Chapter 7 – Farrah
Ididn’t get home until two this morning and it took at least another hour for my body to come down from the high that is Locheran… wait. I don’t know his last name. I should probably figure it out since I’m planning to let him put his cock inside me.
I woke up around noon, which is the latest I’ve slept in years.
It seems to be a side effect of hanging out with nocturnal creatures.
But it can’t be the norm. I’m too old to be switching up my sleep schedule.
Not to mention I can’t stick to late nights and sleeping in late come Monday when I have to teach an eight a.m. class.
After dressing in a light blue sundress, I head out the door and hop in a cab to head to Midtown where I’m meeting Evangeline for a late lunch. She’s already inside when I arrive at the small café that promises the best latte in Manhattan and award-winning sandwiches.
Shortly after walking in, a chill washes down my back. It’s stronger than the magic I typically sense around my best friend that tells me there are other supernatural beings in this coffee shop. I do a quick scan and spot four men randomly scattered.
Three of them are massive.
Shifters of some sort, my guess. Xander makes sure his wife is well guarded.
Evangeline stands when I approach, and she holds open her arms.
“Fare!”
I bring her in, and she squeezes me as if she believes I’ll escape and run out the door.
“Vanny!”
She giggles, her breath skittering across my neck. I suppose I haven’t called her that silly childhood nickname in ages.
“You look amazing,” she says upon releasing me from the hug and giving me a look over.
“Me? You’re practically glowing.”
“You know what it is, right?”
I shake my head, but I have an idea of what she’s about to say.
“Gargoyle peen.”
Aaaandddd my cheeks heat.
She knows what I did last night. Everyone knows. I can’t forget the way heads turned after Locheran and I returned to the party. The way they all gave us a little sniff as we passed by.
I couldn’t look anyone in the face.
Evangeline texted me this morning saying, ‘emergency girl talk session’ and set up this lunch after I told her I wasn’t coming to night two of the supernatural conference.
I said I had some papers to grade. Not necessarily a lie but grading the two-page reports on Chaucer that I didn’t finish during my office hours will only take me about an hour.
The real reason I’m not going back to the conference: I can’t show my face around monsters ever again. Also, being around that many monsters puts my hunter DNA on edge. It’s like a live wire sizzling beneath my skin.
Despite there only being a few monsters nearby right now, it still feels as if I’m about to burst at the seams.
Or maybe it's not my monster hunter DNA at all. Maybe it’s the anticipation of seeing the cocky gargoyle soldier who so easily made me come.
Just thinking of him has my body heated with need. I can’t explain this desire. It’s strange, as if I have no control. As if my brain hands over the reins to my libido. Like I’ve been drenched in a freaking horny potion.
Is that something a witch can make?
My mind goes back to last night on the rooftop with Locheran. How he spoke to me. So… graphic.
No one has ever talked to me like that. If it had been anyone else, I might have shrunk away, embarrassed and self-conscious.
Instead, his words unfurled a fire in my stomach that spread down between my legs.
He used his tail on me.
It vibrated.
I fell apart within seconds.
Will he make me come so easily tonight too? I should talk to him before we do anything. I already mentioned that I struggle to… enjoy myself. He claims to be different than other men, but if the rest of him is as magical as his tail, then…
I shake the thought, trying not to work myself up because what if it leads to disappointment?
“I wouldn’t know anything about gargoyle peens,” I say, making sure only Evangeline can hear me.
She leans in, eyes lit with mischief. “They’re big and bulbous.”
“Bulbous?”
“In the tip, the middle, and at the base. And they can vibrate!”
She’s whispering, but I still glance around the café. The only other person here—besides Evangeline’s bodyguards and the workers—has headphones on, and he’s bobbing his head to whatever music he’s listening to.
“Wait. So both the penis and tail vibrate?”
Evangeline gasps. “So Locheran did fuck you with his tail?”
I open my mouth, but the server appears, allowing me to hide my red face behind the menu. She sets down waters for us and asks if we’d like to order. I decide on a chicken Caesar wrap with some fries. Evangeline gets a turkey club and fries.
After handing the woman the menus, she walks off, and I chug my drink until it’s nearly gone.
“For your information,” I whisper. “He didn’t fuck me with his tail. He just… did other things.”
Evangeline snorts. “These monsters know what they’re doing, don’t they?”
God, yes, they do.
My body is overheating remembering Locheran’s touch, his mouth, his words.
Ugh!
I can’t talk about this anymore. Not in public. Not with the knowing glances the shifters are giving me.
I pull out the handheld fan I keep in my purse and turn it on, attempting to cool myself down.
“I owe you and Xander a cake,” I say, changing the subject.
Evangeline smirks and shakes her head, not questioning my need to move on from the conversation.
“You don’t owe us anything.”
“You don’t even know what it’s for.”
My best friend’s face softens. She places her palm over the hand fidgeting with the fork on the table.
“You moving here is the only gift I need.”
I smile and attempt to squash the tears that gather behind my eyes.
“I’m sorry we drifted apart,” she says, keeping her hand on mine. I open my mouth to argue, but Evangeline shakes her head. “We did and it was my fault.”
“It was your ex’s fault.” I turn my hand over, so we’re palm to palm. “You were in an abusive marriage. When you finally divorced that loser, you were in recovery.”
“But I didn’t let you in. You wanted to support me but I…”
Tears cut off her words.
“I did support you though. I barged into that small-ass studio apartment on your birthday and dragged you to the bathroom to put on a skimpy dress and slutty makeup. We hopped on the next train here to the city to party.”
Evangeline smiles. “I hated you for being pushy, but the moment we got on the train, I was excited.”
“And we had fun.”
“We did,” Evangeline says, wiping a tear off her cheek. “And that night was the start of my reinvention. It motivated me to get my life together. I got a job here and moved away from that toxic small town and my awful ex. I met my soulmate. That’s because of you.”
I nod, squeezing her hand. “And while it took me a minute to follow, I’m here. I couldn’t have done it without your help. The apartment… the teaching position at Five Boroughs. I know that was you and Xander’s connections.”
I teach a core curriculum class offered year-round, so most of my students are freshmen or sophomores. I worried about them being uninterested or distracted by social media during class. Or mean because young people can be cruel.
But they weren’t. They were engaged in what I had to say. I found that including pop culture into my lessons helped.
I grin, remembering the selfie I took of my outfit from the first day of class. I wore a burgundy, high-waisted dress with a low neckline and puffy sleeves paired with long white gloves. My hair was styled up with little curls at the nape and framing my face.
I posted the Regency era outfit on social media, and it got some traction. I didn’t care about any comments or likes from strangers. I only cared when I got a notification saying ‘@loched_n_loaded liked your photo.’
‘@loched_n_loaded started following you.’
Locheran.
He saw the photo. Now he follows me on all the socials.
Of course, he’s got way more followers than me. There are tons of girls being thirsty for his human form in the comments.
I don’t blame them.
If they could only see him as his true self.
“And I met Locheran because of you. So, yeah, you deserve a cake. And a bottle of wine too.”
Evangeline’s smile grows and she rolls her eyes. “Fine, but only if you eat it with me. We’ll put on a creepy crime doc while treating ourselves.”
“Deal,” I say.
Evangeline gives me a wink just as our food arrives.
The moment I take a big bite of the wrap, my bestie says, “So, what time is Locheran coming over to bang you with his massive—”
I kick her shin, and a yelp cuts off the rest of her sentence. She leans back in her chair, in a fit of giggles, and I realize I’ve missed this feeling.
I’ve missed my best friend.