Page 69 of Bewitched By the Sea Monster
“I mean,yes”—I tapped my fingers against my cheeks—“but in my case, it’s just from fatigue. But thank you for pointing out that I should put some makeup on tonight so I don’t look like a corpse at dinner.”
“That wasnot…I…” Alistair waffled. “Corpses are…dead.”
“They sure are.”
“You don’t look dead.”
“Like the walking dead, maybe.”
“And m-make…up…makeup…Is that paint?”
“Also yes. You see my plan now, huh? I’m going to paint some color on my face so I don’t look like a zombie. Kidding,” I added, softening my voice when Alistair’s eye rolled, looking pained. “I’m kidding, Alistair. It’s a joke. I’m—” I bolted backward when another wave belched sizzling water over the top of the dock. “Iamfine. Completely. Just a little tired. And a lot worried about you. Are you okay, Alistair?”
He blinked. “Yes.”
“You didn’t sound okay earlier. When Rune Bloodworth and his posse came to town.”
“Ah.” Alistair’s voice shriveled a bit.
“You seemed upset.”
“I was.”
“Are you still?”
He paused for a moment, considering. “Yes.”
I inched forward, hating that he was so far away and that his eye was the only part of him I could see. Hating that there was pain in his voice and I didn’t know what to do or say to make it better. “I’m sorry, Alistair. Is there anything I can do? I’m a good listener, if you want to vent.”
A swelling wave rose in front of Alistair’s eye, temporarily dousing its light. “How do you always seem to know when I’m s-sad?”
“I just do. I’ve always been able to tell with people. Which, I mean, you’re notpeople.But you get my point…I hope.”
He said nothing. Just stared at me.Throughme.
Heat danced over my skin.
Alistair’s eye rolled slowly, drinking me in. But he wasn’tonly savoring the dips and curves of my body. He was searching deeper. Into my heart. My mind. Mysoul.Trying to read me, understand me, know me.
He was stripping me down.
Or, at least, that was what itfeltlike, with his eye peeling through my layers, leaving me bare, more naked than even I’d been on the night we met.
It was kind of thrilling.
And…arousing?
Heat spiked low in my belly—a heat thatreveledin being pinned down and exposed.
I swallowed.
What on earth?
Alistair’s slitted pupils narrowed.
And I swore he knew my thoughts had fallen into a gutter. But he blinked again and said in the sweetest, tenderest voice, “May I tell you something?”
I swallowed again, willing my body to calm down. “Sure.”
