Chapter 3
IRIS
Garrik is cute and I am sloshed…and my impulse control seems to have gone hurtling straight into the sun.
It’s the mead. Has to be the mead.
Because otherwise, I’d have to accept that this is just me—me, sitting here, warm and flushed, gripping my glass like it might keep me tethered to reality while Garrik’s words replay in my head on an endless, dizzying loop.
I’d tell them that I like the way they smell. Like honey and old books, like the sweetest flower.
We’ve known each other for years, and for some reason it never clicked until just now. Garrik is so cute and I wanted to hear what he would say because I wanted him to say it.
Maybe that doesn’t make sense.
I don’t particularly care right now.
I blink at him. My mouth is dry, my brain feels like it’s moving through molasses, and my heart is definitely doing something deeply inconvenient.
He’s sitting there, large and steady and so fucking solid, watching me with careful patience—like he’s already decided I’ll brush it off, pretend he didn’t just say all of that, pretend that my chest isn’t too tight and my hands aren’t shaking and my whole body doesn’t want to crawl into his lap and stay there forever.
What do I do with this?
What do I do with him?
Garrik shifts slightly, mouth twisted into a grimace like he’s already regretting everything he just said. “Are you okay?” he asks.
I don’t answer his question. Instead, I blurt, “Take me home.”
Garrik blinks. His grip tightens on his glass just slightly. “What?”
I swallow, suddenly hyperaware of how warm the room is, how golden his eyes are, how my skin is too tight for my body. “I—”
I square my shoulders and look him in the eye.
“I want you to take me home.”
He sucks in a breath.
“…You’re drunk,” he says, and it sounds like it takes every ounce of his restraint not to make it a question.
“A little,” I admit, propping my elbow on the table and resting my cheek against my hand. “But that’s not why I’m asking.”
I feel like that sounded very cool, but I’m sure it was slurred and broken and not at all cool. Garrik blinks, his lashes fluttering, and I wonder if it was in fact very cool because he just makes this noise low in his throat.
“Iris—”
I push myself to my feet, shaking the table a little and stumbling around to grip his shoulder, leaning in close.
“Take me home, Garrik,” I whisper.
I stumble back as he slides out of the booth, unfolding to his full height. He’s so, so tall. I look up at him and almost lose my balance before he suddenly reaches down and scoops me into his arms.
I huff out a breath. “Garrik?”
“Where do you live?” he asks—not looking at me, voice strained.
My heart stutters. “Just…just down the street in a little apartment over a bookstore. I'm—”
But he's moving before I can finish.
He strides out of the tavern with me still cradled in his arms like it’s nothing—like I weigh nothing, like this isn’t an absolutely unhinged turn of events.
A couple people give us weird looks (because, even if we used to do this all the time, it isn’t normal for a Jotunbei to carry a human around), but Garrik doesn’t seem to care at all as we step out into the night.
The evening air is crisp, a welcome relief against the heat flooding my system, but it does nothing to cool the ridiculous, giddy warmth pooling in my stomach. I am being carried. By Garrik. Like a damsel. I let my head loll back, letting out a breathy laugh. “Wow. So strong.”
His grip tightens.
I peek up at him. His jaw is tense, eyes locked straight ahead, golden and hard with effort—like he’s focusing on anything other than me.
A terrible, wonderful idea strikes me.
I shift slightly, letting my fingers drift up his bicep.
His very, very large bicep.
I hum under my breath, deeply fascinated by the sheer size of it, how solid and immovable he is beneath my touch. “You have really nice arms,” I murmur, mostly to myself, trailing my fingers just a little lower, over the ridiculously thick muscle of his forearm.
Garrik’s stride falters.
“Iris.” His voice is low, rough.
I smile to myself, completely ignoring the warning in his tone. “Mmm?”
Garrik exhales sharply through his nose, and I think—oh no, did I say that out loud?
Wait.
Did I say any of that out loud?
I blink up at him, catching the tension in his jaw, the way his golden eyes flick down to me for only a second before snapping forward again, like he can’t look at me too long or something terrible will happen.
Something about that makes me giggle.
I wiggle a little in his arms, enjoying the unfair way he just…carries me like this is normal. Like it’s not a little bit insane. I squeeze his bicep again, just to feel it, and sigh dramatically.
“You know,” I murmur, letting my cheek rest against his chest, “I used to think you were just big. But you’re actually really…uhm. Nice to hold.”
Garrik groans softly, tightening his hold on me like he’s physically restraining himself from saying something extremely stupid.
Good.
I’m being extremely stupid. He should join me.
I let my head loll back, looking at the soft glow of the lanterns strung across the alleyways of the city, the winding rooftops, the way the air feels crisp and golden tonight.
There’s a lightness in my chest that I haven’t felt in so, so long—like something was missing and I didn’t realize it until right now, in this moment, when I’m finally pressed against the one person I really, truly missed.
I missed him.
I missed him so much.
Garrik, my best friend, my partner in chaos, my—
I blink, feeling too much all at once.
His scent—honey and flowers and home—wraps around me, pulling me further into the hazy, reckless warmth. The way his arms hold me, the way his voice rumbles deep in his chest when he speaks, the way his fingers dig just a little too tightly into my thighs like he’s barely hanging on.
How have I never noticed?
He’s beautiful.
He’s strong and kind and safe and steady and—
Oh no.
Oh no, oh no, oh no.
This is a dangerous train of thought.
I shake my head as if that’ll fix it, as if it’ll somehow shove everything I’m feeling back into a neat little “do not touch” box. But I’m drunk, and I’m happy, and for once in my life, I don’t want to think. I just want to feel.
I want this.
Right now, in this moment, I want him.
And god help me—I’m going to do something about it.
We reach the bookstore and the winding staircase beside it, and Garrik takes them two at a time.
The door is so close, and I think yes, I’ll get down and unlock the door, and then we’ll go in and I’ll find out exactly how we’re going to make this fit, and Garrik is going to look so pretty shirtless and naked in my tiny apartment—
But he sets me down and takes a step back down.
I turn around without unlocking the door and he gestures over his shoulder, antennae blushing bright pink and twitching.
“I’m going,” he says. “Should get home.”
“Garrik, stay a while longer,” I plead. “We don’t have to—”
“You’re drunk, Iris,” he mumbles, words a little slurred. “I’m drunk.”
“But you could—oh no—”
My keys slip from my clumsy fingers, falling to the landing at the hardwood landing at the top of the stairs. Garrik bends to pick them up, and just at the same time, I sway forward—catch him by the shoulders as he rises again.
And I don’t think, because I’m clearly not in a thinking mood.
I just kiss him.
And oh no, oh no—
It’s so good.
Garrik makes this sound between a gasp and a low groan, like he’s just been hit by a flying meteor and it delivered him all the way to pound town.
His whole body locks up, shoulders tensing beneath my hands, the keys falling to the porch again.
He’s hunched over awkwardly, but I really don’t think he minds.
I sigh against his mouth, soft and happy, pressing closer, tilting my head.
He’s hesitant, like he’s going to break me if he moves too fast, so my drunk self takes charge and I open my mouth, reaching up to tangle my fingers in his overgrown, dark green curls.
The invitation works, and Garrik’s big tongue thrusts past my lips.
Oh…oh it feels really good.
But we’re still in this weird position on the stairs, and Garrik is leaning over and we’re both drunk, which seems like a recipe for disaster.
I try to pull him forward—which works about as well as if I tried hauling an elephant to my front door—only for Garrik to stand and lift me again, effortless.
This time, I wrap my arms around his neck and my legs around his waist, and I feel…
He’s huge.
Like—the size of my forearm, maybe bigger.
I want it inside me. I want it inside me because I might be a little bit crazy.
He carries me forward, and we both laugh as he stumbles a little.
The laughter dies fast enough, because that stumble ends with him pushing me against the door, and then I really feel it—his huge cock, big enough that I could practically perch on it like a bird.
I rock my hips instinctively and Garrik groans, kissing me harder than ever.
I slide my hands into his hair, tugging on his curls. Garrik thrusts his hips forward. I cry out, tear my mouth away from his as he braces one hand against the doorframe and wraps the other around my ass to hold me up and—
CRACK.
We both freeze.
For a second, we’re both completely still. My heart is thundering in my chest, my pulse hammering in my ears, and I’m pretty sure I just hallucinated that. That sound. That very loud, very distinct sound.
Then, slowly—so slowly I can feel every muscle in his body lock up—Garrik leans back just enough to look past me.
I follow his gaze.
The doorframe…well, needless to say, I’m not getting my deposit back.
The top corner of it—where Garrik braced his hand—has a crack running straight through it, splintering the wood all the way down to where his palm is still planted, fingers frozen mid-clutch.
Like he had been trying very hard to keep himself steady, and instead, he just…
snapped a whole chunk of my apartment’s structural integrity in half.
Garrik makes a noise deep in his chest, something caught between a groan and a panicked whimper. His antennae, which had been dark pink from the drinking and the kissing and the me absolutely grinding on him like a lunatic, go bright red.
“Oh,” I say.
Garrik doesn’t move.
I blink. “Did you just—”
“I have to go,” he blurts out.
“What? No, wait—”
“I have to go.”
And then—he’s gone.
One second, I’m wrapped around him, still pressed up against my door, still feeling him everywhere, still coming to terms with the very real possibility that I was about to commit a crime against god and nature by trying to take his huge cock for a spin—and the next second, I’m not.
Garrik disentangles himself from me so fast I almost fall. He hauls me upright, sets me down so gently I barely even register it, and then steps back like I just burst into flames.
I stare at him, breathless and dazed.
His golden eyes are huge, his chest rising and falling in quick, sharp bursts, his hands still half-raised like he doesn’t quite know what to do with them.
My head is spinning. My body is on fire.
I feel hot all over, and I need him back, and I am about to say exactly that—but then he takes another step back.
“I’m—” His voice cracks. He clears his throat. “I’m sorry.”
He is gone before I can even process the words.
Just turns on his heel and walks away.
I don’t even get a chance to be like “Hey, my guy, you just cracked my goddamn doorframe, maybe let’s talk about that”—he’s already halfway down the stairs before my sluggish, alcohol-soaked brain catches up with the moment.
And by the time I can even think about calling after him, he’s at the bottom of the steps.
I lurch forward, wobbling a little as I reach for the railing, barely catching myself before I tumble straight down after him. “Garrik, wait—”
“Nope,” he calls over his shoulder, not slowing down.
My mouth opens and closes. I raise a hand, gesture vaguely at everything that just happened, and blurt out the only thing I can think of:
“You broke my door!”
At this, he actually speeds up.
I watch as my best friend of ten years, my very large, very powerful, definitely strong enough to rip a person in half best friend, books it down the street like he just realized what he was doing—what we were doing—and his entire body went into emergency shutdown mode.
Which, to be fair…probably exactly what did happen.
I stand there, still pressed against my half-destroyed door, mouth slightly open, watching as the biggest, brawniest, most terrifying warrior I have ever met disappears into the night at an actual dead sprint.
I watch all the way until he disappears around a corner toward the train station, most definitely heading all the way back to the Arborium just to get away from me.
And me?
My drunk, stupid, horny self?
I can’t do anything but start laughing…and hope like hell that I didn’t just ruin everything.