I gulp a swallow. “Yes, sir, thank you.”
He lifts an eyebrow, perhaps enjoying the rise he gets out of me. I know he knows it. If I look down right now I know his sex will be long and hard, punching his jeans.
“I left some clothes for you on the bed”—he juts his chin over my shoulder—“in my bedroom. It’s that way. You’ll sleep there tonight, okay, little nymph?”
“Thank you, yes. Um…where will you sleep, Boyd?”
The vein in his thick neck goes taut as he halfway stifles a smirk. “On the couch in the living room.”
“Oh,” I say, burying my disappointment. Of course we would sleep in separate rooms. Some things aren’t so different in the Darkness. Maybe he already has a mate. I wonder if she’d live in a separate cabin, all by herself? Would she lop off my left tit if she knew I was here?
“It’s that way,” Boyd says again, freeing the other half of that hairy, roguish smirk.
“Right. You said that. Thanks.” I whirl around on my heel, schooling the heat that chases my emotion up to my face.
I skedaddle into his room and quickly get dressed in a faded, black shirt that’s so long and loose that even my billowy curves are swimming in it. I pull on a pair of cotton checkered shorts and roll the waistband down three times so they won’t slide off by accident.
Padding into the hallway again, I notice a door to another room cracked open. The door creaks when I push on it to peek inside. There is a desk with a little lamp and a stack of journals and a humongous window that almost spans the wall behind it. The other walls are lined with shelves filled with books.
Overflowing with them, really.
“You like to read?” his voice thistles.
I pick my mouth up off the hardwood floors and turn to face him. Topher is with him, putting a smile on my face. There is one thing, at least, that we have in common—we both love dogs. But I’ve never seen one that looks like Topher.
“Yes,” I reply. “Reading’s my favorite.”
“Mine, too.” Boyd smiles. Ah, so two things we have in common. We lapse into a moment of silence. He says eventually, “You can take as many as you like. Make yourself at home.”
“Take them?” I echo. Take them where? I wonder. I haven’t thought much beyond this night. Before I quite literally ran into Boyd, I hadn’t thought much past getting away. I needed to be lost, and now, I am. So now what? I should probably get into bed right now and think about what my next move should be.
“Are you hungry? I can fix you something to eat,” Boyd offers. Topher’s ears perk at the mention of eating.
I consider my stomach. It does feel empty, but I’m not entirely sure I can trust this man to feed me yet. If I see food I know I’ll inhale it either way and as wracked as my nerves are, I’d probably end up seeing it again. “No, thank you.”
“Alright,” he says, hospitably. “How about a nightcap?”
“A nightcap?”
“A drink.” He gives me a look. “You are old enough to drink?”
“You saw me drinking. And I’m not old,” I pull a face. “I have only eighty-one seasons.”
“Yeahh…” Boyd breathes out, elongating the sonance. “We’re gonna need to have a talk, you and me. Come, hither. Sit.”
I hither.
He pours amber liquid into a short glass and slides it across the surface of a low rectangular table, toward me, but I’m not thirsty. Anyway I hate waking up in the middle of the night having to pee.
The lamplight hits his wheat-colored hair, highlighting tiny flecks of silver at his temples. “So,” he says.
“So.” My lips twist. “What kind of dog is Topher?”
“He’s an English Springer Spaniel.”
“He speaks English?”
“No.” Boyd chuckles, warmly. “It’s an English breed…from England. I believe.”