Page 66 of Marked by the Demigod

He sighs into her neck. "I'm gathering that." His arm tightens around her. "Most places where another person could help, where you could help, it'd be bad for other people to see your face. To know you exist, I'm not ...I'm not just being an ass."

He curls himself around her, pressing against her as if he is a drowning man in need of a lifeboat.

"I'm going to see male strippers today, are you going to be weird about it?" Her mouth says, outside of her control, and she winces at the phrasing.

A laugh bubbles out of him, so it feels like a triumph. "Don't bang them and we should be good."

She nods, even though the mirror shows his eyes are squeezed shut. "Banging strippers in Vegas seems like a bad idea."

He hmmmmmms, and it's soft and nice, like he usually isn't, and she just wants to close her eyes into the feeling and the sound. "Strippers are one of the better things to happen in this last century." He murmurs. "Gods only know why I would fault you for going to see strippers."

There's a breath, a moment with that statement, where Aimes marvels at how fundamentally different it is than what Rocky would say. "My ex hated me doing anything like that."

His muscles tense, before he pushes himself off the bed, face as if he tastes a sour lemon. "Cause he was shitty.” He gestures with his shirt before shrugging it on. “Like how he was even shitty at that coffee shop.”

That statement, coupled with the thick as fog Russian accent, makes her head light. "You really had me followed back then?"

He pauses, putting on his pants and looking all too normal and all too human. "I was keeping track," he says, petulant. "I didn't have anyone follow you."

She rolls over so she's on her stomach, still naked, the soft sheets almost too much against her nipples. "How, though?" she asks, honestly curious. "I ...how? I don't think I saw you?"

A sad look creases over his face before it's smoothed out. "I have ways of keeping track that don't need me to be actually there," he says, fauxly flippant. "I may be a hell of a lot more powerful than you actually seem to realize."

She shrugs. "And?"

"Do you need food?"

She nods, more out of curiosity than anything else. "I'd prefer to not go to Poland, though."

The corners of his lips tug up. "I was thinking someplace nearer." He tosses her top at her, and he suddenly has the awkward movement of a man not used to being this close to a woman. "Unless you need something fancy." Smooth, he leans over, placing a chaste kiss on the small of her back.

She turns over, and he presses a kiss right above her navel, tickling a bit. "I take it I have to have clothes on?"

He smiles into her skin. "Sadly, yes."

* * *

He takesher to a tiny burger place that, but for the Texas flag hanging behind the bar, could've been right off the Strip.

At her glance at it, he shrugs. "We're a few states over, I think."

The tables have been carved into many times, the wallpaper has tits on it, and Aimes kinda adores it. "You don't strike me as a burger person." She raises an eyebrow at his suit.

No one else pays him much attention. "I fit in everywhere," he declares, lofty. "Besides, anyone can fit in here." And suddenly, the thick Russian accent drops to fit into a perfect Texas drawl, and she can't help but laugh in surprise.

"So can you just...do that?" They squeeze into a booth and she nudges him with her elbow. "Any accent? Is that part of the whole.... thing?" She gestures, vague, at all of him.

"No, that's comes from being over dramatic and having over 300 years of practice." He throws his arm around her shoulder, and is immediately so very Texan looking that she has to blink. "My brothers are much shittier at it."

Without them ordering, a very busty waitress drops off two burgers and tater tots for them, and Aimes marvels a bit more. "Do you just...know every restaurant?" Even though it's maybe 10:30 AM in her time, she dives into the burger, because a) it's a burger and b) holy shit does it smell good.

He shrugs, watching her for a few seconds. "It's always good to find places for something to eat where they won't care who you are," he says, soft, and it's another too sincere moment that she raises an eyebrow at him.

"Brothers that shitty?"

"Brothers that shitty who've put out a standing reward for me."

And while it's not precisely new information, she raises an eyebrow. "Trixie said the Russian guy approached her after I left."

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