I inhale deeply, drawing in his trance-inducing scent. “I thought you were trying to abstain.”
“What if I don’t have to abstain?” He leans back to look me squarely in the eye. “I want to be with you, Sweetheart. I want to experience every part of you, but the way things are now…it’s too difficult to find the right balance between giving and taking.
“You can’t imagine how lucky I feel to finally have you. Each breath you take until your last, or my last, I never want to be without you. I’d love to be greedy. I’d love to tell you I want forever with you. I do want that, but collateral damage is an expense we can’t afford. What’s the good in forever if we have to spend forever trying to atone for what it cost us? You don’t want to transition, and I want you. Fix me.”
I changed Mel. I vaccinated her, potentially immunized her. That change wasn’t the corrective action we were anticipating. It wasn’t any kind of fix. Why would Derry want the same? Do I have the right to choose for him? My gut tells me yes. My conscience tells me no.
“You’re not broken.” When I try to free myself from his embrace, he holds fast. “I’m not doing that to you.”
“You wouldn’t be doing anything to me.” He slides one of his hands along my cheek, his finger extending to skim my lips. “You’d be doing it for me.”
“I’d be breaking you.” I jerk my face away. “Like I did them.”
“Maybe you didn’t fix them in the way you hoped. Regardless, you fixed them.” He sweeps my wet hair from my face. “You released Ryan from his guilt. He may have to live eternally without her, eventually, but he won’t have to carry that guilt anymore. You freed them both.”
“We don’t even know if it’ll work again.” I shut my eyes, hoping not seeing him minimizes the heat building up inside me. My flame is frustrated by the lack of release. It’ll take any burn path available, consequences shmonsequences. “What if my scissors are safety scissors, and they won’t cut everything? Just specific things.”
“Then we’ll have at least tried.” His lips replace his finger, the kiss lacking his typical restraint. Fire shoots through my veins, looking for an escape route. My blood is boiling.
“What if I could only snip the string because Ryan created Mel? It might only work for some conversions.”
“Then we’ll have at least tried,” he repeats, methodically sliding his hands down my shoulders.
There will definitely need to be an energy transfer to determine where to snip. Else, I’d be cutting blind, which is why he’s encouraging instead of extinguishing my flame.
“Want to know what I think?” He tips my face to meet his gaze, coaxing my eyes open.
“Yeah.”
“I’m blessed. I feel that way every time I look into your beautiful eyes. When I do, even without being able to read your mind, I’m confident you feel the same as I do.”
“I do…for now.” I furrow my brow. “What if this changes how you feel?”
“Do you think so little of me?”
“I think the world of you.” My eyes are filling up. “It’s me. What if I’m not enough for you anymore?”
“You expect far too much from yourself.”
“Someone has to be the rational one here.”
“We only want what you can give.” He kisses each of my cheeks, the fire leaping forward and trying to catch his lips as he does. “We expect nothing more.”
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“What do you expect? Just you.”
He scoops me into his arms and draws me to his chest, carrying me away from the splashing water soaking our shoes. He hovers over me after laying me down, his lips meeting mine in a frenzy. His stoking escalates my already raging flames.
“Everything,” he murmurs against my lips. “Everything you can give me.”
The fire shoots through my limbs without hesitation, a brush fire during a dry spell. For once, Derry doesn’t seem eager to slow me down. If anything, he urges me on, his hands moving frantically to grab my tank top and jerk it over my head.
Displeased by any fraction of my skin outside his reach, he unfastens my shorts and yanks those off, too. Any embarrassment I might’ve felt about my naked body only further intensifies the spiraling blaze making camp in the pit of my stomach.
“What if you change your mind?”
Despite our proximity, he’s still too far away from me. A nagging desire to bridge the gap brings my sight out of focus. I need Derry. Connecting on the closest physical level is no longer a desire. It’s a necessity.
I hardly recognize myself. I’m watching the whole thing unfold from behind fire-proof glass as the flame skims the surface. Yet, unlike a casual observer, I feel each slight shift with such intensity I can pinpoint every stroke of my flesh, every kiss down my neck and across my shoulders, and every hitch of his hips when I lift myself to reach him. I’m nearer to losing control than I’ve ever allowed myself to be.
As overpowering as my need to give is, I’m still trying not to spill any of the ignited energy bubbling up and sloshing dangerously close to the sides. He doesn’t want it. He’s made that clear, so why isn’t he reducing this burn? It’s taking all my strength to keep from force-feeding him my fire fuel. There’s only one way to prevent a flame-induced misfortune. He’s right. I need to set him free.
“It’s okay,” he whispers into my chest. “Whatever you need, I need. It’ll always be enough. You’ll always be enough.”
I haven’t been holding back as much as I thought. He’s been pushing my energy back. How can he know my internal struggle when his mindreading is on the fritz? Are we bound in a way outshining even our magic?
“Need to breathe,” I wheeze.
He flips us over so he’s resting below me. His golden gaze surveys my exposed body, cataloging everything on display. He follows the blush line spreading out from my cheeks, down my neck, and across my chest. With every careful inspection, a welcome burn follows like a laser hitting flesh.
I wasn’t scared before, distracted by what we were doing. The instant he separates from me, his hands finding the waist of his shorts, it gives my mind a chance to slap my fire in the face. When I inhale sharply, Derry offers me a reassuring smile.
He rolls us over at turtle speed, pressing his warm body against mine so neither is towering over the other. We’re on even ground lying beside one another.
“You’re positive this is what you want?” My tears are evaporating before they fall. My temperature is exceeding safe levels.
All my certainty flushes itself out in a poorly scheduled fire extinguishing, courtesy of a processing delay. My body is willing. My heart doesn’t have any doubt, either. My head mostly agrees with the other parts, and majority should rule, except it can’t.
I have the weight of the world on my shoulders. At the very least, I have a small continent to protect from my incendiary transition. Not once did I stop to acknowledge I’m just a girl who hasn’t even graduated high school. My humanity, what’s left of it, is tucked in a hope chest for safekeeping. I want to keep it there forever. Tally was right, though. What good is it to have if I can’t take two seconds to marvel over my admiringly human faults, irrationalities, and idiosyncrasies?
I’m rushing, trying to get everything over pronto. Any moment could be the last one. Until I can release a portion of that fear for future annihilation, I’ll act recklessly, impulsively, and poorly. All hard lessons in the making. I’m not ready to connect with him in this final, personal way. Will he accept that?
“Please, Sweetheart.” His voice is strained. My fire circles, forging a path to our connection, the strings of my fire fuel to him like high-beam flashlights. It’s torture. His pain-filled desire brings tears to my eyes. I want to be with Derry. I want to share every piece of myself, but we’re moving too fast.
“I feel you all around me.”
Now I clue in. He doesn’t mean me. He means the energy around us. He doesn’t care about the physical connection. I feel that. Intimacy is the last thing on his mind. We’re on completely different trains. His only concern is his vaccination and, hopefully, subsequent immunization.
The fire hisses, whipping my insides as penance for my delay. I understand what he expects from me. I also understand what I expect from myself. The two aren’t matching up. If I give him what he wants, if I break the connection, things won’t be the same between us…or we could finally be together in the way I want us to be. Whatever I decide, there’s no going back. We can only move forward. Together or apart is to be determined.