Page 69 of Empty Heat
He blinked at me, dark eyes searching my face. “I should be making notes.”
“No, you shouldn’t.” My body tensed. “I fired you, remember?”
He stared at me. “Oh. Yes. I remember.”
“This is between us.”
“They will want to know that you’ve been helped, though.”
“Why?” I leaned back against the headboard, feeling liquid begin to seep from my ass and onto the towels Lev had so diligently spread over the cover. It tickled.
“It is why you came here.”
I nodded. “I know.” I hung my head. It was an experiment for them, for me, and for Lev. I had almost forgotten.
“Callum, are you all right? How do you feel? How’s your heat?”
I heard the questions while barely comprehending them. I was thinking too much again, my flaw.
Lev would tell everyone about this beautiful experience between us as if it was a classroom diagram to be pored over and analyzed. He would make magic into a couple of equations, a wish of the heart into a robot response. I could demand that he not to make a report, as I had before. But was that fair to him?
I rolled away from him. I heard myself say, as if I was another person, “I’m hungry.”
“I will quickly shower and make us something to eat. Lie back and relax,” Lev ordered.
I lay back on the bed, waiting. For what? For magic, again? But yes, that was what I wanted, wasn’t it? I’d been denied it my whole adult life. Now I’d gotten a taste. Like falling into a fairy circle—one bite of the food and you can never go back.
I heard Lev shower, then come through the room to go into the kitchen. I smelled something good, like savory soup.
I wiped tears from my eyes with the back of my hand, got up and took a cool shower. I no longer felt my heat even though I technically had about six more hours to go.
When I entered the kitchen, Lev had cooked breakfast, though it was now afternoon and the windows were growing dark and light as if caught in a broken camera shutter. Clouds scuttled by preparing for the swift but timely rainstorm.
Lev served me hot eggs, fried, and bacon, toast and waffles. He had pitchers of orange juice, ice water and iced coffee.
I ate everything he put in front of me.
Lev wore his pretty white kimono belted tight. His hair was still wet and dark, gleaming at the sides where he’d brushed it straight back. His eyes were big and dark, pupils blown, though the kitchen was brightly lit.
He sat and ate with me.
“This is excellent,” I commented.
“Thank you. I don’t cook much, but I can do an okay breakfast.”
With his talents, he didn’t have to cook. I flushed at my thought.
“Callum—” he began.
I immediately interrupted. “Thank you, Lev. So much. Thank you.”
He smiled. “Callum, I just wanted to tell you it’s been my intent all along to not write notes to the team. I won’t say a word. Not even to Rhodes.”
I looked up from my food. “You won’t?”
“No. I realize this was very personal for you.”
For you.Not for him, though.
