Page 38 of A Reckless Indulgence

Color has returned to his fiery skin, light playing like flames beneath his scales. His eyes crinkle at the corners, but his mouth is no longer caked and dry. His lips glisten softly, barely parting when he speaks. “May I open my eyes now?”

Her stomach flips. She tears herself away to ward off the shaky feeling in her legs. “You live to see another day.”

“As long as you will it.”

He turns to face her and reclines back against the wall. It’s too reminiscent of the last time she was here. This little bastard is trying to fuck with her, and she refuses to give him the satisfaction.

Even when she refuses to look at him, he keeps speaking. “Why don’t you let me see you in the water?”

Great Abyss, this pirate has never met a silence he enjoys. She tries to remember why she came, returning to the bucket to pull out her netting bag. It snags on a thick splinter and unravels one of the knots. She makes a sound of frustration. “It would be the last thing you’d ever see.” With her teeth, she holds one strand of the net as she works. “No pirate sees a siren’s true form and lives to tell the tale.”

“Well, if I’m dying anyway —”

“You are.”

“Sounds like it’d be worth it.”

Her fingers slip past each other, and the knot falls open again. Cursing, she tosses the bag to the ground. She can’t focus like this. Cav’s voice is a song she can’t get out of her head, repeating through her thoughts.

“No pirate actually wants a siren,” she snaps. “They want a pretty girl with fins. They want a story to take home, the fantasy without the legend.” She doesn’t like how her voice sounds, brimming with some emotion she can’t place. Slowly, she exhales. She is in control. She holds Cav’s fate in her hands. Cooly, she turns back to him, never letting her eyes wander from his. “But if that’s your dying wish, I’m happy to drag you down and show you.”

What she expects is another one of his grins, but he looks almost sad. When he speaks, it’s as soft as the way he’s looking at her. “If you will it.”

Her chest tightens. She bends for the bucket again, desperate for somewhere else to look besides Cav’s face. Her fumbling fingers finally close around a shirt and trousers, and she extends the pile toward him.

Once he takes it, she busies herself with the string of fish in her bucket, but her ears perk at every sound Cav makes. She hears the waxy slip of the leaf falling to the ground, the rustle of fabric unfurling, the grunt as he works the clothes over his limbs.

“I need help with this sleeve.”

She nearly jumps when he speaks to her. Her head whips over her shoulder to where his shirt is halfway on, hung like a sash across his chest.

Despite his labored breathing, he gives her a smile. “Please, my vicious captor?”

It’s clear that simply dressing has exhausted him. No matter how he acts like this is a breeze, his health is precarious. He’s still weak. There will be no way to fight her off when she finally turns on him. They both need to remember that.

Lyx moves toward him, taking the empty sleeve between her fingers. She’s worn clothing during brief trips to nearby islands, but clothing someone else is hardly second-nature. Her eyes narrow as she inspects the garment from a distance.

He huffs a laugh. “Promise I won’t bite.”

Her glare slices into him. She extends the sleeve, forced to move in closer to aid him. He shifts his wounded shoulder and winces as his arm struggles to find the hole. Lyx reaches under the hem of the shirt, searching for his hand to guide him, but instead, she finds the bare skin of his rib cage. Above that, her fingers brush the curve of his breasts.

The scales on his side twitch.

His breathing slows. Hers stops altogether. Her traitorous fingers flex with temptation, desperate to trace his curves, the muscles in his stomach, the patch of softer scales that leads down…

His skin glows beneath her touch, casting a shadow of her hand through the fabric. She swallows, finding his wrist to guide through the sleeve before she withdraws.

Her head swims. She turns her back on him, fumbling with the fish like she’s never seen them before. What is she meant to be doing? She pulls a knife from her bucket to gut them, but her hands are still trembling.

“How did you get those?” he asks. It takes too long for her to understand what he means, to realize his gaze is following the raised scars wrapped around her torso.

It’s been so long since she gave herself one that she’d nearly forgotten them. The scars are perfect impressions of her tentacles, curls and whorls embedded in her skin. “As a child.” She lifts the fin of one fish and begins to cut. “Before I knew my own strength.”

It would be a warning to anyone else. See what I’ve done to myself? Imagine what I can do to you.

But Cav doesn’t sound frightened. “Nobody taught you how to use them? Your tentacles?”

Her nose wrinkles. “Who would teach me?”