Penny shivered against him. “I’m gonna have to get you warm. Not hot, just toasty warm. Warm us both up. I’m ruining the temp of the water, you know.”
“Don’t care,” she grabbed his hair and held on, mouth finding his bite and dragging her teeth against it, sending his nerve endings into a pyrotechnic dance.
“You’re going to do things to me...”
“I’m already doing things to you,” she sassed back.
“And someday—I’ll do things to you. You wanna leave this town? I’ll take you. Take you somewhere with the fancy suites and the big hot tubs. You want bubbles, Pen? I’d give you bubbles. Rose petals. Let’s do that, huh? Bubbles and champagne for New Year’s?” He opened the drain to let out the cold and turned the tap on to full hot. “Easy now, it’ll be warmer in a second.”If the damned plumbing holds when I need it. What if the hot water heater went out? What if the pipes froze?
“Champagne and roses sound fancy, but I’m not so sure it’s my style. No one’s ever...”
“Well, now someone will. Take you somewhere warmer, someplace where the cold is just a memory,” Brax whispered. “How’s about we head someplace tropical, baby, just you and me, where the moon is big and full, and even the nights are warm—but breezy. Not sweltering.” He rested his head on top ofhers. “Where the rain is warm, and snow is just something you read about.”
Penny gasped as the water hit her, but then moaned as he began working his stiff, sore hands against her supple skin, still so much warmer than his.
“I know just the place—not that I’d ever need warming up with you around.” Brax ran his hands down her back. You’re so good at it, baby. Heat me up, even in a supernatural storm.” Brax kept up the constant stream of conversation, fairly one-sided though it was. He swished the water around her legs as he settled her into the shallows. “Hope I’m doin’ this right...”
His fingers burned on contact with the water, feeling returning.
“You say so many beautiful things for such a ‘bad guy,’” Penny whispered, looking up at him, her eyes losing their slightly hazy look.
“Well, if you don’t get better, baby, I don’t know that I’d stay on the straight and narrow. What good is savin’ the world if you’re not in it?” his voice was tender as his lips pressed to her forehead.
WORDS AND WATERFALLS. Penny heard them both, the whisper in her ears and the warm rain running over them. Clarity was returning in bits and pieces, but this time the pieces were building a picture she could recognize and understand.
Her throat didn’t hurt. Her hands didn’t hurt. Her body ached, like it was made of rubber bands pulled too tight. She was a ragdoll, flung and dropped and bumped and dropped again, onto something so cold on her already bare, cold body that had once been a hot, burning body. Her system couldn’t keep up, and it had temporarily closed shop, but Brax kept bringing her back. Opening her up.
And it was her turn to do the same, restore the person who would believe her and change for her—even when her own blood relatives didn’t.
But this makes us some sort of family, maybe? Some sort of bond must be formed by blood, mine in him, and his in me...
The truce was “make warm.” But I’m cold now. And he’s cold. Something failed.“I always fail.” She broke off a kiss to blurt the fears that plagued her. Not the monsters. Not the monster in the man with her.
Failing to make things work. Parents to believe her, friends to see what she saw, people to understand—monsters to vanish.
Now, she wanted this one. And the other ones—the witches and vampires and the who-the-hell-knew-whats who had helped her and everyone else in town tonight.
“There’s a difference between being a failure and gettin’ beaten sometimes,” Brax said, staring at her as if trying to see through her skin and into her thoughts. “The only ones who never take a hit are the lucky ones. The ones who get knocked down and get back up are fighters. You fought so hard tonight, even half out of your mind and burnin’ up. Makes you a hero. My hero.” Brax gently ran his fingers through her hair, tenderly over her scalp, gently tracing the smooth lines of her profile until her eyes met his. “And I don’t believe in heroes much anymore. Guess I’m learning all kinds of things about myself tonight.”
“It’s a miracle.”
“I hear Christmas is the time for them.”
“And for presents,” Penny whispered, moving his head from hers, aiming him lower. “It’s a gift. Just a gift.”
“I don’t know if I should try that. Even if you want it—”
“I want it.” Penny closed her eyes and just let the water wash away any inhibition. Let herself remember everything she could about that night.
He could have let me wander outside and freeze to death. Or burn.
Could have waited for me to die and drained me.
Could have done a thousand things—and so could I.
Oh, holy crap. Penis-cock.
Truces that sound like something out of the worst porno ever.
