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CHAPTER TWO: SEALING THE DEAL - PART THREE
Harri bit her lip. Talking things through was helping with her nerves, but she still had so many questions about this whole thing. “How does something like this even begin? It’s not as if I can just knock on his door and introduce you to him. ‘Hi, Nate, this is my new boyfriend, so now do you believe we’re over?’ That can’t be it.”
She heard Azel chuckle, the sound making her mind stall. “Not exactly the approach I would suggest.” He hummed thoughtfully and shifted, the movement of his body and the slight creak of his chair audible over the phone. “I could come over tonight.”
She sat up straight. Come over? “Here?”
“That’s the idea. You’d said he lives next door, right? So he’ll definitely hear me come over. And, if he’s as obsessed with you as you say, he’ll definitely pay attention, if I spend the night.” He chuckled again, sounding more smug this time. “I promise you, he’ll get the hint quick.”
Spend the night?!
Oh no. No, no, no, no. “You can’t do that.” Reflexively, she gripped the collar of her button-up tightly together and pulled her knees up to her chest on her couch. Come over? Here? To spend the night?! “Absolutely not.”
Azel paused. “We don’t have to do anything. We just need to make him think we are. I can sleep on the couch or something.”
Harri worried her lip and suddenly felt the soft, firm cushions beneath her, cuddling and conforming to her body, more acutely than she ever had. She looked at the mid-sized sofa that she’d bought while thinking about her own, solitary comfort.
Even while dating Nate, it’d always seemed small, cramped, with never quite enough space for two people to sit easily. She tried to picture Azel, with his broad shoulders, long limbs, and wings sprawled over the couch that could never hope to contain him. She tried to imagine what it would be like, trying to sleep in her apartment, with him in her home. Even over the phone, with just his voice and breath in her ear, he felt too close, too present. She’d never make it.
She shook her head. “No.” She swallowed hard. “No. That will never work.”
“Why not?” He paused and she swore she could hear him frown. “I wouldn’t do anything you didn’t want. I promise, I would never. But, if my word isn’t enough, we can specifically add it to the contract. Like, you could keep your phone, with an emergency contact on speed dial or or even on the line, all night. You could even bind me, tie me up or handcuff me.”
She gasped a bit. “All night?”
He gave a little laugh. “Wouldn’t be the first night I spent like that.”
She cringed, both feeling relieved and decidedly, disturbingly flusteredly not, at that. She liked that it felt like she was in control. As if she got to decide exactly what she was comfortable with. What she wanted.
But what did she want from Azel?
Her heart pounded and her face flushed at that thought. At all the unimaginable possibilities…
“If you prefer, we can be as explicit as you want.”
She coughed, choking on her breath. Explicit?!
“We can detail — precisely — what we’re both allowed to do beforehand. What we’re both comfortable with. And not just for tonight, but for the whole of the contract.” His voice was so calm, so logical, it made her feel irrational. “Like hand holding, casual touching, kissing, and the like. Knowing the boundaries should help make us both feel more comfortable and natural, which will help us be more convincing in the end.”
Oh! That kind of explicit. “Yes.” She coughed, trying to wipe her mind of the extremely explicit images that flooded her imagination. The slick, sleek slide of skin. The press and push of bodies. “Uh, yeah, that sounds… good.” Settling her thoughts, she tried to focus on their conversation. “Boundaries are good.” God, didn’t she sound so eloquent? Get it together!
“I could come over and we could discuss it in-person,” he offered, his voice low and deliberately casual, while still somehow managing to sound like a verbal caress.
“No.” It was too soon and the fact that a part of her didn’t think so, that a part of her clenched in anticipation at the thought, startled her. “No. I would never do something like that.” She wasn’t reckless or impulsive, despite this very conversation doing its damnedest to prove the contrary. She was slow and safe and boring. “I’ve never had a hookup like that.”
She waited for him to question her. To judge her. But he didn’t. He just waited silently, patiently. Feeling her body’s defensiveness ease, she continued, “Nate would never believe I’d do something like that.” The more she thought about it, the truer it felt. “He’ll be suspicious or, worse, he might think I’m doing that — acting out-of-character — because of him. Like I’m trying to get his attention or make him jealous.” She remembered how he’d acted about dinner tonight. No, moving too fast might make things worse. “It has to look like a real relationship, not a rebound.”
Azel made an assenting sound. “That makes sense. Okay, then, boss, what do you propose?”
Her? The boss? How did that happen? It wasn’t as if she knew what she was doing. Cursing her own limited dating history, she huffed. “What were your other contracts like?”
He let out a bark of laughter that rippled over her spine. “Well, with my old contracts, I’d be spending the night at your place and I definitely wouldn’t be staying on the couch.”
Oh. Right. She flushed, feeling foolish. Why was this so difficult? It was just dating. Not even real dating. It was practically playing house, a literal child’s game.
Was that why she felt so childish? So thoroughly inadequate and immature, like a bumbling pre-teen before her first co-ed dance?
“How about a coffee date in the morning?” he suggested. “I’ll bring some drinks over and we can take a walk around your neighborhood. Hopefully, he’ll hear us in the hallway, that early in the morning, while everything and everyone is still lazy and quiet.”
Harri nodded. “That’s a great idea! Maybe Nate will even see us from the window on the way in and out.”
She heard Azel murmur in agreement. “Sounds like a plan. I’ll bring the contract and we can hammer out the details on our walk tomorrow.”
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