Chapter 16 #2
My heart drums like a cantering horse, rocking me back and forth. He's earnest, judging by how focused his eyes are, how his body's turned to face me, how his hands flex toward me like he's grasping for answers just out of reach.
But my head reins me back. It'll be too much for him, baring my past will scare him off. He won't be interested in someone like me.
Horses are so much easier.
“I… I'm going to bed.”
I make it halfway through the lounge before he steps in my way, a forbidding wall of muscle.
His scales pale to pink and brown as he brings himself to my level.
“Nic-coal, tell me. Talk, and I'll either help you reframe the situation like you do for me, or I'll bring you the heads of the people who did this to you.”
That startles a chuckle out of me. “Really? Therapy or decapitation?”
He lifts his left hand, putting the thumb and forefinger close together. “So little difference between them.”
I laugh again. “Okay, alright, I’ll talk. But first…” I sigh. “I need a drink.”
“Aha. From the particular human intonation used on the radio, you mean a fermented beverage.”
“Right. What have you got, barkeep?”
He rubs his golden chin. “Based on your likes and dislikes from your meal choices, I'd say you prefer a salty-sour taste to your drinks, yes? Maybe with a touch of citrus sharpness.”
I'm gobsmacked. “And you said I was the observant one.”
“I only infer simple things. I don't know what you're thinking, not in the way you seem to be able to divine my thoughts. It's not fair.”
I snort. “Fair? You kidnapped me, and now you're complaining about fairness?”
“Well, it isn't.” He shoots a wide grin at me, white canine teeth pearly in the light. “Now, let's fire up the replicator beam.”
He walks into the kitchen, and it's weird to have the lights come on even as the oven-thing starts with a hum as before.
He taps the kitchen counter and shelves pull out smoothly at butt height to act as barstools, although the cushions are a bit squiffysquiffy from the unit being thrown when we landed.
I take a seat at the bar, chin in my palm to watch him. He studies the laser beam machine, hands on his hips baring his broad chest and shoulders.
Unfortunately, despite all the time he spends shirtless, I'm still not above an ogle at his gorgeous body.
I really am a slut. Pressing my thighs together, I look away.
With a bit of trial and error, he turns on the laser beam machine in the kitchen. “Gara uses a handheld one to copy and print materials on Earth,” Arture explains in a murmur as he presses buttons seemingly at random. “This one's got a bank of compounds and options.”
“Kind of like you,” I offer.
“Hm?”
“You’re a bank of all kinds of different clones.” I try to smile. “Is it just clones you can do? Can you be a horse, or a human?”
He shrugs. “I don't see why not. As long as I have some genetic material I can take into my own cells, yes.”
“Wait, what? Really? What kind of genetic material?”
“Skin cells. Saliva. Blood. Other bodily emissions. Enough of those, and I'll be able to replicate a being.”
My heart beats just that little bit faster.
With a smirk, he leans his elbows on the counter. “I won't get a lot from a brief touch. I need a significant quantity, multiple touches, multiple… samples.” His gaze drops to my lips, then back up.
I think I just stopped breathing.
With a grin, he goes back to the machine, shifting into a gangly clone with dark scales. “I can't believe I have to reprogram this shit just to get at the base components.”
I lick my dry lips. “Why go to all that trouble?”
“I want to make your drink myself.” With a flourish, he pushes a button. Liquid pours with a smell of something strong enough to strip paint. “Aha. We're on to something.”
Once he's got several glasses of lurid colored liquid and some green-red fruits with thick rind, he shifts into the smaller but still handsome Magirustock. “This is drinks and a show,” I say, watching him pour and shake.
His metal arm melts into a sharp blade, and he peels the rind off the fruit with speed.
“Glad you're enjoying it.” Throwing the fruit in the air, he swipes back and forth four times, and perfect quarters land on the counter.
He uses one to smear juice on the rim of more glasses, rolls them in the tiny purple crystals, then pours the cocktail into it.
Swirls of gold glitter as the liquid settles, gleaming as he hands it to me.
“Cheers,” I say, clinking the glass with his. He watches attentively, nose twitching, as I take the first sip.
The best margarita I've ever had explodes in my mouth. Fresh lime, sharp and sour-sweet, glides into my taste buds, followed by smooth liquor, sugared just enough to take the edge off.
He leans forward, practically on top of the counter by now. “Well? Is it salty enough? Sweet enough? How about the aftertaste?”
“Holy fuck that's good,” I say, gasping. Warmth floods my brain like a hug on a cold day. Shit, it must be sixty percent proof.
His shoulders drop and he lets out a relieved breath, scales flashing gold as he slowly transforms back into himself.
He gets somehow taller, his chest deeper, and those gorgeous hay-bale lifting shoulders get more defined.
Best of all is his face: chiseled jawline under a cave-man beard, thick brows and a cheeky glint to his golden-brown eye.
He takes a sip himself, nodding with lips pursed. “I guess it's okay.”
“Only okay? It's perfect.” I want to savor it, but I also want some liquid courage if I'm actually going to talk-talk to him.
He swirls the drink in his glass, staring into it. “Perfect. Hm.”
“You don't like that word?”
He opens his mouth, then closes it again, wagging a finger at me. “Don’t think you can distract me, wily human. Tonight's not about me, it's about you. So. Tell me, Nic-coal. Why is it when you look at me and I see glimpses of interest, you suddenly go pale?”
Oh, fuck, he knows I'm interested. I drop my head in my hands.
A gentle hand rests on my forearm. “Nic-coal, please. I won't do anything with this intel. I'll keep it safe for you, I swear it.”
I look up into his sincere face.
Then I down my margarita, slamming the glass to the counter. “Another, please.”
His eyes are wide. “Are you sure?”
“Yep.” I steel myself, and drink the next. He matches my pace, keeping up with me.
By the time I'm on my third, I’m ready.
“Okay.” I meet his gaze steadily. Ish. Okay, he has four eyes now, two steel blue and two brown, filled with concern. They sharpen with concentration as I speak. “I was engaged, right? I had a fiance. A… potential mate.”
He nods, but stays quiet.
“He was big into waiting for each other, saving ourselves for marriage, being the only people we ever, uh…” Fuck, Nicole, be a vet and fucking say it. “Have sex with,” I blurt. “We saved for a wedding. We both went to the same university, which isn't cheap, but we were… happy. Sort of.
“It was little things that made me unhappy.
The comments about my weight, how he enrolled me in a weight loss group.
How he'd weigh me every Monday. How he'd…
look if I didn't lose anything that week.” I swallow hard.
“He'd choose my outfits for the day. I thought it was cute at first, but he started doing it before we went out at night or to visit people.”
Arture is as still as a wary horse, gaze fixed on mine.
Oh, fuck, this is awful. I can't believe I'm telling him this.
“For my twenty first birthday, I… I wanted to surprise him.
The wedding was in a few months, but I thought we were settled and sorted enough.
I'd… I'd always wanted to do something memorable, something really special for my twenty first. And I wanted to give myself to him, fully and finally.
I spoke to him, I said… said I wanted to have sex with him.
Before the wedding. And he said yes, sure, fine. I got consent.
“So I got some clothes, some… special ones. They were pretty see-through too.” I pluck at the abaya robes I'm wearing now, and it slides down my left shoulder.
Arture delicately hooks his thumb under the fabric, lifting it back into place, and putting his hands back on the table.
“Thanks,” I mumble. “So I'm wearing them. Waiting for him to come home.” I can't go on, my throat thickening with tears so it’s like speaking through tar. Not even my friends know what happened, I’ve told no one.
“Nic-coal.” The scales on his forearms shift and ripple, his drink forgotten. His eyes lock on mine, flicking back and forth as if searching for the pieces of a puzzle he’s trying to put together. “Go on.”
“He… He…” The words stick in my throat. With a burst, I say, “He came home with some of his friends. They saw me. They… were stunned, of course, and laughed it off. Slapped him on the back saying how much fun he must be having. I ran upstairs but I could hear them, talking about me, and then they left. And when Logan came up, he was… so cold. He told me he brought them on purpose, that it’s what I get for being a…
a slut. For wanting sex. For being desperate. ”
It’s too much. Tears break through my tight control, spilling down my cheeks, and into my hands. I sob before I can rein it back in, but like a horse that's bolted, I can’t pull this back anymore.
Something warm wraps around me. Arture, shutting out the world with his arms, holding me close to his chest. I turn and bury my face in his shoulder, crying into him.
It's as if every tear soaking into him means the guilt, the shame, and the grief is pulled out of me. Like he's absorbing it for me.
“He's such an asshole, and I know it now,” I mumble into the heat of his hug.
Pulling back, I wipe my eyes. “I dumped him.
Went to stay at Ellen's. She was horrified when I told her all about the little things he'd done, and she showed me…
she showed me it was emotional abuse. All small things, but they added up to a big picture.
He'd have kept me small, contained, under his control.
I got out, and I've never looked back, except…” I sniffle.
“Except what?” His voice is low, soft.
“I can't help but think of what he called me. A… slut.”
His arms tighten around me. I'm shaking so much it's affecting him, but then I realize he’s trembling, twitching as if he’s under huge tension.
He's pissed as hell.