Page 18 of How to Flirt with a Hellhound
Chapter 8
Dexter
Iwatched the car pull off into the night, puzzling over Toby’s friends. One of his friends smelled… odd. It wasn’t anything that had set my hellhound on edge, and when I’d checked, they’d both had pure souls, so I supposed I didn’t need to worry. Still, I hadn’t recognized the scent of one of them. It didn’t seem entirely mortal.
“So…” Toby said, rocking back and forth a bit on his heels.
I looked over and noticed that he was blushing prettily in the twilight. I resisted the urge to flex for him. It had felt nice having him and his friends admire me, although Toby’s admiration was all I needed. His possessiveness had also given me a thrill. I’d liked hearing him say that I was his, and it had turned me on when he’d said he wanted to lick my tattoos.
“What were you up to?” he asked, then he blushed even more darkly.
He was so cute.
“Work,” I replied, wondering how far the blush would spread against his pale skin. He was so soft and beautiful and I wanted to snuggle up to him and lick him all over.
“Without a shirt?” he asked.
“It got dirty, so I took it off after I was done working,” I replied. Not a lie, just not the entirety of the situation. “I can grab a shirt…” I said, motioning toward my house.
“No!” Toby insisted, then he blushed again.
So. Damn. Cute.
“I mean, no, that’s fine,” he chuckled nervously. “Not like I haven’t seen a shirtless guy before. I mean, I write about shirtless guys all the time. I mean, not all the time, just for sex scenes. Because I write sex scenes with guys. Obviously. Because guys have sex,” he blurted.
He wiped his hand across his face, and I could hear him mutter to himself, “Pull it together, Toby.”
“How’s the book coming?” I asked.
“Good! Great! I mean, it’s ok. Coming along,” he babbled, obviously still nervous. I thought about kissing him again, but I figured that would only make him more nervous. I was all for him “climbing me like a tree,” but I didn’t want to make Toby feel more awkward around me. The last thing I wanted was him avoiding me.
“I was thinking about that scene we talked about,” I said, hoping he’d relax if we talked about his writing.
“Oh yeah?” he asked, looking at me curiously.
“Yeah, the bloodbath one? Blood on the walls and floor and all that?” I reminded him.
“Yup,” he answered. “What were you thinking?”
“Well, it occurred to me that you should make sure the floor isn’t carpeted. That would totally soak up some of the blood and it wouldn’t pool near as well,” I told him. “Also, if you’re looking for blood spray, that would mainly be arteries, and your character would bleed out much quicker, so you’ll probably have a lot more of the blood dripping than actually spraying,” I added helpfully.
“Yeah, my character doesn’t die…” he trailed off, obviously thinking.
I waited, staring at him in the moonlight. He was so beautiful. I had the urge to show him my hellhound, which was a strange desire, and my eyes must have flashed red, because he glanced over at me. I schooled my expression and made sure everything was normal, and he just sort of shook his head at himself.
“Toby, your imagination,” he mumbled to himself softly. Then he looked up at me again. “Yeah, I don’t think I specified what the floor was, but I’ll have to check, and I think I’ll make sure I show that it’s concrete or something. I also liked the idea of the bad vampire smearing the blood around, so the villain does a lot of that, but I do think I have some spraying of blood. I’ll have to look at the scene again.”
“Sorry,” I murmured, feeling bad he’d have to go back and rewrite things.
He waved a hand at me, smiling. “Are you kidding? I’d rather rewrite it than have my readers crucify me for a bad scene.” He frowned a bit at that, then shook himself off.
“Let me know how it turns out,” I said, seeing that he was already halfway in his head about the book.
He looked at me and smiled. “Ok, I definitely will. I’ll just… I’ll go work on that now,” he muttered.
I had such an urge to kiss him again in the moonlight, but I only smiled instead. I was going to take things slow. I could definitely do that.
He smiled back, gave a little wave, and then turned to walk back up his porch. I watched until he was safely inside and I heard the door lock, then I turned and headed into my own home.
