“I’m fine,” I told him, giving him a sweet smile I didn’t feel, in case anyone was looking. “Why do you ask?”
He dropped my hand and slipped his arm around my waist, drawing me in against his body. “I sense a lot of tension coming from you,” he murmured into my hair as his big hand rubbed up and down the curve where my hip met my torso. “I’ve seen males do this with their females to offer them comfort in social situations. Is it helping?”
“No,” I hissed, keeping my voice down so the other humans in line wouldn’t hear. I shivered as white-hot sparks skipped up and down my nerve endings. “Probably because you’re not my male and I’m not your female.”
“You are for the purposes of this outing,” he pointed out, but he stopped rubbing his hand up and down my side. “Though perhaps your overly emotional mind can’t make that distinction.”
“That. Is. Not. The. Point.” I sucked in a deep breath through my nostrils to keep from decking him, annoyed by his jab at my race. Shifters were more emotional than the average human as a general rule, but he didn’t have to keep rubbing it in. Unfortunately, taking a breath didn’t help calm my nerves as it only caused me to inhale his musky sandalwood scent. The sparks raced through my body double-time, and I bit my lip.
“You’re right, of course.” He had the grace to look apologetic. “I suppose I’m going off topic.”
Ya think? I turned my attention to the conversations around us and did my best to ignore my unlikely date.
To my annoyance, no one was talking about anything interesting, and we spent the next twenty minutes crawling at a snail’s pace toward the entrance, Iannis’s hard body pressed against mine. My traitorous mind wondered if the muscles moving beneath his t-shirt were his, or if they were just part of the illusion. After all, he’d changed his coloring, outfit and facial features, but his weight-height proportions seemed to be the same…
This is so not helping.
I was saved from my raging hormones by the doorman, who gave us a cursory inspection before allowing us into the bar. The color scheme on the inside was exactly the same as the outside, with burgundy drapes covering the walls and black, glossy countertops and tables everywhere. Light music blended with the buzz of chatter as patrons sat and talked, and the aroma of fried foods made my stomach growl.
Iannis led me to the crowded bar, and we somehow managed to find two burgundy and black barstools near the middle. We ordered drinks from the bartender, who served them up along with two menus for us to look at.
I arched a brow as Iannis raised a beer bottle to his lips, tickled by the incongruity of the sight. “Know what you want?” I asked, noticing that he hadn’t touched the menu.
He nodded. “I’m partial to the pork belly donuts and the beer-battered tilapia.”
My jaw dropped. “You’ve been here before?”
He grinned at me, and my stomach flip-flopped. “You don’t really think I’ve never ventured out into the city, do you?” he asked, leaning in so he could murmur in my ear. I shivered as his warm, beer-scented breath tickled my earlobe. “Perhaps it’s been a while since I’ve been out, but I’m not as stuffy as you might think, Miss Baine.”
He sat back to enjoy his beer, and I snatched up the menu and began perusing the selection to cover my amazement. Sure enough, both the donuts and the tilapia were listed on the menu, along with a slew of other things. I decided on the lamb burger and an order of donuts for myself, and set the menu down so I could focus on the conversations going on around the bar.
“Hey,” Iannis said casually to a pair of young male humans wearing band t-shirts and shredded pants sitting next to us. “You two studying at the Academy?”
“Yeah.” The human closest to us lifted his can of beer in greeting. He was lean as a whip, and sported a bright blue mohawk, a septum piercing, and a days-old shiner on his right eye. “Going for an engineering degree, and my buddy here’s doing music.” He nudged his friend, a muscular guy with shaggy black hair and sunglasses. “How about you?”
Iannis leaned casually against the counter. “I’m majoring in chemistry, and my girlfriend Nadia’s going to culinary school.” He snagged me by the waist, and I swallowed a yelp as he drew me onto his lap. My heart rate skyrocketed as he looped his long, lanky arms around my hips, resting his clasped hands on the tops of my thighs, and my cheeks burned as his lips brushed my cheek before he grinned at the two humans. “She makes a killer lasagna.”