Fathom (Mermaids of Montana #3) - Elsa Jade Page 0,51
you are ending this.”
It wasn’t a question. It couldn’t be. She’d lose what little strength and self-control she had.
Rising, she grabbed the nearest shirt—the poet blouse she’d given to him. As far as protection went, it wasn’t much, but she slipped it over her head as she said briskly, “You need to take the data gel to the Diatom, and I need…”
He waited, but her voice seemed even more gone than his.
What did she need? The rootless, free-floating life she’d told herself was curious and transcendent now seemed like a hopeless if unconscious acknowledgment that there was nowhere in the universe she belonged.
Even a devastated world desperate to pad its census count wasn’t interested in adding her body and soul to its roster.
“It’s been a long couple of days,” she said at last. “I just need some time…” She hesitated. All night and all day. And by then likely the repairs to the Diatom would be completed, and Sting and her mother would depart.
“You need time without me.” His gravelly voice was as flat as concrete.
He might say he felt nothing, but obviously she’d hurt his feelings. That hadn’t been her intent, but it didn’t change the truth either.
“Yes, by myself.” She clutched the folds of the silk shirt tight around her. Since his broad chest had unraveled the cord at the neckline, it gaped open over her breasts which still ached tenderly from the delicate piercing of his claws.
Who would’ve guessed his sting was pleasure? Certainly no one else on Tritona would know. She was the only one, and this was the only time, and that would have to be enough, for however long she had left.
Her eyes pricking, she groped around her to collect the rest of her clothes, and when she straightened, he was clad in his battle skin, nothing more. Now she knew what he could do with that big, exposed body, it was even harder to force herself to turn away.
She made herself ask, “Is there anything else you need for your repairs? Maelstrom left some supplies from his time here. Marisol locked everything up in one of her vaults so it wouldn’t be found by unsuspecting Earthers, but I’m sure Thomas can give you the codes.”
Sting twisted his wrist to display the datpad. “I have what I need.”
Of course he did. Her fleeting glimpse of the life she could’ve had—not so different from the moment she’d had at prom all those years ago—was a dream that could never come true. I like this. I want this. I’ve dreamed of this.
“Well,” she said awkwardly. “If there’s nothing else…”
He looked her up and down once in a fulminating glance. Though the protective shield was over his eyes—not just blank but impenetrable as chromium—somehow she imagined she caught a glimpse of the softer pearl underneath. “Nothing else,” he growled.
He spun on his bare heel, giving her a wordless yet profound full mooning of his bared backside. She let out a wistful sigh as he marched out of the library.
Framed between the columns bracing the open doorway, he stopped and pivoted again to stare back at her. He lifted his chin, as if all the extra inches of height he had on her weren’t enough to make him feel fortified and secure. The watery glow of the seahorses’ home reflected in his eyes like lightning-struck rain. “Some things that survive in the deeps, that can endure the cold and crushing dark, when brought to the surface, die in the burning light.”
“Oh, Sting…” Despite her determination to stay strong, her heart cracked, and she took a step toward him.
The hard ping from him stopped her in her tracks. “No words.” He put his hand over his bared chest. “I can feel what you would say.”
For the first time, she suspected he was numb to feelings as he always claimed. Or he would not have believed her and he would not have turned and left her.
Chapter 11
When he’d been the commander of the western fleet, Coriolis had often coordinated attacks against the Cretarni at night, since the soil-suckers were diurnal. And Sting had frequently been out in front of those, by himself, scouting or sabotaging or slaughtering. The dark and isolation and death had meant nothing to him then.
And meant nothing to him now either. He growled the reminder low under his breath.
“Tremor detected,” announced the partly dismantled sensor in front of him, speaking in Ajellomene. “Recommend departing the area immediately.”
If the small tech had any sense of self-preservation, it