Page 24 of Currents of Desire

I gasp, my gills flaring wide, ribs expanding until they threaten to crack. I suck in the moisture-laden air rising from the tub. The burning stops as quickly as it began, replaced by a rush of cold, intoxicating power. It’s as if the crushing pressure of the deep ocean over a thousand atmospheres has suddenly clamped around me, holding me together and knitting the fissures in my skin back into seamless perfection.

I look down at my arms. The gray ash is sloughing off in great, dissolving sheets. It swirls away into the indigo water like dead scales. Beneath it, the new skin is emerging, pearlescent, slick, and harder than diamond.

Then the lights snap back on, and my bioluminescence detonates in an answering flash.

Patterns of azure, electric violet, and deep, warning red race across my torso, swirling down the length of my legs. They pulse in time with the frantic, sledgehammer rhythm of my heart. The bathroom, dim and shadowed only a moment ago, is bathed in the strobe-light intensity of my resurrection. I’m a neon storm in a porcelain box.

I sit up, the indigo water cascading off my shoulders in thick, heavy sheets. The weakness is gone. The dryness is a fading nightmare. In its place is a vibrating, humming energy that makes my fingertips twitch. The salt has done more than heal me—it has supercharged me and awakened the apex predator that usually sleeps beneath the surface of my consciousness.

Jack is kneeling by the tub. He looks wrecked. His chest is heaving, his flannel shirt is soaked through and plastered to his skin. His hair is matted to his forehead by the rain. He smells of ozone, wet denim, and a terror so profound it tastes sweet on the back of my tongue. He’s staring at me, his eyes wide, his pupils blown, reflecting the alien, shifting patterns of light dancing on my skin.

He went into the storm for me. He faced the wind that breaks trees to bring me the ocean in a jar.

The realization hits me harder than the salt. The monster in me, the ancient biological imperative that categorizes all other beings as prey or threat, suddenly reconfigures. The tumblers in my brain click into a new alignment.

The pain of the healing transmutes instantly into adrenaline. My blood runs hot, boiling beneath the cool surface of my skin. And then, just as quickly, the adrenaline boils over into a hunger that has nothing to do with food. It’s a starvation of a different kind, a need to consume him, to merge with him, to verify his existence with every inch of my recovered body.

“You saved me,” I whisper. My voice is no longer a dry rasp. It’s a chord, resonant and full, vibrating with the sub-harmonics of the deep. “Again.”

Jack lets out a shaky breath, his hand still gripping the white rim of the tub so hard his knuckles are white. “I thought… I thought I was too late. You looked like stone, Nerida. You looked dead.”

I look at his mouth. I remember the taste of him from before, but that is a gentle memory. This is different. I don’t want gentle. I want to devour. I want to feel the heat of his blood and the beat of his heart against my own.

“You are never too late,” I purr, the sound rumbling in my chest.

I don’t ask or wait for permission and reach out, my wet hand shooting forward with the speed of a striking eel, gripping the front of his soaked flannel shirt. The fabric is heavy, sodden with the storm, but I don’t care.

I yank.

Jack lets out a startled yelp as I haul him off his knees. With a splash that sends a tidal wave of indigo water over the floor, I drag him over the porcelain lip and into the tub with me.

He lands hard, half on top of me, his legs tangled with mine. The water rises dangerously high, sloshing violently, instantly soaking him. The tub is cramped, a confined space meant for one, now holding two beings of different worlds.

“Nerida…” He gasps, spluttering as he tries to find his footing in the slick, shifting environment. He tries to push up to give me space.

“Quiet,” I command.

I sit up, water streaming from my hair, and straddle his lap. The water is cooling, but my skin is burning hot, a furnace of biological light and heat. I grab his shirt collar with both hands and rip it, buttons pop, pinging off the tiles like hail. The sound is sharp and satisfying. I tear the wet fabric apart, desperate to feel the skin beneath and remove the barrier between his warmth and my need.

“Nerida, wait,” he stammers, his hands coming up to grip my waist. His touch is electric, sending sparks skittering across my scales. “You’re… you were dying a minute ago. You need to rest.”

“I am not dying,” I growl, pressing my chest against his, flattening my breasts against the hard wall of his pectorals. “And now I am alive. Make me feel it.”

I don’t give him a chance to argue, crushing my mouth to his.

It isn’t a gentle kiss but a collision. It’s a claiming. I taste the salt on his lips, the rain on his face, and the sudden spike of his arousal. He tastes like survival and the shore meeting the tide.

Jack groans, a low, guttural sound in his throat that vibrates against my sternum. His hesitation shatters under the weight of my demand. His rough and callused hands slide up my slick back, gripping me hard enough to bruise. He pulls me closer, eliminating the water between us until there is only friction.

I grind down against him, the hard ridge of his desire pressing against the soft, sensitive scales of my lower abdomen. The sensation sends a shock wave through my nervous system, making my lights flicker wildly, strobing from blue to intense violet.

“Please,” I breathe out against his mouth, my hands tangling in his wet hair, pulling his head back to expose his throat. “Now, Jack. Now.”

He doesn’t need to be told twice. He fumbles with his belt, his movements frantic, clumsy with haste. The water makes everything difficult, the heavy denim of his jeans resisting, but the struggle only heightens the frenzy. We fight against the clothes, the cramped space, and the lingering shadow of death.

When he finally frees himself, I don’t wait for him to guide me. I lift my hips, the water buoying me, making me weightless, and sink onto him.

The gasp that leaves his lips is lost in the storm raging outside.