Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Riven
Soooo…yeah.
How was I supposed to come back from “back massage while eating chocolate”?
I wasn’t, that’s impossible. In one evening, Abydos—the Abydos in my mind, the way I thought of him—went from this grumpy, unapproachable, semi-asshole to…
well, you saw. The male lifted me out of bed so he could cuddle with me, FFS!
Okay, yeah, he probably wouldn’t call it cuddling, but I couldn’t help thinking of it like that. His massage was pretty amazing too; he actually listened to the little noises of pleasure I made, and adjusted his technique and location accordingly. Uh, yes please!
Look. I’m not a virgin or anything. I’ve had plenty of boyfriends—you can’t really get out of the restaurant industry with your innocence in any area intact, right? But I’ve never, ever slept with one of my private-chef-clients. It’s not necessarily a rule or an honor code or something, it’s just…
They’re hella rich, and I’m the help.
I’ve never wanted to sleep with any of my clients, either.
But now?
Now, after Abydos reappeared just in time to smell me—how embarrassing is that?—and want to fix my pain? After he held me in his lap and said and did all the right things?
Let’s just put it this way: After the cramps pass, I get horny as hell, and this month wasn’t an exception. And now I had a new fantasy.
Suddenly, bam. I went from being professional and courteous to bumbling around like a nincompoop when it came to my boss. I still brought him his meals, but when he looked up and met my eyes and nodded solemnly and said, “Thank you,” in that gravelly voice of his?
One evening I almost dumped French onion soup in his lap in my awkward desperation to cover up how my stomach flopped deliciously every time he spoke.
Oh yeah. When it came to the hots for my grumpy boss, I had it bad.
Who would’ve thought that all it would take was some kindness and a back massage when I felt like shit?
And a pair of forearms I could break eggs on when he rolled up his sleeves?
And that little furrow between his brows when he was obsessing over whatever his Director of Mine Operations had told him?
Or the way, sometimes when he was watching me, his tongue would flick out and brush against his broken tusk and then he couldn’t quite hide his wince?
I wasn’t sure if it was a nervous habit or something he did on purpose, but each and every time, I felt my heart squeeze.
I wanted to fix that pain—in his tusk and in his heart—the same way he’d fixed mine.
But I was just his chef.
So I did my best to stay in the background as the week passed. But every time I walked into a room, his head was up, and he was watching me.
It happened a few days before Halloween, when I worked up the guts to interrupt him in the middle of dinner. I sort of sidled into the dining room, and he slowly put down his forkful of the cheese-and-harvest-vegetable tagine I’d spent hours prepping.
“What is it, Riven?”
My smile—because it tickled me when he used my name, okay?—was a little hesitant. “Look, I’m really sorry to have to ask you this…”
“Are you sick? Do you need time off?” He was already nodding, reaching for his phone. “I can—”
“No!” I held up my palms, my chuckle awkward. “I just need to…um…” It was easier to stare at his half-eaten dinner than him, for fear that he might see more in my gaze than was appropriate, and I pushed out the explanation all at once. “Can I borrow your car?”
He froze. “What?”
I risked a peek. “Your SUV. I drive a sedan.”
“I know.” His tone wasn’t cold, just…formal. Waiting for an explanation.
So I took a deep breath and met his eyes.
“My new stand mixer has come in, and they’re holding it at the cargo office by the docks.
They’re open until seven, and if I pick it up tonight I can make the Earl Grey brioche I wanted to make for breakfast tomorrow.
I was going to pair it with brie for your afternoon snack, and—” I was talking too fast, wasn’t I?
“But it’s really freaking heavy, and if I want it for tomorrow, I can’t hire someone to deliver it, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to lift it over the lip of my sedan’s trunk, whereas your SUV’s trunk—”
“Doesn’t have a lip.” He nodded, then stabbed a huge bite of the tagine and shoved it into his mouth as he stood. Since he was chewing, he jerked his head toward the foyer.
Was he…dismissing me?
But then he pushed around the table, lifting his wrist to check his fancy watch. He finished chewing and swallowed. “Those carrots are amazing. Let’s go, we have forty minutes until the office closes.”
My mouth dropped open. “What?” I hurried to keep up with him as he strode from the dining room.
“No, Abydos, you don’t need to come with me!
Go finish your dinner! Honestly, I’m a good driver, and you can trust me with your SUV!
” I was scurrying after him like a frantic pet.
“Or I’ll just wait and have it delivered tomorrow! I can make the brioche the next day!”
He stopped and turned on me, causing me to skitter to a halt, trip over my feet, and pitch forward.
When he reached for my shoulders to steady me, I should have been mortified. I was mortified. But that didn’t stop me from swaying toward him, delighting in the weight of his touch or the little shivers that ran up my spine.
“I’m driving, Riven.” He lowered his chin to hold my gaze. “You’re not hauling a hundred pounds of machinery alone. Stop arguing.”
Oh.
Well, the new stand mixer was the industrial size—I’d gotten greedy when I ordered it with his card, what can I say?—but it wasn’t quite a hundred pounds. Still, since he was already striding for the hallway down to the garage, I wasn’t going to complain, was I?
Abydos would drive me, and help carry the stupidly large appliance I’d ordered?
Competence porn, much?
I rolled my eyes and hurried after him, knowing I didn’t need another reason to crush on my uber-hot boss.
Abydos
Sylvik had ordered the black SUV for me when I’d told him I was building out here; the thing had a total of three hundred miles on it, since I never left the house except to head to the airport. But it was identical to the model I drove back in Colorado, so I was comfortable with it.
Still, it amused me to see Riven exclaiming over the AC built into the seats—“My cousin’s car has heated seats, but cooled seats? We’re living in the future, huh?”—and the rest of the stuff she called bells and whistles.
Her wonder was a delight, and made me want to heap gifts on her, just to see her responses.
But I wouldn’t. Because she was my employee, not my lover. And she was a human.
So I wrapped my big hands around the steering wheel and waited for her to direct me where to go.
We reached the docks without incident, and Riven sent me a smile as she reached for the door handle. “I’ll just pop out and sign for it, don’t worry.”
But fuck yes, I worried, and when I saw her teetering out of that cargo office holding a box nearly the size of her? I didn’t bother hiding my curse as I climbed from the SUV.
“What in all the hells do you think you’re doing?” I growled as I relieved her of her load. “Give that to me. Go open the trunk.”
Instead of being flustered by my grumbling, my little human just smiled as she hurried toward the rear of the vehicle. “Thank you!”
I honestly couldn’t tell you the weight of the box because it wasn’t particularly heavy to me…and because of that smile. And of course, it meant I got her amazing brioche tomorrow.
But mainly that smile.
In the last week, since I’d found her in pain in the bedroom, I’d discovered all sorts of interesting scents from my private chef. Sure, there was the blood, which didn’t bother me once I understood she wasn’t bleeding to death. But there was also a shy sort of happiness.
And…something else.
Something sweet, something tantalizing.
Just because I was a recluse didn’t mean I didn’t know the scent of a female’s arousal…
I’d just never smelled it from a human before.
My partners had mostly been fae, and while all of them had been pleased with my skills in the bedroom, I’d never had any interest in maintaining a long-term arrangement.
Lovers were for one night.
I could satisfy them, achieve my own satisfaction, and forget them. I didn’t need more from them, and didn’t want to worry about their simpering or fawning over my money.
Riven smells of arousal, and doesn’t defer to you because of your wealth.
Huh.
She didn’t. I glanced to my right as she buckled her seatbelt.
It was one of the things I liked about her; she might be my employee, but she didn’t bow and scrape or pretend I was better than her.
Sylvik was like that too, and his competence and willingness to stand up to me was why I’d kept him around for so long.
Although the whole hiring-a-human-without-realizing-she-was-a-human fuckup meant the male was going out of his way not to piss me off, and that made me smirk.
“Ready?” Riven asked, and I shook myself.
“Yeah.” I put the SUV into drive. “Home?”
“Turn left up here.”
It wasn’t until I recognized the road we were on that I realized we weren’t heading straight home. She was directing me through the town of Eastshore. The town I’d done my best to avoid since arriving.
“This is Main Street coming up,” she said, leaning forward in the seat. The sun was setting in the west, and a storm was blowing in from the east, meaning the shadows were interesting. “That’s Giza’s tattoo parlor. Sami says that he’s been booked solid for a year.”
I nodded, feeling the need to prove I knew something relevant. “He is the memory keeper for our clan, and the memories are recorded in skin.”
I felt her glance. “Do you have any tattoos?”
Unconsciously, my right fingers moved to my left forearm, my claws extending just enough to press my suit sleeve into my skin. “I don’t need tattoos to remember.”