“Whatever you’re thinking, you should stop,” Chloe hisses, and I feel a shudder run through me.
When I look at her, her eyes are wide and dark, and the green of her skin is deeper. The glow is so bright around her head and torso that I wonder why no one else is staring.
No one else is in here. In the distance, I can hear what sounds like an auction going on for one of the old rusty pieces out front.
“Answer,” Chloe intones, and I feel the word like a shove on my arm.
“Hello?” I pick up and already feel my stress level soaring. Hull’s such a snot. I walk a few steps away and count to ten as I do so.
“Lochenko, Dean Whitacker has been up my ass because you can’t take a joke! He’s threatening to come out here to see what kind of research we’re doing—turns out he’s not too far away, in Cozumel.”
“Huh. How about that?” My voice is even. “Well, I’m just out doing a little shopping. I’ll discuss any findings you’d like me to look over when I—”
“Baby,pleeeasecome back to bed.”
I about drop my phone in the sawdust covered floor, whipping my head around to find Chloe sauntering up to me, the most seductive tone in her voice, her hips gliding like a swan across a still lake, and her hands—her hands connect with my chest and move down, desperately tugging on me like she intends to have me right here in this barn.
“Chloe!” I hiss.
“Well. That’s a shocker. Hey! Hudson, Lochenko’s got a girl.”
“Shame. If she’s not careful, she’ll get crushed.”
Oh.Fuck.
The phone is whipped out of my hand, and Chloe hisses into it. “Don’t talk that way about my man!” Her words end with the faintest screech.
There’s a thud on the other end of the line, and then running footsteps. “Hull! Hull?”
“Oh, God,” I mouth. Chloe doesn’t seem too bothered. She’s seething, nostrils flared as she hands me back the phone.
“Lochenko? We’ll call you back. Hull fainted.”
“Oh no! Hope he’s okay.”
Chloe interjects, “He’ll be okay. But people should keep a civil tongue in their heads, hmmm?”
A second thud.
“What are you doing?” I ask, hanging up and sliding the phone into my pocket.
“Just a little reminder to behave. They’ll wake up in about twenty minutes—but the headache might last for days.” Her smirk is impish, and for a second, I see the bewitching elf princess from the fairytales my grandmother used to read me. “That’ll keep them off the beaches for a day or two, the selfish, lying windbags.”
“Chloe, you just... You zapped those guys?”
She looks a little guilty now. “I wanted them to know they were interrupting your vacation and that they shouldn’t be walking all over you. That’s not so bad, is it?”
“No. No, not at all.”
“I shouldn’t use my powers like that, but... I don’t know. I was going to keep quiet until I heard him say that—that awful thing he said.”
I shrug. “Iama lot bigger than you.”
“I’m a lot stronger than an average human, but even if I wasn’t...” Chloe licks her lips, “When I feel you pressing into me, covering all of me at once, I just go mad. It feels like I’m safe. Whole. Lost in you, with you.” Her hands dig into my arms again. “There’s a back room behind the old horse stalls,” she whispers.
“Chloe!”
“I’m already close, just thinking about you sliding into me from behind.” She looks over her shoulder and then back at me. She turns and pulls up the long denim skirt, showing me the pale lilac underwear she has on. With a panting breath, she pulls it to the side and lets me see her slick, swollen lips.
