Excerpts from a new book, ch. 3

Far away, on the other side of campus, a man with long, slender legs and a head full of mussed blue hair stirs. He groans faintly, and the body beside him stirs with him, making an inquisitive sound while still mostly sunk in slumber, barely waking up.

Robin reaches out and pats him a few times with his eyes still slitted shut—

Nothing to see here, just go back to bed.

Robin groans as he dredges himself back to the land of the living. It hurts waking up. The sunlight stings his eyes, and he has to practically force them open.

“Where you goin’, baby?” a sweet voice slurs behind him.

“Nowhere,” Robin says. “Keep dreaming.”

It could come off a little acerbic, but the alpha in bed takes it as sweet pillow talk. He rumbles slightly and shoves his face back into his pillow. His hair is a sandy blond color, wavy and tousled with sleep, and his sheets are clean for a college student’s—Robin’s insistence. He’s not going to sleep somewhere with a dirty bed.

Blue-haired Robin touches his slender feet down to the ground, recoiling slightly at the chill. He looks like a towheaded swan as he glides around the small and messy room, unselfconscious with all of his smooth, clear skin on display—the slender and shapely line of his back, his smooth and clean limbs. It’s still dark with early morning, but Robin’s eyes have always been good. He fishes around in the pockets of the alpha’s pants until he finds a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

He opens the window, letting in a refreshing trace of early morning air that blows the haze of sex and pheromones away.

The sun is just starting to rise over the grand, old pine trees that line the campus, touching the dew-swept grass with orange.

Robin doesn’t pay any special attention to it. His eyes rove past it, settling on the horizon while he smokes his cigarette calmly.

He purses his lips, blowing another puff of smoke off the window. The white smoke rises, trailing lazily like a dragon’s plume up to the sky.

“Baby?” the voice calls when he’s almost finished with his cigarette, lightly wheedling with sleep. That tangled mess of sandy blond hair peeks up from the bed. “Baby, it’s cold. Shut the window and come back to bed.”

“Coming,” Robin says lightly.

He finishes the last of his cigarette before stubbing it out on the window sill.

He does leave the window open, but he goes back to bed to warm his companion with his body.