed to freeze, the blood in her veins slowing to a halt, leaving her suspended and immobile beneath the bench.Divorced?It took a moment for her brain to force her to breathe once more, culling the brief flare of hope.So he’s divorced, so what. She’s a girlfriend then.“Well, I’m sure getting it removed couldn’t possibly be more painful than having it put in in the first place,” she forced out, in that same high-pitched, too-chipper voice.That doesn’t change anything.
“How was your lunch date?”
His words were a sharp bark, tinged with something else she couldn’t immediately define; a question to which he demanded an answer. He’d straddled the bench by then but had made no move lean forward, and Violet had the feeling he’d keep her waiting indefinitely until she responded. “It was very nice, I haven’t been able to do anything in the afternoon like that in months. Thanks again for the coffee. So . . . sounds like you’ve got some fun weekend plans coming up?” She didn’t know what possessed her to continue the line of questioning, playing this tense little tit-for-tat game with him, but the question escaped her traitorous mouth, matching his sharp, accusatory tone before she could suck it back in.What happened to meaningless small talk?!
“Xenna lives in the same development. She and her brother Xavier—the ram with the dreads? They own the coffee house together, did you know that? She and her husband love throwing big block parties . . . it’s always a little claustrophobic for my tastes, but I try to pop in when I can. Now she wants us to RSVP, which is asking a bit too much.”
“Who’s Lurielle?
There was no way her tone could be construed as anythingbutantagonistic, and fire engulfed her the instant she’d spat the question out, mortification burning her alive, and she only hoped it would put her out of her misery swiftly. Silence seemed to fill the space like a tangible cloud. Violet wondered if she’d be able to back out of the room without earning his notice, if she crept like a mouse, backing towards the door, she might be able to wrench it open and flee before he could twist on the bench to catch her exit.
“Lurielle is my neighbor.”
The words came out in a low growl tinged with frustration, and she was forced to reach out for the table to hold herself up.His . . . neighbor? Not a wife or a girlfriend. The fucking neighbor?!
“She lives next door. She’s an elf . . . an elf with a huge orc boyfriend. We used to go to all these block parties together because we were the only singles at the time. Not anymore, obviously.”
“Oh,” she whispered, shrinking beneath the table.His neighbor. He was going to ask you to have coffee with him, you could have made out in the parking lot, but instead you pretended to have a date and she’s his fucking neighbor.The room blurred, the tears she’d been holding in for the previous several hours unable to be dammed up for another moment. The way he’d darkened when she’d said she was meeting someone, all of the warmth going out of him . . .Your Capricorn lover will be prone to fits of jealousy and possessiveness. Piquing his jealousy is a good way to remind him to treasure his mate, as long as his feeling of security in the relationship is quickly assuaged.
“My friend Geillis, that’s who I had coffee with today. I met her last month at the coffee shop, she kidnapped me to keep from talking to one of her clients at work, and we’ve been friends since.” An interminable pause followed her disclosure, with no hint of movement from above.
“That’swho you were meeting?”
Violet could hear the scowl in his voice, and a quick glance upwards showed her the way his hands curled tightly around the side of the bench. “Yes,” she squeaked. “She-she works at La Vie Rouge, it’s a vampire restaurant in the business district?”
“I know of it. She’s a vampire?”
“Mhm. I really want to go there, just to see what it’s like . . . there’s nothing like that where I’m from. I grew up in an all-human town, did I ever tell you that? Anyway . . . that’s who I was meeting today.”
The shadow of his horns on the ground beside her shifted as her rambling cut off, as if he were shaking his head. “Do vampires even drink coffee?”
“She orders tea,” Violet laughed hoarsely, rubbing away the foolish evidence of her tears, listening to the bench creak overhead as he shifted, those huge, polished hooves scraping against the footrest as he settled into place at last. “And she doesn’t drink it. She just holds it and smells it. Says it helps her remember.”
“And you’re not afraid of being in a restaurant with all those hungry vampires?”
“No!” she exclaimed, her laughter buffeted by his big body, filling the hole in the table and sealing out the light. The shift in the conversation was baffling, the levity in both their voices, as if the enormous weight that had rested over the room when she’d entered had been plucked away, and she bounced on her toes giddily.He was single!She tried to remind herself that nothing had changed, he was still a client and she was still just his milking technician, but a weightless euphoria surged through her all the same. “I think it’s fascinating. Like I said, I’m from a human town originally, so I didn’t grow up with other species the way people around here are. I really love it though, when my lease is up I’m thinking of maybe trying to find something in the area to eliminate the drive. So . . . an elf and an orc live next door to you?”
“Not quite, just the elf. Her boyfriend lives in Bridgeport. He comes to my gym when he stays with her on weekends, and he lifts anabsurdamount of weight. I’m waiting for him to pull something in his groin or pop a blood vessel in his eye, it’s only a matter of time before it happens.”
She laughed, imagining the posturing that must go on at a multi-species gym. “You should probably offer to spot him, I’m sure she would appreciate that.” His cock swayed, full and fat, thickened with arousal and waiting for her, and he chuckled as she lubed up her hands. “I’ll bet he would have already had a ring taken out of his nose, too. Orcs are super tough, right?” He harrumphed at that and she smiled, wishing she could lean up and place a soft kiss to the shiny-pink crescent of that domed helmet, just barely peeking out from its fleshy confines.If there wasn’t a camera, you’d suck out his soul.
“I’m not so sure about that. They put rings on their tusks, that’s like piercing a fingernail. There are no nerve endings involved . . . I grew up on the edge of a human town, sort of in-between their town and our settlement. My grandmother was human, so it never felt like an awkward thing, not until I was older. No vampire restaurants there either.”
The confidence seemed like a precious gift, one that she would add to the shape of him in her head, solidifying him further.Make your Capricorn mate feel valued and appreciated and he’ll make you the center of his world.Rourke let out a ragged breath as she gripped him—stroking him slowly, reverently,lovingly, trying to channel her feelings through the tips of her fingers—and chuckled again, relaxing fully against the bench as he hardened in her hands.
“So . . . the ring out and a vampire restaurant. We’ll have to see what we can do about that.”
