Page 14 of Tempt

I scrub a hand down my face and make a noise as I shrug. ‘Whatever. It’s been fine.’ I hope the short, sharp signs convey that I really, really don’t want to talk about this.

‘When is your flight back?’ God bless my brother. He’s one of the few people who gets me.

‘Tomorrow night. Red-eye. Gets in at five a.m.,’ I reply. I hate overnight flights, but this time I don’t mind it. I just want to get the hell out of here.

‘Need me to pick you up?’

I snort. ‘Yeah, right. You won’t get up that early.’

He shrugs and leans back a little more, the phone jostling as he sets it down. I can tell from the shelf behind him that he’s in his sex shop, sitting at the front counter.

‘Did everything go okay?’ he asks. ‘Any big orders?’

I nod. ‘A lot of sales and interest in the cookies. And I have several surveys you can go through.’ I start to tell him about the expo while adding in some Deaf gossip, but the glazed-over, faraway look in his eyes tells me he’s not paying any attention.

I make a sound in the back of my throat, and Dante jumps, his face flushing.

‘Sorry,’ he replies quickly. ‘Been a long week.’

I lift my brows, waiting for more information, and he finally gives it.

‘Pain,’ he replies, and my entire body sighs.

He’s been dealing with this unexplained nerve pain for as long as I can remember, and it only seems to be getting worse. I fucking hate that he has no answers, and that not one treatment the doctors have prescribed him has given him more than a few moments of relief.

‘You need to hire someone to help at the store,’ I tell him.

His face brightens at that. ‘I did! Everest,’ he says, using the name sign I gave him. ‘He’s starting today.’

Relief filters through me. Fuck, I’m so glad he found someone. While I love helping out, it’s not what I want to do with my life. I want something more, something bigger, but nothing’s ever been very appealing, and I know I’ve been coasting.

But if Dante doesn’t need me anymore—if he’s got help and he’s taking care of himself—maybe that’ll be the push I need to focus on myself. Maybe I’ll move. I could go somewhere with a bigger, thriving Deaf community where I can meet someone who isn’t a tall, hulking, callous, hearing monster who⁠—

‘Customer. I have to go,’ Dante interrupts, and my swirling thoughts fizzle into nothing.

I wave him off, and the phone call disconnects, leaving me alone once more.

When I blink, Eissa’s face appears behind my eyelids again, and I fight off a heavy sigh. There’s no escaping him here. I need to get home—to the place where I didn’t know he existed. Even though our town is the hub for monsters, Eissa wasn’t a part of my social circle. I’ll be free of him there.

And then I can forget.

I take a breath, and for a single second, I remember what it was like when his mouth was around me. My dick threatens to take interest, so I breathe through it, and then my phone starts to vibrate and flash again.

Fighting off a heavy sigh, I pick it up and see it’s an email to Dante’s business account:

Funding Opportunity

That’s…new. We get them from time to time, and they’re usually spam, but something about this tells me it’s not. The email address is from a law office, not some random Gmail trying to sound official.

I click on it, and it takes me a moment to process everything, but after a beat, my heart leaps in my chest. It’s an anonymous financier who might be interested in Dante’s products. And not just human products. They’re interested in him doing research and making a few prototypes that Vyastil might use.

For a moment my mind goes to Eissa, but this wouldn’t be him. Not a fucking chance.

I send back a quick message letting them know that I need to discuss this with my business partner and I’ll be in contact soon.

So long as they’re not weird about me being Deaf, this might be the miracle Dante was hoping for.

And it might be the catalyst that finally gets me out of my small town and away from all the mistakes I’ve been making.