Page 76 of By the Fae

“Next time I’ll bring a thermos of coffee, so it’s waiting for us when we wake up,” I said.

“Next time?”

An idea blossomed. Probably the stupidest idea in the history of stupid ideas. Attempting to jump from the lounger into the harbour would have no doubt been smarter. My body waged another attack against my brain. But my brain and my body had never been the best of friends. More like frenemies. Outwardly appearing to get along, but consistently trying to undermine one another, in increasingly disastrous ways.

“How about I file a couple of Work From Home forms for us for the week? You stay here? We work on the game? I’ll cook for you every night? We’ll take my duvet to the roof and watch the sunrise? There are six more. Sunrises, that is, before I . . . your date with Seth.”

I screwed up my face, and braced for thedon’t be stupid, I still hate you.Or worse, but no less true,that will just make saying goodbye at the end of this deal even harder.

“Goldie,” Holly whispered, her hand coming up to caress my cheek. Her eyes flashed across my face, flicking over my lips, then boring into my soul. “I would like that.”

Great, she was as stupid as I was.

I clamped my teeth together so she couldn’t read the emotion on my face. I nodded, once, stiffly, and she curled back into my armpit.

“Are you expecting sex?” Holly said it like she was worried I’d say yes, and she’d feel obligated to go along with it. It made me nauseated.

“I never expect it. Just because we do . . . stuff, doesn’t mean I expect anything. Or that you owe me anything. And I’ll stop asking you if you’re ready. You let me know when—if you’re ready. And if that’s never, that’s fine by me. You’re in control, baby girl. You’ve always been in control.”

And if it was never, I hoped Seth realised how fucking lucky he was.

Holly sighed, obviously a weight lifted from her. It twisted my stomach even more.

“Okay, I’ll stay this week,” she said. “For the sake of the game.”

“Sure. The game.”

She shifted on the lounger a little. “Can you bring a toilet up here next time?” she asked, laughing.

“Best I can do is a bucket.”

“Ew.”

If I only had a week left of being able to touch Holly, a week before she became someone else’s ‘problem’ —Gods, did I really use those words?— then I was going to make the absolute most of it. I rolled her onto her back, covering her body with mine, tilted her chin up to me, and brought my lips down on top of hers.

She didn’t hesitate before returning my kiss.

“What about compassion?” Holly said, the vibrations travelling right through my neck and back.

We laid on the sofa in the living room. Her head on one armrest, my head nestled on her stomach between her thighs, my feet hanging off the other armrest. If we were upright, it would have looked as though I was carrying her on my shoulders. We had a controller each, and were for once, playing as ourselves.

“It’s practically the same thing as empathy,” I said, knowing that when I spoke, the timbre of my voice would be concentrated on her lower abdomen and pussy. I made sure to put extra resonance into my vowels.

We had been working on the game. Attempting to come up with a way to make Holly’s character a little less shit. So far, for human stats, we had HP, empathy, and industry, we needed one more.

Holly thought for a second. “Yeah, I suppose.”

I had agreed to make the theme of the game Love, but other than adding it as an attribute, I was at a loss. No biggy. We still had a few weeks yet, even if I wasn’t allowed to spend all of them with my hands down Holly’s dungarees.

After another epic snogging session on the rooftop, we retreated to the apartment. We were both hungry, and desperate for a coffee. I fed her bagels with cream cheese and fruit for breakfast. We had a shower together. I showed her the various super-jet streams the state-of-the-art shower head could perform. And she showed me how she could deftly stroke me to completion in approximately eighteen seconds flat.

“What about curiosity?” she said.

“That’s . . . not bad, actually.”

Holly preened. I couldn’t see her, of course, but I knew she was preening, could feel it. I was just about to roll over and press my face between her legs when Mal stormed into the room.

“Mate, a word,” he said, marching straight past us into the kitchen.

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