Page 11 of How to Seduce a Slender

“I can manage a sketchbook and some music. Keep drinking your water.” Something thrummed in his chest and somewhere further south on his anatomy as he rose to his feet. Melody took another sip of her water before setting the goblet down again.

“I’ll have to pee like a horse soon.”

“A healthy horse who is on the path to recovery from being bitten by an eldritch beast. Now, drink.” He pointed at her before stepping away from the couch.

“My bladder may never forgive you!” she bellowed after him.

Smith couldn’t remove the smug twist of his mouth even if he tried.

Smithglancedupfromhis finally cleared desk to peek at Melody. She’d been curled up on the couch, notebook pressed against her knees while she rested back against the arm of the couch, for a few hours. Earlier she was almost afraid to shift to get comfortable, but after a while, she realized the fabric was enchanted. It stretched around her body as she moved about and immediately, she wasn’t restricted by it, becoming a couch gremlin right before his eyes. His favorite part was how her tongue would stick out the side of her face and she would squint as she worked to clean lines. Well, that and how he caught her glancing his way multiple times.

She wasn’t…no…she wouldn’t…But when Smith slithered away from his desk as quiet as a cool breeze through an endless oblivion, he found sketches of himself. Crouching behind the couch, he stared at a two-page spread of sketches. Him at the desk was the main one on the left-hand side, while there were versions of him standing on the right, him sending away posts, signing stuff with a flourish, all of his mannerisms. It left a strange tingling in his chest as he studied every rendition of him.

“Is that truly how you see me?” he blurted out.

Melody yowled like a wounded dog, jumping in her skin, and flooring it off the couch. Smith stiffened by the end of the couch like a ghoul frightened of Dahlia. Melody panted for air, a hand to her chest, the other hanging onto the journal.Interestingly,cute little claws poked out from her fingertips. She stared at him with bewilderment as those claws retracted back into regular fingertips. Smith climbed to his feet and smoothed out his suit to fill the awkward tension.

“Well, kinda?” she confessed, scrunching up her face. “Why? What do you think you look like?”

“I don’t look like anything, Melody,” he teased, folding his hands behind his back. Smith stalked across the floor to meet her in front of the couch.

“Mmmm, I think you do,” she retorted, humming as she twisted, giving him her back. Smith lingered, close enough to touch her but afraid to put his hands on her. He extended his legs an inch to peek over her shoulder.

“What do I look like?” He was genuinely curious. As Melody slipped a ribbon between the pages to shut it with a snap.No one’s ever drawn me.Slender are difficult to capture. No net, no camera, no flash, nothing short of a Lich with a score to settle could render him still.Well, that and an eldritch god with a grudge, but he’s dead.Smith had one photograph to his name and in his opinion, it was ruined.Fuzzy, pops of light, and static filled that noir photograph.

“Like a nosey nelly poking their eyeballs where they don’t belong!” she roared, whipping back around to prod him in the direct center of his chest. Smith scoffed, stumbling back a step. Melody cocked her hip out, one fist to it while the other hugged the sketch book to her side. “Did I say you could look at my sketches? Huh? Did you ask?No!Ya didn’t!”

Smith wheezed, tossing his hands out to his sides. “Well, if we’re being perfectly honest, you didn’t tell meI couldn’tlook at them. And contracts are all about pre-emptive strikes, my dear.”

Melody raised a fluffy eyebrow, sizing him up from fuzzy head to toe. “Oh? So, is everything about my stay up for discussion? Because if I have to make pinkie promises for every one of your fingers and toes, I will Mr. Smith, don’t you worry about that…wait. Do you…have toes?”

Smith choked on his own oxygen, forgetting he didn’t need it to breathe. “I do, in fact, have toes.”

“I imagined so, but…everyone in this house is keen on wearin’ shoes indoors, so who knows. The gardener could have hooves for all I know!” She waved her hand flippantly. Smith grinned wickedly, as the longer she went on a tangent, the thicker her accent got. The less she enunciated and the more she squished sounds together till it was an adorable collection of syllables.

Smith was forced to clear his throat to cover up the chuckles itching to escape his mouth. “Well, be as that may, Ms. Deathless, you do not, in fact, have to negotiate your entire stay here. But for anything that is a boundary, I would set it now lest it be crossed by a foolish, well-meaning zombie or the adorably naïve crypt keeper.”

“A what now?” She blinked rapidly before shaking her head, waving her hand as if she didn’t want the answer. “No, never mind, that’s fine. I will write you up a list of my boundaries and we can negotiate them later.”

“Spoken like a true lawyer.” He stepped up toward her once more.

She squinted at him in faux offence. Then, with every inch, her glimmering emeralds drooped to her sketch book. She held it out in front of her, fingers tracing an invisible design on the front. “It’s fine if you look. I mean, you were the subject of my art study today.”

“AnAr-teeest!” Smith made an extra twirl of the sound as he slid up to be an inch from her once more. “May I?”

“You may,” she breathed. Pink painted her cheeks as she handed over the journal he’d found for her. Flipping it open, the first page was blank, but she’d gone two pages in before sketching. It was exactly how he saw it as a glimpse over her shoulder. She’d drawn him almost lifelike. As if his face had shape, like there were strong bones under his static and eye sockets.

“You have a talent,” he confessed. Her linework was great. Every inch of shading of his vest to his pants, to the small details of the desk, he adored every inch of it. “Where did you learn to draw?”

“Well,” she wheezed, her hand twisting a long strand of hair.Adorable.Smith closed the journal, returning it to her. She hugged it to her chest like a child does a prized teddy bear. “When you work long shifts like me in a dead diner, outside of talking to my favorite regulars, and all the silverware rolling, there’s not much elseto dobut learn a skill. Honey, the other girl who works nights with me? She knits. Barbs, she reads. I swear she could put a library out of business with how much she devours books. Josh, the dishwasher, he draws too and saw me bored-er than a singular twig in a grassland and handed me some paper and a pencil. Showed me everything he knows and told me to just keep scribblin’, you know? At some point, your hand just learns how to move.”

Smith was in trouble. Smith was smitten. Smith was inbigtrouble. As she continued to tell her tale, he was leaning into her words, like he hung on to every single sound she made. His chest clenched as she blushed even brighter, glancing down at the journal.

“Do you do other forms of art? Not that your sketches aren’t fantastic. You have talent, true talent.”

“Thanks,” Melody giggled, tugging on the strand of hair that framed her face. Those cute fangs poked out against her lower lip once more. “Uh, I paint too. I’ve gotten pretty good at it.”

“I’d love to see it.”

---