Dim Sum Asylum(24)
Waiting was probably too strong of a word. Bob wasn’t a waiting kind of cat. She was more of a piss on my bedding if a leaf landed too close to the litter box on the back balcony kind of cat, but she was there. In that building. Amid all of the chatter, neon, and savory aromas, my life waited while I tried to wrangle someone’s fuckup into a plastic bag I’d stolen from an old fae woman living in a shitty four-walled gōngyù shack.
The statue didn’t seem concerned. If anything, its once immutable porcelain face now smirked at me as it bounced on the bridge’s outer rail.
I didn’t want it to go over. There was no way that thing would survive the fall. Instead it would explode like a magic stink bomb, and the wind would pick up its dust, carrying its diluted spell into anyone nearby. It would be an ugly night, fueled by sex and jealousy.
If I thought Internal Affairs owned my ass after I shot Arnett, it would tar and feather me if I brought a lust-fueled rampage to the city’s streets.
“No. No. Don’t go anywhere,” I cajoled, inching my way toward the statue. If I could grab at least most of it, the spell could be contained. “Be a good… thing. Come here.”
It was like talking to a deaf old cat.
“Roku! What are you doing?” Leonard shouted as he jogged up to the bridge. He grabbed my leg, and I hissed, nearly losing my balance. The bridge churned, and I held my breath, expecting to plunge to the cement walk below. “Come back here.”
“The fucking thing is going to jump. It does that, and that damned spell gets into people’s lungs. You think people are fucking animals now? Wait until their inhibitions are stripped away because some asshole wanted to get laid. It is going to be ugly, Leonard. I promise you that, and it’s not something I want to explain to the police chief. He already hates me.” I shook loose of my partner’s grip and took another tentative step. “This is why people aren’t allowed to do magic without a license. You get shit like this and—”
The weight of the statue was too much for the span’s railing, and the bridge tipped, its laden side dipping far enough to pitch the cursed porcelain god over the edge. I might have screamed—frustration tends to do that to a man—and in that moment, two things happened.
One, it began to rain. A pounding, furious thunderstorm I’d not been paying attention to as it crept up on the city and released its watery anger. The statue’s powdery neutralized remains would stick to the sidewalk or drain down into the sewer.
The second thing was I fell.
As small as the statue was, it was heavy, heavy enough to break the windshield on our sedan, and definitely weighed enough to buckle a bridge’s tenuous hold on its moorings. I wasn’t prepared for the bridge’s sway, and I tumbled back, unable to keep my footing when the planking rocked.
Physics really did suck.
The skin around my teeth tightened, terror making my spit slick in my mouth. I twisted around, throwing out prayers to grab at any bit of the building’s brick fa?ade. My hands skimmed the rough stone, scraping my fingertips and palms. There was nothing under my feet. Nothing but yards of empty space and the promise of a painful ending.
Something firm snapped around my wrist, and my shoulder popped, strained to the point of breaking at the sudden jerk. I swung, then slammed into the side of the building, and my ears rang from the impact. A rushing whistle of wind screamed about my head, and through the aching pain, I heard my partner yelling my name.
“Grab my arm, Roku!” Leonard’s face came into focus amid the swirl of brick, mist, and rain. “Hold on to me!”
His other hand dangled near my face, but some sensible, conscious part of my frightened brain told me his forearm was better purchase. An odd detached whisper from somewhere inside of me wondered why he’d called me by my first name, and not just once. That pondering slipped away when Leonard jerked me up, dragging me along the building’s side. My feet kicked into motion a second later, and I dug my sneakers in for traction, climbing up the fa?ade as Leonard pulled me over.
I’d never felt anything as sweet as the tar paper and gravel beneath my hands and knees right at that moment. At least not until Leonard grabbed me in a tight embrace.
He caught me up, wrapped his arms around me, then dragged a hand through my sweat-damp hair as the storm raged over us. The rain was cold, shot through with ice crystals, and despite the storm’s pounding, neither of us made a move to find cover.
Trent Leonard felt good—too damned good—pressed against me. His thickly muscled body curved into mine, and the sear of his breath whispered over my face, burning its touch into my skin. My heart was still going at a machine gun–fire beat, and my body roiled with the stink of a fearful sweat, but the tightness in my mouth was gone, replaced by a hunger for the man holding me.
I was going to put that down to the lust spell carried on the lingering fragments the statue left behind, but the telling burn along my back and the tightening of my balls reassured me that no, my wanting Trent Leonard was my own.
Water sluiced over us, and the heavy weight of his hard cock pressed into my hip as he rocked me and sighed. I affected him as much as he affected me—or watching someone almost die got Leonard’s rocks off. My shoulder hurt, and my cock was probably hard enough to pound nails into the swaying bridge behind us, but I was alive. And being held by a partner I’d only had for one day who’d not only saved my life but brought my blood up to boil.