Chapter 18 Elanie
Even though we were cold, hungry, and possibly still in danger of being found by whoever had brought me here, the days in the cave began to blur, passing by as easily as the sun and stars overhead.
The transition from working almost every waking moment on the ship to having relatively little to do went so smoothly, I wondered if I’d permanently damaged my neural interface.
During the day, I kept the fire going while Sem went out to collect more wood.
I watched him work on the comms, which still sat in pieces on the cave floor.
At night, we told each other stories by firelight, taking turns until one of us started yawning.
Usually him. Then I watched him fall asleep, letting myself study his handsome face and bare chest for as long as I wanted to while our bodies made parentheses around the flames.
The ground was hard and cold, the air in the cave musty and dry, but when I eventually closed my eyes too, I’d never slept so well.
In the last week, we’d experimented with how long I could spend outside the cave (four minutes and seventeen seconds) and how many times I could go out each day (no more than three) before the voice found me again.
It was strange. I was quite literally stuck inside a rocky hole under a mountain, but I didn’t feel confined.
I didn’t feel trapped. I didn’t feel free, necessarily, but as close to it as I ever had before.
“Today is the day,” Sem said, returning to the cave after a trip outside. He jogged in place for a few seconds, then he blew on his hands and hovered them over the fire.
“The day for what?” I asked, watching firelight move over his webbed fingers.
Flicking one fist forward while making a circular motion with the other, he said, “Fishing.”
“I don’t think your invisible fishing pole will catch much.”
“Neither will your sarcasm,” he returned, half-smiling. “That doesn’t mean I ever want you to stop trying.”
“Seriously, Sem. How do you plan to fish?”
“Simple. You’re going to run out onto the ice, punch a hole big enough for me to dive through, and then run back into the cave. I’ll do the rest.”
I had never, in my entire life, laughed so hard.
“What?” He crossed his arms over his chest, pouting. “It’s a good plan.”
Wiping away my tears, I said, “No. It is not.”
“It is, though. Portisans are fantastic swimmers. I can hold my breath for ten minutes at a time. If there’s anything down there, I’ll have it back and roasting over the flames before you can even roll your eyes at me.” He frowned, because I was already rolling my eyes.
“You’re used to balmy Portisan water. You’ll freeze to death down there.”
He crouched beside me, his voice going low and soft the way it did when he was about to deliver bad news. “We ate the last MRE last night. We’ll die either way, so we might as well try. First me, but eventually you too. And I will not let you die.”
His sincerity tended to catch me off guard. At least I thought that was what the sensation was—feeling dizzy, out of breath, my heart beating harder, faster. “What if the ice is too thick and I can’t get through?”
He made a psh sound. “You are the strongest being I’ve ever known. That ice doesn’t stand a chance.” Rising to his feet again, he started unbuttoning his shirt. Taking that off and tossing it onto the ground, he reached for the button of his pants.
“What are you doing?” Because it looked a lot like he was undressing. Something we hadn’t really done in front of each other since we moved into the cave, at least not while one of us was staring directly at the other.
Unzipping his pants while firelight glowed orange over his abdominal muscles, he said, “I’m not swimming in my clothes.
” His pants slid into a pile around his feet.
He reached for the band of his sailboat boxers next, and when my eyes felt like they might actually pop out of my head, he turned around.
I knew I should look away. But my attention was locked helplessly on the curves of his perfectly round, perfectly blue butt.
His cheek wasn’t the only place he had a dimple.
There were two on either side of his spine, small enough that if I were to spread my hands out on his lower back, my thumbs would just fit inside them—
“Ready?” he asked, turning around.
Throwing my hands over my eyes, terrified that if I saw the part of his body pointing my way now, I’d never be able to make eye contact with him again, I squealed, “You’re naked!”
“I’m covered up. Come on. I’m already freezing.”
I spread my fingers enough to peek through them and exhaled. His hands were cupped between his legs, hiding everything I didn’t think I wanted to see.
“On your feet, soldier,” he barked. “Let’s fucking go!”
Punching through the ice was easy enough, although I did scrape a knuckle.
But hiding from the voice in the cave, waiting for Sem to return as time ticked by at a glacial pace?
That was next to impossible. It had been seven minutes already, and bleak images of a beautiful blue man stuck forever at the bottom of a frozen lake made my eyes burn.
I’d just decided to risk it by running back out onto the ice when he stumbled into the cave.
“I don’t believe it,” I whispered, staring wide-eyed at the two huge things in his hands.
“I think they’re edible,” Sem said, his teeth clacking together, his skin so pale it was chalky. “But I’m not sure they’re fish.”
Staring sideways at the shiny silver creatures that looked like enormous, ambulatory crater eels, I said, “They have feet.”
He hissed, shaking one of the foot-eels with a little violence. “And sharp fucking teeth.”
“I can’t believe you actually did it.” Smiling because he was still alive, because we had food, because he was smiling too, I took the foot-eels from him and placed them by the fire. And when I looked up again, I finally saw him, noticed him. Naked.
His legs were long and well-muscled, slender ankles leading to full calves. Firm thighs dusted in silver hair. And between them, oh, was that what it looked like?
“You’re staring.” The words came out low and hoarse. But he didn’t cover himself up.
“I’m sorry.” I knew it was rude, maybe something even worse than rude. But I couldn’t take my eyes away. “I’ve just… I’ve never actually seen one—”
“It’s okay,” he said. “You can look. Although I feel like it’s pertinent to remind you that I was just swimming in freezing water, so…”
His penis was blue like the rest of him, but deeper. The color of the sky at twilight. It was thick, round, and seemed heavy. Substantial. I wondered if it was cool or warm. Soft or hard to the touch. “What does it matter if you were in freezing water?”
His hands curled into fists at his sides. “It can shrink. I mean, it’s usually bigger.”
“Bigger?” It seemed big enough as it was. I couldn’t explain it, having no data to compare it to, but it seemed like a good penis. It seemed…nice.
“Elanie,” he said while I sank my teeth into my lower lip. “You shouldn’t look at me like that.”
“I shouldn’t?” I asked, tempted to get on my hands and knees and crawl to him for a closer inspection. For research purposes, of course. “Why not?”
“Saints save me,” he whispered, angling his face toward the ceiling of the cave, his abdominal muscles flexing. Also nice. I wanted to get a closer look at those too.
“Are you in pain?” I only asked because it seemed like he was. His jaw clenched, his hands fisted tightly.
His voice was strained. “Not exactly.”
“It twitched,” I gasped, pointing. “I just saw it twitch.”
“Yeah, well.” He bent down, grabbed his sailboat boxers and slid them back on. “That happens sometimes.” While he adjusted himself, he muttered something that sounded a lot like, “Bite your lip like that and expect me not to get hard.”
Suddenly, I felt like I’d done something wrong. That the heat coursing through my veins and pouring into my core was inappropriate. “I’m sorry.” My shoulders slumped. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”
Kneeling beside me, he slid a finger under my chin, raising my eyes to his. “I’m not embarrassed. It’s just”—his gaze fell to my lips—“complicated.”
I nodded like I knew what he was talking about. Even though I didn’t.
“Come on.” He grabbed one of the foot-eels, its ghostly pale eyes staring straight through me. “Let’s see if these things taste better than they look.”
The foot-eels were actually delicious. We were gluttonous, eating until we were so full we could only lounge around the fire while we listened to the wind howling, wood crackling, water dripping…
And then his fingers wrapped around my ankles, his hands slipping over my pajamas to slide up my calves. His eyes were heavy-lidded, his focus hazy, lips parted.
“Sem,” I said as his hands reached my thighs. “What are you doing?”
“I’m touching you.”
“Why? Why are you—”
“Shh,” he soothed, staring boldly between my legs, strands of silver hair falling into his eyes. “Please, Elanie. You’ve been so tense. I’ve wanted you like this for so long. Please let me make you feel good.”
My body hummed, my core going molten as my heart hammered inside my chest. What did that mean? What was he about to do? “How?” I asked while my nipples tingled, pulling tight. “How will you make me feel good?”
He raised his head, and when his eyes met mine, our gazes locked. “I can show you.” His fingers brushed over the skin of my belly before curling into the waistband of my pajamas. “Let me show you.”
Because I couldn’t speak, because my body was so desperate for whatever he was about to do I could barely breathe, I only nodded. And then, like someone else controlled my body, I raised my hips.
Accepting my invitation, he slid my pajama pants down my legs, exposing me to the warm, dry air inside the cave.
“It’s okay,” he said, running his hands back up my legs. “I know what you need.” He tried to spread my thighs apart, but I resisted, scared and panting.
“No, no.” He shook his head, softly tsking as his fingers pressed into me, deep blue against the golden glow of the fire reflecting off my skin. “Let me see.”
He waited, drawing teasing circles above my knees with his thumbs, and slowly, because I had to, I opened myself up to him.
His gaze fell to what I’d been trying to hide, and he groaned at the sight of it. “It’s here, isn’t it?” He blew a cool stream of air onto my superheated skin. “You ache right here, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I gasped, my back arching off the ground. “Please.” I didn’t even know what I was asking for. I only knew that I wouldn’t survive another second without it.
“Oh, Elanie.” He licked his lips. “You’re perfect.” Staring up at me, never breaking eye contact, he bent his head, lowered his mouth, and licked—
“Sem!” I lurched awake with his hands on me, his lips, his tongue. Only they weren’t. They were gone, but I could still feel them, ghost-like sensations all over my body.
“Elanie?” He propped himself up from his spot across the flames. “You okay?”
Breathing so hard my throat felt raw, I placed my hand over my thundering heart. Something was happening inside me. Everything below my navel felt fuzzy and warm, that little heartbeat between my legs pulsing, pulsing, pulsing.
“Were you dreaming?”
I turned toward him. His hair was mussed, eyelids still heavy with sleep, looking so much like they had when he’d swept his tongue over my—
“Yes,” I said, so sensitive I was worried my systems might overload and shut down if so much as a gust of wind brushed across my neck.
“Must have been a bad one.” He rubbed his eyes. “Are you okay?”
This answer was easy. “No.” I was not okay. I was incandescent.
“Can you sleep?”
Again, “No.”
“Poor thing.”
He had no idea. I couldn’t go on like this. Hovering on the sharp edge of…something. How long would this last? Would I be stuck here forever, humming and buzzing and throbbing? It was torment, but I didn’t know how to make it stop.
“Come here,” he said while patting the ground in front of him. “I’ll keep you safe.”
I knew I shouldn’t go to him. He was half asleep and just being nice.
I was lit up like a solar flare and wanting too much.
I wanted him to look at me like he had in my dream.
Touch me the same way. I wanted this need winding me up so tightly I was a coil one click away from springing free to leave me in peace.
I should have just stayed on my side of the fire, letting the words let me make you feel good run through my mind until the sun finally rose.
But I didn’t.
With my heart still racing, I crawled around the fire and slid in front of him, closing my eyes as his sleep-heavy arm curled around my waist and pulled me close.
Despite how hard I tried to sleep, with his warm body behind mine, his nose in my hair, and his breath ghosting over my neck, I remained hot, restless, and deeply uncomfortable until morning.