Page 6 of Love, Laugh, Lich

My gaze still dips down once the loincloth’s in place, and instantly bounces back up to his horns. I bite down on my lips to avoid making any kind of face in reaction, but my mind is running with the sparse glance I had this morning and the size of the bulge through the sheet.

“Ok. So,” I say, matter-of-factly and as business-like as possible. In an attempt to not to look down again, I try to think about spreadsheets. I need to replace my unprofessional thoughts with professional ones. It’s as I’m staring hard at his face, the gravity of the moment sinks in.

Oh, no, what do I do with my hands? Should they be this clammy?

I shake it off as best I can. It’s just a kiss. It’s not like the first one is particularly important to me, I just never happened to get around to it. It’s not like a big, romantic thing to me. It doesn’t matter where I waste it.

I put my hands on his chest, and push up on my tiptoes, I’m ripping the bandage off, and getting this done.

My mouth meets Soven’s without ceremony. It’s softer than I expected, and that catches me off guard enough to not immediately pull away.

The sharp teeth that jut from his jaws nip gently at my lower lip. We’ve never been so close before, and nose to nose, there’s no guise of mystery when I can feel so much of him against me. I feel like I know him better just by being able to touch him. I can feel his careful intent in the way he moves his mouth against mine with purposeful kisses, the fleeting brush of his tongue to my teeth before I mirror the action.

The longer it goes on, the more I hope it never ends, the more I want from this. I push into the kiss, dragging my teeth along his lip.

My hands are digging into his leathery flesh, grasping for more of him until they’re gripping handfuls of his mane. As I start to slip from my precarious balance on my toes—I really needed a step stool for this—a large clawed hand curls around the low of my back, pressing me up into his body, holding me steady. My feet leave the floor and I think I lose a shoe, but I’m fighting the instinct to put my hands around his horns and wrap my legs around his waist. I’m fighting that need and, I think, losing as I feel the bulge in the sheet press against my thighs. I find my hand pushing down on his shoulder to bring me up, some shadow of a thought to grind my hips to his. His mouth leaves mine and I feel the scrape of his teeth against my neck.

I gasp, and that’s the sound that breaks this.

It seems to rouse him from our kiss, and he pulls back to his full height, setting me back down, my shoe-less foot touching the cold tile again. His claws rest loosely around my back, caging me in.

His shoulders are like a fireplace mantel, taking ragged, heaving breaths, I realize I’m breathing heavily too.

“So, um, was that what you needed?” I pant. It was what I needed, but I think I might need more in a minute.

Soven’s molten gaze lingers on me a moment, before his eyes flick to the right. “…The ritual floor is over there.”

“…Oh,” I say. Oh. My cheeks warm. “You wouldn’t happen to need any more virgin sacrifices, would you?”

3

There’s flowers on my desk when I arrive the next morning.

I sit down, marveling at the size of the bouquet. It takes up perhaps three-fourths of my desk. It’s hundreds of lily of the valley stems, slender curved hooks of bell-like flowers, mixed with sprigs of rosemary. It perfumes the whole office.

‘For your efforts’, the card reads in Soven’s handwriting, and I’m sure my face turns scarlet.

That’s one way to refer to the fact I totally mistimed the kiss.

“Secret admirer?” Randall from Accounting asks, noting the flowers. He’s the first to arrive in the accounting department this morning, after me. He waggles his eyebrows teasingly. He’s nice, and he’s been helpful the last couple days I’ve been working next to him.

“No. No, um, just a thank-you, from uh, a client,” I lie badly, and hope Randall doesn’t realize I don’t have any of my own clients, I just make spreadsheets and take office inventory.

“Oh. Well, that’s nice of them,” he nods, and settles into his cubicle across from me. “Hey, um, have you ever thought about switching to accounting? Or, uh, some other department. It doesn’t have to be this one.”

“Stay in accounting?” I ask, confused. I raise an eyebrow at Randall. “But I like my job the way it is.”

Randall backpedals instantly.

“I mean, it’s nice being able to talk to you, instead of just waving through the waiting room window," he says, cheeks turning red as he starts to ramble himself into a corner. I let the conversation peter out.

I try to stick the massive mound of flowers under my borrowed desk, it only partially works. I can’t really get any work done with it on top, though.

The flowers bother me in a weird way. Not that Soven sent them. The fact that he did makes my heart do weird fluttery things, and my brain leads down a trail of thoughts that ends with me pressing my knees harder together. I kind of wish I’d let myself grind fully against him, thinking that a little more friction would have satisfied my curiosity. He was so gentle to kiss, so careful in how he held me, I feel like he would have let me do almost anything.

The thing that bothers me is the card. It sort of strikes through all the fluttery feelings, like they’re meant to be a get-well-soon bouquet and not a thanks-for-the-very-hot-kiss gift.

Besides,I’mthe personal assistant. Who else would he have told to order the flowers? Does he have a second personal assistant somewhere? I don’t believe he knows how to locate a florist by himself.

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