“Hmm,” he murmured and pinned her against the bars. It was the first sound she’d heard him make.
He pulled her arms away just long enough to take her shirt off. His hand slid easily over her skin, and her bra fell away. His kisses moved from her neck, down to her breasts. She wrapped her arms around his head, holding him close.
She bent, unconsciously trying to pull away from so much sensation, so much of him, but the bars kept her close. She couldn’t get away. She didn’t want to. Skilfully, more deftly than she could have thought from someone who lived in water and didn’t wear clothes, he opened the zipper of her trousers, and slipped his hands into her panties. One hand caressed her backside, the other - played. Oh . . . She struggled to kick off her shoes, and get her pants off, to give him better access. He helped.
Her clothes gone, they were naked together, skin pressed against skin. His erection was hard against her thigh. He paid attention to nothing but her, and she was overwhelmed. Locking her against him, he pulled her down to the catwalk.
They were going to do it, right here on the catwalk, her clothes awkwardly spread out to protect her from the steel. Marina softly sang something in Irish that was no doubt very bawdy.
And Robin felt like she had saved herself just for this moment.
The next evening, she brought hay to the unicorn’s cell.
“Here you go. Come on.”
The unicorn stayed at the far end of the room, its head down, its ears laid back, its nostrils flaring angrily.
Robin stood, arms limp at her sides. Of course. She left the hay, closed the door, and continued her rounds.
She found a note in the lab from the day shift explaining that the problem with the security system had been fixed with a simple reboot, and if it happened again she should try it. The officer in charge sounded testy that they’d lost a whole evening’s worth of surveillance. Not that anything around here ever changed.
Except that it had, everything had changed, and Robin didn’t want anyone to know it. She shut down the recording program again, and removed fuses from half the monitors as well, blinding them.
“Lieutenant,” Rick called to her as she removed his pints from the incubator and prepared his supper. “Look at yourself. This isn’t like you. He has enchanted you.”
“I don’t want to hear it,” she murmured, sliding his beakers of blood through the slot in the window.
Rick didn’t look at them; instead, he pressed himself to the window, palms flat against the plastic, imploring. “He’s using you. He doesn’t care about you, he’s only manipulating you.”
She looked at him. Not his eyes, but his cheekbones, his ear, the dark fringe of his hair. Anything but his eyes. “Just like you would do, if I opened your door and let you seduce me?”
Which wasn’t fair, because Rick had never tried to seduce her, never tried to take advantage of her. Not that she’d ever given him the opportunity. But he’d always spoken so kindly to her. He’d spoken to her. And until now, she had never thought of Rick as anything but the elegant man who was supposed to be a vampire, locked in a prison cell.
“I’d never hurt you, Robin.”
Now when he looked at her, she flushed. Quickly, she turned towards the aquatics lab.
“Robin, stop,” he implored. “Don’t go in there. Don’t let him use you like this.”
She gripped the doorway so hard her fingers trembled. “I’ve never felt like this before,” she murmured.
She hadn’t meant for him to hear, but he was a vampire, with a vampire’s hearing. He replied, “It’s not real. Let it go.”
“It feels ... I can’t,” she said. Because she had never felt so good, so much before, it
was like a drug that filled her up and pushed every other worry aside. A part of her knew Rick was right, that if this feeling was a drug, then she’d become an addict in a day and she should stop this.
The rest of her didn’t care.
When she reached the aquatics lab, the selkie hung on to the door of the cage, his dark eyes shining in anticipation. As soon as she’d given Marina her supper, Robin pressed the button for the lock.
Friday night.
Colonel Ottoman left a message on voicemail saying he’d be back Saturday. So this was it, for her and the selkie.
She lay in his arms, on the rock in the aquarium. He played with her loose, damp hair, running his fingers through it. She held his other arm around her waist. He was strong, silent. He wrapped her up with himself when they were together.
She couldn’t let it end.