Page 33 of Lessons with the Mothman

"That sounds nice," I admitted, surprised to be telling the truth.

I braced my hands on the desk to move, then stiffened as a stronger than predicted pair of arms easily hefted me up, rearranging me as the room spun. We settled with me on Elias's lap, the pair of us leaning back in the chair.

He sighed, relaxing under me, head tilting away, eyes shut, but his hands were busy smoothing my skirt and hair. I remained still for a moment, still dazed by what had happened, howfucking incredibly goodit had been, and also by the picture of Elias at ease in front of me. My arms found their way aroundhis shoulders and he hummed, smiling slightly. I softened into him, and he stroked my hip over my skirt.

"Thank you," we said at the same time.

One of his eyes opened. "It was good?" he asked.

I nearly fucking came, I almost said, but I didn't want him to spoil the moment by offering to try and finish me off. I knew some women found it frustrating to get that close and then not orgasm, but in all honesty, it had been a couple years since I'd been so far outside my own head with someone else, and that was its own thrill.

"It was exactly what I wanted," I said, and then hoped I wasn't crossing a boundary by drawing him closer.

I wasn't. Elias let out a pleased sound, something low and almost as hungry as his growls as he came, and then our mouths met. I grinned at first, realizing we hadn't kissed before now, and his lips pulled at my lower one, soft and plush and perfect. And then it was too easy, too good—a kiss so familiar I wondered if I'd forgotten one we already shared. Elias's mouth glided and caressed and enclosed over mine, warm and almost caramel in flavor.

My breasts ached and my core throbbed and I moaned into the kiss, his tongue licking in, more tentative than his cock had been as he'd first entered me, teasing and flicking before meeting mine for long strokes. His hands roamed over my back and hip, and he lifted me when I shifted, moving me to straddle over his lap, legs dangling down on either side.

When I was young, when Brett and I were in high school, we had kissed like this and I'd loved it. I'd loved grinding on his lap, getting close to coming, the build slow and sometimes futile depending on what we'd been wearing, how much it muffled the sensation. At some point, when it had been a long relationship, and Brett's friends and my friends were all starting to have sex, sex between us had seemed like a necessary step totake. Afterwards, we'd kissed and humped and fondled less, like knowing the destination had made a longer trip there not worth as much.

Elias chuckled as I started to squirm on his lap, but he didn't stop kissing me, petting up and down my back. He'd already come, I supposed. He didn't need to rush there again. And then he pulled away slightly, pressing a kiss to my lobe.

"You did this for me?" I asked, and he blinked before I gestured over my shoulder to the room.

"Oh, yes. For us. For fun." He shrugged.

"Like the room we used with Atlas and Cyril," I said. He had shades of amber in his fur, and glints of white gold, all shifting warm tones that belonged in some kind of fantastical treasure chest.

Elias nodded, and I suspected he was studying me as much as I had him. I'd meant for this to be impersonal. To end when he finished. And then he'd let me kiss him.

"Would you like a tour?" he asked.

"The desk is a Gothic revival,marked 1848. I found it wallowing in a basement in Logan Square during an estate sale. Itishideous," Elias said, tipping his head and glaring at the piece of furniture, his arms crossed over his chest.

Hours had passed. My head was spinning. After I'd cleaned up and changed, we had wandered from room to room, Elias eagerly describing the dragon's hoard of antiques and art he'd so meticulously arranged throughout his house. A house that now seemed more like a cross between a museum and a stage dressed for a performance.

The room we stood in now was an early Victorian styled office, complete with an inkwell on the indeed gaudily carved desk and an enormous ten-point buck head looming out over the mantle. There was a tea set waiting on a low table between two stuffed armchairs by the fireplace, and brandy in the cut crystal bottles on the sideboard. "Not era accurate, unfortunately," Elias admitted in a cheeky whisper.

I turned slowly in place, still absorbing the full scope. Not simply the wealth it took to amass this collection—he had a pop art pantry off the kitchen that included a set of Andy Warhol polaroids of bananas—but the time, the thought. And the…who.

Whowould do this? Every room was its own character in a disjointed novel of a home, and the author was…

Watching me, I realized. The room—no,Ihad been quiet too long, and Elias was now standing, staring back at me, posture too straight and chin a little high.

I opened my mouth to offer some kind of platitude. How beautiful the room was? No, beauty wasn't the point of any of the rooms, even when they were beautiful, like the sunroom where Elias had pulled covers off of watered silk chaises as massive monstera fronds hung over our heads like umbrellas.

"This is fascinating," I said, because that was true. Elias's snorted dismissively, but he looked slightly less aloof. "You don't really…live in any of these rooms, do you?"

There was no sign of him. No mail on the desk in his "office," and no actual bananas in the banana pantry.

Elias shook his head. "It's the process of arranging them that I enjoy. I like to create environments."

"They're all incredible. The classroom was?—"

"I only had a week," he said quickly. "I just put it together from what was on hand in the basement, really."

My eyebrows rose. "In the basement?"

He shrugged and waved his hands around the room. "I go through phases, rearranging a room. But I don't get rid of my pieces."

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