Page 9 of Clause & Effect
I need a cold shower.
Immediately. Something to make this fantasy sex tundra I’m in stop.
“Jesus,” Grace mutters. “You’re sweating...”
“No. I. Am. Not,” I say back with some fury.
“Facts on God.”
Great. I’m sweating. In the Arctic. I would be that person. Something does feel off though about my body temperature—my lewd thoughts about my very physical reaction to another human being.
“I can’t stop it,” I whisper under my breath—but they don’t sound like words coming out of me… it sounds more like a moan..
Grace curses and I zero in on Stetson again. I try to focus on other things about him… like something bad.
Maybe his hair is fake, maybe he has glued on hair, focus on the hair, Charlie!
Nope, nope, he runs his hand through his hair. I gulp. “Real.”
“Huh?” She elbows me. “What did you say?”
“Hair. Real. Nothing.” I almost pant. What else? He’s too tall and big. Tall and big could mean not so great of a fit in bed.
Bed though, beds are nice, and being manhandled and thrown up against one is the dream come true. I cross my legs. Nope, that’s not a negative that is strictly—positive, a nice little checkmark in his perfect little column, ha see I can make lists too!
I keep staring at him.
He’s pretty damn perfect.
It’s hard to find a flaw. Anything. At all. Without making my whole situation worse.
Wait! I’ve got it! Calories. Massive calories! Unfair but here it is!
Hedoeseat a lot. I’ll give him that. I get he probably has to in order to feed the beast of a body... but still. It’s a lot.
With a body like that you’d think he’d watch it— but in the short time he’s been in our presence he’s had a donut, croissant, two handfuls of peanut M&Ms, and a good number of strawberries that he’s dipped in the chocolate sauce.
Not that I’m counting because that would be strange, watching a stranger eat and counting their macros like they’re mine. I’m only watching because I can’t take my eyes off him. I gulp.
He reaches for another donut.
I’m feeling a sweet tooth. An addiction. To sugar.
“Where are you guys from?” I hear Devon ask. I zone in immediately.
Stetson takes a massive bite out of another donut.
“Norway,” he says.
A Viking.
My. God. He’s a Viking! Of course, this makes absolute perfect sense. If he was born in eight-eighty- AD he would have been a king of some fjord. No doubt just pillaged his way through cities and women like a god.
“But we both live in England,” Jayson says as he takes a sip of the whiskey he was handed by one of the many attendants on the buggy.
“Oh?” Grace’s eyes light up like Christmas freakin’ morning.
It’s not hard to know what’s happening inside her brain, her eyes do this weird math thing where they go from left to right and back again.
