“Are you sure you’re alright to do this, Antoine? You look like you’re a million miles away right now. Where are you? That damn human has been getting to you again, hasn’t she? I told you, you just need to bang her, so you can think straight.”
“No offense, Nathan, but you can keep your nuggets of wisdom to yourself. I don’t expect you to understand.”
“Oh no, I get it. You want her, you don’t want to want her, and that pisses you off. Been there, done that. It could work out.”
“We’re here to attack your new territory. Do you really want to be talking about this right now?”
“I don’t really want to go in there with you, like this. You need to get your head straight. Maybe this isn’t the day for it.”
They were outside of the main village in the Simpico Islands. The foliage from certain trees were red and when the sun went down, everyone said it looked like it was on fire. It had been named the Fire Islands long before it was named something else for map makers. Nathan now was the Alpha of the whole island and the people there, but he was still getting resistance. They were there to take them out for good and end a feud.
“I got this.”
“You don’t. I am serious, let’s go. I don’t want to do this until you fuck that little human, so that we can do this right. I won’t have you handicapped and getting us both killed in the process.”
Antoine wanted to protest, but he knew that his friend was right. He was about useless, and everything that was going through his head at the moment had nothing to do with a major attack that they were in the middle of. He just didn’t want to admit that he had been messed up so badly by a damn woman. It didn’t matter her genus, just that fact alone was embarrassing. The very fact that Nathan knew about it just made it all the worse.
“I don’t want to do that. We can finish this.”
“No, we can’t, and you’re going to do the right thing and go back home. Take her, get her out of your damn system, and call me when you’re done.”
“You’re serious?”
“You know I am, Antoine. I’ve never seen you like this before and I need the guy that is focused, prepared. You’re not either one of those things.”
“She really is messing with my head.”
“I can see that. Go mess with hers.”
Antoine felt a lightness come over him. It was probably because he knew what was going to happen next. She wanted it, had been practically begging him for it. He hadn’t needed permission, but Antoine liked having an excuse. He liked it that in moments Cassandra was going to be his.
***
Antoine was early that evening and he was quiet coming in. She was always so into whatever she was doing and at the moment, he saw her out in the yard, looking at flowers. One of the great things about being so far off in the woods as he was, he didn’t have to worry about neighbors or passerby cars and people spoiling his fun.
“My sister planted those.”
She jumped and told Antoine that he had to stop doing that to her. The clothes were the first thing that he noticed. The skirt she was wearing was much longer, almost to the ground and her shirt was covering everything quite modestly. Antoine started to immediately worry that he’d been too much, went too far, and now he was ready and she wasn’t.
He took a few steps closer and she looked away. “I didn’t even know that you had a sister.”
“There is a lot that you don’t know about me. It’s hard to get to know someone when there is all of this tension between us, though, don’t you think?”
Cassandra agreed, yet she didn’t know what to do about it and said so.
“I think that we have to get rid of this tension first. Then, we would be clear to go further in knowing each other.”
Antoine was so close, and he could see her breathing was faster and she was thinking about something more. He hoped that she was thinking along the same lines that he was.
“Yeah? How do we do that?”
She asked so innocently, Antoine didn’t know if she was just being coy or not. He wanted her to know and consent to what came next. He thought it would be obvious, their time together had led up to it, so why was he having such a hard time knowing now?
“Do you really not know?”
Cassandra had craned her neck up to see him. The smile was back, uncertainty behind it, but desire laced it all. It brought Antoine to the realization that he wasn’t that far off at all.
“No, Antoine, I really don’t. You go hot to cold a lot on me. I don’t know if I am coming or going half the time with you.”
