Enigma

by RuNyx

Death was a curious thing. Planned or unplanned, mitigated or unmitigated, cruel or comfortable, it was the only universal truth that everyone lied about. Most adults she’d encountered spent their lives not thinking about it, trying to outrun it yet heading straight to it. She didn’t know if they realized what she had at such a young age—death was inevitable. It chased everyone from the moment of the first drawn breath and caught them at their last.

I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world. —Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

It had been her hair that had called him like a beacon that night at the beach, lit up by the flashlight in her phone as she hunched over the corpse. She had looked like a goddess, a mystical creature hovering over the dead, come to life from the sea behind her. And in that one instant, she had become his muse.

The douchebag was going to make a move on her. His little muse. Hell no.

He didn’t understand the intensity of his rejection of the idea. He didn’t even know her, nor was he interested in her in any way outside of his art. But his feelings resembled how he felt about his art—a desire to keep secret and private and away from prying eyes.

Whatever he was doing, it seemed to ease the access of air to her lungs. His hips pinned her to the wall, rendering her practically immobile, the difference in their heights even more pronounced as his breaths washed over the top of her head. One of his hands came up on the wall as he leaned against her fully, and she watched it, her emotions shifting too. Masculine, deep-toned skin decorated with beautiful, artistic tattoos that she knew extended up his forearms, down his wrists, to the back of the hand, down to the knuckles. A few designs she recognized, like a skull and some numbers, but mostly they were seemingly patternless swirls. A few paint smudges around the tips of the fingers. Her hand looked dainty in comparison—lighter, softer, tinier. His hand next to hers. She didn’t mind the sight. It fascinated her, distracted her.

She felt his other hand snake into her hair at the back of her head, inside her messy bun, fingers spearing the curls and gripping the back of her skull in a wide maw. Salem dragged a breath in as he tugged at her strands, tilting her neck back, making her arch her spine to accommodate the stretch.

“And I don’t want to kiss you,” he stated bluntly. “Neither is true.”

“I can do sexy a lot harder than you, little asp. Be careful what games you play with me.”

“I would rather touch her hand if it were dead, than I would touch any other woman’s living.” —George Eliot, Middlemarch

Caz van der Waal was an enigma, an unknown variable in her equation, an unsolved mystery, and she had always loved and hated those in equal measure.

“Couldn’t stay away, little asp?” he had asked, that annoying smirk twisting his lips and an unknown look glinting in his eyes that traced every visible inch of her lazily, almost sluggishly with fever. She had looked him up and down like he was inconsequential, raising a haughty eyebrow. “Who are you, again?” His eyes had heated at that, a wild glint coming into them. “Ask me again when your nipples aren’t begging for my mouth.” That had been so inappropriate, but not surprising coming from him. He had no sense of propriety or politeness in his body. He was crass and crude and cruel. Salem had immediately crossed her arms, cursing the white shirt that had betrayed her body’s reaction, and he had chuckled, walking past her.

Aditi sighed. “Oh, my naïve little flower. Maybe he just likes the view,” she suggested. “He knows this is our schedule, and he stands there and stares at you. And it’s not just here. Don’t think I haven’t heard about what you two do in the psych class. One of the girls on my floor tells me it’s like watching a mating dance, the way you two go off at each other. But even aside from that, it’s just the way he looks at you, like he’d eat you alive if he could. If he wasn’t so hot, it’d be really creepy.”

And deep down, she wondered what it felt like—a good, warm, tight hug that could release endorphins in her body and relieve her stress for a bit. Maybe even give her a few good hours of sleep. Maybe even make her happy. Was she even capable of that?

He noticed her breaking her pattern. He noticed her being off. He noticed her looking tired. She hadn’t said a word to anyone about the things weighing her down, and yet, somehow, he had noticed it. For the first time in her life. Someone had seen her. No, she wasn’t stunned. She wasn’t creeped out. She wasn’t aloof. She was moved. Moved down to her core at something so simple, something so many people in the world took for granted, something she had never experienced for herself before. Being seen. And yeah, it moved her something fierce.

He sat still, watching her with icy eyes burning, the side of his mouth curled in that damn smirk. “Try it. Try walking off a cliff, I will block you. Try making yourself bait, I will catch you. And try being with another man, I will use his blood and make you the canvas.”

“I have been bent and broken, but—I hope—into a better shape.” —Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

Caz took hold of her hair in his fist, turning her neck and tilting her head back, drowning in the pools of gold for a second, seeing the heat flash in her eyes, before leaning over her and slamming his mouth down over hers.