Page 15 of Below the Shadow of the City
CHAPTER 15
E verything I do from here on out has to exude a calm confidence that contradicts the ever-present twitching between my thighs. I may never be able to go back to human sex again, but I’ll make do once this inevitably fizzles out. I’m sure there’s plenty of fanfiction I can dredge up to satiate my fantasies once I’m left alone with myself, the glow of my phone, and the buzz of my vibrator late in the evening.
You’re just seeing him again , I tell myself. It’s not symbolic of anything or any pursuit of a relationship. I selfishly enjoyed myself, and I want a taste of it again. It’s a casual hookup situation.
This can be something casual if I completely ignore the fact that everything about how he makes me feel is very much not casual.
I can overlook the fact that his personality fills me with an unbelievable warmth. And I’m certainly not thinking about how he’s going to perceive me as I touch up my makeup and refresh my lipstick.
Sure, the dress I’m wearing is one of my favorites and I shaved my legs. That’s purely coincidental. I’m apathetic! I’m chill! I’m low key! I’m…getting more and more flustered by the idea of being with him again because it’s all I’ve been thinking about this afternoon.
At this point in time, I’m not sure what makes me more terrified, the fact that I’m going on a second date with Maddox (even though it’s not a date) or that I’m committed now to submitting recipes to an actual, real life, published cookbook.
Ever since Margo replied on my behalf I’ve been trying to pretend that I don’t have that massive obligation looming over me. I could still back out, I haven’t received the contract that legally binds me to the project yet. Margo’s (unfortunately correct) voice is echoing in my ear over and over.
I can’t keep missing out, and while whatever is going on with Maddox sorts itself out, I can at least take a risk with something I understand, like baking.
I examine my face in the mirror, scowling at the dark bags that have settled on my lower lids. Sleep will likely escape me again tonight, either thanks to incredible sex or the ball of stress ping-ponging in my stomach. Or, the most likely answer, a sickening combination of the two. My insides twist and curl at the thought of it.
When I open the basement door he’s already waiting. His broad back is to me, so it takes a moment for him to notice my presence. In that split second, I gaze at him again, nothing has changed. He’s still massive, still covered in fur, still has those majestic horns, and his tail still twitches. A thin black sweater stretches across his shoulders. In the dim lighting of the hallway entrance he looks far more imposing than he did this morning when we’d parted ways. Whatever softness and vulnerability he’d shown when he asked to see me again has been replaced by his cool demeanor again.
When he turns to face me, he still has those intoxicatingly blue eyes that make my stomach feel like a butterfly observatory. His gaze meets mine and a wild grin spreads across his face, genuine and slightly crooked in a way that makes me melt. Maddox’s expression makes him less physically imposing, but I’m wholly terrified to be before him for reasons unrelated to his appearance.
“Ahh, she makes her triumphant return! Welcome back to the underworld, mon chéri.” He chuckles and braces his arms in the doorway of the laundry room.
I squint an eye and stare him down. He looks tired, but nowhere near as worse for the wear as I do. He’s made a miraculous recovery since this morning. “Do you not feel like death right now?” I ask bitterly.
“No, thanks to the six Diet Cokes I drank today,” he counts on his fingers, laughing. “They’re the perfect hangover cure. In college I used to call it my ‘magic elixir’. I’d add in a sprinkle of ginger and fresh lemon juice then sell the concoction to hungover frat guys.”
“You’re kidding,” my jaw nearly drops, and I make a note of the two additions for the next time I’m feeling hungover.
“About swindling nineteen-year-olds? No, I made, like, $500 one weekend,” he remembers his adolescent antics with a goofy grin. His face is deliciously expressive.
“About the Diet Coke thing. That’s my hangover cure, too.” It’s almost too aligned with my own habits. “You’re not stalking me, right?” A brief flash of discomfort overcomes me. Maybe my sighting of him in the alley was a small glimpse of all the times he’d followed me above ground. Maybe this whole thing wasn’t weirdly kismet.
His brows furrow and he shakes his head as if I just suggested the most ridiculous thing imaginable. His surprise immediately extinguishes any flames of fear. “Not unless you live in the laundry room and talk loudly about your preferred hangover remedies,” he takes a few steps closer to me. Each step he takes on the black and white tile makes my heart beat quicker and I try to ignore the incessant thumping.
“Fair point,” I exhale. He’s directly before me now, I have to crane my neck up to look him in the eyes as he wraps himself around me.
His arms grip tighter until we’re pressed up against one another. My shallow breaths slow once our bodies touch. He is both the cause of my anxiety and the remedy. It’s a fucked up balancing act that I don’t care to explore further right now. I purse my lips, prepared for another passion-laced kiss. His sweet taste has been a craving all day, my tongue longs to slide against his fangs. Something beastly and primal claws at my ribcage like they’re prison bars, begging to be released. My heart thuds as I await our collision, and then, nothing.
“I’m really, really glad you came back, Sigrid,” he states, smiling and unassuming. “I was beginning to worry last night would be a one time thing. After all the texting and calling for weeks it would’ve been a disappointing end.”
I pull back and glare devilishly at him. “You’re saying sex with me was disappointing?” I find myself flirting with him, it’s becoming easier and easier now.
“Sex with you only once would be,” he snickers, equally flirty as I wonder if he has the ability to blush underneath those layers of dark fur.
“I honestly don’t know what to make of all this,” I admit. “But last night was memorable enough to make me…curious.”
His cheeks puff out as he grunts in faux anger. “Well, geez, I’m glad I can satiate that curiosity of yours. I was thinking of something a little more formal than pizza and sex tonight. Maybe a real dinner date? If that quells your intrigue?” The way he practically growls out the question, even as facetious as he sounds, sends a waterfall of molten lava down my spine and directly between my thighs. He notices me tense up and gets flustered, “Or we don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to.”
“No,” I choke out, “dinner sounds wonderful.” I can muscle through a dinner together, I can cross my legs like a lady and pretend I’m not trying to chase an orgasm like the one I had last night again. It’s just dinner. It’s fine, I’ll live through this.
“Great, because I was presumptuous and already booked a reservation for us.” He pantomimes looking at a watch on his fur-covered wrist. “We’ll be right on time if we get going now.” His hand is held open, primed for mine to rest in it. I tentatively reach for him and he pulls me in closer.
“Can I kiss you?” He asks. The question is so delicate I nearly forget that he fucked me so hard I saw stars last night. It’s like he knows that a sweet kiss and a dinner date are much more intimate than the animalistic instincts we both seemed to lean into. This prospect has now become that much more frightening.
“Yes,” I say before I can stop myself. A piece of me buried deep within is reaching for this, yearning for it, even. I can’t let logic slip too far away. I can’t let tonight turn into something it shouldn’t. We’ll get dinner, we’ll have a pleasant date, and then we’ll sleep together. I’ll slip out and he’ll booty call me whenever he wants to sleep with a human again. I can use his presence as stress relief while I try to find the gumption to develop eight recipes from scratch.
As he moves closer to me, a deep growl rumbles out of him. On instinct my thighs press together from the bolt of electricity the sound sends straight to my core.
“Wait—” he tilts his head.
“Ugh, what?” I groan.
“That did a little something for you didn’t it?” His eyes darken as he stares me down. Does he not realize how he sounds when he does that? Any growl that exits him vibrates so deeply in my chest and blooms throughout my entire body. I can chalk it up to a strange subconscious biological reaction, that’s entirely involuntary. I can pretend that it’s not him in particular making that sound that gets me squirming for his touch. I don’t answer and he growls again with a laugh.
His fingers make their way across the small of my back and he pulls me in close against his body. He has the same pine scent, now coupled with a musky cologne that smells expensive. Another thick, clawed hand tangles itself in my hair and tilts my head towards his. I steady myself by gripping onto his waist. Maddox tugs gently on my hair, firmly enough to direct my head up towards his. The heat of his breath spreads across the bridge of my nose. My lips crash into his and we both exhale at the meeting. His hands track up and down my body in a way that makes me upgrade from a tremble into a complete shiver.
I push further into him, seeking heat, seeking sensation, seeking him . When he’d asked if he could kiss me, he severely undersold how incredible a simple kiss could be. Finally, he pulls back and brushes his thumb along my swollen lips.
His eyes are hooded in a daze, “we should get to our reservation.” In a flash of motion, he pulls me down the hallway while I’m still processing the kiss.
Our reservations are at an upscale Italian restaurant owned by the family of the minotaur from the pizza shop. Which, sure, makes sense in this world. I truly think I’m still in a state of shock regarding the existence of this realm below and all who inhabit it. On my list of priorities to mentally parse through, it’s lower on the list. I’ll take in this information as it comes otherwise I might go completely mad.
“Orion,” Maddox says warmly to the tawny furred guy before us who has swapped his grease stained t-shirt from last night for a blue oxford button down.
The minotaur looks at me as curiously as I’m looking at him, we didn’t have a proper introduction last night and it’s clear neither of us are familiar with the other’s species.
“This is Sigrid,” Maddox breaks up the staredown. “Sigrid, this is Orion, one of my dearest, oldest friends.” He makes a gesturing motion between the two of us, I reach out my hand towards the minotaur’s and he tentatively shakes it.
“Pleasure, Sigrid. And dude, no need to make me sound like I’m some old man,” Orion huffs with an obvious New York accent, and a piece of fur that was hanging over his eyes flutters in the air. They chat casually while he leads us to our seats, a quiet booth in the corner of the restaurant.
An older minotaur darts around the kitchen barking out orders to a menagerie of chefs who are also very much not human. I glance around the kitchen and the rest of the restaurant.
There are humanoid individuals with horns and features unique enough to catch my attention, creatures that I’d only recognized from folklore like mothmen, orcs, trolls, and others, and then people that look fully human and can only assume are shifters, witches, vampires, or maybe guests like myself. It is remarkably bizarre. I bounce my knee up and down.
I peruse the menu, and despite not wanting to be here, both in this underground realm and on an actual date, my stomach roars looking over the selection of pastas and dishes to choose from. The menu is really the only thing I can look at, because staring at the variety of creatures surrounding me would be incredibly rude.
Maddox is reviewing the menu himself. He’d ordered us a bottle of wine to split, which given the state of my physical being after the wine last night, makes me chow down a few more pieces of bread to hopefully absorb the incoming alcohol. The reading material before me is engaging enough to keep me distracted, and everything looks incredible. Save for a few menu items that make me pause entirely in my tracks .
I lean over the crisp white tablecloth. “This is going to be a terrible question—” Maddox looks up towards me and says nothing.
Assuming his silence is an invitation to continue, I start. “There’s beef on this menu, and the owners of the restaurant…”
“You’re asking if it’s cannibalism,” he replies matter-of-factly.
“Is it?” I nervously laugh, the flavored chips, mystery meat cubes, and blood bottles in the bodega were one thing. The acceptance of blatant cannibalism? Not a line I care to cross.
“No,” he laughs, “most Minotaurs don’t eat beef themselves, but it’s not cannibalism. Just…weird.” I nod at his straightforward answer, as content with it as I can be. I could ask dozens of other questions, many of them some variation of “what is their species?” Except I truly can’t think of anything more insensitive. Instead, I rub my fingers along the velvet appliques of my dress as a self-soothing mechanism.
“I’m usually the kind of person that says ‘Google is free’ with those sorts of questions but I think most of what happens down here far surpasses Google,” I’m rambling in a way that makes me feel so ashamed to be the one doing it.
It’s like when I came out to my parents and they asked me the weirdest, most invasive questions about bisexuality. “Why can’t you choose? What happens if you’re with someone and change your mind? You still like boys, why not date only them and keep the women to yourself?” I hate being at the receiving end, so I can only imagine how Maddox feels. He straightens himself in his chair and pushes his glasses up.
“Don’t feel bad for asking questions, it’s not your fault you’ve spent your entire life in the dark about it,” he reaches his hand across the table and places it over mine as I stare at the condensation on my glass of water. “And by the way, your efforts to not stare at me or anyone here look truly pained,” he laughs. I feel my cheeks grow hot at the horrible realization that I’m nowhere near as coy as I’d hoped. I can only imagine how our poor waiter, a tall male that looks like a dragon of sorts, feels about my stiffness and awkward formal mannerisms.
My eyes flick up at him and he smiles. “Much better.” We place our orders, and I grow more comfortable in the space. As time passes, I forget I’m not in a “normal” restaurant with “normal” guests. We talk and talk while I eat an obscene amount of bread. Though it’s not entirely my fault that the focaccia topped with rosemary and sea salt is among the best I’ve had. It’s done an incredible job at absorbing the wine I’ve gulped down.
“Is there something magic with this bread? Why is it so addictive?” I pluck another piece from the basket the moment it’s set down in front of us.
Maddox grabs a piece for himself. “No magic, in-house recipe. I actually think Orion was the one who developed it.”
“I could eat this all day, every day.”
It feels like Maddox and I are back on the phone together spending hours passing the time talking. I ask him more about his work and learn that “remote IT” was an understatement. He’s an incredibly experienced software developer who’s worked on projects for a consultancy that range from classified government initiatives to multi-billion companies in the private sector.
“Are there any secret government projects you can at least hint at?” I ask between forkfuls of pasta.
“My sister’s a lawyer, don’t you think I know exactly how tight the NDAs I’ve signed are?”
“I work as an admin assistant for a tech CEO, I’m hardly a national threat.”
Maddox puts his fork down, “you’re trying to get me to let my guard down by seducing me, that’s exactly what a mole for a secret foreign faction would do. You can’t be trusted with these secrets, Agent Larson.” He laughs and I playfully hit him with my fork.
It’s painful how much it proves compatibility between us when I know this can’t keep on like this. When I trail off because I catch myself getting too overexcited or vulnerable, he catches onto it. Sure, he doesn’t call me out on it, his eyes just make it obvious that he knows my tell and that my cryptic nature won’t work on him.
Orion comes back to our table and offers a dessert menu. I’m so full I’m regretting wearing such a form fitting dress. Maddox declines the menu. “You already know I’m going to get us that tiramisu you guys have.”
“I figured as much,” Orion answers with a chortle and heads back to the kitchen.
“You have a dessert stomach, right?” Maddox asks.
“Surely that’s not a real thing.” I can’t tell if he’s joking or if he biologically has been blessed with a second stomach just for sweets.
“I can pretend it is,” he chuckles.
When the tiramisu arrives I manage to get myself a spoonful before Maddox devours the entire thing. I don’t mind, the one spoonful was enough to make me want to be horizontal for the rest of the night while everything digests.
“I have a bit of a sweet tooth.” He sheepishly admits as he scrapes the plate clean.
“Clearly,” I laugh. “How long did it take you to eat that first box of cookies?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I think I really do now.”
“A day.”
“Maddox!” I exclaim. I’d made him two dozen cookies, which meant he averaged one an hour. Not impossible just…a lot. Having a black hole stomach like that would be an enviable trait if the thought of eating that much sugar at once didn’t make me nauseous .
“They were good! And like I said, I have a sweet tooth.” He leans back in his chair and rubs his stomach after tossing his fork onto the empty plate.
We walk through the dimly lit streets, he was right about them lowering the lights later at night, it feels like evening now, rather than the warm glow the neighborhood had before. We stroll, his arm has found its way around my shoulders and I’m walking closely beside him.
Then, before I know it, we’re back in the basement of my building. We’d managed to ride the elevator back to my basement without me catching on to our destination.
No going back to his place, or any second location for that matter. The night is over, just like that. It had all felt so easy, despite this being our second time together in person. Since obviously our run-ins in the alley and the first meeting in the laundry room don’t count.
He walks me back to the laundry room, and clutches my waist. He looks like he wants to kiss me. I want to tell him that he doesn’t have to ask me permission. I’d take any piece of him touching me right now. My head twitches in a nod, inviting him to take the initiative here. The right side of his mouth twitches up, a fang flashes, and he pulls me closer.
We kiss. The taste of chocolate lingers on his lips and I get a hint of the sweetness when we meet. He pulls back and grins.
“Well, you’re going to have to see me again,” he holds my hand in his and nervously rubs mine with his thumb. It’s a cute nervous tic I’m annoyed I’ve picked up on. I shouldn’t be so enamored by the feeling of his leathery fingertips grazing the back of my hand, but the little warm and fuzzy sparks it produces are hard to ignore.
“Why’s that?” I ask, playful enough to seem mildly intrigued at best, hoping the dim light of the hallway masks at least some of my blush. Praying this means there will be an invite back to his place or even better, sex right here, right now.
He leans closer and growls low in my ear, “Because you still have my hoodie.” He pulls back, winks, and turns to walk back down the hallway. “Have a good night, Sigrid,” he calls from over his shoulder. No invite back to his place. No ferocious sex on the floor of the laundry room. A kiss goodnight and an “I’ll see you again” threat. What the fuck .