Page 62 of Villains Never Die

He sat all the way up and the sheets drooped even lower until they laid across his thighs and covered almost nothing. “You shouldn’t have told him.”

I stopped moving; froze entirely. “Is that a problem?”

He bent down to pick up his underwear from where he’d cast them aside on the floor last night and sat at the edge of the bed. “I’m not exactly ‘out’ around here. People think of me a certain way.”

I watched him put on his shirt and wished he’d stay in my bed longer. “He figured it out himself. He saw you leaving the garage early in the morning and put it together.”

Silence.

I sat on the bed next to him and grabbed his arm. His head lifted so his gaze could meet mine. “I swearthisis safe with Gray. He would never tell anyone. I trust him.”

“You don’t trust anyone.”

I trust you, I almost said.

“So you know I mean what I say about him.” I squeezed his forearm and he leaned over to kiss me. Lips turned to tongues, then teeth. I brushed my fingers against his hard cock over his underwear. “If we keep this up, I’ll never make it to work.”

“Don’t care,” he said, gripping the back of my neck and jamming his tongue between my teeth.

“Were you ‘out’ before you came here? Was there someone else?” I asked him when I pulled away.

“Kind of,” he replied. “There was a guy a few years ago, but it didn’t work out. When was your last relationship?”

“Around the time I took my GCSEs.” I never blushed, but my cheeks felt suspiciously hot.

He laughed. “I have no idea what that means.”

“High school.”

“Oh shit. You’re twenty-five and you’ve never had a boyfriend? Or girlfriend? Whatever.”

“I was a little busy looking for…that thing.” It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him, as if he were a magnet trying to pull important things out of me. “I left home when I was eighteen and traveled, then came here when I was twenty, and I’ve built everything since then.”

“Is that all your life is?” he asked, rising to finish dressing. I tilted my head to look up at him and squirmed under the frown on his face. “Work?”

“Yours isn’t?”

“Yes, which is why I know it sucks.” His scowl broke after a moment. “When can I see you again?”

“I’ll be busy the next few days. I have another shipment coming in from the Czech Republic soon. I’ll call you though—I promise—and text you in the meantime.”

His goodbye kiss was softer, briefer, and as I watched his back disappear through my front door without guard or a glance back at me, I thought he might trust me too.

***

While Gray worked on the items from Russia, the Prague collection was entirely mine to sift through. Unlike the crates from the first shipment, they were neatly packed with matching inventories and explanations of the items inside. Going through them was less a matter of energy and organization and more a matter of taking my time to understand it all.

Today I’d made it through a quarter of a crate of statues and stone carvings. Bartos’s collection was enormous.

I turned to the laptop on the makeshift desk and typed out a message for veilknight.

j-aust13

I think I’m close to finding the grimoire. What else do I need?

A reply came through five minutes later.

veilknight