Page 47 of Up In Flames

I tamp it down. “What’s your damage, Xy? Don’t you have anything better to focus on than height and dick size?”

Xy shrugs. “I’m just saying, you’re unfortunate in the cock department. Most of our Kind carry around at least a foot of sausage. Some of us grow to sixteen inches. In comparison, you’re just a tiny baby.”

“A baby? Listen, I don’t know what you…” But I bite back the rest of my words. He’s goading me for a reason. I don’t know what that reason is, but I’m not giving him what he wants. I can be stubborn when I want to be. “It’s all good.”

It is, too. Immediate guy reaction to having his dick insulted notwithstanding, he’s barking up the wrong tree. I’ve always worried about hurting women because I’m so large in width, length, and muscle. He’s ragging on me because I’m small compared to what he thinks I should be, but if I were larger, I would have hurt Nina. As it is, each time I penetrate her, I have to be careful. Larger would rip her to shreds.

A shudder runs through me at the thought.

“Good, is it? Think you could satisfy a real woman with that thing?” Xy stares at me, unmoving, but there’s a coiled, defensive tenseness to his stance, as if he’s prepared for me to attack him. Which makes no sense.

What a weirdo.

“I get by. Why are you trying to goad me, Xy? What’s the deal?” I keep my voice even and calm, but I watch him closely. He’s not giving any indication that he intends to attack me. His posture is all about defensive rather than offensive. But what guy talks smack about another guy’s dick unless he’s about to throw down?

“Deal? There’s no deal. I’m just wondering how you walk around with such a tiny cock, is all.”

He’s definitely trying to goad me. “Whatever.” Purposefully, to throw him off, I lean back against the side of my vehicle and put my thumbs in my front pockets. I look relaxed, but I can move fast if he springs at me. “Why don’t you just tell me why you’re here. If it was just to hurl an insult, consider your work done. You can leave.”

“No, it wasn’t just that,” he says, his voice considering. He tilts his head to the side and studies me. “I came to see the extent of the fire damage, same as you, I’m guessing. Why aren’t you jumping me?”

“Why? You like men? Are you trying to get me close enough so you can touch my tiny dick?” The words are out before I can stop them. But I guess that’s what happens when a strange man tries to make me feel bad about my size. I get snippy.

“Wouldn’t be the first time that kind of thing happened among our Kind, but no, not just now. I’ve got a Neph to see to my needs. She gets the job done.”

“And by Neph, you mean Nephilim? The cursed giants from the Book of Enoch?”

“Someone’s been doing their homework.” He pulls himself taller and steps forward into the clearing, but he still maintains a good distance from me. “I’ve also been digging into files, trying to get a handle on you before I approach The Council. Haven’t been too successful, though, so when I saw you traipsing about, I thought, ‘Well, Xy, now’s the time to see if you can find out something more about our mystery Neph before you alert The Council, because chances are you might be stepping into a hornet’s nest.’”

“Why?” I take a step forward.

Instantly, he backs up, not frightened, I don’t think, but… wary?

I hold out my hands in a calming gesture. “Why am I so important to you?”

For a moment, his jaw works, as if he’s tasting his words before he speaks them. Then, he shrugs. “We don’t have the numbers to leave anything to chance. You, blending, and the rest of us unaware…” He shakes his head again before sending his gaze around the clearing. “I don’t like it.”

“But you haven’t found anything important, because there isn’t anything important to find, at least, not that concerns me, and you and your… people.” Deliberately, I latch my fingers into the front pockets of my jeans again. It’s one of those subliminal signs they teach in criminal psychology, a way to put another person at ease. It’s a shout-out that says I’m not going to attack you. See? I’m ever so relaxed.

“Well, I’ve learned that you’ve got a teeny weenie.” When he smiles, his sharpened teeth gleam like shark fins in the sunlight. “You might think that’s an unimportant detail, but it’s actually critical. Even though you’re a Taller, I’m guessing the tiny cock means you’re mostly human, or maybe simply the descendant of an unimportant Watcher. Those exist, you know. Not all angels guarded the heavens before they descended to earth. Some of them were bureaucrats, or the equivalent of street sweepers.”

“First, you insult my dick. Now, you insult my ancestry. If I cared at all, I’d probably be ready to see the back of you.” Despite my deadpan tone, anger streaks through me. Who is this guy? What’s he trying to pull? “Besides, if we’re related, doesn’t that make you a street-sweeper’s descendant, too?”

He clicks his tongue, but his smile finally turns genuine. “Never said we were related, boy, but that’s one of the matters we need to investigate. The other is why you still aren’t jumping me. Excellent control.”

“Thanks.”

“That’s not a compliment. If you’re going to survive, you’ll have to learn to jump first, ask questions later. Restraint is for human society.” He glances around the clearing again, his attention drawn by a car weaving its way down the twisted mountain road about a hundred yards up an incline of dirt path from where we speak. His gaze returns and briefly brushes over me before he clicks his tongue again. “Gotta’ go. See you around, boy.” And with a short wave, he turns his back on me and walks further into the overgrowth of bush that’s been singed, but not burned into embers.

I let him go. Two insults a day are enough, though strangely, he’s made me feel better by denigrating my ancestry. First, if I have to be a Nephilim—and that’s a big if—I’d prefer to be a low-ranking one, and thus, presumably, a less venal variety. Even better, I’d like to be mostly human. Heck, I’d love nothing more than to be all human. And second, I don’t want a twelve-inch dick. Never did. My own ten inches are too much as it is.

Although Nina seems to like my size. When I’m inside her, I become part of her.

And suddenly, I can’t wait to get back to her, even if I have to show her my ten inches in the privacy of her small house into which I barely fit. Because anywhere she is, I want to be there. She feels like a refuge against a world suddenly inhabited by beings like Xy.

Strange, how life works like that.

CHAPTER 16