Page 31 of How to Woo the Undead

Hyacinth opened her eyes and let him hold her lids open. She stared at the dew drop forming over her eye. Then it let loose and instant relief flooded her moments after her eyelids screwed shut involuntarily. While her eyes felt violated, the bliss that came from the liquid canceled it out. Hyacinth eagerly shifted to give him her other eye. Austin hummed in appreciation and held the dropper over her.

When she finally opened both eyes, she could breathe easily again.

“Better than eyedrops.” But then tears began to well in her eyes and he grimaced, “Though, you’ll be crying for a bit.”

“What’s a squonk?” she blurted out, trying to swipe away the hot tears that trickled out her eyes. Austin scooped up behind her shoulders and helped her sit up. He dropped back down to rummage, putting up a finger that she’d come to accept meant ‘give me a moment’. Hyacinth twisted to sit on the slab more comfortably. Her legs dangled over the side happily while tears poured down her face. He returned with a cloth only to freeze. Hyacinth stared at him in bewilderment.

Austin blinked. Hyacinth blinked. Austin’s gaze dropped from her face to her chest and Hyacinth followed him. She honestly expected something else to be sticking out of her. Instead, she found her stitching much calmer than it had been before, and her breasts. While her nipples ached a little in the cold, she wasn’t uncomfortable. Hyacinth inspected her naked body, trying to find what made him freeze. She even glanced over her shoulder. Nothing. She returned her attention to his face; eyebrows knitted in confusion.

He scrambled, clearing his throat as he did so, to pull the sheet from where it was bunched on the slab to her torso. “Sorry! So sorry! I shouldn’t stare—you’re just naked.”

“I am,” she giggled, hugging the sheet to her chest despite how she didn’t feel she needed to cover up. “But I was naked when you stitched my lungs.”

“That’s different!” he squawked.

“How?” she sputtered.

“You were in danger. I didn’t see you like…that. Not when you’re hurt or when I’m fixing something. I don’t see your body like that when I’m focused.” Austin shuffled around the slab, scratching at the back of his head. Hyacinth eyed him in confusion, only lifting the sheet to dab at her egregiously damp cheeks.

“Like what?” She pulled more of the sheet around her to cover up her skin.It makes him stop in his tracks? It’s just my body?

“Like…like…like you’re,” Austin licked his lips, eyes glued to a wall far to their left she couldn’t see in the dim laboratory lights. “Like you’re attractive.”

“Am I?” Hyacinth swung her legs, needingsomethingon her body to be moving if she was going to keep the sheet clutched to her chest.

“Very,” he choked, finally glancing her way. “Um, you-you-you asked about the squonk?”

“Yeah!” She beamed, bouncing a bit in her seat. Then, with a flippant hand, she motioned at her damp face that was still getting wetter. “Why does it make me cry?”

“That’s all squonks do,” Austin laughed. He dabbed her cheeks dry then held the towel up to her undereye. He told her to blink and the tears poured down her face faster. It took a moment to stop. Yet her eyes were still damp and happy. “They’re a creature you only find hidden, deep in foresty areas. They cry and cry till they drown all those who come to see who is crying in the woods. Then they slurp up the tears and the people they drowned.”

Blink, blink.Hyacinth stared at him, “And you got their tears?”

“Yeah, if you send a zombie, like Kevin, into their lair, who doesn’t need to breathe, the squonk doesn’t know the difference. It cries harder and harder trying to drown him, and then Kevin just fills up vials until we’ve got a few, then walks out of the tears. It’s super-efficient. Though, the squonk in the woods left shortly after, so when we run out, we’ll have to find a new one.” Austin shrugged as he pulled the towel away from her face.

Hyacinth sighed with relief, legs kicking, and realized the angry flutter returned to her chest. He brushed his palm across her cheek in order to cup the back of her head. Nestled in his hands,he inspected her eyes. She tried to keep them as open as she could. But a strange tingling started between her legs. It built up, growing more aggressive till it was a buzz as his fingers brushed along her throat. Her nipples suddenly ached harder than when it was simply cold and she had to squeeze the fabric to her chest harder in hopes of soothing them. They were not so easily dissuaded as he stepped back and excused himself to find her something to wear.He finds me attractive? We know attraction. Not we as in me, but somehow I know attraction. I know how the heart flutters, the body yearns.Her thighs clamped together like a book snapped shut.I’m attracted to Austin too.

She pinched and brushed her nipples through the sheet while Austin was at the other end of the lap, trying to get them to behave.Oh no.It was a different kind of panic, because warmth bloomed in her core. A damp, stickiness formed between her thighs and she knew if Austin removed the sheet he’d see her body splotchy and red from a blushthat shouldn’t be possible.Her body didn’t bleed. She couldn’t blush. And yet she was certain beyond a doubt her entire torso was covered in a stinging blush.I want him to touch me again.She’d never been more certain in her life that the ache in her nipples and the slick between her thighs would be solved with a single touch from him.

But then he returned with another large shirt, like the one on his torso, and a guilty smile, “I’m sorry. Aggie has the dress you wore upstairs. I didn’t think to grab you anything to wear.”

She grabbed ahold of it and inhaled his scent that lingered on the fabric.That was foolish.Her thighs trembled from the pressure she put on them. There was no winning. As she kept the fabric against her nose, watching him over it, he shyly walked away.To give me privacy.The attraction grew. It weighed down on her shoulders, twisting her stomach into knots. Hyacinth didn’t know what to do with it.My body knowswhat it wants…but Hyacinth felt out of her depth. So, she pulled on his shirt, hugged it to her body, and hopped off the slab.He even put wing slits in it!She piled up the sheets over the little desire-made puddle she’d created and tried her hardest to ignore the spike of excitement in her veins when he turned back around smiling at her once more.

Chapter Sixteen:

Austin

Austinstoppedatthetop stair to open the door to the lab and found Snuffles sat on the other side. He peered up at Austin with his beady red eyes and thumped his back feet against the floor. Hard.

“Oh, sorry little guy,” Austin chortled, stepping aside. He motioned with a swiping motion for the bunny to take the stairs. The bundle of inky fur rushed down the steps then flung himself into Hyacinth’s awaiting arms. She giggled sweetly, hugging him close to her chest.

“There you are, Snuffles,” she murmured to him, nuzzling her face into his fur. Austin waited at the top of the stairs as she hoisted the rabbit over her. Bringing him to her mouth to give him an overly affectionate kiss to the top of his head.She’s just so…The moment down in the lab flashed in his mind and Austin twisted around so fast he feared he snapped his ankles in half.Naked. Soooooooo naked.Dragons, she’s pretty. She’s more than pretty.When he closed his eyes he relived that moment when his eyes roamed down and put everything about her to memory.

He was honest when he said during the emergency stitching, she wasn’tnakedin his head. She was in dire need, and his mind was on the hole in her lungs. Even when they’d put her back together, she wasn’t sexy to him. Then all of a sudden, she sat up and smiled at him, her little rosebud nipples catching hisattention. His cock hardenedagain.Quit that!In hundreds of years, he’d chosen a handful of times to have that post orgasm fuzzy feeling. It didn’t happen often, not as a lack of desire but a lack ofinspiration.Words on the page just didn’t do it for him, and he’d not experienced enough flesh to flesh to have a treasure trunk in his head to replay.

But he could replaythatmoment. Second for second, the way her legs swung so sweetly. Confident and brazen and unashamed of her body.And why should she be? She’s gorgeous.With supple curves and thick thighs and a nest of auburn tresses that glistened in the laboratory lights. Suddenly, all those words on the page he’d devoured in the library, had a visual to go with…and boy was he replaying some of his favorite scenes with Hyacinth as the heroine.I am a pervert. I am a monster. Some lewd creature that puts how pretty her breasts are to memory and imagines my lips around them—ah!

Only, Austin actually yelled, “Ah!”