Page 45 of A Reckless Indulgence

The darts land exactly where she needs them, leaving her one spot behind Cav. His frivolity is gone. It’s like he’s still stuck on the words from before, images whirring behind the glassy look in his eyes.

Slow. Deep. Languid.

He moves toward the board and reaches for the highest dart. When his arm overextends, he winces but says nothing, rotating his shoulder as he settles into place beside her.

She doesn’t look at him when she speaks. “If it’s too much, you can forfeit now.”

“Keeping an eye on me?”

“It’s painfully obvious.”

He adjusts his footing and lifts his wounded arm, lips pressed into a thin line. Still, he throws. “It never healed right.” The dart lands low on the tree, missing the board entirely. He shakes his head and lifts his arm again. “And I’ve been putting it through the wringer lately.”

The dart lands lopsided on the board, tilting the same way her mind does. She remembers the crow’s nest. His tongue molded to her clit, her grinding against his face, her knee momentarily pressing into his shoulder.

“Don’t get me wrong, it was well worth the strain.” His tongue slides over his lips like he can still taste her. “I forget that I can’t do things as freely as I used to.” For the final dart, he shifts to his stronger hand. When he throws, the dart swings wide, but it lands with a certain thwack exactly where he wanted it. “I guess I don’t really want to remember.”

“Is that why —” She stops herself. There’s no reason to ask him questions. She shouldn’t remember these insignificant details, but they’re trapped in her mind like seaweed tangled in a net. “Is that why you’re not on a convoy anymore?”

While she takes her turn, Cav flicks a seed across the table. “After the grotto, things were different. The shipwreck took a toll on my body.” He rolls another seed beneath his finger. “I tried other work, but no one would keep me onboard for long. I couldn’t keep up. Couldn’t pull my weight.”

His usually-sunny face has become muddled, a dark cloud drifting across his expression. Lyx has the sudden urge to blow it away. He doesn’t look at her, staring past the trees surrounding them. It’s easier to watch him like this, when he isn’t looking at her like he sees something she’s hiding.

The game goes on. It takes a bit before he turns to her again. “I guess you wouldn’t know anything about that. All those sentimental emotions.”

She shakes her head.

“It is a bit strange you don’t feel them, though,” Cav wonders aloud, running a hand along one of his horns. “Because what’s more chaotic than emotion?”

She’s not sure where her dart lands. Her mind is too jarred by the question. It’s staggering in its simplicity. Why wouldn’t sirens feel the chaos of sentimentality? It’s a thought that’s never occurred to her, but now that it’s here, her body feels hot and wrong.

She shakes the thoughts from her head. She doesn’t need to question it. She knows it’s true. It always has been. Every siren knows that. “We don’t need to feel them. We need to feed on them.”

The answer washes over her like a sudden tide, pulling her where she wants to go. She clings to it like it might carry her past Cav’s inquisitive eyes, but he knows he’s onto something, pushing off the table to step closer.

“What about your ex? You felt something for him. Enough that you were…together.”

Lyx shrugs. “Passion.”

“Is that all?”

“What else is there?” She can’t help but laugh. “All ‘relationships’ are exchanges. You give something to get something. It’s an agreement — not unlike the one we have.”

Cav’s gaze drifts over her face. His look is so soft that Lyx digs her nails into her palms to keep from reaching out. She doesn’t need whatever that look is. It’s too fragile. Too breakable. “What is passion to you?” he finally asks.

She scoffs. Isn’t it obvious? “It’s…desire and disgust.” That’s how she feels about Tidus. That’s how she feels about every pirate who came before him. “Screaming. Fighting. Fucking.” Memories play on a loop behind her eyes and stoke her anger. “It’s want. It’s hate. It’s both.”

It’s exactly what she’s always felt, exactly what she needs to survive, but Cav’s expression hasn’t changed. “What if it was something else?”

A strange feeling flounders in her gut, like a fish out of water. Passion is chaos. She, of all people, should understand that, but Cav’s question flashes like a lure tempting her closer.

“What if passion wasn’t a storm?” he murmurs. “What if it was the eye inside of it?”

Electricity crackles down her spine. What he says doesn’t make any sense. Passion is unruly, uncontrollable, wild, yet the feeling he describes sounds just as strong. Just as fervent. Just as intense.

Like the way he looks at her, heart glowing through his chest. “The North Star guiding you. The moon pulling the tides. The thing you chase through everything else.”

Her entire body is aflame, burning under Cav’s attention. Is this what it’s like to be set on fire?