Page 56 of Carry Your Debt

“I fucking love Twinkies,” Sabine breathes out, voice thick and features slack with what could only be described as pure satiation.

Hermes is still sunk deep inside her, face tucked up against her throat. “You make the best fuckboy sandwiches, ever,” he slurs adorably before his shaggy head shoots up to look between us. “Respectfully,” he adds with a crooked grin.

Shit, that’s cute.

My laugh is throaty as I take him in. Wild curls, pink cheeks, and a set of shiny hazel irises. Too pretty for his own good, and the two of them together? A fucking sight for sore eyes. “Hell no, disrespect us, Miller. Hard. And repeatedly."

“Repeatedly?” His shy expression brightens and thenfuck—it’s like watching a train wreck happening in real-time as Sabine’s cool voice slices straight through that post-coital high.

“Okay,” she announces, bodily rolling Hermes’s prone form away from her own. “I need another shower. You’ve both got ten minutes to make yourselves scarce.” And then she’s up and off the bed in a flurry of sandalwood and sharp hips.

The sound of the bathroom door clicking shut behind her sounds like a gunshot in the silence that follows. The answering ache in my gut has me scrubbing at my face in frustration, and after a final, aggrieved huff, I throw an arm across my eyes.

Anything so I don’t have to look Miller in the eye for this conversation.

Because I didn’t miss the spark of devastation that she lit the moment she filed him right back into that box of hers that’s labeledCasual Encounters.

Know that fucking feeling better than anyone.

“Better go, man. She’ll see you back in Rox City.”

And I really can’t offer him anything more than that. As much as he deserves some semblance of aftercare, he’s not going to find any cuddles or sleepovers here.

In fact, the longer he stays, the harder it’ll be on him later.

Speaking from experience.

There’s a rustle of sheets and the whisper of leather as he slips himself back into that criminally tight pair of pants.

“Will you be there?” he asks, after a pause.

Fuck.Kid sounds like a kicked puppy. Something pinches deep in my chest. “Yeah, I’ll be around.”

He lets out a shaky sigh, before giving a single, jerky nod toward the door.

Yeah.

Then, without another word, he too is gone, and an otherwise empty hotel suite never sounded so loud.

As promised,Dominic appears outside my dorm’s building on the Wednesday immediately following our trip to Themis. I’m not sure how long he waited here just to accost me after class, but his gravelly voice once again drifts out from a corner of the shadowed portico the moment I step past its threshold.

“Librarian.”

My spine snaps straight.

“Dominic,” I reply saccharinely. “Please call me Sabine while I’m on school grounds.”

When he moves into the low light, he throws me a pointed look that tells me exactly where I can politely store my request. That has me sighing through my nose because who am I to argue the finer points of endangering my closely protected identity with the Gray Man’s Second-in-command?

“How can I help you?”

And why couldn’t this have been a phone call?

Or better yet, an email.

“Haven’t received the Symposium report yet,” he grits, sucking on his teeth in consternation. His expression—as always—is hard and cold like a sheet of granite. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find him moonlighting as one of thegargoyles that line the buttresses of some of the Academy’s older buildings.

My eyebrows jump before I can catch them. “Because it’s only beenthree days, Dominic.There were over 2800 people to sort through.”

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