Page 39 of Deep Feelings & Shallow Graves
Two buttons strained to their limit, just barely managing to contain the swell of her breasts. Bare legs. Bare feet. A tease of thigh that has no business existing in my kitchen. The tie I’d envisioned hanging between her tits is somehow even sexier where she’s used it, twisting back those luscious curls, taming them into a loose ponytail that begs to be pulled.
And my brain breaks.
My first two thoughts are marry me and mate with me, both roaring for dominance, both equally valid.
She smiles, soft and smug. She knows exactly what she’s doing to me.
I manage to find my voice. “I’ve never seen my jacket look so stunning. I’ve arranged a fourth date, if you’d like to join me?”
“I’d really like that,” she says, settling into the chair across from mine with the kind of grace that should be criminal. “This looks good.”
So does she. So do we. And I can’t help but wonder if this, her, here, after blood and ash and cleanup, might be the most intimate thing I’ve ever done.
She moans over the cheese like it’s salvation. And for a second, I’m not thinking about her mouth. I’m just... glad. That she’s here. That I can give her something good that didn’t end in blood.
“I might’ve started some scandalous rumors about us when I picked up our pastries,” she says casually, licking tomato from her fingertip like she doesn’t know that I’m unraveling.
“Oh?” I manage, trying not to stare at her mouth. “I’ve survived this town’s gossips for decades. They love a reason to have my name in their mouths.”
She laughs, and it’s filthy. Sultry and amused and full of teeth. “Yeah, same. Cookie probably hasn’t had an orgasm since Reagan, but she was very invested in my pastry pick-up. By the time I hit the hardware store, apparently, we were already fucking.”
I choke on a cracker. “I assume she’s unaware of the four-date rule?”
Her eyes sparkle as she blushes. “No one knows. I mean, not really. I usually only date one person at a time. My system, you know. The garden got crowded. And digging graves is exhausting. But lately… the universe has been testing me. With men who aren’t degenerates.”
She sighs and stabs a tomato slice. It squirts slightly when she bites into it, a ruby streak down her wrist. I lose the thread of the conversation, too busy imagining the precise angle I’d need to catch that drip with my mouth.
“I’ve actually got a date in the morning,” she says, almost sheepish. “And another in the afternoon to clean out my SUV.”
My fork pauses mid-air. “Should I be concerned? Need the oven preheated?”
She snorts. “No. Blake’s a sweetheart. Wouldn’t cross a line on purpose.”
I know that Blake. Sweet, golden retriever energy. Fixed the backdoor lock for me in under ten minutes and flushed when I offered him a soda. We went to school together. Not friends, not enemies. Decent man.
“Handyman,” I say, grabbing a slice of pepper. “Abs for days? Annoyingly kind?”
“That’s the one,” she says, smiling around a cracker.
“And what date is he on?”
She tilts her head. “Honestly? I wasn’t even counting his. We’ve had a lot of snacks together and he helped me empty the garden. Though he didn’t know what we were digging up. Not really. I couldn’t drag him into that.”
My cock twitches. Inappropriately. Emotionally. Existentially.
I am not a jealous man.
Or, rather, I wasn’t a jealous man. Not until I pictured her, my blood-slick goddess of pastries and precision, snacking with that sunshine-souled handyman, the two of them elbow-deep in soil and secrets, shovels slicing through rot and memory.
He helped her empty the garden. He dug for her. He doesn’t even know how intimate that is.
And I shouldn’t be mad. She has a system. She’s fair. Disciplined. Dangerously principled. But still my knife cuts a little harder into the cheese. “You trust him?” I ask, too lightly.
She doesn’t miss the tone. Of course she doesn’t. She raises a single brow like she’s assessing how flammable I’d be if I said the wrong thing. “I trust him to be kind,” she says. “And not to ask questions he doesn’t want answers to.”
I hum and lean back, letting that sit between us. That’s not nothing. That’s a hell of a compliment, coming from her. But it’s also not everything. And my teeth itch for everything. “You said there was another date?” I ask, swirling the wine, casual like a cobra in repose.
She grins around a tomato slice. “Carson.”
