Page 3 of Clean Finish

God, this was getting ridiculous. Was unbearable, overwhelming horniness an actual medical condition or something? Because if so, I had it. I had a bad, bad case of it. I couldn’t focus. I was never good at sitting still, but right now I was practically squirming in my chair, staring down at my phone with unseeing eyes.

I needed to get laid so, so bad. For my health.

Fidgeting restlessly, I found myself looking up at Seb again. He hadn’t moved. He was still just sitting there doing his crossword. Safe, dependable Seb, who never said anything inappropriate in the workplace, or got drunk with the wrestlers after the shows, or flirted with anyone.

I’d once overheard Dan telling Vince about a vampire he’d had sex with the night before, who’d actually, literally sucked blood out of his dick before riding him while plunging his disembodied head over their cock to fuck his throat at the same time. My dick had been rock hard with a scared boner while I’d eavesdropped on the conversation. It had sounded amazing. And terrifying.

I bet Seb just has normal, vanilla sex, I thought, still staring at him. His head is firmly attached to his body. He doesn’t drink blood. He doesn’t have a freakishly long tongue that’s both arousing and intimidating at the same time, or thick, powerful goat legs that want to crush my skull, or terrifyingly hot incubus sex powers that would make me come until I blacked out.

All those things sounded fantastic, but… too much. Way, way too much for me right now, when I’d never…

I needed to just get it out of the way. Rack up some experience so I could start making my rounds among the wrestlers, delighting them with my sexual prowess and leaving them so satisfied that I’d become a local legend. The famed assistant who could make even the biggest and scariest of wrestlers dissolve into quivering puddles of fucked-out cum-goo. The Fae Fuck God of Goliaths.

I had to be smart about this. I couldn’t just dive in balls deep and undoubtedly make a fool out of myself. I needed to go in there—whatever there ended up being: mouths, butts, coochies, I didn’t care—knowing what I was doing. I needed practice first.

And I needed someone discreet and reliable to practise with.

If Seb could sense my wide-eyed gaze on him, he didn’t react to it, or even glance over to see why I was staring at him. He just scratched something onto his crossword, then brought the stubby pencil up to his mouth as his toe pads twitched in concentration. Heat prickled over my skin as I watched him tap the eraser on the end of the pencil lightly against his muzzle.

Maybe if he was in his human form…

I pictured his human mouth. I wasn’t sure why I could see it so clearly in my mind—I must just have had an incredible memory—but I could. It was a nice mouth, I guessed, if I had to pass judgement on it. If I were being forced to under oath or something. Not too full, but with a plump lower lip and a sharp Cupid’s bow. A perfectly acceptable mouth. No razor sharp fangs. No insanely long tongue.

Kind of a… starter mouth, if you will. Safe. Regular. No intimidating features.

If I told Seb about my predicament… I didn’t think he’d laugh or mock me. He wasn’t like that. He was always calm, and never cruel. It was kind of comforting in a weird way. You knew what you were getting with Seb.

I’d know what I’d be getting with Seb…

My throat bobbed with a nervous swallow as I stared at him. He wrote another word in his book, the scratch of pencil on paper the only sound in the room. Something about it made me feel safe. Much calmer than I had been while surrounded by all the wrestlers in the backstage area.

Yes. That was Seb. Safe. Calm. Reliable.

And with that thought, I came to a decision that scared me almost as much as the idea of fucking any of the wrestlers.

Chapter Two

A Love That Is Not Shared (10 Letters)

Seb

I hated that I wanted him so much.

Larkin Fairchild was a hot mess. He was immature and unprofessional and far too young for me. Twelve years younger, to be exact. Just twenty-three to my thirty-five. He talked constantly about wanting to fuck all the wrestlers, he spent more time on his phone than he did actually working and he spoke to Holt like they were bros, and not boss and assistant.

I shouldn’t have wanted him, but I did, and I had from the moment he started working here.

Not that he ever really paid any attention to me. I was one of the few people here who didn’t walk around half-naked all the time, so why would he? He’d called me boring a few times, teasingly, usually while I was doing a crossword or reading the paper. Never in a mean way. Larkin wasn’t mean, he was guileless. He was all talk and no action.

He probably thought no one had noticed the way he flirted with all the wrestlers but always pulled back when they started getting a bit more amorous.

I’d noticed. I noticed everything about him. I knew he didn’t really like the taste of coffee, but he drank it every morning—probably because he thought it made him seem more mature—after loading it with cream and sugar. I knew that when he came into work with his long pink hair tied back into a bun, it meant he hadn’t slept well the night before.

I knew that when he was upset about something, his wings closed up tight, tucking into his back. When he was excited, they fluttered rapidly. When he was nervous, they snapped open wide, like he was instinctively trying to make himself appear bigger in the face of something unsettling him.

He probably didn’t even know my last name, and we’d worked together for a year and a half.

Like always, I kept my gaze fixed firmly on my crossword book as we sat together waiting for Holt to arrive at work, but I couldn’t focus on the clues in front of me, no matter how many times I read them. This was why I tended to stand outside the door even when I didn’t need to—because Larkin’s presence fucked up my concentration so much.