Page 47 of Where the Snakes Sleep

He lowers his hand, looking very pretty tonight—although I believe he may try to harm me if I tell him that. His hair falls loose around his shoulders, straighter than usual and glossy beneath the exterior light. He’s in black shorts that show most of his thighs and a thin cropped shirt beneath an open overshirt, the hem riding high enough to reveal a strip of his stomach. No bag. No supplies. No plausible reason for being here.

I size him up as he shifts awkwardly.

“Hi,” he says. “You busy?

“Yes.”

Not the answer he wanted. “Oh.” I lean against the door frame. He looks past me, then back to my face. “Like… busy busy?”

“I am in the middle of something.”

His disappointment—and the satisfaction it brings me—is close to instantaneous. “Right.” He shrugs, failing at casual. “No worries. I can just—”

“You can wait,” I tell him.

He stops, his eyes flicking up. “What?”

“I said you can wait.”

“For how long?”

“It’s hard to say. Twenty minutes, possibly.”

His gaze drifts down the front of my body. “Twenty minutes is kind of a long time.”

“You survived forty-seven hours.”

His eyes snap back to mine, and a slow smile spreads across his face. I realize my mistake a fraction of a second too late. “You counted.”

“No.”

“You absolutely fucking counted.”

“I did not. I just so happened to notice.”

“Uh-huh.” His smile widens.

I step aside. “Come in.”

He sweeps past me, satisfaction written all over him. “You counted.”

“Mention it again, and you can return home.”

“You’d miss me,” he teases.

“Terribly,” I answer coolly.

“You would.”

I close the door. He expects me to lead him to the library—I know because he already starts in that direction, shrugging his overshirt from one shoulder.

“This way,” I redirect him, guiding him down the corridor leading to my lab.

“Oh, okay. Where are we going?”

“My laboratory.”

His steps slow. “Your laboratory? As in… the venom stuff?”