CHAPTER 3
Spook pulled up a chair and put it in his doorway where he could easily keep an eye on his unpredictable job. He’d watched her with Eveque’s woman and realized she saw her younger sister like a child. She would’ve been a baby when she’d gotten abducted, he realized. He only thought briefly about it, not wanting his rage burning up the peace of the evening.
He struck a match on his boot and touched the flame to the tobacco in his pipe, sucking a couple times till the sweet taste saturated his tongue. He released the smoke, letting it waft around his head and into his nostrils as he closed his eyes. Reclining in the chair was a no go. He needed to build a better one for relaxing. Could do that tomorrow after the meeting.
He glanced at the window, pulling his pipe out of his mouth at seeing shiny light purple material moving quickly through the living room. The front door opened, and she came on the porch, hand visoring her eyes toward him.
“What’s wrong?” he called.
She pointed at the house.
“Something not working?”
She shook her head and did signals with her hand.
“Coming,” he called, putting a sign language book on his mental list of items needed.
She waited on the porch, and he deliberately kept his eyes on anything but her. “Show me,” he said as he neared her.
She went inside and he followed her, ending up in the bathroom. She leaned down and pointed at the hole in the tub and did sign language again.
The plug. He sat on the edge of the clawfoot tub and flipped the silver lever up and down. “Up is closed, down is open.” He turned on the water and let it fill up a little then demonstrated, getting happy hmmms behind him with clapping.
He considered what else she might not know, not wanting to return. He couldn’t think of anything. He turned, getting hit by full frontal nudity, sending him racing out and slamming the door shut. Felt like he’d been punched in the fucking dick. He held his jaw shut tight, wanting to rip the doorknob off and cuss her out. Don’t fucking say it, don’t open your fucking mouth. You walk. Walk off now.
He stormed down the pier and went back to his shack, needing to recall the look on her face but unable to without getting everything else he’d seen. “Holy fuck,” he gasped, dropping in the chair, winded like he’d come from a fucking battle zone. Oh he had. He leaned over and put his hands over his face. He fucking needed to know what she was thinking. He wouldn’t baby sit a… he couldn’t bring himself to say it, not until he let himself recall the look on her face. He clenched his eyes shut tight and returned to the bathroom at that exact moment.
He released a huge breath. Terrified. Shocked. Confused. That’s what she’d been.
What the fuck kind of hospital had she been in?
He opened his phone and slid his finger on Eveque’s name. Did the doctor mention anything about her… he sat there, trying to find the right words but they all made him sound like a wounded dick. He realized he couldn’t ask anything without context.
I had to show her how to work the bathroom plug and when I turned, she was completely nude. I freaked and slammed the door just barely managing not to cuss her out. She seemed scared and confused by my reaction.
Fuck. He deleted everything and shut the box, setting his phone on the small table near the door. This didn’t need to be Eveque’s problem. He asked him to watch her, and he agreed. He’d let her know that shit wasn’t allowed. No touching and no showing him any part of her that a man shouldn’t see unless he married her. Why hadn’t they taught her that?
A thought hit him and stood him on his feet. Did the grounds keeper there do that shit with her?
He’d find out.
He decided to wait on the porch swing, going over how to approach the topic. By the time he was sure he had it laid out in a gentle but firm format, he heard doors opening and closing. He waited a few minutes, making sure she had plenty of time to dress.
Hearing her in the kitchen, he chanced a careful look through the small window, finding her in sky blue shiny pajamas. He released a breath and went to the door, knocking softly then gazing to the right till she entered his peripheral vision. She seemed to take her time getting to the door and when she opened it, a notebook got pressed into his chest.
He took it and read as the door shut back.
Do not slam the door like that again.
Holy shit. He knocked on the door, watching her as she returned and opened it. “I also have a request. Do not show me your nudity ever again.” He handed her the tablet and she yanked it, writing quickly, her jaw hard before handing it back.
You are celibate.
His browse rose at that. “And who told you that?”
She snatched the tablet back and wrote then handed it back. My sister.
What did she think celibate meant? “Being celibate doesn’t mean I look at women, it means I don’t. And why do you seem fine with being nude around strangers? You shouldn’t do that. Did somebody tell you it was okay to let a man see you without him marrying you? Because if they did, they’re wrong.”
She gave an odd look he couldn’t decipher but didn’t like.
“Second thought, you do whatever you want, just don’t do that in front of me. Don’t touch me, and don’t show me anything private.”
She wrote on the paper and held an I won’t up.
He glanced at his shack, a low growling bringing his hand to his knife. He unsheathed it. “Stay inside.” He pulled the door shut, slowly making his way to the edge of the porch. Definitely a cougar. He’d seen the fresh tracks on his way to the Birdhouse. His gun was in his shed.
He slowly walked in reverse back the door and opened it, reaching for the light switch. She yanked on his hands and arm with a racket of hums.
“Maggie, stop,” he whispered, swatting her off. He turned off the porch light and flipped on the parameter ones.
The porch lights came back on, and he pushed her hand off the switch. “Maggie, I need it off!”
Her frantic hums got so he couldn’t hear a damn thing. He stepped inside and shut the door, locking it.
“There’s a…big animal outside and I need to go to my shack and get my gun.”
She grabbed his arm, yanking and shaking her head with high pitched mmm, mmm, mmms.
“Stop…Maggie, stop.”
Her arms turned into bats, whacking at him while screaming hysterically. He pulled her into him and spun her around, locking his arms over hers.
“Shhhh, shhhh,” he said through her frantic panting. “What are you doing? You’re not a child, you’re a grown woman. You don’t want me to go out, then find a way to tell me that but don’t fucking hit me. Got it?”
She stood there, heaving on shaky breaths then finally nodded.
The threat of the cougar was suddenly nothing compared to the war on his senses. The sweet lavender and vanilla along with his arms around her was a killer combo. “I’m going to let you go now.”
She shook her head, with soft m-m, m-m, m-m her body trembling.
Fuck. She’d just found a way to kindly ask him for something. “I need to let you go. I can’t touch women like this.”
She pushed against his arms, and he released her, letting go of a huge breath before turning to the door, getting his arm yanked again.
“I’m just locking the deadbolt,” he said. “I’ll stay till your sister gets back. Just…do what you do, I’ll ghost out right here.” He collapsed onto the small sofa, ready to pass out.
She grabbed his legs and lifted them onto the coffee table.
“No, don’t,” he ordered when she tried to remove his boots. “Thank you,” he added at seeing her confusion, like he was wrecking everything she’d been taught. Fuck, and what was that, exactly? He needed to find out.
“Just pretend I’m not here. You can do that?”
He realized he was locked in an eye contact war, his brain needing too many answers about too many things. She was a walking puzzle he needed to look at but looking was a bad idea with her.
What a fucking test this was turning out to be.
She lowered her gaze, releasing him from the visual assault of her jewel-colored eyes. And all his useless brain could manage was which jewel? Unbelievable.
He closed his eyes, not trusting them while Maggie retreated out of the room with confused sounding hmms.
Fuck, how long had they been gone? Felt like a whole day had passed.
****
Beth’s stomach was in nervous, horny knots if that was even a thing. She sat across from Sahvrin as he steered the small motorboat through the oddly cool evening. The sexual tension had her ready to orgasm just sitting there. She focused on Maggie, trying to find something else to think about. Please let her be okay and let Spook not turn out to be…trouble.
It bothered her that Maggie had all these problems and Sahvrin just assigned the first person that fit the physical description Maggie was comfortable with. What about him, as a person? Surely, Maggie had preferences with that, and they hadn’t gotten those from Uncle Wigs. She kept reminding herself he was celibate. But Sahvrin had been too. Well, not technically. Hopefully that difference helped.
Back at the main house, Sahvrin snuck them around back only to find it blocked with a crowd of people. Holding her hand, he pulled her toward the small houses and snuck them into the soap house, then locked the door. Leaving the lights off, he went to the front and locked that one too. He turned and pulled her into his body, his groan hot and hard like his hands over her sides and butt. He then held her face with both hands while he assaulted her tongue with his until she was a whimpering mess.
“I’m going to eat your fucking pussy on that counter you stood at the other day. You want that?”
“Oh my God,” she barely moaned, getting pulled to location.
He lit a lantern and shut the curtains on the single window before turning to her. “Get naked, Ma Belle Eveque,” he said, racing to remove his shirt.
She clumsily made her way out of the dress and backed into the island, frozen in awe at the naked man before her. The Eveque. Her Eveque. He was a swamp God. And he looked at her like a sin he couldn’t wait to commit. The feeling was mutual. And it was past her turn to go first.
He took a step and she dropped to her knees getting the head of his cock in her hungry mouth before even grabbing hold. Once her hands were wrapped, he was at the back of her throat, his shocked gasp almost as delicious as the fist in her hair.
Oh, the sounds he made. Dear God, orgasmic. To have that part of him filling her mouth only increased her appetite until her moans sounded depraved in her own ears. She didn’t care. She needed to make him come, that’s all, and every rake of her nails along his balls got her that much closer.
“Ma Belle Eveque,” he croaked. He was lost in the fire and knowing she’d put him there drove her faster, her fingers reaching farther between his legs, hungrier.
“I’m fucking coming.”
The warning sounded pissed, making her moan non-stop with every hammer of her heart as his cock hit the back of her throat. He gave a growling seethe, bucking faster, pulling her hair harder. She stood her ground and took it, hoping he knew her whimpers were from pleasure as adrenalin reminded her what was coming right after he did.
The hot cum hit her throat and she closed it right as his fingers clenched hard with his orgasm, lighting her scalp up with a burning pain that hammered in her clit!
His sexy moans went on and on then finally his fists loosened with the slow of his thrusts. He gradually released her and pulled out of her mouth, pressing her head against his leg. She knelt there, feeling like she”d orgasmed too, moaning as he pet her head and face, his astonished groans giving her more satisfaction than anything she’d ever experienced.
His balls were next to her mouth, and she leaned and gave them open-mouthed kisses. She’d dreamed of doing that and judging by the pained French he spoke between thick breaths, he had too. It made her horny all over again. Then she realized little baby Sahvrin’s and Beth’s lived there and she kissed tenderly, never loving an idea more.
“Come here, Ma Belle Eveque.” His fingers slid softly under her arms and tugged her up. He gave a lusty groan on her mouth as he nipped with his teeth and taunted her with his darting tongue. “Such a dirty fighter,” he said, his fist in her hair again, tugging her head back.
God, that felt so good. She panted as her body hummed with anticipation. “I fucking like this.” His fingers closed hard, bringing a biting pain in her scalp, and pounding in her clit as his kiss turned demanding.
He kissed her for a full minute then lifted her onto the counter and held her hips. “Guide it Ma Belle Eveque,” he shuddered, moving his cock against her entrance. She reached down, her moans already frantic. “Hold on, Angel,” he whispered, easing her off the counter and shoving his cock deep. “Find leverage,” he gasped, moving her on and off him as his fingers dug into her butt. She placed her feet against the front of his legs and gripped his waist between her thighs. Leverage. God yes, she had it. Holding on to his shoulders, she stared into his eyes before kissing him, crying out in his mouth when he forced her harder and faster.
“Bishop,” she shot out, dropping her head back, using her legs to meet his vigorous thrusts.
He lowered to the floor and lay her upper body down, grabbing her hips and hammering again. “Hold your pussy up,” he ordered.
She placed her feet on the floor and held herself up and open, moans and pants running together as she watched him lick her then French kiss her pussy. Lusty groans flowed from him as he sucked on her clit next, scraping it with his teeth. She grabbed his head, fingers pulling in his hair as she forced him harder to her pussy, moving herself just right. “Oh…baby,” she gasped, bucking against his thrashing tongue until her muscles shuddered. “I’m gonna come,” she whimpered.
He rose and knelt between her legs, the head of his cock pushing at her entrance. “Put your fingers all over that fucking clit.”
She rubbed herself while he took his time burying his cock in her.
“Slow the fuck down, Angel,” he whispered, rolling his hips slow and perfect. “Wait for me.”
“Yes,” she whispered, slowing as he stared longingly at her tits. She moved a hand up to one and squeezed it, gasping at the throb in his cock.
His hot gaze slid up to hers. “Pinch that fucking nipple.”
Her pussy convulsed at his harsh command as she squeezed the thick nub between her fingers until a current sparked in her clit.
He looked down at her pussy when she slid her fingers around his cock, feeling him moving in and out of her before swirling on her clit. His drunk gaze went from her pussy to her nipple that she pinched. “So hot,” she gasped, feeling her orgasm coming.
His gaze hit hers, his mouth open with non-stop sexy groans before lowering her hips to the floor. He leaned forward, forcing one of her legs back with his arm, opening her so wide. “Oh God,” she gasped, looking between them, watching his huge cock move slowly in and out as she got back to rubbing her clit.
He watched too, lifting one of his legs and angling his hips before bucking them. “Your pussy on my fucking cock,” he gasped, holding her other leg open in a biting grip. “You’re going to come all over my cock?” He looked at her, his mouth open.
“Yes, yes,” she cried, rubbing faster.
“Fucking do it, baby. Come on my fucking cock. Oh fuck,” he gasped, watching himself hammer in her as she began to come and scream. “Ta belle putan de-chatte!” he swore, latching his fingers on her shoulder as growls strained up his throat. His thrusts turned deep and mind-blowing as he unleashed a storm on her.
When it was finally over, she heard “Oh God,” flowing on repeat and realized she was saying it out loud. Very loud. She felt a million gallons of hormones surging up and quickly covered her face as it gushed out in body racking sobs.
“Angel, fuck, no, no, no,” he barely begged, quickly gathering her in his arms and ranting in French as he kissed the back of her hands.
“It’s not you,” she half screamed around a sob as the chemicals raged. “It’s me, it’s me, it’s nothing,” she barely got out. “I’m just so happy,” she managed, sounding gutted.
He buried his face in her neck, his laughter making hers come between sobs which made him laugh more.
“Ma Petite, do you know how much I love you?”
She nodded, laughing and wailing. “I think so.”
His chuckles grew and he kissed her repeatedly all over the face. “You think you know? I don’t think you do, you can’t possibly know.”
“I do know,” she said, as he smacked her lips non-stop with mm-mm-mm on every kiss.
****
Spook’s eyes opened and he realized he’d dozed off. Something woke him. He looked around and pulled his phone out of his pocket, swiping the screen. Dozed thirty minutes.
A sound reached him, and he angled his head, listening. It came again and he stood, straining to make out where it came from. Something muffled.
Where was Maggie?
Panic hit him and he hurried to the front door, looking all around outside then raced to the bathroom. Empty. Her muffled hmmm came again, distressed. He shot toward the bedroom and opened the door. The large, odd shape under the covers resembled bodies, and even while logic said that was impossible her pained hmmms hurried him over to yank the covers off.
Maggie screamed, and again her nudity crippled him as she sat up and pulled a pillow against her breasts, eyes wide with fear as his “Fuck!” shot out.
He spun around and something clonked to the floor behind him. He turned, staring at the strange metal object, and realized it was vibrating along the floor.
He vaguely knew what he was seeing as he lowered and picked it, getting it snatched from his hand. Maggie shoved it under the covers, and it hit his dumb, celibate brain fully.
“Oh fuck,” he muttered, heading out the room for air. A fucking dildo. She was using that fucking dildo right there in the bed where he could hear her.
She”d just declared war on him. He paced in the living room and there she came wrapped in a sheet, writing on the tablet. She showed him and he held both hands up, shaking his head.
“MMMMMMM!” she said, pushing it at him.
He yanked it from her. You told me to pretend that you weren’t here. She eyed him, dead fucking serious as could be.
He let out a pissed laugh. “That’s funny, that’s…” he nodded his head, glaring right at her since it was officially war and didn’t matter. “So what, you just casually do that every night? Is that what you want me to believe?”
Her breaths turned shallow, and she snatched the tablet from his hands and wrote then turned it, stabbing the pen on the words.
The scribble was hard to read. I have to do it for chemical balancing. Natural and safe and nothing I should be ashamed of.
This time her eyes held a different fear. He let himself study it, needing to understand what the hell was wrong with her. Wait…she did it for health?
She held the tablet up and pointed rapidly to the last sentence. Nothing I should be ashamed of. She underlined it now and pointed it to him as if needing him to confirm it was right, maybe terrified that it might not be.
He held up his hands and closed his eyes as it fully sank in. Christ. She was hospitalized for years. A woman with a sexuality and all the problems that could come while institutionalized. “You’re right, it’s…nothing for you to be ashamed of.”
She let go of a sob and he caught her before she could run, again locking his arms around her. She fought dirty this time by crying, crippling his strength.
“I’m sorry, Maggie. I didn’t know.”
She gave a bunch of mmm’s that resembled I tried, I tried to tell you.
“You did try to tell me,” he agreed.
“Mmmm,” she added with a nod and light wail.
“I’m not good at this, Maggie. I never did anything like this before. And now I need to let you go again.”
She went still for many seconds then clawed the fuck out of his arm as she shoved away then turned at him in growling fury.
He looked at the blood on his arm and the sight triggered instincts in him just as wild as hers. He launched at her, wrapping his arms around her again and pulling her back to the couch. He sat and yanked her onto him, using his leg to hold hers down. She screamed for a good minute, and he waited for her to get it all out.
“You done?” he finally asked.
She eyed him, worry and anger burning hot in her gaze, close up and bare to him. She put her lips together for a single, “Hmm.”
“That sounded like a yes. But you drew blood and that means I draw blood. That’s the swamp law, Maggie. Eye for an eye. What you do to me, I do to you.”
He maneuvered her so that his arm held her upper body down while her lower half remained scissored between his legs. He pulled his knife out and her breaths turned sharp and fast.
He chose her shoulder and she erupted in screaming hmmms, head thrashing as he used all his weight to hold her still while sliding the tip of the blade quickly along her flesh. “One… two… three…” He sheathed his knife and let her go, only to get attacked with screams and claws.
He wrestled her to the floor, pinning her with his body. “You don’t want me for an enemy, Maggie,” he said, winded at her ear. “But attack me like an animal and I’ll tie you up like one.”
He waited till he felt the fight leave her muscles and moved off her and stood. She pulled the sheet around her and slowly got up, not quite hiding her nudity. He looked away and she tackled him, knocking him onto the couch. He caught her wrists before she could claw his face, while perfect breasts stabbed his fucking eyes.
He clenched them shut and spun her around on him, wrapping her in his arms and legs, back to square one and aroused as fuck now.
She pushed and squirmed her ass into his raging hard on, and no fucking way she didn’t know what she was doing.
“Yeah, you feel that? That’s what you want? That why you’re doing all this? You tired of your electric cock?” He clenched his eyes tight when heat hammered his balls before gritting at her ear, “Too fucking bad. This cock isn’t yours and never will be. You can make it hard all fucking day, but you will never touch a single inch of it.”
He imagined Eveque and his woman walking in and seeing this bullshit. He moved her into a backward hold and dragged her kicking and screaming to the bedroom. He looked around for anything to restrain her to the metal bed and spied the sheer curtain, ripping it off the window. Screams and grunts followed as he wrestled her to the floor again, wrapping the curtain around her upper body like a straitjacket. He tied a constrictor knot at the back of it. “Try and loosen it, and it tightens,” he said at her ear between labored breaths.
She turned her head and bit his shoulder, shooting pain and adrenaline through him.
He yanked her leg up and held the other down with his body then bit her inner thigh.
Her scream broke his ear drum while her female chemicals clobbered his cock. He dropped her leg, looking right into her pissed, shocked gaze. “We can do this all fucking night, sweet Maggie,” he promised.
She seemed to consider that then stuck her tongue at him and hmmmm’d.
“I don’t speak hmmm,” he said, rising to his feet. “But if you use words, maybe I’ll consider a truce.”
He left out the room, shutting the door and her air splitting screams with it. He looked out the front windows, expecting Eveque to show up any second to this fucking mess.
In the bathroom, he inspected the bite on his shoulder. “Unbelievable.” Not even an hour with this woman and he’d exerted more energy than he had in ten years with his ornery disabled parents. None of those skills applied with her. He’d resorted to survival instincts with a fucking woman of all things.
And now he was torn between being pissed, impressed, and fucking aroused out of his mind.
The sound of panicked knocking sent his heart into his ass as he hurried out the bathroom. Of course Maggie renewed her screams now.
“What the fuck is going on?” Eveque demanded hurrying in, his woman running to the bedroom as he stood there, eyeing him.
“Oh my God!” his woman cried.
Spook pointed at the room. “She got what she needed, that’s all.”
Eveque’s eyes rolled up with a quiet “Fuck, this is bad.”
“Bad?” He held out his shaking hand. “Last time I was this worked up was from dragging a kid out of a burning house. Maggie is a fucking burning house and I barely dragged my own ass out of it.”
He seemed to finally get what he was saying and muttered an astonished “Wow.”
“What the hell did you do,” Eveque’s woman demanded, heading toward him like a train without brakes. “What is all that blood from!?”
“She scratched me, and I scratched her back,” he said, bracing for Eveque’s woman to do her worst, ready to take it and let him deal with it. “She also bit me, and I bit her back.”
Her mouth hung open in shock as she looked between Eveque and him. “You’re supposed to be taking care of her!”
“I am, I did,” he assured. “She isn’t hurt, other than her pride maybe.”
“She’s naked and tied to the bed in a fucking… sheer!”
Eveque looked at him. “I told her if she attacked me like an animal, I’d tie her up like one.”
“Don’t,” she hissed to Eveque when he tried to put a hand on her.
“Let me talk to Spook,” he said. “Bring your tablet in there and talk to your sister, let her tell you what happened.”
“I would like to know why she has no clothes on!” she half yelled.
“Because she took them off,” Spook said, fighting to stay calm.
“What? Why?”
“You need to ask her that.” Fuck, he didn’t like she was in there naked now while they discussed her.
“I’m asking you!”
He eyed Eveque, then her. “It’s not my place to say it, I won’t say it. I don’t know a lot about her situation, but I don’t need to know it to respect her privacy. She’s a grown woman and she’s free to do whatever she wants, that’s not my business.”
“What are you saying?”
“Go talk to your sister, Beth.”
“No!” she cried. “I’m talking to Spook!”
Spook headed to the room and Eveque’s woman followed but he shut the door and locked it. He turned and went to Maggie, stooping down, looking right in her distraught face. “I’m untying you and I want you to get dressed.” He wiped the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. “Nobody should see your body, nobody,” he whispered. “But if you lay one more finger on me, you’ll never see me again. You want that, then you got it.” He stared into her eyes while Eveque knocked on the door. “But it’s not what I want.”
Tears filled her eyes and spilled over her cheeks.
“I’m untying her,” he yelled over his shoulder when Eveque and his woman argued behind the door. He pulled her head into his shoulder and reached behind her, untying the knot. He slowed when she pressed her face into him while crying quietly. He sat still with his eyes closed, feeling the small gesture before pulling her up with him.
“I’m not sorry for biting you,” he said, again staring into her eyes and wiping her tears. He pulled the light quilt off the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders, securing it at the front. “I’m not sorry for cutting you either.” He leaned and kissed her forehead as Eveque’s knocking got louder then he turned and headed to face whatever came.
“Talk to her,” he said to Eveque’s woman before looking at Eveque. “I’ll be outside if you need to talk to me.”
“Yes, you go outside,” his woman said.
“Beth.” Eveque’s tone went hard.
As the door shut, she apologized to Eveque while Spook headed to his new hideout. He still couldn’t believe all of that just happened. Fucking unbelievable.
****
Beth knocked on Maggie’s bedroom door when Sahvrin left to talk to Spook. The door opened and Maggie stood there in comfy pajamas. “Hey,” she said, her voice still trembling with her weak smile. “You okay?”
Tears filled her eyes and Beth hurried in and shut the door with her tablet and pen. “Please, Maggie. What happened? I’m so sorry, Sahvrin will get rid of Spook, I promise.”
She gave a pained look and shook her head, taking the tablet and writing. She handed it to her.
It’s not his fault. Don’t make him leave.
Her gut loosened a little as she eyed her. “Why were you naked?” she wondered, trying to figure that out.
She again took the tablet and wrote for a good while then handed back a paragraph. With every revelation, Beth’s jaw dropped further and further, and when she was done, she scanned the explanations again.
“What…is a chemical balancing exercise?”
She took the tablet and wrote then handed it to her. I have to have orgasms every day. I use my vibrating stick to help but I was having a very hard time because…I don’t know why.
“Ohhhh crap,” Beth whispered. He’d heard her doing that? “We’re you…very loud during your exercise?”
She shook her head a little and demonstrated pulling something over her head, even making strained mmm noises.
“You were under the covers?”
She nodded and Beth covered her mouth while Maggie looked worried. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” she assured while imagining what Spook might have thought he was hearing. Distress signals? She needed help alright. “Maybe Spook…I don’t know what he may have thought when hearing that after you thought it was okay to show your body to him.”
She shook her head, moving her hand along her body.
“You didn’t show your body?”
Again she shook her head and mode movements like getting undressed and washing her hair.
“You were just getting undressed to take a bath.”
She nodded, her brows furrowed with worry while Beth rubbed her forehead with a million questions. “So…you do these chemical balancing exercises daily to help with hormone issues,” she reiterated, half amazed and starting to feel really bad. “I was very mean to Spook, I thought…well he shouldn’t have cut you with his knife. And he bit you,” she remembered.
She pointed to herself and made a hard biting gesture.
“You bit him first, but he shouldn’t have bitten you back.”
She eyed her then shrugged her shoulders with wonder before again taking the tablet and writing and giving it back to her. He did what he thought was right. He’s very good.
Beth eyed her and she nodded with certainty then wrote again, presenting her the tablet.
He likes me.
She looked at her, then the page, wondering what she meant by that. “How does he like you?” she decided to ask.
She hugged herself and made kissing motions with her eyes closed, making Beth cover her mouth. “Are you sure? He’s celibate.”
She nodded a lot and pointed to her vagina then made the shape of a big penis then pounded her fist in her hand.
Did she just demonstrate a hard penis?
“How do you know about this kind of thing?” Beth wondered, or worried.
She did rapid sign language and Beth handed her the tablet watching her write then hand it back.
My doctors taught me about the birds and the bees.
So the birds and the bees was an entirely medical explanation. But then she’d did that hugging herself and kissing thing. “How did they teach you about it?”
She took the tablet and wrote then handed it back. Books. With pictures.
Of course. Now she needed to discuss how all this affected her.
“If…you had good feelings about it, it’s okay, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s natural.”
She suddenly looked at her as if realizing it might be okay to tell. She pointed to her chest and made signs of her heart beating really hard and fast. Then she drew a line from there to her privates. Ohhhh dear, she got aroused too.
Then she pointed at the wall and made a mad grimace and held a pretend penis at her groin. She gestured to it then pointed to herself with a big headshake. She repeated it—finger pointing to a penis then herself, then a big no.
“No penis for you?”
She nodded a lot then pointed to her butt and moved it then showed the penis hard again. “His penis was on your butt?”
She nodded again and pulled her to the bed and made her sit. Maggie sat on top of her and put Beth’s arms around hers then she wiggled her butt on her.
“Ohhhh, he was holding you like this, and you wiggled your butt on him and felt it?”
She hopped up, hmmm-hmmming with excited nods.
Now she was feeling bad for Spook. What a trial of fire he’d just gone through. And she’d jumped to every wrong conclusion.
“I was very rude to him.”
Maggie nodded a lot and tapped her finger on Beth’s chest then on her mouth before pointing to the wall. Right. She should talk to him.
Maggie started pushing her out the door, apparently wanting her to go that second. She didn’t stop pushing her till she was out the front door then she shut it, leaving her standing outside.
“Fine,” she barely whispered to her flicking go fingers. “I’m going.”
“Wait for me,” Sahvrin called. “Spook heard a cougar nearby.”
She stopped in her tracks on the pier and looked around, waiting like he said.
Maggie knocked on the glass and she turned. “There’s a cougar!” she cried as Sahvrin arrived on the pier and took her hand.
“What she say?”
“Oh God,” she whispered.
“Yeah,” he said.
“She’s making me go apologize to Spook now,” she muttered, getting a low laugh from him.
“I’ve never seen Spook so worked up in my life. Not sure this is a good situation anymore.”
“Oh no, Maggie will shit. She likes him.”
“I think the feeling might be mutual even if he won’t admit it. And he won’t.”
“Great. Maybe we can…find somebody else and you can put him on another job?”
“Maybe. I’ll see what I can do.”
At Spook’s shack, Beth cleared her throat. “Hello,” she said, sing song. “Wanted to…”
“No need,” Spook said.
“Actually, there is. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions.”
“You don’t know me,” he said, his silhouette lit up from the small lantern on his right, making his blue eyes dark.
“But Sahvrin does, and I should’ve trusted that.”
He looked down and she realized he was packing a pipe. “She okay?”
“She’s fine. She’s not mad.”
“Good,” he muttered, striking the match and making the tobacco flare red. “I might need to leave here for a couple days if Eveque is okay with it. It’s not good for me to be around her after that.”
Beth held her tongue, hoping he had a brilliant plan now that Maggie liked him. “Don’t think she’ll like that.”
“I know,” he murmured, exhaling smoke slowly. “But I won’t be far. Just won’t be where I have to interact with her. I’m supposed to watch out for her not get into physical altercations. I can’t do that again.”
She nodded. “Understandable. I can stay here with her for a bit?” She looked at Sahvrin.
“Sahvrin can sleep here if he wants. I’ll sleep nearby in the swamp. Close enough I can get to her if I need to. I’ll talk to her before I go.”
“You think that’s a good idea? I mean…to tell her?”
He eyed her. “She can handle it.”
He stated it like a well-established fact and she was impressed and happy that he thought she was this strong.
“She’s got gifts,” he said, awe in his quiet tone. “Once this blows over, I’d like to teach her how to hide and survive. She needs that defense.”
He seemed to stress that she needed it more so than others. Because of her looks? Her past? Both? “I agree. Definitely.”
“They both need those skills,” Sahvrin said. “More now than ever with what’s coming.
“What’s coming?” Beth wondered.
“A war.”
Spook spoke sudden French.
“She’s decided to serve with me as Belle Eveque. She’ll be learning all the details soon enough.”
“Got it,” Spook said.
“She’ll go through The Gauntlet,” Sahvrin said.
“They both should.”
“What’s…what’s the gauntlet?
“A series of tests you have to pass before you become a part of The Twelve.”
“Like an initiation?”
He shrugged. “A test you have to pass to enter.”
“You can take it until you pass,” Spook said. “Some men have had to take it multiple times.”
“What…sort of stuff is required?” she wondered, excitement making her almost nauseous.
“It’s a four-phase test that spans a week and covers knowledge and survival skills,” Sahvrin said. “Tailored to fit each man. Women in this case.”
The hard edge in his voice made her realize he wasn’t going to spare her, if anything, quite the opposite. “I’m ready,” she assured. “But Maggie is—”
“More than capable,” Spook cut in with that factual tone. He eyed her through the smoke wafting around his head. “Your sister isn’t a survivor, she’s a fighter. There’s a difference. The first plays defense, the second offense. I need to redefine her offenses though. She needs to learn when to run, when to hide and when to fight, and how. Then I dare somebody to try and catch her.”
“But I don’t even know if she wants to join The Twelve,” Beth said.
“I just meant use it to prepare her, not to join The Twelve,” Spook clarified.
“Sounds like the perfect Gauntlet training to me,” Sahvrin said from the doorway. ”How long you need that vacation for? Cause I have a spot with your name on it, saying come fast-fast.”
Spook puffed on his pipe, his head barely shaking. “No time to lick wounds is what you’re telling me. I’ll start right away. But there”ll be a lot of physical contact,” he warned.
Who was he warning? Himself, her, or Sahvrin?
“I’ll train Ma Belle Eveque. You train lil” Miss Maggie.”
Spook nodded. “Good.”