Page 60 of A Reckless Indulgence

Cav strokes deep inside her again. “What else?”

Her head spins. She’s told him something that would horrify anyone else, and he’s asking for more?

He doesn’t believe her. That’s what it is. He thinks it’s a metaphor, an exaggeration, anything but the truth. He wouldn’t continue this if he knew, but her desire has pulled as tight as a sail line in a hurricane. Now that she’s started, she can’t stop. She wants more. She wants him.

“I want to scrape off your skin with my teeth.” Her mouth waters at the thought. “I want to pry your scales away and drag my tongue underneath.”

She can practically taste it. She knows how his blood feels on her tongue, but she doesn’t want just a drop. She wants to suck it from his wounds, to feel it flow over her tongue, to make her mouth messy with it. “I want to hold your head underwater. I want to guzzle every bubble that escapes from your mouth.”

She wants to destroy him. She wants to eat him, drown him, kill him, because what else could these thoughts mean? What else could a siren want?

Cav’s motions grow more deliberate between her legs, honed exactly where Lyx wants him. She rakes her fingernails down his chest and laves her tongue over the scratches she leaves behind. When she digs her heel into the back of his thigh, he moans.

“I want to hold you on my tongue,” she pants. “I want to brand you with my teeth. I want to swallow you piece by piece.”

Every word digs a trench through her. Her thighs clench around his hand, and when he slides a third finger inside, her vision blurs.

“Tell me more,” he pleads.

“I want you to cry from how good it hurts.” Her voice is so strung out that she barely recognizes it. The world spins around her. She presses her forehead to his, seeking something to hold onto before she breaks. “I want to devour you. I want to ruin you. I want to be the last thing you see.”

Her white-hot desperation combusts. He drinks the sounds from her mouth, their lips smearing hot and wanton against each other. Her orgasm flutters around his fingers, but he doesn’t withdraw, even when her acid has surely begun to rub him raw. Their glowing skin casts a haze around them, as hot and humid as the truth she’s finally given him.

TWENTY-FIVE

Lyx

Lyx has to get her head on straight. She leaves Cav in the hammock, shuttering herself in the cabin and leaning back against the door. What was she thinking? She’d gone on the deck to search for more clues, yet one moment with Cav made her forget what she’s meant to be doing. He leaves her mind warm and heady, clouded with seafoam, ready to drift away and dissolve.

One thought solidifies. She carries it to the bed and sinks down on the mattress before she can bear to look at it. Cav didn’t run when she told him the truth. He didn’t cower from the wicked desires she has. Her vision blurs until all she can see is Cav beneath her, groaning and arching against her mouth, letting her sink her teeth into his flesh again and again.

Heat coils between her legs. No. She clenches her eyes shut, but the images of Cav don’t stop whirring past. She cannot be distracted by some meaningless fantasy. It is not the reason she’s here.

The pain in her throat grows stronger than anything else. When she swallows, it’s raw and chafed, squeezing in search of something that’s no longer there. She clings to that feeling, the reminder of exactly what she’s working toward. Exactly what she has to lose. That is the only truth that matters. It was easy for Cav to play along in the heat of the moment, but that doesn’t make it real. He could not withstand her undivided attention. He could not stomach the reality of what she is.

It stings like a misplaced tentacle, but she refuses to dwell on it. The day after tomorrow, the Indulgence will arrive at the next island, and she has no doubt Tidus will be waiting. She has to find an answer for him, something better than the scattered puzzle pieces she has.

Fingernail clippings. Oyster shells. A secret room.

A room that Lyx tried breaking into. Before she’d fallen into Cav’s hammock, she’d hidden in the belly of the ship, watching the door in the wall. Once Cypher locked the door and returned upstairs, Lyx tried her best to get in. She searched sacks of dried beans and tins of coffee for an extra key, but there was nothing. When she rammed her shoulder against the door, it didn’t budge. She has to look somewhere else, and there’s only one place she hasn’t checked.

The next morning, she stays in her cabin, avoiding Cav and any further diversions he might create. It’s not until night has fallen that she prepares to leave. The sound of footsteps dwindles as crew members retire to their cabins. She waits for the lantern light to fade, for the idle chatter to be replaced by snores, for the ruckus on the deck to settle. Only then does she slip out of her cabin.

It’s hours after midnight, far later than the night before. She wears a hooded cloak and long trousers to dampen the glow of her skin. Carefully, she creeps through the dark toward the hatchway and starts up the stairs. On the third step, the wood creaks. She freezes, peering between the slats toward the dark cabins.

Something rustles. Her scales prickle when a shadow moves in one of the rooms, but it rolls onto its other side and settles. She counts a full sixty seconds before she climbs the rest of the stairs and peeks out onto the deck.

The first thing she sees is Cav’s hammock. His tail dangles over the side, swaying and twitching dreamily. Memories pour into her, but she shoves them aside to focus on the rest of the deck. It’s a good night for what she needs to do. The sound of the ocean swells, and the sky is thick with clouds that blot out the moon. A handful of crew members are stationed up here. Lyx scans their faces. She can hardly make out their features, save for the opals of Heathen’s eyes gleaming from the helm.

They swivel toward Lyx. Her breath catches, and she fights the urge to shrink back, tensing until her muscles burn for reprieve. She gives them none. After a long moment, Heathen rotates in the other direction.

Lyx exhales before she crawls onto the deck. It gives her a better view, but she’s exposed, slipping along the wall to duck behind a barrel.

The railing sits above her. It’s carved like all the others, a mollusk set into swirling patterns. Last night, she’d thought perhaps Heathen’s secrets were hidden there, but she could deduce nothing from it. It was wooden, like everything else. Stubbornly, Lyx reaches for it and tries to wedge the clam out again.

Someone shouts. Lyx jerks her hand back, bracing to be hauled into the open, but Heathen just calls back a reply. A round of chuckles rises from the group. Lyx peers over the top of the barrel, catching Heathen engrossed in conversation before Lyx darts for the next cover.

She makes her way from bow to stern, slinking through the shadows until she reaches the captain’s quarters. From this angle, she’s nearly hidden by the awning that hangs overhead. It provides perfect cover for her to slide along the ground, lifting on her knees to press her ear to the glass windows.