“What else would you have me do, cupcake?” he turned to me with raw desire glinting in those emerald eyes, a wicked smile on his lips. “Read all those dirty little novels you have in your bedroom?”
Gosh, how was this going to work? How would I be able to talk to this man after everything he’d done to me? How could I keep a straight face and be detached when all I wanted to do, when all my body commanded me was to jump his bones?
My eyes widened, silently berating him for the use of that word. Cupcake.
“Because I want to fill you up,”he’d once said.
Fortunately, my tablet dinged with the all too familiar noise of a new instruction, picking me up from my thoughts.
“Uncover information about the subject’s family.”
Completion time: ten hours
My heart leaped from my chest, and I barely contained myself from going over and trapping Galenor in a hug. Fully aware of the supervision we were both under, I turned my attention towards the oven and twenty minutes later, I came out with sausages, eggs and toast.
While he continued to do his lifts, I carried the plates to the small table and filled two glasses with apple juice, cut up some fruit and cordially invited him to brunch.
The fae stepped towards me with a snicker, then he looked at his plate and turned his eyes back to me. “This looks delicious,” he licked his lower lip seductively.
“Great,” I smiled and took a seat. “Dig in, you’ll need your energy,” I also grinned at him with an all too obvious innuendo.
“Is that so?” He arched his brows, eyes fixated at me. “And why is that, pray tell?”
“Because you’re stuck with me another day,” I grinned with pride and excitement.
Keeping our hands away from each other proved to be a more difficult task that I had envisaged, and we ended up finding excuses to go into the bedroom and shield ourselves behind the closed door.
In the late afternoon, I announced very loudly that I had a migraine and needed a nap and then started picking on Galenor about the stench of his sweat, ordering him to have a long bath and scrub himself top to bottom. Something I was more than happy to do once we reached the privacy of the room and I had, once again, reaped the benefits of being alone with a fae male. A very willing fae male.
“Tell me about yourself. What do you do when you don’t interrogate people?” Galenor lazily caressed my back while I dried my hair with a towel.
“There’s not much to my life, to be honest. I work, sleep, eat, train…don’t have sex with the subjects, and then start it all over again.”
“Am I special, then?” I didn’t have to turn to look at him to know that he had arched a brow to show the inflation of his pride.
“I’m not going to stroke your ego, bad boy,” I pressed back at his chest, trying to shove him away but his arms wrapped around my waist, chin resting on my shoulder to plant sensual kisses on my neck.
“Honestly, not much, I don’t have days off, unless I need to blow off some steam. Then I drive around to some bar around town and get pissed drunk, maybe find someone, and then come back to base.” I had never realised how pathetic my life sounded out loud until this very moment.
“What about family?” he pressed another kiss next to my earlobe.
“I haven’t seen my family in a long while. Haven’t heard from them either. I work so they can have a better life, most of my income goes to pay for their home.” I felt awkward opening myself like that to him, telling him private things about me, about my family and our situation, especially since this was not a subject that I ever stumbled upon. Being the child of immigrants, my life had been hell, but everything I did was for my family, and I never once opened my mouth to tell anyone information about them. Not when I was well aware it could be used against me at some point. Yet, with Galenor, things flowed naturally, and I had no fear of telling him about my life.
I ended up talking about the bullying growing up, about the beatings and the extra work, about how I advanced so quickly and how proud I was to earn my own room. I did not mention about the new home I was supposed to get after this trial, I didn’t want him to feel used.
“I grew up on a farm,” he confessed, earning a surprised frown from my newly cleansed face. “My father didn’t want me around that much, he needed only one son, the second one came as an inconvenience,” he shrugged as if the feelings of his father were to be expected.
“Was your childhood nice?” I really hoped he would say yes, because he deserved happiness, especially after the horrible years he’d lost in this realm.
“Part of it. Our mother was not the biggest fan of politics, so she spent a lot of her time with me growing up. She was murdered when I was eleven, so things changed after that,” he pressed his lips together and forced a hard swallow, as if the memory was still constricting his throat.
“Galenor, I’m so sorry,” I said, a hand travelling to his shoulder in an attempt of a caress, but he waved it away.
“It was a long time ago. But things changed after that, I had to train, I had to take on more responsibility and I had to start living with my father and brother,” he sighed, as if none of those years brought nice memories.
“I’m sure your brother misses you very much,” I tried to make him feel better, already aware that the ‘dad’ subject was not a favourable one.
“I doubt it,” he chuckled hoarsely. “I believe he’s the one who put me in here.”
