Page 4 of Devour

Because it wasn’t as if Ember weren’t pretty or funny or kind. We were all friends. I didn’t want to get involved with anyone, least of all a friend, and I attempted to keep things that way. Didn’t seem right to date when I didn’t know what I wanted.

“If you were forty and still single, you’d marry her,” Asher said. And another round of shots. Oh boy. “Any man would.”

“Not this man,” I grumbled.

Asher laughed, but the teasing grin he had a moment ago seemed different, simultaneously amused yet annoyed. “And who will you be marrying instead? Rhory?”

Really, I couldn’t understand if he meant to be sarcastic or if he thought that would embarrass me. Either way, it didn’t warrant a response.

When I didn’t reply, Rhory piped up and said, “I’m not waiting until forty. Thirty is my counteroffer.”

“No,” I chuckled. This time, I asked for the next round of shots. I needed it. The Lord helped those who help themselves.

“Why not?” Rhory whined with fake annoyance. “Unless… you don’t like me.”

“I don’t know you,” I corrected. “On that basis alone, I’d sooner marry Ember.”

“On that basis alone, you should pick me,” Asher said with a wink. And wow, he somehow filled the space between us in the time it took me to blink. Neither his sudden closeness nor his word choice struck me as subtle. “You and I are best friends.”

“Nice try.” Rhory put a hand over Asher’s face and gently shoved him out of his way. Turning his attention back on me, he asked, “How about thirty-three?”

“I’m not sure I even want to get married, but if I do, the decision won’t be so flippant,” I explained to him. Was I drunk? Was this drunk? This should be our last round.

“Babe, come on,” Rhory groaned with his shot glass raised. “I’m giving you and Asher over a decade to find the balls to get it together.”

“Thirty-five,” I snapped, mostly to derail this conversation but also to get the last laugh. There was another major factor here that my friends knew, but Rhory did not. Remaining single, potentially my entire life, wasn’t something I decided on a whim. “Thirty-five or no deal.”

“Promise me?”

“Sure, I promise.” And I rolled my eyes.

Rhory reached a hand across the bar, and we shook on it.

Something weird happened next. If this were a love story, this would be the exact moment I realized Rhory and I were in love, fated, maybe even twin flames. No way this would be the start of a love story.

Time slowed while the bass of the music dissipated into the stillness. Smoke emanated from our joined hands, blacking and blurring out everything else around us. The burn of the liquor traveled in a direct line from my throat to my arm, where Rhory held a firm grip on my hand. Rhory seemed different somehow. His scorching gaze trapped me the same way his hands had his drink—not held nor cradled, but caged like a predator would their prey.

“Thirty-five,” Rhory purred. Literally purred, like the throaty growl of a catamount. It was not sexy. It was unnerving. “Then, you’re mine.”

When Rhory finally let me go, everything seemed to speed up again. The black mist no one else seemed to notice faded, and the bar came back into view. Music crashed around us again, and Asher’s shot glass hit the bar top as if he had just now finished our most recent round. Rhory downed his drink while mine remained in my other hand. That was weird, but so was being intoxicated for the first time in my life.

My confusion at the bar was the last thing I remembered before I woke up the next morning… not in my bed or my room. This was not my dorm. Given the amount of space, an apartment off campus. An industrial studio apartment at that, with tall windows running almost the entire length of the faded brick wall. More daylight streamed in from a skylight among exposed beams overhead. This place reminded me of an old factory someone remodeled into affordable housing.

I looked around the room once more and even peeked past the metal fencing along the platform of the loft bedroom to the living area below. No one in sight. Sitting myself up, I leaned against the padded headboard with a sigh. Still fully clothed, thankfully, but I didn’t remember leaving the club, never mind how and why I found myself tangled in the black sheets of a stranger’s bed.

The night before passed in a haze and my memory felt vague at best. The splitting headache and unfamiliar surroundings were my only indications that last night had happened at all. Sitting at the bar with Rhory, knocking back shots with him and Asher, and… did I go home with someone from the club? Oh, dear.

“Morning, lovely.”

Rhory waltzed up the staircase to what was presumably his bedroom, still wearing most of the same outfit as last night. Most, not all. His shirt was now unbuttoned, flashing his bare chest, and only a pair of tight black underwear remained below. Mistakes might have been made.

“Don’t look at me like that. I got my fill long before you came along last night.” He stalked over to the bed and sat at the edge facing me, pulling his long legs under him. The ends of his shirt barely covered his hips.

“What… ah… who—did we?”

Rhory tutted at me. “Not I.”

I exhaled with relief, then felt the need to apologize. “Sorry, I—”

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