Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 44703 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 224(@200wpm)___ 179(@250wpm)___ 149(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44703 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 224(@200wpm)___ 179(@250wpm)___ 149(@300wpm)
He’s tall, yes. Everyone can see that. But it’s not just height. It’s breadth. Presence. His body takes up space without apology. His shoulders fill the frame of his suit like they were engineered to carry weight, literal, metaphorical, the sort that comes with being the last of a bloodline older than civilization. There is something undeniably animal about him. Not rough. Not brutish. But that thing where you look at someone and your hindbrain whispers, very quietly, this creature could outrun you without trying and isn’t that terrifying and isn’t that beautiful.
A stallion.
He is a stallion, and I keep forgetting that until moments like this, when he turns his head and the light catches the line of his neck the way he holds himself, that coiled, effortless power, reminds me that underneath the bespoke tailoring and the aristocratic composure, there is something vast and untamed that could level this building if it wanted to.
The delegate finishes his questions and moves on, and Alexei’s hand lands briefly on my elbow to steer me toward the next appointment. Just a touch. Just fingers on fabric. Lasting maybe two seconds.
I feel it for twenty minutes.
We pass the Bellecourt installation again, and I catch a flash of white-blond hair behind the display, one of the brothers, I think, though I can’t tell which one. The Bellecourt booth has drawn a crowd that’s spilled into the adjacent aisle, and navigating around it means the press of bodies forces us closer together. Alexei’s hand returns to my lower back, guiding me through the crowd, and this time it stays.
It stays, and my spine is on fire, and I’m smiling at a Fae delegate who is asking me about fragrance-free environments for winged races and I’m answering intelligently and thoroughly while the Prince of Atlantis has his hand on my back and my entire nervous system is staging a revolt.
When we clear the crowd, his hand drops.
I miss it immediately.
And I want to scream, because missing the touch of a man I barely know is exactly the sort of reckless, self-destructive nonsense that got me into trouble with Billy, and I refuse, I absolutely refuse, to be that girl again.
Even though I keep catching him. Small things. How his hand hovers near my lower back when the crowd presses close, not touching but almost touching, holding a space that belongs to me. How his body angles between me and the crowd, subtle but consistent, like he’s shielding me from something I can’t see. How, when I finish a technical answer that satisfies a particularly difficult delegate, something in the set of his jaw changes. Not a smile, not even close, but a settling. A satisfaction.
Like I’m passing a test I don’t know I’m taking.
Like he already knows the answer and he’s just waiting for me to catch up.
This is insane, and I need to stop, because I’m at a professional event representing my company and I can’t afford to spiral into a paranoid romantic fantasy about my employer based on a near-miss on a plane and some ambiguous body language at a trade fair.
I take a breath. I refocus. I pull up the next set of notes on my tablet and prepare for the next booth.
And then Alexei steps away to speak with a Lyccan council member, and I’m alone for the first time in hours, standing by a display of our V-Series prototypes, reviewing my notes and breathing actual air that doesn’t smell like mountain water and old forests and whatever it is about him that makes me forget how to be a functional human being.
“You’re the product designer, aren’t you?”
I look up.
The man in front of me is tall and striking, with a beauty that makes your brain go momentarily offline. Sharp cheekbones. Pale eyes. A smile that looks friendly the way a cat looks friendly right before it decides your hand is a toy.
Caro.
I know it before I register the tells: the particular stillness, the faint porcelain quality of his skin, the way his gaze lingers on the pulse point at my throat for a fraction of a second longer than is polite.
“I work in the product development division, yes,” I say. Friendly. Professional.
“Your presentation on the V-Series was impressive.” He takes a step closer. A small step, but the space gets significantly smaller. “You have a real gift for making complex things accessible.”
“Thank you. It’s really about understanding what the end user—”
“I don’t often meet humans who understand our world as well as you seem to.” Another step. His smile widens, and I catch the barest glint of something sharp behind his lips that makes my pulse skip for reasons that have nothing to do with attraction. “Perhaps we could discuss your work further. Over dinner.”
His gaze drops to my throat again, lingering this time, and a chill races down my spine that has nothing to do with the air conditioning. Because I’ve read enough about Caros to know that when one looks at you like that, at the pulse beating under your skin, it isn’t just interest.