Just Fuck Already
“I would prefer finding my own prospects,” Hope said, her expression and tone unreadable despite his gifts drilling in.
He moved his gaze to the dock. “You don’t trust me to find the right prospect?”
She answered with slow, creaky rocking. “I’m responsible for my own prospects. I have to know the person I’m merging with enough to know if I should merge.”
He looked at her. “Is this your instinctual pro-merge wisdom?”
She seemed to search her mind. “Don’t you agree?” she asked, like it might be one of her negative doubts.
“I do,” he said. “And how would you know if they are the right one to merge with?”
“I would… know after studying him.”
He had to grin, loving her answer. “What would this studying involve?”
“Mannerisms.”
“Mannerisms,” he said.
She nodded at the swamp, her leg swinging over the arm of the chair as she rocked.
“What kind exactly?”
She looked at him. “Like how he rocks in a rocking chair.” Her eyes lowered over him. “You don’t rock.”
“And what does this tell you about me?”
“That you keep everything in your tight fist,” she said, demonstrating with her balled up hand. A stated fact. No emotion.
“Dead on correct,” he said, needing to know how she felt about that.
“The testing required would be how controlling—the type, and amount.”
“And how would you test that?”
“Same way,” she airily explained. “Watching.”
“And what else do I do or don’t do that allows you to measure my control?” he tested back.
“You don’t let yourself look at the things you want to. Not properly.”
Fuck, she was good.
She added, “And the things you don’t look at the most are the ones you want to look at the most. The real testing requires me to understand why you feel the need to not look at the thing you want to look at the most.”
“I actually know the answer to that.”
“Of course you do,” she said simply. “It’s all in your tight fist. Especially yourself. Which is admirable,” she casually surmised.
“Unless I’m a deviant.”
“Well, I wasn’t measuring the virtue in that strength, just the strength. You could surely be an admirably controlling deviant.”
He looked at her, hearing it in her tone. “And somehow you know I’m not.”
She nodded and gave a half smile, leaning on the arm of her chair near his. “It is a conundrum,” she said. “In this conundrum, two things are wrong but not in the same way and two things are right but not in the same way.”
He couldn’t remove his eyes from her.
“You want me to explain,” she said, reading him like an open book.
“I do.”
She went back to fully rocking and swinging her leg. He realized it was the accelerator on her logic. “Something is wrong to you but right to me. And something is right to you but wrong to me. And both are true but not when they’re in the same room. That’s the asymmetry of it.”
Fuck me royally.
“We’re not testing a truth here,” she informed, “we’re just expanding it. I would need to test and understand how your theory is right and should you want to expand your truth, you’d have to do the same with mine.”
“Let’s expand our truth’s together, then.”
She grinned with a sly, angled gaze on him. “I knew you would say that.”
“How?”
“Your mind is the sharpest blade I’ve ever encountered,” she marveled softly. “But I realize that’s not saying much coming from the sheltered swamp girl. But ambiguity, in all its colors, shapes, and sizes, is one guest that will never step foot on the welcome mat in your mind.”
Fuck, she was beautiful. “Your insight has moved to the top of my captivating list.”
Her smile said he’d just ticked off something on her list as well. “So who’s going first? Are you expanding your truth to me or am I expanding mine to you?”
“You are definitely expanding yours to me first,” he said.
She shot out a big laugh before eyeing him. “I don’t say this to insult you but to challenge you. Your strict mind is a beautiful thing.”
He stared back, chuckling. “But?”
She put her hand on his arm, electrifying him. “Work it out my King.”
He was on fire. “You’re saying that somehow an undisciplined mind is more.”
She nodded, golden gaze flaring. “But not undisciplined. Free. You need to remove the guardrails and unleash your mind.”
He moved his gaze back to the swamp at that advice. “I cannot.”
“Why?” she demanded sadly. “Why would you forbid that?”
“For safety reasons.”
“For who?” she asked, her raw innocence tearing through him.
“For those it would hurt.”
She gave a soft, long sigh.
Skul stood when his hungers and fears rabidly clashed.
“What are you running from in your mind now?” she asked. “Fine, I’ll expand my truth to you. But you’ll need to look at me.”
Fuck. “I can’t.”
The swamp insects filled the silence as his need to stare at her chewed through his muscles.
“Exactly,” she proved softly. “Because I am the thing you want to look at but don’t. And this is the thing right in your mind and wrong in mine.”
“And why should it be right in mine?”
“Well, I didn’t say it should be right in yours, just that it’s wrong in mine for a reason. I want to share that reason.”
“Then share it.”
“There is nothing about me that you should fear learning.”
He gripped the porch rail tightly. “I don’t fear learning anything, I fear what I already know.”
She was rocking again. “And what do you know about me that is fearsome?” she challenged.
“It’s not what I know about you, it’s what I know about me that’s fearsome.”
“I see,” she said, still leading this hike. “The confused deviant.”
He hung his head. Just confess it. “I have a… unique condition that is deviant.”
Her rocking stopped. “And this condition is provoked when you look at me. What exactly about me provokes it?”
“Every. Single. Thing.”
She was suddenly next to him, leaning over the rail to see his face. “So, I captivate you and provoke you?”
He looked at her surprised that he was surprised. “You’re entertained.”
She hopped onto the rail, holding his arm for balance, putting herself right in his air. “I’m very flattered,” she said, wide open.
“You wouldn’t be if you understood my condition.”
“Help me understand it,” she urged with a quiet eagerness. “You can speak plainly with me. I don’t fear truth in any of its forms.”
“You never heard a truth like this one.”
She gave a tiny laugh. “That only excites me.”
“Of course it does. My condition affects a particular aspect of my mind. And body.”
“They are intrinsically tethered,” she said, fondly. “What aspect of your mind?”
“The one responsible for merging.”
He nodded when her silence became extended.
“Now you’re seeing,” he said.
“You want to merge with me,” she said very quietly. “And… find this… deviant?”
He nearly panicked at how she took that. “This condition is deviant,” he said. “It cares only about having what it wants and what it wants is… not something remotely sane.”
She eased off the rail, and he forbid his gaze to follow. The sound of the rocking chair loosened his muscles.
“Insane implies a mental condition,” she mused, on to gathering data for an accurate diagnosis.
He turned and leaned against the rail, crossing his arms. “It is the result of an experiment. One of the Marsh Kings was bitten by bats.”
Her gaze flew up to his. “Nitro,” she said. “I heard he nearly died.”
“He did nearly die. Lesion gave him something to help utilize the bat saliva and he overdosed and it permanently changed his DNA, making him more bat than human.”
“Lesion?” she whispered, her face softening with a dreamy smile. “He’s another I would merge with.”
“Well, he’s already merged with another woman,” he happily informed.
“I know,” she said simply. “I was just adding him to my types.” She returned to the rail and perched on it, holding the post this time. “So what does all that have to do with you?”
“Would you like me to skip to the end?”
She nodded quickly. “Then you can give me all the middle after,” she sacrificed.
“The Creole Kings were celibate and one of my brothers fell in love and his… merging tripled his gifts. The Belle Eveque concluded that the merging—”
“I told you!” she exclaimed, leaning to shove him. “The merging is part of the design! We are human blooms when we merge!” Her mouth hung open as she logic-lusted with the air before her. “A King merged and his gifts tripled!” She snapped her gaze to him. “This is why the merging became required!”
“Yes, but many of the Kings weren’t convinced and many didn’t want to merge so we set out to find an alternative.”
“Nitro?” she asked, brows drawn hard.
“Yes.”
“How, why?”
“When Nitro bites, it’s a transference. He gives and takes.”
“Gives and takes,” she marveled.
“His bite enhances whatever is in a person. He bites them and their natural gifts greatly increase.”
“Oh my God, this is absolutely enthralling,” she said, closer now. “So he bit the Kings and it enhanced all their gifts?”
“Tremendously.”
“What else?” she demanded. “What else did it do? It caused this deviance you mentioned?”
“Oh yes,” he said, quietly, said deviance staring at her mouth. “He neglected to tell us that his bite also enhanced a man’s need to merge. And that all his gifts operating to the fifth power would now serve it.”
More gasps. Wider eyes.
“So… you…are…”
“Imprisoned with a lust demon that would use my gifts to secure its greatest and only desire.”
The silence was not deafening, it was pulsating with said lust.
“And… looking at me…”
“Is throwing gas on an eternally hot and all-consuming fire.”
“Oh…” she whispered.
She’d officially made it into his private hell-scape and instead of being afraid, she was turning on her little flashlight, ready to start excavating for a cure.
“So essentially… looking at me…” She turned her gold eyes to him. “Drives you… crazy.” Her burst of laughter came with immediate sputtered repentance. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t tease but it was witty you have to admit?”
“So witty,” he said dryly while on fucking fire.
“Hmmm.” She leaned her hip against the rail tapping her index finger on her serious mouth, squinting her eyes. “Have you had a proper checkup?”
Holy fuck, this girl. “And what exactly does a proper check-up mean to you?”