Page 82 of Skeletons in the Closet

“Do you think this is drug-related? Noah OD’d. Beth was injected with something, according to Doyle. This Shore guy could be responsible directly or indirectly for both. Maybe this isn’t about infidelity, and they were helping him distribute drugs.”

Diem grunted and shrugged.

“I need to shower.”

“We can go tomorrow.”

“No. I’m back at work tomorrow. If we want to catch students on campus, we should go during the day. Like now. I’ll be fine.”

“Finish the soup.”

“That I can do.” I ate the rest of the soup under the scrutiny of a man who didn’t want me to know he was lusting after me. When I finished, I left the garbage on the coffee table and stood, peering down at where Diem remained on the couch, hands clasped tightly between his thighs.

“Give me twenty minutes to clean up and feel alive.”

Diem’s gaze was locked on my navel, on the dusting of hair leading down beneath my sleep pants. I moved a hand to his jaw and the cut, but he flinched away with a low growl.

Instead, I brought my hand to his head and brushed my fingers over his scalp. He allowed it. A handful of faint scars prevented his hair from growing in places, and I traced my thumb over one of the more prominent ones.

I tipped his head so he would look me in the eye. Something raw and desperate burned in his smoky gray eyes. A fire. A storm.

Need. Lust. Desire.

“Join me?”

Diem’s throat bobbed, but he shook his head. I knew it was too much to ask. A shower was an intimate, close-quarters affair, and those things bothered Diem.

I didn’t push. I raked my fingers over his shorn head a few more times and backed off, aiming for the bathroom.

18

Diem

Icould have followed him. I could have gazed upon his nakedness again. He’d invited me to, and I wanted it.Desperately.I’d dreamed about Tallus more times than I could count, but even in my dreams, I couldn’t figure out how to touch him. Even in my dreams, my perpetual awkwardness persisted. The feelings of inferiority.

The shower ran and I clenched my fists, cursing myself. Hating myself. Hearing my father call me a useless waste of space and knowing he was right. I was a fuckup like always. The sting in my jaw from his most recent attack was enough of a reminder. Not all days were good days to visit Nana. Not all my skills of avoidance worked. Dad was unpredictable, and his aim was better in the morning before he started drinking.

I cleared the garbage from the coffee table.

I paced Tallus’s living room.

More than once, I stared down the hall at the bathroom door, urging myself to knock, to go inside, to strip naked and put myhands on him like I’d been wanting to do since the day he’d fallen off the counter into my arms months ago.

I could envision his nakedness. I could almost see the water sluicing over his perfect body. Was he touching himself? Had I left him wanting and frustrated? It was all I would ever do. I wasn’t made for people like Tallus.

I wasn’t made for anyone.

The shower cut off, and relief flooded my system. The decision had been made for me, and I didn’t have to argue with myself anymore.

Except…

Tallus emerged from the bathroom with a simple white towel wrapped low on his hips, hair wet, and with droplets of water beading along his shoulders and chest. He glanced at where I stood, feet planted at the end of the hallway, and smirked. Sultry and mischievous. It said,you want me, and you know it.

“Been standing there the whole time?”

I didn’t answer.

“Couldn’t do it, huh? Even with an invitation.”

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