The moment they sat, Briley went back to sucking his candy, and Gerard watched her. What was happening to him? Acting like a girl the way his eyes constantly sought her out, watching her every move like a man entranced. Pulse quickening when she laughed, when even the tinkle of her laughter reached his desperate ears.
Drumming his fingers on the table, he shook his head. The pendant had very little crimson in it now. She was falling for him, but it still wasn’t enough. Because no matter how much he wanted to slide his shaft deep into her willing, hot body, he couldn’t harden. If he couldn’t harden, she didn’t love him, and if she didn’t love him, he’d die.
One week. T’was all they had left. What more could he do? What hadn’t he done? He cooked for her, listened to her, watched her repulsive cartoons, and still something inside her resisted him. Should he attempt a seduction? Would that push her over the top?
“Do you love, Aunt Betty?” Briley’s small voice broke his musings.
“What?” he growled, staring down at the boy.
Briley licked his lollipop. “I said--”
“I know what you said, boy,” Gerard snapped, grabbing his pounding skull.
“Then why did you ask me to repeat myself?” Briley rolled his eyes and gave him a goofy grin.
Gerard snorted, it was very hard to stay aggravated with the boy. He was completely unfazed by anger. “It’s not as simple as that, garcon.”
“Yes, it is.” He nodded and snatched his hood off. The sweaty strands of his blond hair stuck to his forehead. “I love her.” He shrugged. “Easy.”
Briley’s fingers glistened with pink stickiness. On the next table an almost empty bottle of water sat alone. Gerard snatched up a napkin, and uncorking the bottle, wet the tip of the napkin. Whoever left their water shouldn’t have.
He cleaned the boy’s hands.
“I like her,” Gerard reluctantly admitted, and shifted on his seat. Saying it, acknowledging it, didn’t help his dilemma. It only made it worse. Because he would still leave. He had to. She was of Earth, he of Kingdom. What if she didn’t like it there? He couldn’t stay in Earth forever, he loved his world, and whoever he wound up with had to love it too. What if she didn’t want him?
He frowned, the thought making him rough as he rubbed harder at Briley’s hands, using yet more water to get the worst of the mess off.
“You’re going to leave aren’t you?”
Gerard stopped, and turned his face to the boy’s. Clever brown eyes studied him, not the eyes of a dullard, but a human who saw more than others would, or could, ever know.
“Who told you that?” he growled.
Briley shrugged, yanking his hands back and licking what Gerard hadn’t taken off. “Because you didn’t say it.”
Gerard wadded up the disgusting napkin and tossed it into the garbage. When he looked back at her, it was to see her smiling at him. His heart clenched, like an ogre had taken a ham fist and smashed it in. He jerked and turned away.
“Who are you?” A rough masculine voice pierced his skull.
Gerard looked up. A massive beast of a human-- muscles bulging on top of muscles-- stared down at him from behind a full mask. Green eyes, like deepest moss, pinned him hard to the chair. Blond hair hung long and loose down the things back.
“I said, who are you? What class do you belong to?”
Gerard had heard the greeting all day. Though not directed at him. Dressed as he was, he might as well have been invisible in this circus of freaks.
The Green thing (as it was dressed entirely in green from its patent leather boots, to its green halter top) flattened a work roughened palm against his chest. Then the voice turned husky, throaty.
“Only the guild can walk these halls, mortal.” Blunt fingers walked up his chest, toward his neck. “State your business. Or…” the voice hit an octave lower, going even more throaty. Was this creature attempting to seduce him? Bloody hell. “Have you come to visit, Gargantuan?”
Full red lips curved into a large grin.
Gerard couldn’t decide whether he spoke to a male, female, or a creature of Kingdom itself. He’d never encountered anything so masculine and yet at the same time, feminine.
He narrowed his eyes. Betty had taught him much of her language. “Notta chance,” he said calmly.
“Mmm. Really. Never heard of you, Notta.” The fingers traced his jaw, sexual light flared hot and bright from Gargantuan’s eyes. “What is your guild?”
“In hell.”
The hands stopped moving. “Get out of here, only heroes are wanted back here, puny mortal!”
Betty’s hands clapped onto his back. “He is my slave, Gargantuan. You are not to molest my toy.” Her voice cut like a blade, breathing hard Gargantuan looked between him and Betty and then stomped off.