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“He gave us all bodies, missie. Some folks just know how to handle the equipment better than others.”
“Oh my God.” To whom I’m sending profound thanks for yet another laugh. I don’t know where they’re coming from, but hopefully they’re shrieking awkward moment, boss lady instead of I already know about the man’s body, okay?
“Okay, look.” As quickly as her saucy side had its cameo, her sincere nature returns. “I’m not trying to be queen mama girl dick here. I know that this situation is a little crazy—and not at all in your comfort zone after Hurricane Valos. But…well…the agency took some hits after all that too—”
My gasp is sharp and horrified. “You never told me. Why didn’t you ever tell me, Blanca?”
“Okay, ssshhh. Take a long breath, missie. Suck down those tears right now. Puffy eyes only get worse in recycled airplane air.”
I sniff and snort. “That does not answer my question.”
“Fine.” She huffs. “First, because it was none of your business. Second, because you’ve been recovering from a worse hell. Third, because it wasn’t any of our major players. Just the boys from Valos’s world festival gang. For all I care, they can troll talk until they’re blue in their scrawny faces and shriveled balls.”
That’s one for the top ten of her best clapbacks, but not even the shadow of a laugh comes to my rescue for a reaction. There’s nothing funny about this. Blanca gave me a job—a purpose—when I needed one most again. When she should’ve been icing me out just like everyone else. But she didn’t, and my gratitude has suddenly tripled because of it. Quadrupled.
She’s asking me to prove it by doing everything I can to secure Darian as our client. No matter how fervently he doesn’t want it.
No matter how thoroughly I read that very message on his face as he walks out to join me on the patio.
No matter how deeply I feel it from him, that strange urgency billowing out of him like clouds from a nitrogen ice cream vat.
But up close, he’s the absolute opposite of liquid nitro. He’s a proton chasing my neutron, white-hot and moving with mesmeric speed. Even so, he pauses and remains two steps back, respecting the boundary of my conversation with Blanca.
“I imagine Z-man’s balls are in absolutely wonderful condition,” she tacks on to her previous award winner, “but for the very clear record, that doesn’t mean you have to personally check. As a matter of fact, it’s probably a better approach to keep your hands off of him. Focus on the ohms and the tea and the well-deserved break for you too.”
Her tender tone speaks to so many corners of my being. I must have done something in a completely different life to deserve a friend like her.
“Thank you, boss babe. I appreciate that more than you’ll ever know.”
“Just like I appreciate you, Q-tastic. You’re an amazing woman, Quinn Lemarr. The only one who seems to keep forgetting it is you.”
I end the call before she really does make me too puffy for air travel. And there’s the additional factor out here now, of the man I can’t seem to tear my gaze from. Not with the moonlight playing at the unruly glory of his hair, and his eyes piercing at me through that beautiful forelock. Not with how he steps in now, approaching me like he’s about to try and hug air. That’s absolutely how it feels when he scoops around my body and tucks me close, burning away all my cares and inhibitions until they’re just vapor.
Until I’m a wisp of wonder.
And yet…a gale too. A brilliant wind, wrapping around him in return. So tightly. Then tighter…
“Are you all right?” Darian murmurs into my ear. “I was worried you’d thrown yourself down the hill.”
“Hmmm. Not likely, lasagna.”
I lean back just far enough to take in his whole face. This man…he’s so physically beautiful, but I now know that resplendence doesn’t stop with all those captivating angles. His stunning body possesses a full heart, a wickedly quick mind…
And secrets.
I don’t know how deep and I don’t know how dark, but I do know that if I don’t trust him—and myself—to take this wild, weird step, I’ll never have the chance to find out.
More vitally, I’ll never have the chance to help.
And maybe that includes the chance to speak sense into him about his talent. About seizing some chances to share its magnificence with the world. The creator didn’t give him that voice to hide it.
For now, I’m just giddy that he shares it with me in a new way. A sound that’s half hum and half moan, gaining hypnotic resonance just before it breaches his lips and turns into words.
“So. How did Blanca weigh in?”
I smile. “Ms. Appa has rendered her seal of approval on my Darian Z field trip.”
More of that musical animalism from his throat, as he bends his head and tenderly takes my lips beneath his. “Mr. Z likes Ms. Appa much better now.”
“She also thinks I should keep my hands off of you.”
His head jerks up. His eyes narrow in. “And what does Miss Quinn think of that suggestion?”
I kiss him again, this time breaching his lips with my tongue and sending a groan of my own into his mouth, before whispering the answer that brims from the depths of my heart…where the red and gold fireworks won’t stop.
“Not likely, buddy. Not likely at all.”
