"What were you doing?" he finally hissed. "I told you to be careful with yourself. Was that being careful?"
His eyes couldn't look at enough of her. They trailed down her throat, down the green shirt that really was far too transparent, to the denim skirt which had likely tripped her up.It was too long. He was going to tear the offensive thing at the thighs so that maybe she could walk around without tripping over herself every second.
Teeth bared, he stared down at her wide-eyed expression and waited for her to defend herself. Lately she'd been arguing with him, and he hadn't corrected her. It was healthy for her to push back at him for some things. But this? This he knew he was right about.
Instead of arguing with him, she lifted her hand and pressed her palm to his cheek. "Did you know you have freckles?" she whispered.
"I have no idea what those are."
"Little dots across your cheeks. Freckles are usually from the sun, but I highly doubt you've been in the sun that often." Her thumb ghosted over the peak of his cheekbone, and his entire body heated at the touch. "You're almost handsome, you know. If not for..."
Her words trailed off, but her fingers didn't. They smoothed over the harsh lines down his cheeks, the ones that were always there no matter how much he tried to hide that his jaw could unhinge and he could likely have swallowed her whole. He was not the same as the other undine. He'd always known that.
Humans weren't usually the type to find the sea folk handsome. The fact that she looked at him and saw anything that was possible to find pretty was a shock to his entire system.
He couldn't stop holding her. Couldn't put down the warm body that heated him right down into the depths of his ancient bones. She saw him as a man. As a creature who had been with her for so long, perhaps, but also as someone who was handsome. Someone who was kind.
Her fingers pressed against the seams of his cheeks, and he obliged her unspoken question. Proteus opened his mouth, allowing his jaw to fall open even more, his chin peeling awayfrom the rest of his body so his mouth could open up completely and she could stare down into the depths of the many teeth that spiraled down his throat.
"You are terrifying," she whispered, but then he felt her reach inside of his mouth and gently touch the tip of a very sharp tooth. "But I don't feel fear when I look at you like this. Does that mean something is wrong with me?"
He closed his mouth so he could speak. "No, it just means you are more curious than the average human."
"I took it for granted that you've been calling me human all this time. I remember Malcolm saying that most people under the waves called humans 'achromo'." She stared at him expectantly, wanting to know why he used different words than the People of Water.
"I am not undine," he decided on saying. "I am not them, and they are not me. I am something other, just as you are something other."
She hummed low under her breath. "I suppose that makes sense. You certainly don't look like any of the undine I've seen before. And you worked with the other scientists for years here, didn't you?"
"I did."
"Maybe you picked up on more of their language than you're giving them credit for." And then... a blinding smile.
It was like staring into the sun when she was this happy. Her eyes scrunched up and her nose even wrinkled as she grinned at him. She was just happy. Happy to see him, happy to know that he was using words that she could understand. Happier than he'd ever seen her and he had no idea how to process her beauty.
He should put her down on the floor and get back into the icy cold depths. Perhaps those would cool the feelings that rioted inside of his chest that were as unfamiliar as they were tempting.
But he didn't. He couldn't force himself to release her even as his head dipped closer and closer to hers. He couldn't stop himself when he was breathing over her lips, inhaling the air she exhaled.
"Ellie," he whispered, and the sound of her name on his lips made all the spines on his back raise. "You are unlike anyone I have ever met."
"You've been gone for two hundred years. It's just because you haven't spoken to anyone in a very long time."
He met her gaze, so close that he could see little flecks of gold hidden in them. "No, it's not that."
He surged forward and kissed her. It was inevitable that they would do so. From the first moment he'd seen her as more than just a tool, he had known he would devour her lips. He'd been dying to know what she tasted like, beyond the sweet metallic flavor of her blood.
But Proteus hadn't expected the little breathy moan she let out to tempt him as thoroughly as it did. Kissing a woman like this was sacrilege. Surely she would feel violated that a mouth like what she had just inspected was touching her.
Ellie surprised him at every turn. She curved a hand around the back of his neck and drew him even closer. Pressing her torso to his, she seemed to try to crawl her way inside him with her lips and teeth and tongue.
This was the unpracticed kiss of a woman who had never done this before. She'd been denied physical pleasure for such a long time, it all came rushing to the forefront as she kissed him like a woman possessed.
He was only a man after all, so he kissed her back just as wildly.
A deep groan burned in his chest, rumbling out of his throat with all those razor sharp teeth as he consumed her. Still, therewas a need in the back of his head to chew rather than just lick, but he silenced it quickly.
There would be no more pain for her. Not from him, and not from anyone else.
