Page 12 of Currents of Desire

The sudden exertion forces a rush of blood through the veins, and the skin reacts.

Pinpricks of sharp blue light ignite at the wrists. The color travels fast, mapping the blood vessels up the forearms and across the ribs. It washes down the length of the strange, pale legs sprawled on the tiles, pulsing in time with my erratic heartbeat.

Jack freezes. The rigid tension in his jaw dissolves. He studies the glowing patterns for a long moment before he registers the light is tracing completely bare skin.

“Here,” he mutters, his voice tight. He reaches for a towel hanging on a rack. It is a fluffy, dry thing, the color of sand. He throws it at me.

The fabric lands on my head, blinding me.

I freeze. Is this a net? Is this an attack?

I claw at the fabric, ripping it away from my face. It is dry. Horribly, aggressively dry. The texture is rough against my sensitive new skin, like rubbing against a coral reef. I look at the towel in my hands, confused.

Why did he throw this?

Does he want me to dry out faster?

Does he want me to die?

I let it drop to the wet floor.

I look at him, not understanding his ritual. In the ocean, there is no modesty. There is only survival. We do not hide our bodies—our bodies are our weapons, our tools, our reality. To hide is to admit weakness. I will not hide.

Jack makes a strangled noise in his throat when the towel falls. He keeps his eyes strictly on my face, refusing to look lower. It is a strange behavior. He is a predator who refuses to look his prey in the eye.

“You need to… you can’t just…” He trails off, running a hand through his hair, looking overwhelmed.

I ignore his confusion, needing to test these new limbs. I have to know if I can move, fight, or flee.

I place my hands on the rim of the tub. The porcelain is slippery, but my grip is strong, and then I push. My arms tremble. The muscles are adjusting to the new leverage. I haul myself up, my new knees knocking together. They feel loose, unstable, like jelly.

“Wait,” Jack says, stepping forward. “Don’t try to…”

One pale leg clears the porcelain edge. Bare toes press into the woven bathmat. The rough, dry fibers scrape against uncalloused skin, sending a sharp, unfamiliar texture up the calf.

The second foot follows. Weight shifts onto the new joints. The room tilts. The sudden vertical height feels entirely wrong, leaving the floor a vast, unstable distance away.

The muscles refuse to hold. Both knees fold like broken hinges. The heavy torso drags the rest of the body down, plunging straight toward the tiles.

Hands flinch upward to block the ceramic floor, but the crash never hits. Warm, tight grips clamp around the ribs, halting the fall mere inches from the ground.

Jack.

The sudden drop ends in a violent halt. Thick arms cage the ribs, crushing the breath out.

The heat radiating off his body is overwhelming. Bare, freezing skin presses hard against the heavy weave of his flannel. The contrast is agonizingly sharp. A deep, involuntary shiver tears through the spine. The new flesh is entirely frictionless, sliding slick and damp against the rough fabric of his shirt.

A ragged breath tears out of his throat. His chest rises and falls in frantic, heavy heaves against the cold collarbones. The grip at the waist tightens until it bruises. He freezes, muscles rigid beneath the shirt, completely overwhelmed by the aquatic texture pressed against him. Yet, the hands refuse to let go.

The new height forces a steep upward tilt of the chin. His jawline hovers just inches above.

His gaze drops. The dark centers of his eyes are blown wide, eclipsing the color entirely. The primal terror from the water is gone. He stares down at the pale throat, the curve of the waist, the human face. The monster is dead. A woman breathes against his chest.

The close proximity to his feverish warmth draws an involuntary reaction. The cold, damp body craves the heat radiating from his skin. Blue illumination surges across the pale limbs. The glowing dots throb in a frantic rhythm, casting a deep azure reflection across his stunned face.

The scent of him fills the narrow space. The bitter tang of fear lingers, but a heavier, richer musk bleeds through it. It is the smell of rain, copper blood, and a desperate, confused fascination.

The cold torso presses deliberately deeper into the rough flannel. The movement demands more of his heat, soaking it up from his chest, waiting to see if he pulls away.