Page 28 of Light the Fire
“Useless?”
Her gaze flicked to me, and a harshness was there. I could tell a sassy retort was on the tip of her tongue. But she swallowed it, and her expression softened as she exhaled. “Yeah. You all took down the soldiers while I just sat there with my nose bleeding and my hands over my ears like a … I don’t even know the word.”
A kitten.
We let the word hang without being said. I could tell Zane’s new nickname for her irritated her. Which was Zane’s MO. He liked to get under people’s skin and push their buttons. How he hadn’t been the one to get tortured and killed for mouthing off, I’ll never know. But then again, it seemed like he just saved up all that assholiness for Rix and me but toed the line and was the perfect soldier with superiors to save his hide.
“Well, we want to help you,” I said gently. “You weren’t trained how to compartmentalize your senses out in the real world, but that doesn’t mean you can’t learn.”
She cast me another side-eye. “You think you can help me?”
I shrugged. “Worth a shot. We’ve got nothing else to do on this boat trip. Well, besides stay alive, find food and not hogtie Zane and shove him in the engine room for being a total dick.”
She snorted. “Yeah, Captain Sunshine is a real nice guy.”
I laughed at her sarcasm. She didn’t know the half of it.
I rolled onto my back to face the ceiling, too, which put our hands next to each other on the bed. Her pinky finger brushed mine. “What did Zane mean when he asked me if I was taught how to seduce?”
Fucking Zane.
“Did you go to the Sector Eight compound?”
Obviously not, dipshit, if she just asked you about it.
“No.” Her response was quiet. “I was born and mostly raised at the compound in Sector One, which used to be New Mexico and Arizona, then they sent me to Sector Four, which used to be Colorado, for some training for a few years—mostly new forms of hand-to-hand combat and heavy artillery. And then I was sent here when your source died.”
“Well … seduction is…” I cleared my throat.
Why were my hands suddenly getting all sweaty? She could probably smell the sweat, and she could definitely tell that my heart was racing.
Her small smile was encouraging though, so I pulled up my big boy shorts and pressed on.“Seduction is another word forcharmortempt. And in this case, we were taught how to charm, tempt and coerce other people, using our bodies, our attractiveness, and someone else’s attraction to us to get them to comply with what we wanted. Most times it involved sex. Or sexual acts. We manipulate someone’s desire for us into getting what we need. Information. Access. That kind of thing.” I swallowed hard. Oh yeah, she could hear my pulse racing. Her furrowed brow and quick glance at my chest said as much. My heart was slamming against my ribcage so loud it was almost deafening. I hadn’t anticipated having to answer this question. Fucking Zane.
“You’ve had to …seduce?”
“Yeah. A few times.”
She nodded. “I’d never seen a naked man before tonight, and now I’ve seen three. That can’t be comfortable.”
I choked on my own spit and started to cough. “Pardon?”
She shrugged, her wide-eyed innocence getting me hard in the chest. No amusement or teasing twinkled in those orbs, which reminded me of a clear summer sky. She was one hundred percent serious, and it was actually really adorable. “What?” she squeaked with a shoulder lift. “That long, hard thing sticking up between your legs and then the squishy sack behind it. How the heck do you fight, walk, run, train or do anything with that …comfortably?Isn’t it always just bouncing around and smacking you?”
Oh my God, she really was a naive, innocent little kitten.
Did I tell her?
“I mean, one thing that I can’t entirely understand is why Rix’swasn’tbig when he jumped into the water, but then Zane’s was, and then yours and Rix’s weren’t when you were standing on the boat, but then they got bigger. Why do they change shape like that? Is it because of the water?”
Fuck me. She just kept asking. Just kept digging. Her curiosity was never-ending. And she probably had absolutely no idea how …hardshe was making it for me to answer her questions.
I was a bad person. I should not be hard as fucking concrete when she was asking me legitimate questions about biology.
Poor kitten had been kept so far in the dark, it was practically inhumane.
It was inhumane. Not practically—it WAS.
Right. So she deserved answers. I was someone who constantly asked questions, who was curious about the world, and this was pure anatomy. Science. There was nothing to be uncomfortable about. Science was wonderful. Science was interesting. The human body was an intricate machine that, when working properly, could do amazing, remarkable things.