Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 100086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 334(@300wpm)
I almost feel sorry for him. Almost.
Dalton scowls at me. “What? That’s where your mind goes to? What is wrong with you? I almost died!” He didn’t, I already got the report. “I… wanted to cook something nice for you. It’s not my fault your favorite cookbook is clearly too advanced for peasants like me.”
I stall, leaning over him, and massage my aching throat. “My… cookbook? What cookbook?” I mutter while nurses chat someplace close by. I worry that I might know what he picked up.
I don’t like the rasp in Dalton’s breath and wish to check whether the oxygen is still flowing through the pipe in his nose.
“The… handmade one? With the weird recipes?” Dalton looks away with a grunt. “You had some marked as favorites so… yeah, that’s what I thought I’d cook.”
I cover my mouth with my hand as the reality of what happened claws into my flesh. I knew I wouldn’t take everything into account, but I really didn’t pin Dalton for someone who’d cook anything beyond eggs and chicken, unless forced to. And here he was, recovering after a disastrous attempt to please me with a recipe from my father’s book of poisons.
Recipes for substances useful in my trade were disguised as harmless with a special code known only by two people. A code Dalton most definitely did not know.
“What… did you try to cook?” I mumble as he watches me with his pretty green eyes, which for once look so very innocent and sincere I’m ashamed of my suspicions and the outburst I’ve greeted him with.
“The pancakes with chicken and—”
“And did you not see how ridiculous that recipe was?” I ask, pulling in a stool to sit next to his bed. I wish one could smoke at a hospital, because I really need a cigarette right now. I gently grab his hand when I spot that it’s wrapped with a bandage.
He chews on my words but doesn’t pull away. “So it’s a prank book?” he mutters, and his shoulders slump. Lies are most effective when the target already believes them, but I don’t have the heart to just confirm it, so I stroke his bare forearm with a deep sigh. It’s so strange to be touching another man like this in public. Sure, we’re alone here, but someone could come in.
“It’s complicated,” I mutter when Dalton glances at me again before breaking into a coughing fit the moment he attempts to speak.
I rush to the side table and bring over a cup of water he empties, still agitated by the fumes he’s inhaled. “I didn’t think you cooked,” I add, because the silence between us feels pregnant with accusation.
“Not much, but I can follow a recipe. Unless it’s a fucked-up one. What’s curious though is that when they ran my blood work, they discovered trace amounts of dexosomething. A potent synthetic aphrodisiac, apparently. Any idea how that could have gotten into my system?” he asks, the accusation clear in his gaze, and while I don’t apologize or recoil, shame burns deep inside me.
I clear my throat. I rub my nose, but when he doesn’t budge, I meet his gaze with a deep sense of failure. “I figured it would smooth things over… and it is harmless in the right dose.”
Oh, Father would have pulled on my ear the moment I started explaining myself. ‘Explaining is for the guilty’, he would have said. But I’m not like him. I never could be.
Dalton shakes his head. “For someone as smart as you are, you’re really fucking stupid, you know that? I don’t need drugs to want to fuck you more than is reasonable. What possessed you to do such a thing?”
Desire trickles down my back like hot, fragrant oil. People don’t ever flatter me like this. Especially not men, and coming from someone as handsome as him, the words are… addictive, even if offensive. Is that how it feels to take amphetamine?
“You refused to sleep with me, remember?"
“And how long do you think that would have lasted if you stepped into my bathtub naked or talked dirty to me? I’m a simple guy, Corvus. I don’t play games. Unless it’s poker. Which I’m apparently very bad at.”
A laugh tears from my lips, and I offer him more water, because if the fire spread, he would be dead by now. Because of me.
I might not know him well.
I might have picked him purely on the reviews of his performance in bed.
But I like him already, and don’t wish him harm. The fact that my foolish actions put him in danger is a stain on my perfect track record, and I hate it, even though no one else knows.
My family doesn’t do half-measures. I’ve been told to seize the things I want, and use every tool at my disposal, but maybe he is right, maybe the tools I’ve chosen are the wrong fit.