They were walking along the trail of the town’s titular creek several days after he’d returned from his trip, and she’d been asking for the full story on how he’d left his job in the city. He’d started with a company that distributed farm machinery right out of school, working his way up to senior VP of sales, a title that had made her swallow hard.And you’re just happy to have a four-digit bank balance.She’d learned he’d fled his small-town community as soon as he was able, earning a university scholarship and never looking back. As a result, he wasn’t particularly close with the younger siblings he’d left behind. He didn’t need to tell her it was something he felt guilty over; she was an expert in guilt and being anxious over other people’s feelings, and recognized it when she saw it.
“They stopped caring about the people they were selling to, started cutting corners, going back on their guarantees. At that point the money didn’t even matter . . . that could have been my grandfather being taken advantage of, or my brother, or one of the neighbors. I don’t ever want to directly work in agriculture again, but they’re good people, hard-working people. I like knowing I’m doing my part to help them.” He’d shrugged, big hooves clicking on the paved path as they walked. “So I left. Waited out my no-compete clause, rented office space. The people who run this town . . . you only need to get on their good side once. I helped out one of the local farms with a warranty issue on my own time, and that old centaur took my good deed back to the farmer’s alliance. By the time I was ready to set up shop, I had all of their business.”
Violet gazed up, her heart positively overflowing as he grinned. He was sharp and stoic and unsmiling most of the time, but when hedidsmile it was worth every moment without its light. He was solid where she was anxious, strong when she would have caved, but she thought that her own positivity filled in the gaps of his harder edges; her easier smiles and chipper attitude complimented his steeliness.Written in the stars.
“Tell me about the people who run the town,” she begged, swinging their joined hands in a most undignified way. “Oh! The Applethorpes, right?” He’d taken her to Applethorpe Manor already, one of Cambric Creek’s oldest and grandest residences which had been donated to the town as a museum, and she’d poured over every room; each arch and decorative door transom, every board of the intricate, two-toned herringbone hardwood floor and the meticulously restored wallpaper. It was everything she loved and it thrilled her that he was indulging her interests, and she’d been eager to learn more of the town’s apparent checkered history.
“The Applethorpe’s,” he agreed, “what’s left of them, anyway. The Hemmings, obviously, they’re at the top of the food chain, and the Irondritchs. Shifters and weres, that’s who settled this town originally. I’d love to get you into the Slade manor, we’ll have to figure out how to finagle an invite to the Halloween seance. Maybe Lurielle knows someone . . . "
The water widened at that point, spilling over a short cliff of rocks in a spectacular falls view, right in the center of town, and she’d squealed over how picturesque and lovely everything was. Cambric Creek was, she was slightly distressed to learn, just as expensive as the city, if not more so. All of the accommodative architecture and restaurants and scenery came at a cost, one the residents clearly didn’t mind paying, and she felt a twinge of guilt over every expensive meal and outing he planned for them, every little gift bag of lace-wrapped artisanal soap and local honey and hand-beaded bracelets she oohed over in shops that she went home with, but he was resolute. Spending time with her was the treat, and the cost of it was meaningless.
If only she knew what to do next. Violet felt stuck in place, a preposterous feeling, considering that she saw him regularly and learned more about what made him tick with each successive week. She adored spending time with him, was ridiculously impressed with his tenacity and ambition, and was turned to goo by his surprising softness with her . . . but he’d paused his visits to the farm, despite her insistence that she didn’t want him to do so, and after half a dozen dates and outings with nothing to show for her time—other than a heart that would surely be broken if he were to change his mind—was a pile of dripping panties and a charging cord that had earned a permanent place plugged in beside her bed. She’d been forced to wonder, as she took the much girthier vibrator she’d purchased weeks earlier off said charger, once she’d come home that night—alone,again—if his balls were achingly full for all the time they’d spentnothaving sex.
* * *
“There we are,” Geillis announced cheerfully, after ripping up the last of the wax-smeared papers. “That looks spot on, they really should have let me been more than a shampoo girl, bloody wankers at that place. He’ll be able to get his muzzle nice and wet now, you’re welcome, luvvie. I expect a bouquet of roses this week, once you’ve had your kitty licked like a bowl of cream. From both of you. Oh, he can afford the really nice ones too, the long-stemmed jobbies!”
He was coming to the city again the following night, a Thursday, and she was determined there was no way she was letting him deposit her at the building’s doorstep withoutcoming upstairs and taking off his pants.His shirt too. You’ve never seen him without his shirt on, he might have six nipples. It wouldn’t matter if he did, she thought resolutely.More to love.
She needed to figure out what to do next, how to move things along, for she had the niggling suspicion that every time she tilted her chin up expectantly, waiting to be ravished, Rourke was, in fact waiting for her. She needed to stop waffling, stop waiting for things to happen on their own, stop letting the uptight little voice in her head convince her that there was no way he’d be interested in a relationship with someone of her species, of her financial situation, with her at all. Maybe Geillis was right. Maybe she should take off her panties.Maybe you just shouldn’t wear them.Maybe it’s time to take this bull by the horns.