AllFreeNovel
Share Us
My heart sinks when I think of Odin being away from me. Last night, I secured my attachment to him. I hate that it’s being tested so soon. I glance in his direction again, take the time to ogle at the way the morning light highlights his handsome frame. The sleek lines of his torso, the bulge of his biceps, and the straight curve of his jaw have me salivating. God. Is this what it’s like? Being obsessed with someone?
“Do I have something on my face?” Odin asks me, his brows raised in amusement.
Ford jumps in before I can answer. “Yeah, your cock.” He strides past me as I chuckle on the couch. “Don’t be late. Dom is not in the mood.”
“I wouldn’t dare.” Odin retorts.
Ford reaches the door, opens it and steps out, only to pause and stick his head back through. “Romeo likes his milk warm, but not too hot, and loves to sleep under your neck. You upset him, I will know about it.” He exits swiftly, his warning noted.
“He’s all yours, Dr. Lewis.” Odin mutters.
I stand, keeping Romeo in my grip. “I accept the challenge.” Odin gestures for me to eat some breakfast and I can’t refuse him. I grab the milk replacer from the bag of items Ford left and prepare it for Romeo’s liking. While he drinks, I get comfortable at the table and start to eat my fill.
Odin passes me a coffee and takes a seat opposite me. “Why the long face?”
“I liked getting to know you last night.”
“Physically?” he asks, the smirk on his face delightfully wicked.
My cheeks heat. “Well, yes. Obviously.”
“Obviously.”
“But I thought today we could—I don’t know—get to know each other more. You know, boyfriend and girlfriend type stuff?”
Odin hums. “I have some time before I have to see Dom. So, what do you want to know?”
I contemplate the question for a second. “Tell me a secret about yourself.”
“Only if you go first.”
Heart thumping, I sort through the many secrets that I keep locked and hidden away. There are too many juicy ones to choose from, but I settle on a story that I tell often. “My very first set of exams at college, I was high as a kite. I took a brownie from my roommate’s mini fridge, thinking it would give me an energy boost, since I spent the whole night studying and didn’t sleep. Unfortunately, I was horriblywrong.” I chuckle. “I still passed, though. I’m quite proud of that.” I take a sip of coffee. “And yours?”
Cool, calm, and casual, Odin surprises me by saying, “I wanted to be a paleontologist.”
My face breaks out into a surprised grin. “Really? What’s your favorite dinosaur?”
“Triceratops.”
“Of course,” I nod. “Sam Neil or Jeff Goldblum?”
“Goldblum,” he replies, smirking big enough that his dimples appear.
“I’m sure you’d have to fight Ford for him.”
“No. He’d be more into Samuel L. Jackson.” I laugh. Odin does, too. It’s so simple and over in less than a second, but now I crave it more than I crave sustenance.
“Why paleontology?” I ask.
“The house I grew up in was well decorated. Expensive artworks, sculptures and furniture. But there was this one display that always caught my attention. It was a flat piece of rock—a trace fossil—that had the single footprint of a stegosaurus imprinted into the center of it. I looked at it every day, sometimes for hours.”
“Why did you like it so much?”
Odin thinks for a beat. “I liked the story it told. I liked that it was real evidence for a living creature that was millions of years old. It was epic and infinitely simple, too. Just a footprint at the time, but something monumental today. I used to spend hours researching paleontology and archeology. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I couldn’t even concentrate at school because I was too busy drawing dinosaurs and learning all the bones in their bodies.”
I understand that. That constant, ferocious need to understand the working world. To learn everything I could until my brain exploded. Tofind the thing in life that gives you purpose and hold on to it with two tightly clasped hands.
“You didn’t want to pursue it as a career?” I ask.
