Chapter 11 #3
That was the third or fourth time he had referred to me by my last name.
He said it, slowly, like he was savouring it, like he liked the way it tasted.
And I hated it. I hated the way I felt it.
Hated the way I noticed it. It stirred something deep within me.
Something I had no intention of addressing.
Something I decided I would shove into a box and push to the dusty, back corner of my mind, where all my other old crushes and inconvenient feelings went to die.
There was something so amusing about a big, hulking demon being so enraptured by a jar of crushed fruit.
(Although mass-produced, I told myself it had been made by a sweet, old lady in her rustic kitchen, which really added a little something extra to an already amusing image.) The first time Thallor had called me Sterling was when I’d replaced the jar of strawberry jam for the third time in two weeks.
He had used a tone that was so warm and familiar that it had startled me, thrown me for a fucking loop.
It had left me all hot, sweaty, and pink-cheeked.
Something that Thallor had not failed to notice.
“I feed myself,” I said as I fought the urge to roll my eyes at him. “Sometimes…”
He simply shook his head.
“Who knows, maybe if you touched me like that plant, I’d come—” Hearing the words as they came out of my mouth, I stammered slightly, which instantly drew his attention.
Thallor’s eyes whipped up to meet mine, the rings of his eyes darker than they had been only moments ago.
Every atom in my body screamed out in response.
He might like ‘direct’ but that was not what I meant.
“—come back to life too. I’d stop feeling so tired all the time. ”
When he didn’t respond, I laughed awkwardly. My high-pitched, immature giggles filled the space between us. “Sorry, I must have your book on my mind.” I flashed Thallor the toothiest grin I could muster.
“Are you trying to tell me something, Sterling?” Fighting all my willpower and losing, my eyes dropped to his unnecessarily large hands, letting the images of them trailing across my body pull me away from the conversation for just a second before looking back up at him.
Before I could come up with a quick and witty response that would divert his attention and soften the intensity of his gaze–one I felt in the curl of my toes and butterflies in my stomach–my phone chimed.
I took a steadying breath, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear for something to do as I turned my attention toward the kitchen and shuffled over to my phone.
Clark Kent: Hey, are we still on for tomorrow?
Quincey: Shit! Sorry! I forgot to message. I’m seeing my grandparents tomorrow. But all of my bits in the paper are done so just hand it in when you’ve given it a once over.
Clark Kent: Ah, that’s a shame. I was looking forward to our study session.
Clark Kent: I’ve enjoyed hanging out with you.
Quincey: And here I was thinking you were using me for good grades.
Clark Kent: A mutually beneficial arrangement seeing as you’ve been using me for snacks.
Although when I came to think about it, of the countless hours we had spent studying, Jude had failed to ask which snacks I liked, opting to show up with an assortment, some okay, some decidedly not okay (where does one even find candy corn in the middle of December?)
Clark Kent: Now that our studies are all wrapped up. How about you use me for something else instead? Like dinner? ;)
I stared at the screen for a second longer than necessary, trying and miserably failing to stop the grin from tearing across my face. I continued to stare down at my phone long enough for Thallor to pick up on it.
“What?” I think I heard Thallor speak. I wasn’t quite sure.
It had been so long since I had actually been asked out on a date.
And whilst I felt inexplicably distracted by my demon roommate, I couldn’t deny that Jude was attractive–and he was equally interested in me.
I didn’t expect anything long-term to come of it, but it seemed like the perfect opportunity to distract myself from the fiery red hair that seemed to occupy all my waking thoughts.
Quincey: Are you actually asking me out?
Clark Kent: I didn’t read the room wrong, did I?
Quincey: You didn’t do any reading whatsoever by my estimation.
Clark Kent: Pick you up Friday at 8pm?
Quincey: Okay :)
“Sterling.”
I lifted my head from where it was still buried in my phone to see Thallor standing about a foot away from me, his head cocked to the side, and a confused expression etched across his face.
“What happened?”
“Oh, I was just talking to the guy I’ve been studying with.” I turned my phone toward Thallor so he could read the messages on my screen. “He asked me out on a date.”
I left Thallor reading through the messages on my phone as I walked over to the freezer. I rummaged around before my hands locked on a yellow box that promised to be both lacking in basic nutritional necessities and unbelievably delicious.
“Who is Jude?” Thallor asked as he put down my phone, pressing his other hand over the countertop to look down at me.
“What do you mean, ‘who’s Jude?’” I looked up at him with calculating eyes, trying to ignore the comically absurd difference in our heights, whilst his eyes remained locked on mine.
“Jude Watlings? He’s the guy I have spent the last two weeks in the library with.
I know you’re not my biggest fan but do you listen to anything I say? ”
“That’s great. That’s really great. Whilst I have been sat waiting on you to make a decision, you have been off galivanting and flirting with a man called Jude?
” He kept his tone neutral. Purposefully neutral.
Weaponised neutrality. He wouldn’t be the one to throw away weeks of built-up civility.
He wouldn’t be the one to act rashly or mess anything up.
That role was saved for me and me alone. The silly little human he was bound to.
“We haven’t been galivanting; we have been doing our course paper.”
“But you have been flirting.” Not a question.
“I was working,” I said, my voice raising somewhat; the need for Thallor to understand barrelling to the front of my mind. “And Jude flirts with everyone, I’m sure.”
“And yet this male has asked you on a date?” Why do you sound so angry?
There was no way he truly cared about this.
The trivial pursuits of a human, whom he hadn’t given so much as a second glance until this point.
I looked up at him to find him staring at me, his eyes boring into mine the way they had when we’d first met.
Unyielding. Unrelenting. Pulse inducing.
“Yeah, I guess he has. Is it so difficult to imagine someone enjoying my company? Do you find me so utterly intolerable that you could not imagine anyone else taking an interest in me?” My tone was cold.
Colder than it needed to be. Colder than the ice-covered breakfast waffles I’d just pulled out of a box and shoved in the toaster.
There was a pause.
A long one.
He didn’t say anything as he turned and stormed back over to the sofa. Cool air swept in and writhed up my forearms in the absence of him. That’s what I thought.
“And you’re going, are you?” he growled.
“Is that any of your business?”
“Whilst I’m tethered to you, it’s my fucking business.”
“Okay, yes, I’m probably going to go.” I rolled my eyes at him, before ambling over to the sofa, waffles in hand, and dropping onto the seat next to him. “He is the only person to show the remotest bit of interest in me.”
“That’s not a justifiable reason to go. Do you even like him?” Thallor scoffed. The sound was jarring and rough. It’s not like you’re interested.
“I don’t really know. Isn’t that what the date is for? To work that out. He’s good-looking, so hypothetically speaking, if it turns out that his personality has all been a lie, and the date ends in a tragic dumpster fire, I can always still sleep with him.”
I couldn’t tell if I was reading into it, but I could have sworn I saw Thallor’s jaw tense, the sharpness of his canines more pronounced than they had been moments ago.
“Don’t sleep with him.”
“Why not?” I laughed.
“Because it should mean something.”
“You cannot be serious?” I laughed. “Fucking is just as enjoyable as making love. Probably more so. The last thing I need on my plate is more messy feelings.”
“You’re too young to be this cynical,” he drawled. Says the male whose face could be found under disgruntled in the dictionary.
“Isn’t lust meant to be one of the levels of Hell? Think of this as a foolproof way to get me there,” I mused before taking a bite of my slightly undercooked and still-a-little-frozen waffle.
“There are other ways to earn your place in Hell.”
“And yet, this sounds the most enjoyable.” Letting go of my previous annoyance, I flashed Thallor a toothy grin. One that earned me nothing but an icy, cold glare in response.
“What makes you think it would be enjoyable? From the messages I’ve read, he doesn’t seem to put much effort into anything at all.”
“Are you saying it would be more enjoyable with you?” I taunted, putting my plate down before turning to look at him. I could see the tinge of blush that crept up the side of his neck and onto his cheeks, swallowing up his freckles in a sea of pink.
When he didn’t respond, I just smirked. “Was this the directness you were talking about—”
Before I could spit the rest of my sentence out, my whole body tilted, careening backward until I was pinned to the deep, worn cushions of my forest green sofa.
Before I could fully process what had happened, Thallor was staring down at me, hands braced on either side of my head and caging me in a wall of muscle.
I stammered, trying desperately to work out how I had come to be in that position.
Unlike anything I’d ever felt with Jude, which was charmed and slightly amused, Thallor’s presence felt like molten heat.
He lit something inside me that surged outward across my skin like wildfire.
It coursed up my back and the sides of my neck until it settled on my cheek in a bright red flush, betraying everything I was feeling on the inside.
My hands moved instinctively, pressing up on the muscles of his chest as he smirked down at me. A look that was as devilish as it was devastating.
“Do you want me to show you, Sterling?” he rasped as he leaned a little lower and whispered into my ear.
“I…I…” I could barely get the words out.
A part of me–a traitorous part lacking both intelligence and common sense–screamed out, dying to say yes.
But the other part of me, the sliver of self-preservation that lingered at the corner of my mind, knew it was a bad idea.
It knew I would be utterly ruined if I let myself go there.
I could barely hear my own thoughts, the two sides of myself arguing whilst my pulse reverberated in my ears.
Before I could even make a decision, Thallor pushed up, pulling me with him until we were back in the sitting positions, where we had been only moments ago. “I didn’t think so.”
We didn’t say much to each other after that, but for days afterward, I couldn’t stop thinking about what it would have been like if he had shown me after all.