Leather & Lark (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #2) (67)

Christ Jesus.

I take my glasses off and drag a hand down my face. “That’s … awesome.”

Lark giggles, and I wonder if she knows exactly what she’s doing to me. I’ll need to wank off for the third time today to yet another yoga-inspired fantasy of Lark if I have any hope of falling asleep myself.

“You should be asleep now yourself. It’s super late. What are you up to?” she asks, and I pinch the bridge of my nose and take a deep breath before I slide my glasses back on.

Trying not to die of the worst case of blue balls I’ve ever had in my feckin’ life.

“Nothing really,” I say as I pull my fist free of a spiral cage of wire. “Just having a drink, listening to a book.” Waiting for you to call, some hidden inner voice declares.

Fucksakes, no I was not. That would make me worse than Fionn.

Lark gifts me with an unsure breath of a laugh. “I feel like I should ask what you’re reading.”

“Please don’t.”

She laughs again, and this time I know it’s for real. “Okay, Budget Batman. You keep your secrets stuffed in your neoprene suit, then.”

“That suit is top-of-the-line, I’ll have you know. Premium synthetic rubber. Hidden storage compartments. Very high tech.” When Lark is done giggling and my smile slowly fades, I ask a question that’s been worrying me, poking holes in my thoughts since we parted. “Do you think you’re going to manage to get some rest before the sun comes up?”

“I hope so, yeah …” Lark trails off, and I catch the faint sound of her steadying breath. “But … I was wondering …”

I don’t press her. I just let her come around to it, and it takes a moment of waiting that feels eternal.

“Can you maybe read something to me …? I know that probably sounds stupid, but it can be anything you want. A gun manual, maybe, or so-you-wanna-be-a-leatherworker, or like, the history of dryer lint, or just … anything. I feel like maybe it would help to hear a familiar voice. Unless it’s a pain in the ass, I know it’s late, or I guess so late it’s early, and you’re busy and—”

“Lark.” I sit back in my chair and let my hands rest on the counter, my project momentarily forgotten. “It’s not a pain in the arse. Okay?”

“Okay,” Lark says on a long exhale.

“Just hold on, yeah?” I bring up the reading app on my phone and search for something I’m not sure the online store will have, but it does, and I grin like a feckin’ fool when I find it. “You might like this. I hear the history of dryer lint is a riveting tale.”

“I can’t wait to fall asleep in record time.”

At first it feels a little strange to read aloud to someone, but I quickly fall into the rhythm of a story that opens with an ancient city and a prisoner who finds a strange relic during a daring escape from his cell. I describe how the artifact seems to affect him. My tone is hushed and sinister when I tell her the prisoner hears voices when he holds it, and though he looks everywhere for the source, there’s no one nearby. He breaks out in a feverish sweat. He seems compelled by a hidden force, driven to run. When the prison guards discover he’s missing and chase him through the city, he’s hit by a car, the metal crumpling around him, and yet he stands uninjured, the relic still clutched in his hand. The man looks down at his forearm where a symbol burns through his flesh.

“Is this Constantine?” Lark asks, her voice colored with awe. If I close my eyes, I can imagine the rare blush that must be sweeping through her skin. “You’re reading me the script from Constantine?”

“Hmm. Is that what this is?”

Silence permeates the line.

“Seems like you might be right,” I continue, and I wait for a beat for Lark to reply, but she doesn’t. “I know it’s not exactly the same as what ended up on screen, but I’ve gotta say, I kind of prefer the opening they went with for the movie. Makes it more unexpected when the bloke gets smoked by that car.”

“You watched it …?”

I lift one shoulder, though of course Lark can’t see it. “Yeah.”

“When?”

With another invisible shrug, I place the spiral wire into the box and start shaping the two ends so it will stand upright on a smaller spiral frame. “The first time would have been about two weeks ago.”

“How many times have you watched it?”

“I dunno, duchess. Maybe one or two.”

“Liar,” Lark says with a laugh that dissolves into a soft melody of words when she adds, “Tell me the truth.”

“Twelve, I reckon.”

“Twelve,” she whispers.

I grin as I lift my prize from the damp and bloody tea towel and place it in the wire cage within the box. With a few minor tweaks, the golden spiral will be a perfect fit. “I thought you were supposed to be falling asleep. You gonna let me keep reading or what? I haven’t even gotten to the Keanu bit yet.”

“Umm … yeah.”

“You know, I’ve been told I’m like a tougher, buffer, generally better-looking version of Constantine-era Keanu—”

“Stop right there, Lachlan Kane. You will not Keanumatize me into forgiveness. That is fucking blasphemous.”