"I'm going out for a bit! It's getting way too hot in here. Try not to fall deep into the pit of skeletons I have meticulously laid out in the basement while I'm gone!" Nita and Kovit heard the front door slam shut as Adair left. Despite the fact that it was only 18 degrees outside, which wasn't all that hot for Toronto weather, neither of them were phased by his outlandish remark. He was a kelpie after all. They thrived in cold weather. They also thrived by drowning their victims to death and eating them.
Nita and Kovit were alone now. Just the two of them.
Nita let out a sigh in relief, unaware of how Adair's menacing smile full of rows of kelpie teeth, used for eating rotting corpses, made her shoulders tense with unease. She disliked the fact that just a glimpse of his flickering smile made her so uncomfortable.
Her hand twitched for her scalpel. It could provide her so much comfort in times like these.
Oh, how she wished she was back in her room with her blank canvas being a cold, metal table on which she painted the stories of dead creatures' body parts and dissections all bottled up neatly in jars of formaldehyde. She was so lost in her dreamy, trance-like state that she hadn't even noticed when Kovit announced he was going to take a shower.
Nita fell back on the bed and sunk into the sheets as Kovit turned on the shower faucet. She let her mind wander over the past few courses of events. She had defied her mother after all those years of living in constant fear of her, she was a huge target on the black market now, so many assassins or people who were just desperate for money were out to get her and yet she had the terrible urge to crack a twisted smile of content. Why?
She thought of Kovit.
Her partner in crime. Her first real friend.
She trusted him with her life time and time again and she did not regret one minute of it.
A shudder ran through her body as she remembered distant screams of Mirella when Kovit had tortured her and had eaten her pain. Eaten her pain. How in the world could she be friends with a torturer who hurt people for their own fun and self gratification?
Still lost in her thoughts, Kovit emerged from the bathroom, a trail of steam entering the room from the doorway. His deep, dark brown eyes scanned the room and his long black hair was dripping wet with water from the shower. Nita hardly noticed she had been staring at his toned abs and rough, strong arms until he cleared his throat. "Ahem… Nita? Have you seen a clean shirt around here? I didn't really want to wear the other once since it was still stained with, ya know, blood."
It took Nita a moment to realize he was missing something. A shirt. She quickly turned her face away, flushed with embarrassment. "Ah… Adair mentioned he had some spare clothes in the drawer over there." She pointed in its general direction, still not lifting her face to meet his. Why was her heart beating this fast?
Relax, it's not as if it's the first time you've seen him without a shirt. She remembered, just in the past two weeks when Kovit had gotten shot and she had tried her best to wrap the wound by using whatever articles of clothing were nearby. Those were different circumstances than now though. Now they were alone in the private guest room of Adair's shop, isolated from society and the dangers it held. She usually felt more at ease with Kovit by her side, yet now his presence made her heart throb with a strange intensity she had never felt before.
Kovit still hadn't put on a shirt, much to Nita's dismay, or rather, her delight.
Since he was still standing there with a towel in hand, Nita looked up to meet his gaze. He shot a crooked grin at her, and raised an eyebrow. If Nita didn't know him well enough, she would have been scared by his im-about-to-murder-you-and-eat-your-pain-for-fun expression. But she knew he was just playing with her. She still couldn't take her eyes off of his abs.
"You like what you see or something?" Kovit's laughter was cut short as Nita grabbed the nearest thing - a pillow and threw it right at him. Then she ducked under the bed sheets so he wouldn't see her blushing.
"What's wrong, Nita?" Concern filled his voice, and Nita's heart couldn't take it anymore. She felt the weight shift on the bed. He had sat down next to her. She could feel the warmth of his body through the sheets and it wasn't doing much to quell her heartbeat racing around inside of her chest.
"N-nothing." She began to steady her heartbeat and level her breathing using her abilities as an unnatural. She decreased both her adrenaline and cortisol slightly so it would calm her down, yet she could still feel the traces of oxytocin flowing through her veins.
Kovit reached over to lift the bed sheets that were covering Nita's face, and Nita was suddenly way too aware at how close their faces were to each other. Kovit's usual menacing expression was replaced with a playful, friendly grin that he wore whenever he tried to cheer her up. "Are you sure it's nothing?" His dark eyes searched hers for any signs. "You know you can tell me anything, right?"
Nita gazed into his beautiful eyes and found she was lost in them. She loved their depth and the way they held her tightly, gently, without judgement. She drew her hands to his warm face and small droplets of water from his shower fell from his hair onto the bed, making temporary darkened circles on the sheets. Their foreheads met, their noses almost touching. "Kovit…" Nita breathed.
She didn't need to say anything. He understood. She gently pressed her lips to his lightly with a level of uncertainty. Kovit's arms wrapped around her waist and they began to kiss more passionately, sharing saliva and tasting each other in bliss. "Nita…" Kovit whispered with desire, with hunger even. This was a different type of hunger. Lovingly entwining their legs together in the sheets Nita shut her eyes closed and felt like she could die from sheer happiness at this moment.
The fact that Kovit reciprocated the feelings she thought she had been harboring on her own for all this time was everything and more than she could have ever wished for.