Page 13 of The Satyr Next Door
He offered the grape, brushing it lightly across my lower lip in a caress that was barely there but felt like a brand. I opened my mouth automatically, and he pressed it past my lips with his thumb, the pad of his finger lingering just long enough to make the gesture intimate. The sweetness burst against my tongue, shocking in its intensity, and he watched me eat like the act itself nourished him.
We lingered as the sun climbed, trading fruit and bread, sips from his flask that tasted like summer and mischief. He teased me about my careful posture, my stolen glances. I teased him back about his theatrical bows, his shameless grin, the way he looked at me like he was plotting delightfully wicked things.
Each touch, each laugh, each shared morsel braided into something softer than raw hunger but no less dangerous to my carefully ordered life.
At some point, when I'd lost track of time entirely, I shifted, curling into him. Without hesitation, he guided me onto his lapinstead, arranging me across his legs like I belonged there. My head found his shoulder, his heartbeat a steady counterpoint to my own still-racing pulse. The scent of him surrounded me, clean sweat and rich earth, something indefinably green that spoke of ancient forests and older magic.
It should have been overwhelming, being this close to someone so fundamentally not human. Instead, it felt inevitable, like every choice I'd made in my adult life had been leading to this moment, this man, this perfect morning that felt stolen from time itself.
“You’re very bold,” I murmured, half accusation, half admiration.
“Satyrs don’t survive on hesitation,” he said, lips brushing my hair. “And why would I hide what I want, when it’s sitting so beautifully in my arms?”
My face burned, but I didn't pull away. I couldn't. I stayed there, letting his words soak into the cracks I hadn't realized I carried, the places where years of being taken for granted had worn me thin.
For the first time in years, maybe decades, I felt not like Mom, or the translator, or the woman holding her life together with color-coded calendars, grocery lists and sheer stubborn will.
I felt wanted. Desired. Beautiful.
Alive.
A church bell tolled somewhere in the distance, and reality crept back in around the edges. School buses and after-school activities, work deadlines and laundry and all the small responsibilities that made up my actual life.
"I should go," I said reluctantly, though I made no move to extract myself from his arms. "The kids will be home in a few hours, and I have work—"
"Then we have a few hours," he said easily, arms tightening around me like he was daring the world to interrupt this perfect bubble of stolen time. "Stay, Bella. Let me feed you fruit and terrible poetry. Let me remember what it feels like to want something beautiful."
Let me remember what it feels like to be something beautiful.
The thought was dangerous, seductive, completely impractical.
And I let him.
For now, wrapped in his arms with his quiet laughter in my ears, the rest of the world could wait.
For now, I was exactly where I belonged.
Chapter 8
Gina
The basket was half-empty and I’d had more wine than was wise before noon, I was stretched across Cal’s lap like this was where I belonged, instead of hunched over my laptop translating maritime contracts for lawyers who’d never sailed the ocean.
His hand rested on my hip, thumb stroking lazy circles against the thin cotton of my shorts. Each pass lit up nerves I thought had died somewhere in the suburban wasteland of my marriage, leaving me trembling, desperate for more.
Maybe it was the wine making me bold. Maybe it was him, the way he looked at me like I was something rare, something to savor instead of endure.
“You’re quiet,” he murmured, voice rumbling through the chest beneath my cheek.
“I’m trying not to embarrass myself,” I admitted. The words tumbled out before I could stop them. Definitely the wine.
He angled his head down, those impossible brown eyes searching my face. “How could you embarrass yourself, when you’re the most captivating thing in my garden?”
The heat was dizzying. I laughed, breathless. “Do you always talk like that? Like you’re reading from a romance novel?”
“Only when the truth demands it.” His hand slid higher, thumb grazing bare skin where my shirt had ridden up. Sparks shot across my nerves. “And you,Bella Mia,inspire nothing but truth.”
My breath came too loud in the hush of the garden. I should have pulled away. Instead, I melted closer, my leg draping over his thigh with shameless need.
