Page 60 of The Fake Divination Offense
The first door we find is a bathroom. The next—a custodial closet, filled with racks of cleaning supplies, mop buckets, and not a soul in sight. Perfect.
I hold the door open, using it to block us from the staff up the hall, and loosen my grip on Alexo’s hand as I motion to the room, the single sad bulb hazing the cleaning supplies in a gray-white.
Super romantic, Monroe. Well done.
“Only if you’re okay with this,” I say. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable again.”
“You didn’t.”
One of my brows lifts.
“I mean—it wasn’t fromthat.” Alexo’s breath goes out in a resigned slump, and when he speaks again, he’s talking to the floor between us. “I need to keep… certain clotheson. I don’t—it isn’t—ugh.” He pushes his hands into his pink curls with an aggrieved moan. “Never mind. Moment’s dead. Want to know how many hookups I’ve killed with conversations like this? Fuckingall of them. Gods damn it.”
He spins away when I seize his wrist. But he doesn’t meet my eyes. His cheeks are so red they look painful.
In the pause, his words corkscrew into my brain.
Is he saying he’s a—
Holy shit.
No one’s ever—
And suddenlyIfeel inexperienced and unsteady, my throat turned to sandpaper and skin too hot, too tight.
There’s that beast again.Mine, mine, it says, ever feral.
“I’m not going to fuck you in a cleaning closet,” I say, my grin lopsided. “And there’s plenty we can do without getting naked.”
Alexo peeks up at me, surprised but guarded. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I want to kiss you. And if you want, if you’ll let me, I want to make you feel good.”
He swallows, his neck contracting. “H-how?”
“Can I touch you over your clothes?”
Another swallow. This one comes with a pinch of his brows, a pulse of want that flares heat in his eyes. “Yeah.”
The hand not holding his wrist lifts, and I take one of his curls, tuck it behind his ear. His skin’s rosy still, warm under my fingers.
“Can I kiss you over your clothes?”
He shudders. Hell, I do, too. My fingers rest against the pulse point in his neck and it flurries like mad.
“Y-yes,” he stammers.
“Can I—” I lick my lips, willing my breathing to stay level, to not vibrate the question before I even get it out. “Can I have you in my mouth? Clothes stay on. Just your cock.”
He looks like someone socked him in the stomach. Chest concaving, lips gaping.
Thenhe’sthe feral one.
He leaps at me, arms locking around my neck, and the force has me stumbling back into the custodial closet. My half a brain cell not currently absorbed in what’s happening reminds me to lock the door, fingers fumbling the bolt until it clicks. I barely hear it over the frantic,panickedwhimpers Alexo’s making as he kisses me just as frenzied, just as rattled.
It’s a heady, overwhelming barrage of his apple scent and the flavors of him dancing across my tongue, the shift and wriggle of his body in my arms. His legs clamp around my waist and he’s hard, and so am I, have been since I saw him in this outfit on the red carpet.
I rotate, resting his back on the door, and kiss my way across his jaw, to his neck, to where that gold chain starts its descent across his chest and down under his tank top. It’s a shooting arrow streaking over the night sky, and I make my wishes on it, every single one.
