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“Everything okay?” Merry asked.

The feeling of déjà vu was odd but not worth frowning over. If anything, it meant I would choose to be with my Merry in everylife, every time. I kissed him one more time to assure him all was well. “Yep. Everything is perfect. Now let’s go get that dinner.”

MERRY

Admittedly, I was still a little hard after our encounter in the closet, but I could wait for round two. I could always wait for Nero. He was worth waiting for.

I glanced at him as we continued toward the main entrance where security guards were seeing out the last of the patrons. I was the luckiest man alive to have snagged someone so stunning. Everything about Nero was like polished bronze, from the color of his skin, to his hair that was only a few shades darker, to the amber radiance of his eyes. He wore his hair long, and usually, it was wavy and free down to mid-chest, but on late nights like this, he tied it up into a messy bun like a sexy librarian.

For a history nerd, he kept himself in impeccable shape too, hiding quite the jacked physique beneath his dark jeans, checkered shirt, and crimson sweater vest complete with matching tie. In short, he was the sexiest history nerd in, well,history, and all mine.

He always looked so good inred.

With our hands clasped, I swept Nero into another dance step, just a quick tug, a spin for both of us, a twirl of him in place, andback against me for a swift kiss, then he was at my side again, as we continued forward.

“Youdork,” he teased me, but he fell into perfect step with me every time I did something like that, a naturally graceful dancer himself, though he rarely admitted it.

“And you are the nerd to my dork, and the dawn to my dusk.”

Nero laughed. “Dawn to your dusk? I thought I was the poet between… us…” He trailed off because this was definitely déjà vu.

“Must be true,” I said, “because it came to me like a vision from those gods you could so easily seduce.”

We were right at the final corner leading toward the entrance, and I paused to glance back at the curtain blocking the Egyptian exhibit. Our exit had left it just open enough for me to see a sliver of the underworld arch and Amun-Ra’s night boat.

Had Nero told me that’s what it was?

“Maybe I could seduce them,” he said, “but I wouldn't want to unless you were there too.”

It was odd. I didn’t think I could name too many of the Egyptian gods. A few obvious ones, like Anubis, Ra, that cat goddess maybe. Bastet? Bast?

Pasht?

But as I looked at the night boat, I knew I could name every god displayed.

When I turned back to Nero, for the briefest of moments, I thought his hair was down with braids in it woven with strange baubles, a feather, a bead like a snake scale…

We suddenly latched onto each other, desperate, more so than in the closet or possibly any time before. I wanted to devour every part of him, tongue first, to consume him, all of him, so we could never be parted again—and I knew Nero wanted the same thing.

The distant clearing of a throat snapped us apart.

It wasn’t Setterfield, thankfully, but we were in clear view of the security guards ushering people out.

“Closing time, gentlemen!” one of them called to us.

We were back to our senses, and eager to escape the museum’s confines to enjoy our night out, we took off faster until we burst out the doors into the cool evening air.

I didn’t know exactly what came next for us, other than that I was marrying this man and nothing would stand between us and that fateful day, but wherever our feet carried us, we were headed down that path together.

From dawn to dusk and everywhere in between.

The End