I need to see her in true darkness when my sight is strongest. But asking her to join me in my nocturnal wanderings feels…shameful. Why should a beauty like her be relegated to darkness when she deserves to live in the light?
Bah!
"Jekyll, send my notes back to the art department. Tell them to think of the most beautiful woman they've ever seen and then to draw someone more beautiful than that," I growl in frustration. "With burnished copper hair, porcelain skin, and eyes so blue you could drown in them. She should be all the best parts of humanity. And she should have curves. We aren't catering to the Hollywood standard here."
"Understood, sir," my virtual assistant—an AI program I wrote years ago—replies in his monotone. He's my eyes when mine don't see, helping bring the screen to life for me. Most would say a partially blind man—or monster—has no business in the video game business. But I'm nothing if not stubborn. "Should I include anything else?"
I hesitate for a moment. "Yes. She should be someone the hero in this game will risk everything to have."
"Transcribed, sir."
I fling myself down into my chair, grumbling under my breath. My notes won't help. They aren't nuanced enough. But then again, I can't exactly pluck her from reality and paint her into my game either, can I? There are forms to sign, contracts to fill out, and a ream of paperwork involved in a decision like that. But she is what's been missing from this blasted game.
We've been trying for months to sort out the storyline. I've made a fortune developing games that paint the monsters as the heroes, but this one…well, this one has given me nothing but trouble. Nothing felt right. After talking with Dahlia the other day, the storyline finally came to me. She's the story, or a woman like her anyway. A beauty caught between two worlds, capable of uniting them both.
It's all make-believe, of course, but if anyone could do it, Dahlia Savage could.
"Knock-knock."
"Jekyll, shut down," I growl as soon as her voice sounds at the door. Shit. How long has she been standing there? Hopefully not long enough to hear me wax poetic about a video game character who looks like her. There will be no explaining my way out of that one. Would I even try?
"You named your computer Jekyll?" she asks, her light steps tapping on the hardwood as she steps deeper into my office. "Really, Draven? Does that make you Edward Hyde?"
"That makes me Draven Woodburn," I murmur, clenching my hands as her sweet voice rolls over me. Not even the disapproval in it sours the moment. I could listen to her speak for days and never grow tired. "A monster with a wicked sense of humor."
"Wicked is right." She laughs lightly.
I close my eyes, listening to the sounds she always brings with her. The rush of breath in and out of her lungs, the gentle swish of fabric as she moves, the creak of old floorboards beneath her feet. The whole room comes alive around her in new and unexpected ways. It's an endless source of fascination to me.
"You work in the dark," she says.
"Day blind, remember?"
"Oh, I know that."
I imagine her waving a hand at me, and I smile.
"I just meant… Oh, never mind. I don't know what I meant." She steps closer.
I grit my teeth as her scent swirls through the air. One day soon—very soon—I'm going to find the source of it and lick it from her trembling body. If I'm lucky, it'll be an all-day endeavor. My tongue will grow weary long before the scent diminishes. No matter, though. I intend to give it a valiant effort regardless.
"Gretchen says you're a video game developer," Dahlia says. "How does that work, exactly?"
"You mean for a blind man?"
"No, you wicked man," she says with a laugh. "I mean, I know nothing about video games. How does one develop them?"
"With an infinite supply of patience," I mutter, only partially kidding. "Once we have the storyline hammered out, it's mostly programming and coding, along with rendering, engineering, artwork, and audio development."
"Wow," she says. "That's a lot. And you do all of this?"
"No." I smile, turning my chair slightly to face her. It's not dark enough for me to truly see her, but I can make out the shape of her leaning against the wall a few feet away. It's enough. For now. "I do the programming and coding, but I have departments that tackle everything else for me."
"What are you working on now?"
"A game."
"You aren't going to tell me?"