Heat crawled up my neck in a way I knew was probably turning my entire pale-brown face red. “Um, it meansshoot your shot—wait, that’s slang, too. I guess the best definition would be, to try to initiate intimacy. Why haven’t you done that… with me?”
“Initiate intimacy,” he repeated slowly, lowering his eyes like this was a foreign concept. But then he raised them again, trapping me in his emerald stare. “Is this about the copious amount of arousal you have been emitting in our presence?”
The pleasant, conversational smile remained on my lips.
But only because my face was in a rictus as my brain detonated and my entire nervous system announced it was filing for divorce before imploding.
“I haven’t… I didn’t… That’s not what… I don’t know what you think you smelled but….”
I hadn’t known the knot that kept tightening inside me was releasing a scent, but all attempts at denying it died upon arrival under the weight of the knowledge that he could see every stress response going off inside of me.
Not anger at being falsely accused, but the elevated heart rate, blood rushing to face, abject horror of being called out.
Aengus just sat there with the patience of someone who was way, way better at waiting out a reluctant interviewee than me.
Seriously, he was born in the wrong millennium.Heshould have been the holoscribe.
In the end, I could only hedge, “I wouldn’t call it copious….”
He tilted his head to the other side. “Is it normal, then, for you to emit this scent whenever a male enters the room? Are you generally in a heightened state of desire? Is this high level of desire why you enjoy the bath as you do?”
“Okay, okay. Can you stop?” I had to press both hands into my cheeks, which felt like they were about to burst into flames.“I didn’t even know you could smell arousal. I thought that was just a male wolf thing.”
“Our receptors are on our tongue, so whenever we open our mouth to engage in conversation with you, we can taste your desire. The same as a meal. We can also see it in the way your genitalia and mammary glands burn deep orange now, even as the red burn of your embarrassment rushes into your face.”
Embarrassment was an understatement. More like the kind of mortification that would make me agree to go even farther back in time, just to get out of this conversation. “Okay, I get it. We can drop the subject now. I’m sorry I asked.”
“We are not sorry you asked.” He frowned, eyes narrowing. “But we are confused. Do you wish us to make this move you spoke of to initiate intimacy?”
I covered my eyes like a little kid at a horror movie. “Not anymore! Could you go?”
No answer.
And when I uncovered my eyes, Aengus was still sitting there. “Is that an order?” he asked quietly. “Do you truly wish for us to leave you mid-conversation?”
I wanted to say yes.
But in the end, honesty was the only shred of dignity I had left. “No, I’m… I’m just embarrassed. You don’t blink. And I get that’s because you don’t have to lubricate your eyes or whatever. But sometimes it feels like you like me more than you do, and obviously, I misread it. I’m sorry I confused you with all this talk about making a move.”
His expression fractured for just a moment, then firmed. “Our confusion has confused you. We do not wish for you to feel this way.”
“I’m not confused. Not anymore. Can we just drop this? You know what, you said I need to give you an order, so, yes, that’s an or?—”
“Dorcas, we would very much like to initiate intimacy with you,” he said before I could finish. “It is all we have thought of since the time we caught you in our arms. We think of nothing else but you. While we sleep, while we scour our Zone for food you might like. While we wait for you to finish your bath, wishing we could be the water.”
He laid a hand on his chest. “We would be honored to make a move on you.”
I blinked. And lowered my hands. “Aengus. I…” wasn’t expecting that and had no idea how to respond.
“May we kiss you?” he asked. His smoke-and-glass voice was low, urgent.
I didn’t know… I didn’t know what to say.
But the knot tightened again.
His emerald gaze dropped to the area of my body that had apparently been telling all my business over the past two weeks. “Isss that a yesss, Dorcasss?”
The hiss was back. Knowing he was affected by this, too, loosened something in my chest.
