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I decided to start with the tamest interaction we’d had and… work my way up to the more intense ones. “We actually… I saw you across the bar at Gargy’s a while back. You… you were on a date with a bearded guy. A faun, I think.”

He grimaced, and I had no idea what that meant—was he not interested in the faun anymore?—before recognition sparked in his eyes, followed by a series of other emotions that flashed across his face. I caught a hint of humour, then lust—maybe from him thinking about the glory hole—followed by wry resignation.

“I remember that night. And I remember seeing you.” He blushed. “I know I… I think I smiled at you, which might’ve seemed weird because I was on a date. Sorry.”

“No, it’s… I actually…” Oh fuck, this was so fucking embarrassing. “I was actually… the guy. That night.”

After a beat of silence, his head cocked. “The… Guy? Is that… a thing they award one person each night at Gargy’s? Like, you get free drinks or something if you’re ‘The Guy’ for the night?”

If I hadn’t been so fucking nervous, I would’ve chuckled at that. Instead, I wet my lips, trying desperately to bring even a hint of moisture back to my dry mouth, and shook my head. Splotchy heat was creeping into my cheeks, and there was no fur there to hide it. I hated my human form.

“No, uh…” I coughed awkwardly, unable to meet his gaze. “I mean I was the… guy. In the bathroom. That night.”

There was only agonising silence, so I glanced at his face very briefly, just to gauge how horrified or disgusted he was by that revelation. His pretty eyes were still big and wide as he stared at me, the hand that had been fiddling with his necklace now resting elegantly over his throat, as if he was utterly scandalised.

“Oh,” he eventually breathed, his own cheeks blooming with red. I could feel his body temperature rising, and… fuck. Those pheromones were clouding the air around us now. My cock was throbbing.

I wanted him again so, so bad. He was goddamn irresistible. And then I wanted to cook him dinner and maybe give him a massage and then make him come again as many times as he wanted.

“You… you should’ve come over,” the incubus said, his chest rising a little faster. “Introduced yourself.”

It was my turn to grimace. “You were on a date.”

His entire face flamed red, and he dropped his hand with a cringe. “Lucifer, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine. You did tell me that. During the, uh…” I swallowed. “During.”

“Still, I’m… It was a terrible date,” he blurted. “I didn’t like him. I don’t like him.”

I found myself cocking my head to the side, curiosity making me say, “But you went out with him again.”

The incubus heaved out a big sigh. “Yeah, I know. Had a moment of feeling sorry for myself and thought—Wait.” He blinked up at me. “How do you know that?”

Oh god.

Coughing uncomfortably into my fist again, I mumbled, “I, uh, was also… I’m, uh, Fenrir.” He gazed up at me blankly, so I clarified. “The fighter. From Cratos. And also, uh… B. Were. Goliaths. Wrestler.”

Did single-word sentences count as making conversation? I sure as fuck hoped so, because it seemed like it was the best I could currently do.

His eyes grew impossibly wide and he stared up at me in stunned silence. If those incubus pheromones of his had any mass, he’d have been swallowed up by a thick, hazy fog by now.

“Oh,” he breathed again.

My tongue pressed to the roof of my mouth when I realised his nipples had hardened and were visible under the thin fabric of his shirt. I wanted to play with them, see if he liked me plucking them gently between my teeth.

It felt like the temperature in this outdated front office had shot up a thousand degrees. Sweat prickled down my spine, dampening my shirt. Yet another reason I hated this human form. I was big, and bulky, and ran hot, so I tended to sweat. He was going to find it gross.

“So this is… what you look like in your human form,” he said faintly, that hand now draped over his chest as he looked me up and down again.

I cringed, shifting from foot to foot. “Yeah.”

“And you… and now you’ve seen me in… in both forms too.” He gave me a tentative smile. “Like this and… my incubus one…”

“Yeah.” I wanted to tell him that he was unspeakably beautiful in both forms. I wanted to tell him that his eyes were gorgeous and his hair was so pretty and I was desperate to bury my face in it until all I could smell was him.

But that would be weird.

I was so fucking weird. I’d met him a handful of times, and that was being generous. It wasn’t like we’d really gotten to know each other.