Page 7 of The Satyr Next Door (Convergence Quickie #1)
Gina
It was nothing like I’d expected. Nothing like the desperate, grabbing kisses in romance movies, or the perfunctory, duty-bound ones from the last years of my marriage.
This was slow. Deliberate. A question asked with lips and tongue, one I answered before I’d consciously decided to participate.
He kissed me as if he had all the time in the world, like nothing existed beyond this moment. When he traced the seam of my lips with his tongue, I opened without hesitation, and the low sound of approval he made went straight to the center of me.
He pushed his hand into my hair and tilted my head to deepen the kiss. Everything about him was foreign and familiar all at once, like coming home to a place I’d never been, but had always been searching for.
The world narrowed to sensation: his mouth against mine, his thumb stroking my pulse like he was keeping time with my heartbeat, his scent wrapping around me like a spell. I was drowning in it. With him, I was wanted, seen.
My free hand slid into his hair, the golden curls softer than I expected, warm from the sun. My fingers brushed a horn. I gasped.
He groaned into my mouth, raw and pleased, the sound making my knees buckle.
When we broke apart, I was plastered against him. The basket had spilled, peaches rolling across the dirt like golden marbles, the burrata still wrapped in its paper, the bread half-crushed beneath my feet.
Cal laughed, low and utterly satisfied, rubbing his face against my neck and jaw. His thumb never left my pulse point, as though he needed proof I was still here, still alive under his touch, still choosing to stay.
"I brought you fruit and cheese," I said weakly, voice shaking with more than nerves. "Not—"
"Not yourself?" he supplied, his eyes bright with mischief and heat when he looked at me.
The implication sent fire flooding my face. "That's not what I meant—"
But he cut me off with a brush of lips on my neck, just below my ear. "I'll take both."
My heart stumbled, then launched into a rhythm that probably qualified as a medical emergency.
He bent gracefully, retrieving the bread with exaggerated care, dusting off imaginary dirt before settling back against the trunk of the fig tree. Then he reached for me again, utterly casual, utterly certain I would come.
And I did.
Like I was magnetized. Fighting it was impossible. I sank down beside him in the grass, my shoulder brushing his. He pulled me closer without asking, arranging me against his side as if I’d always belonged there.
The basket's scattered contents spread between us like an impromptu picnic. He broke the bread, still perfectly crusty despite its tumble, and offered me the first piece. I took it automatically, my fingers brushing his, and the heat that zinged through my palm was as dizzying as the kiss had been.
"Do you do this often?" I asked, nibbling bread to cover the shake in my voice.
"What? Invite women into my garden?" His grin was lazy, wicked, completely unrepentant. "Only when they sneak in carrying offerings like some kind of suburban priestess."
I rolled my eyes, but the sound that escaped me was more laugh than protest. "It's hardly an offering. I thought it was polite, since you've been leaving me figs like some kind of fae trickster trying to lure me into your realm."
"Polite," he mused, plucking a rescued grape and holding it up between thumb and forefinger like he was examining a precious jewel.
His gaze slid to mine, deliberate and loaded with meaning.
"That word doesn't suit you, Bella. Not when you moaned over my figs like a woman savoring something sinful. "
I nearly choked on bread. "You heard that?"
"I have excellent hearing," he said, completely unashamed. "I heard enough to know you enjoyed them. Thoroughly."
He offered the grape, brushing it lightly across my lower lip in a caress that was barely there but felt like a brand.
I opened my mouth automatically, and he pressed it past my lips with his thumb, the pad of his finger lingering just long enough to make the gesture intimate.
The sweetness burst against my tongue, shocking in its intensity, and he watched me eat like the act itself nourished him.
We lingered as the sun climbed, trading fruit and bread, sips from his flask that tasted like summer and mischief.
He teased me about my careful posture, my stolen glances.
I teased him back about his theatrical bows, his shameless grin, the way he looked at me like he was plotting delightfully wicked things.
Each touch, each laugh, each shared morsel braided into something softer than raw hunger but no less dangerous to my carefully ordered life.
At some point, when I'd lost track of time entirely, I shifted, curling into him.
Without hesitation, he guided me onto his lap instead, arranging me across his legs like I belonged there.
My head found his shoulder, his heartbeat a steady counterpoint to my own still-racing pulse.
The scent of him surrounded me, clean sweat and rich earth, something indefinably green that spoke of ancient forests and older magic.
It should have been overwhelming, being this close to someone so fundamentally not human. Instead, it felt inevitable, like every choice I'd made in my adult life had been leading to this moment, this man, this perfect morning that felt stolen from time itself.
“You’re very bold,” I murmured, half accusation, half admiration.
“Satyrs don’t survive on hesitation,” he said, lips brushing my hair. “And why would I hide what I want, when it’s sitting so beautifully in my arms?”
My face burned, but I didn't pull away. I couldn't. I stayed there, letting his words soak into the cracks I hadn't realized I carried, the places where years of being taken for granted had worn me thin.
For the first time in years, maybe decades, I felt not like Mom, or the translator, or the woman holding her life together with color-coded calendars, grocery lists and sheer stubborn will.
I felt wanted. Desired. Beautiful.
Alive.
A church bell tolled somewhere in the distance, and reality crept back in around the edges. School buses and after-school activities, work deadlines and laundry and all the small responsibilities that made up my actual life.
"I should go," I said reluctantly, though I made no move to extract myself from his arms. "The kids will be home in a few hours, and I have work—"
"Then we have a few hours," he said easily, arms tightening around me like he was daring the world to interrupt this perfect bubble of stolen time. "Stay, Bella. Let me feed you fruit and terrible poetry. Let me remember what it feels like to want something beautiful."
Let me remember what it feels like to be something beautiful.
The thought was dangerous, seductive, completely impractical.
And I let him.
For now, wrapped in his arms with his quiet laughter in my ears, the rest of the world could wait.
For now, I was exactly where I belonged.