Lotham walks toward me. He’s light on his feet. A boxer. In hindsight, I should’ve known instantly.
He stops right in front of me, and I can’t help myself. I raise my hands. I dance my fingertips across his face, feeling out the line of his jaw, the soft, ragged edge of his mangled ear, then find another scar, just over his left eye. He has ridiculously long, thick eyelashes. Why do men always have the best eyelashes?
His buzzed hair scrapes against my palm. Closer in texture to his end-of-day stubble and nothing at all like his silky eyebrows. He has furrowed lines in his forehead. I trace each one. Another sign of his stressful job? I like the mystery of those lines. What they communicate but cannot say.
My hands fall to his shoulders. Heavily muscled, rigid to the touch. Same with his arms. A boxer who still spends plenty of time in the ring. Up this close, I can see the pulse pounding at the base of his throat, hear his ragged breath.
I whisper my lips across the hollow of his throat. He smells of sandalwood, tastes like salt. The cleaned-up version of the man, but I would find him compelling either way.
“Good night, Frankie,” he says.
“Good night, Detective.” Then I raise my lips and kiss him properly.
For a moment, he unleashes. A storm of wild attraction and raw power as he crushes me against him. His mouth devours. His tongue ravages and I respond eagerly. This is not drunken fumbling or mindless fucking. This is feeling your feels.
I don’t protest when he pulls away, releases my arms, and steps back.
“Good night, Frankie,” he says again.
“Good night, Detective.”
Then I let him out the front door, and watch him walk away.