Page 13 of Hot & Heavy

"Let me go," he demanded.

Does this man truly not understand that I am the one in charge here? "Are you demented? Nay, I will not release you. In fact, I am thinking about killing you."

He arched his eyebrows. "What's stopping you?"

How do I know? "That is not for you to know."

He seemed to accept her answer… for now.

The man is extremely calm, considering his position. "Are you not fearful of death?"

He pondered her question a moment. "I'm not afraid to die… but I don't want to."

A logical answer, she decided.

"Your English sounds… odd," he remarked.

"Nay, your English sounds odd."

"Now that we have established that we're both odd, what is that ungodly stink in here?" He sniffed several times, then looked pointedly at her.

Her face heated with embarrassment. "Well, you would smell, too, if you had not bathed in more than a sennight, especially in this heat," she said indignantly. In truth, her underarm scent was enough to turn her own stomach.

"A sennight? What's a sennight?"

"Seven days."

"Why didn't you just say a week?"

"Huh? Were you sent by Fakhir?"

He frowned in confusion and repeated back to her, "Was I sent to fuck her?" Then, "Fuck who?"

"Oh, you vulgar beast! I said Fakhir, not… that other word."

He smiled again.

And Madrene felt an odd flutter in her stomach, not unlike butterfly wings. She supposed it must be hunger pangs.

Just then, she could swear she heard talking coming from his ear/mouth appendage accompanied by a sort of buzzing noise. Rather like a bee buzz, she decided. He really was not human, then. "Are you a bug?" she blurted out. The buzzing, as well as the talking, stopped.

"No, I'm a SEAL."

"That is ridiculous." I'd better watch him closely. The blow to his head must have turned him barmy.

"No more ridiculous than asking me if I'm a bug."

Should I just humor the man? "Where is your glacier? Did it melt in this excessive heat? Ha, ha, ha."

"I am not a bug. I am a SEAL," he said, not at all amused by her little jest.

I have had enough of this nonsense. The lackwit is trying to make me out the fool when it is clear that he fits that description better than I. "You buzz like a bee. You have a buglike appendage sticking out of your ear. You're ugly as a… bug."

"Are you for real?"

"What? You think you are dreaming me? Methinks you might be an idiot."

"There's only one idiot here, and it's not me." He exhaled with a whoosh as men are wont to do when women have outwitted them. "Have you ever heard the proverb 'Silence is golden'?"