Page 61 of Eat My Moon Dust

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I scrunched up my banded mane before it could keen at the thought. Who was I kidding? I’d never be fucking ready. All those reassurances I’d given myself–ask her out after Zufi leaves, work on more holidays together, invite her to lunch, run into her, and for the love of all fucks,smileevery once in a while–crumbled at the realization that there was no longer an axe looming over my neck. She did it. Whatever she said to Zufi… She figured out how to keep us in Renata.

Which meant we didn’t need to pretend anymore.

Which meant she’d withdraw our coil.

Which meant I’d go back tobeing theskhrooj m’gess het.

Maybe she would stay until the Winter Festival was over. That would be enough time to–

The home tower doors opened in front of my face and I blinked, not realizing how far we’d walked. She led me into the lift and pressed the buttons, herKrismismusic wafting through the space between us. It had been an inviting sound every morning and night, full of warm moments like the spats singing along in gibberish or Tinsley humming one I recognized while she worked at the break table, but now the music was a crushing metronome, a steady march to the end of our arrangement.

I had to drown it out so I couldn’t hear the wrecking ball inside my chest.

“I would have lost parental control of the spats if I wasn’t in a coil with their maan,” I blurted as the lift started to rise. “She wanted to send them away when they were two years old, but she couldn’t if I was giving more than eighty percent of my pay to their living costs.”

“Honey…”

“We haven’t been together for more than a decade,” I insisted, bowling over her sympathetic words. I had to say it all before the lift stopped on level two. “So you aren’t causing a mess, Tin. You saved me from one that was fucking killing me, and I–”

The lift doors opened, and she pulled on my fingers gently, leading me out of the lift. I stared at her hand, counting the steps to my unit in a panic. Mysentithrobbed, the taste of her mouth and bare thighs still coursing through my system. I couldn’t let her leave. I couldn’t breathe without her.

I couldn’t.

The unit door opened with a rush of cold, spiced air. Tinsley walked inside, confusion freezing me at the threshold. This wasn’t my unit…

Tinsley faced me after kicking her shoes away, the low light reflecting off her green-sequined chest as she breathed in shallow, nervous breaths.

“Do you want to come inside, Hunar?” she asked, hands curled at her sides.

My mane broke its band, caught between the whirlpool of desperation to keep her for myself and the titanium self-control to maintain boundaries. I surged forward but grabbed the door frame with all four hands just in time to stop myself.

“Yesssss,”I hissed, doubled over from the effort.

“Then why aren’t you?” she asked, vulnerability lacing her tone. I groaned as mysentilatched onto the door frame and pulled, trying to get me inside her unit. She was offering herself up and I was so close to a frenzy, I might go blind.

“It’s all–pheromones. You’ve–never coiled before,” I panted. My elbows bent under the immense strength of mysentiand I buckled, close enough now to the entrance that my other tendrils curled around it, bending the metal. “I’d–be taking advantage–”

“You won’t be taking advantage of me.”

“What if you hate me again afterwards?” I rasped, looking up at her sweet face, leaving my soul and all its worries bare. Round cheeks and bowed lips, a tall nose and all those silk curls that bounced just like her stride when she was happy. If I ever saw hurt in her eyes again because of me, I’d bite off my own tongue.

“Humans don’t feel the coil, Hunar. We just…” She shrugged and smiled helplessly. “Fall in love.”

My world shrank to a single heartbeat, a single breath, as Tinsley shuffled one step back in her tights.

“Tinsley,” I warned. “You need to letmeleave first. If you back away, I–”

“I’m not leaving,” she interrupted, sliding back again. “I’m walking to my bedroom.”

“Chudthi!”I snapped, grinding my dental ridges together. “I said don’tfuckingmove!”

“Why not!” she yelled, exasperated. “Iwantto make a move. In fact, that’s what I’m doingright now!I want your frenzy, Hunar. I want you to grapple me and to put all those hands and tendrils all over my skin. I’m so tired of this stupid charade! I just want something real.”

Something real…

I’d lay down my life for something real with Tinsley Adams.

Mysenticalmed, still holding onto the bent doorway, just no longer pulling me like an anchor chain. It knew I was giving in.