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“I get it.” Deus had closed his eyes. “It has good movement. I bet it’d be good for… you know…” He’d opened an eye and gave me a sly look.
“What?” I’d asked, not catching his meaning.
Deus flashed me a tiny smile. I’d gotten to know him well enough by now to know that his small smiles were to hide his embarrassment. “You know. One-on-one time.”
“This is one-on-one time. Or it would be if you stopped talking to every student on campus,” I’d pointed out with a huff.
“Uh.” He’d chuckled, two pink spots appearing on his cheeks.
I’d watched his face with fascination. I’d never seen him blush before.
“I mean a different sort of one-on-one time.” That time, Deus hadn’t met my eyes.
“Oh, sex.” My matter-of-fact tone was loud enough that a group two tables away had looked over at us.
Deus had coughed and looked down at his book.
“I don’t know if the rhythm would work, though—I mean, I don’t have much experience with that.”
“No? I’m surprised.” Deus’s eyebrows had risen.
“Why?” I’d asked, a little stung. Had he been sarcastic?
“Well, you’re the most beautiful girl here, so I imagine you must’ve had no shortage of guys after you at home.” He’d fiddled with the pages ofThe Myth of the Unicorn.There was a whole chapter in there on the difference between unicorn and narwhal horns.
“Oh my goddess,” I’d muttered, feeling heat spread from my cheeks out to the tips of my ears. “Enough personal talk. We’re going to study. Now.”
Deus had smiled again, looking down at his book. That had been a smile with a closed mouth, one I’d learned to interpret as secretive.
I’d turned my attention toCreatures of the North Atlantic,but the words swam before my eyes and refused to make any sort of sense.
He thinks I’m beautiful.
He also seemed to think I’d had a lot of sexual experience.
Deus had leaned back. “Okay, I think I have something—”
“I’m not a sex addict!” I’d blurted.
He’d paused, his mouth open. “Uh, cool?”
My cheeks had flamed brighter than my hair. “I just wanted you to know.”
He’d blinked several times before speaking. “So the narwhal’s horn is better at detecting poison derived from a marine environment than a unicorn’s horn, but a unicornshifter’shorn has no poison-detecting powers, and maybe that’s a way to tell a narwhal shifter from a regular narwhal?”
Unfortunately, the floodgate had opened, and I was struggling to get it closed.
“It’s just hard to get that kind of experience when the only guys my age are my cousins. I mean, how would you feel if the only people of… your kind… were related to you?”
Deus had paused again, looking lost for words for the first time since I’d met him.
He’d rubbed at his neck with one large hand and had shrugged those beautiful, broad shoulders. “Well, I have six brothers, and no one else in the world has our powers. So, I sort of get what you mean. Though there are a lot of mermaids and mermen around.”
Right. I was a ‘mermaid.’
“Not where I live,” I’d tried to explain without revealing my secret. “And harpies are terrible kissers, and I don’t want to know what else they’re bad at, if you catch my wave.”
“Coffee.” Deus had stood, abruptly changing the subject. “Mocha. One for me and one for you.”
