a word. In fact, Carson was smiling as he looked between the two of us.
Seeing everyone handing over their stuff to Carson, I passed over my box into his safekeeping for next time. Now that the game was over, I had no idea what to do or say. I watched as Chelsey walked toward the door and grabbed her leather jacket from the counter. She was cool. She rode a motorcycle, was a bit of a goth mixed with street, and had her long, blonde hair braided on the sides that made her look like a Viking.
Niles looked kind of plain standing next to her. He was handsome with perfectly styled brown hair, a bit of scruff on his face, and a simple white T-shirt stretched across his nicely muscled chest. His jeans were dark and tight, and his clean white sneakers gave him a bit of a hipster air.
Red’s bright green eyes and the smattering of freckles across his cheeks gave him a perpetually youthful appearance. That he was wearing a superhero shirt, jeans with holes in the knees, and bright, multicolored sneakers didn’t help make him look any older.
And then there was Carson. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye as I fiddled with my pencil. His blue eyes were intense and seemed to notice everything. During the game, he’d been talking to Chelsey when, without looking, he’d caught Red’s pretty, blue pencil as it had rolled off the table.
His hair was dark, short on the sides, a little longer on the top, and kind of messy as he stroked his fingers through it often. His body was thick with muscle but not too much to look strange, just strong and powerful. He had little lines beside his eyes that crinkled when he smiled and lips I wanted to touch.
I looked down at the table at the thought. I hadn’t wanted to touch another man in so long that I was surprised by my desire to touch him. When Lee had called him a dungeon master, I hadn’t expected him to look as if he belonged, well, in an actual dungeon. Dominance clung to him like a second skin. I should have been scared of him, doing everything in my power to get away, but all I wanted to do was get closer. I guessed it was true what they said: you could take the boy out of the scene, but you couldn’t take the submissive out of the boy.
Peeking at him once more, I felt my eyes widen in alarm when he noticed me staring at him. Whipping my head away from him, I looked at Lee, waiting for him to give the signal for us to leave. I needed to get away from Carson before I did something stupid, like get caught staring again.
I glanced up once more, unable to stop myself because I had no self-control. His eyes caught mine and held them. I tried looking away but couldn’t; they were just so blue. Which shouldn’t have meant anything seeing as how my own eyes were blue, but I couldn’t see them, so they didn’t really count.
“Did you have fun?” he asked softly as everyone else milled around the room.
Nodding, I twisted my fingers together in my lap.
“Are you coming back next week?”
Nodding again, I cleared my throat. “Yes, I would like that very much,” I said, sounding way too formal.
“Good,” he said, confusing me with the satisfaction I heard in his voice. “Well, since it looks like you’re joining the party, I’ll offer you what I offered everyone else. The miniature you used I painted, but if you want to paint your own you can. You can come over sometime, and I can give you a blank one and teach you how to paint them yourself.”
“Really?” I asked, excited at the idea. The warlock I’d picked out was cool and all, but he wasn’t how I’d pictured Mjölnir.
And besides, painting was fun! I immediately squashed the littleness I felt welling up inside.
“Yes, really,” he said with an indulgent smile. “I have a lot of supplies and enough to share. I find it relaxing.”
“Cool,” I said with a nod. “I’d like that.”
“Okay then,” he replied softly.
“Daddy!”
I became paralyzed as ice flooded my veins, replacing the heat that had slowly been simmering. Whipping my head around toward Red, I watched as he raced toward the man standing in the doorway, a man that was nowhere near old enough to be his biological