They fell backwards and Celia relished the heavy, strong beat of his heart against hers. It was so solid, so strong, so everything.

They laid like that until the cool air conditioning raised goosebumps on her back and she knew that they had to move.

As soon as she started to adjust, Jean Luc reached down and held the condom while she pulled off of him.

Celia rolled off the bed and stood up. She immediately wished she hadn’t. But when she turned back, Jean Luc was sitting up on the other side of the bed, doing something with the condom. So she did the only thing she could think to do and headed toward the bathroom.

She was just closing the door when he slipped in alongside her, tossing the condom in the trash and turning on the faucet, washing his hands first and then leaning down to drink straight from the tap the way she’d seen him do a hundred times. She stood awkwardly behind him.

What was she supposed to do now? Head back to her room, right? She wished she hadn’t gotten up. If she hadn’t gotten up, she could just have pretended to be asleep and then maybe she could have spent the entire night in that perfect little blanket cocoon that he’d made and she wouldn’t have had anything to worry about until the morning.

Jean Luc turned around, naked as the day he was born and his back to the bathroom mirror. Celia saw, to her horror, that there were scratches and bruises from her hands on his back.

“That…” Jean Luc said, scraping a hand over his face, “was hands-down the best sex I’ve ever had.”

Celia reared back like he’d slapped her. “What?”

He scratched at the back of his neck and shook his head, his eyes lost in memory. “Yeah. Seriously. Jesus.”

The best sex he’d ever had? Could that possibly be true? Was there any way she could believe that? She wanted so badly to believe it. She looked at him in the bright lights of the bathroom. Why oh why were these four feet between them feeling so impossible to cross? He’d been inside of her this side of five minutes ago.

She leaned her back against the bathroom door and balanced one foot on top of the other. “Me too. Though, I probably don’t even need to explain that, considering.”

He waved his hand to one side, as if waving away her words. “Yeah?” His smile was so young, so hopeful and pleased that Celia couldn’t help but chuckle a little.

“Yeah.”

His eyes darkened as they traveled the length of her naked body. “God, you’re so pretty to look at.”

She started again. Hot? Yes. Sexy? Occasionally. Pretty? Practically never. Who was this guy?

“You were right, though,” he said, turning his head to one side and squinting at her. “Your fade needs a touch-up. Come here.”

He held out one hand to her and she found, to her relief, that it actually was possible to reach across that four-foot gap between them and let herself get pulled into his big body. He turned her, stood her straight up and immediately got to work on trimming up her hair. Celia quietly watched as he turned her head this way and that, fading her hair with infinite care and the gentle touch she was just now starting to expect from him.

“Jean?” she asked, unconsciously shortening his name and making some corresponding something roll over again in his gut. It was the second time she’d given him that swooping, inexplicable feeling.

“Yeah?” He caught her eyes in the mirror.

“How’d you know how to do that? Talk me out of coming and then making me come?”

He smiled for a second, his eyes on the back of her head as he re-shaved a section. “I was a quarterback in the NFL for six years. Went to the Superbowl twice, won it once. Celia, I know all about performance anxiety, trust me.”

“Performance anxiety,” she repeated, trying out the words for a second.

“Sure. There’s a lot of pressure during sex. For everybody involved. You telling me that it wasn’t possible was a way of taking the pressure off, which I really appreciated. And me telling you that you weren’t supposed to come really took the pressure off. Then… ta-da.”

“Ta-da,” she repeated, with a raised eyebrow. “Just like that.”

“Just like that,” he shrugged, hiding his smile behind her head as he bent down to make sure everything was symmetrical.

She smiled for a second, resisting the urge to shake her head. “You’re… good at sex.”

He shrugged. “Thanks. It wasn’t just me in there, for the record. You’re good at sex, too.”

Her cheeks went pink and she avoided his eyes in the mirror. He went around to one side then the other, fixing her lines.

When he deemed her haircut perfect, he flipped on the shower and followed her in. He watched the spray ricochet off her body, the rivers of water magnify her skin on the way down. She washed herself and then he washed himself. He watched her carefully as she went to step out of the shower. She paused, turned back around and hugged him, her arms going around his waist and her cheek landing over his heart. She hugged him tight, for a good long minute. And then she turned and ducked out of the shower.

He finished rinsing and got out, wrapping a towel around his waist. When he opened the door to the bathroom, he saw that his bed was made and his room was empty.

 

***

 

Something woke Celia that night and she wasn’t sure what it was. It was pitch black. The kind of dark that only comes three hours after sundown or three hours before sunrise. Velvet black. And humid.

The air conditioning must not be working, she realized. She rolled in her sheets and felt her shirt stick to her.

Either that or she was still overheating from the way Jean Luc had just given her the business. She both thrilled and winced when she thought about it.

Overall, she thought leaving his room and coming to sleep in her own room was the most mature and least crazy thing she could do. It showed that she wasn’t going to become a clingy stalker, of which she was sure he’d had many, having a magic cock and all. And it also gave her a little bit of alone time after her world had been promptly tipped on its axis.

She’d had no idea sex could be like that. None at all. And now she was going to have to figure out how to coexist with him. Would they do it again? She hoped so. Would they tell anyone about it? She hoped not.

Which meant no sleepovers, no lovey-dovey eyes across the breakfast table, and definitely no showing of this weird and terrifying liquid-honey-slow-motion-tidal-wave that had inexplicably started tumbling in her stomach since the moment they’d first kissed.

She rolled in the bed, flipping her pillow to the cool side, when she heard the noise that she now realized had woken her up. It was a splashing sound.

That was weird. Someone was in the pool at, she squinted at the clock, 3 am? She strained for any other sound. Were they still playing poker poolside?

But no. There was nothing. Utter, middle-of-the-night silence. Until she heard it again. Splashing. A wet thump.

She sat up.

A choking sound.

A deep and horrible choking sound.

She was out of the bed in a flash, grabbing her glasses and sprinting down the hall toward the pool. She skidded through the kitchen and out through the screened-in porch. She came to a grinding halt as she saw something large and dark under the water of the pool. It thrashed and broke the surface for just a second before submerging again. Celia thought briefly of the alligator in the back canal that she’d seen. Jean Luc had told her that they sometimes showed up in pools.

She rushed back into the kitchen and turned the pool lights on before she rushed back out to the patio. And then her heart simply stopped beating.

“Help!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “Jack! Martine! Tre!”

She didn’t have time to scream more of their names before she was sprinting out to the pool and diving in headfirst. The water broke around her in white and blue bubbles. She swam to the dark mass at the bottom of the pool, pulling herself bodily through the water. Toward Jean Luc, who struggled as if weighted down, as if something was dragging him to the bottom.

His eyes met hers through the water and something flashed through them. He tore at his own chest, like he was attempting to rip something off of him.

And then Celia saw it. A thin line of blue, lit up like a string of Christmas lights. It was around his chest, pinning him to the bottom of the pool. Drowning him.

He shook his head at her, obviously not wanting her to get any closer. Obviously wanting her to get back where she’d be safe, but she didn’t listen. She swam down and down toward him.

She pushed herself toward him and grabbed his out-flung hand, the hand he was using to tell her to save herself. She didn’t listen. Celia grabbed his hand, planted her feet at the bottom of the pool and catapulted them up to the surface.

Expecting resistance, she was pretty shocked when she easily tugged him up. She gasped for air and waited for him to do the same. He didn’t. His weight, so buoyant under water, instantly dragged her back under the second she got his head up. She kicked, but the sheer mass of him was taking her under.              

She saw the plunging, bubbling spear of someone else diving in and then Jack was there, taking Jean Luc by the armpit, kicking hard, dragging them to the pool’s edge where the rest of them waited, reaching forward.

It took all of them to get Jean Luc’s heavy weight out of the pool and still he didn’t breathe.

“That thing!” Celia gasped as she pulled herself out of the pool, water streaming from her body. “That thing is still on him!”

“What thing?” Martine asked, crouching over Jean Luc’s head, her fierce eyes taking in everything at once, the dim of Jean Luc’s lifeforce, the dark of the woods at their backs, the frantic skitter of Celia’s heart in her throat.

“A shiny blue light at his chest. It’s like a rope. Made of that same blue energy stuff that Arturo always uses.” Celia crawled to Jean Luc, scraping her knees on the pool deck and not caring at all. She knew that the light had extinguished, but that that thing was still there. She’d seen it dissolve into his body.

Without stopping to think about the logic of what she was doing, she clawed at Jean Luc’s chest, her fingers leaving red marks in their wake, but they also closed around a red hot wire, invisible but very real. The second her fingers touched it, it flamed blue again. It was wrapped around Jean Luc, constricting his chest.

“Hell no.” Celia shouted, standing up and planting her feet. Her grip on the wire was strong. And she was very, very angry. “Absolutely, one hundred percent NEVER.” She was talking to this burning, wiry weapon in her hands that was killing Jean Luc, but she was also talking to Arturo, who she could guess was skulking somewhere nearby. She reared back, both hands burning to all hell as she gave one good, almighty yank and ripped the blue wire from its hold around Jean Luc’s chest.

It coiled up, burning and hissing like a snake. It sliced through the air, attempting to curl around Celia and get her next, but instinct had her turning and launching it through the air like a shotput. It flung, high and arcing and in the next second, Martine’s zinging dagger flashed through the air, caught it through its heart, and ended its life.

Celia fell to all fours, her heart pounding out of her chest, her palms stinging to all hell. But her eyes sought one thing and one thing only. The rise and fall of Jean Luc’s chest. Which she saw. It was shallow. But he was breathing. Oh, thank Jesus, he was breathing.

“What the fuck?” Tre asked the general population and the world at the same time. “What in the actual holy fuck was that?” He stood up and paced a few steps toward the woods and back. “Martine, what in the everloving fuck just happened?”

Celia brushed her hand over Jean Luc’s forehead and his eyes fluttered open. It seems that he’d heard Tre’s question because he turned his head and coughed out some water, his hand coming to his eyes. “He came to me. In my sleep. The way he did with Jack.” His words were slow and labored, punctuated with rattling breaths. “It was a blue light. A trap. I followed it.”

“He hypnotized you?” Martine asked sharply.

“Yeah. Told me to follow or else… someone was going to die. Then it turned into that snake thing and got me in the pool. Tried to drown me.”

“He didn’t try to drown you,” Martine corrected. “He was trying to get you as close to death as possible. That way it would be so much easier to strip you of your soul. You wouldn’t have any fight left in you.”

“How’d you factor in?” Thea asked Celia as she reached out for her friend’s charred palms, wincing as she inspected them.

“I heard splashing and choking. Came out to see and saw Jean Luc at the bottom of the pool. I screamed for you guys and jumped in after him.” She paused. “It was dragging him down so hard I didn’t think I was going to be able to get him up. But it was easy.”

“It couldn’t fight both of you at once,” Martine said, choosing her words carefully. “I don’t think he expected you to reach in with bare hands and yank it from Jean Luc’s chest.”

“You what?” Jean Luc asked, struggling to sit up. “You reached into my chest?”

“Not exactly,” Celia said, feeling strangely embarrassed about the whole thing. “I just yanked it out of you. Like a tapeworm or something.”

“It was extremely badass,” Tre said. “She burned the shit out of her hands.”

Jean Luc immediately reached for the hand that Thea wasn’t currently inspecting. “Jesus, baby,” he whispered.

Whether the rest of the group heard the endearment or not, Celia had no idea, and frankly, she didn’t really care. She let him fret over her hand for a second before her eyes met Martine’s. “We need to get him to a doctor.”

Martine’s face became very grave. She hated to do this, she knew that whatever progress she’d made with the group was about to be shot to hell. In that moment, she hated Arturo. Hated him for catching them unawares twice now. For hurting members of their group one by one. “He can’t see a doctor. Not while he’s still getting his shift under control.” Martine met Celia’s instant fury with calm understanding. “It’s at a cellular level, Celia. If he doesn’t have complete control over it, there’s a hundred things that could show up in blood tests and x-rays and whatever the hell else the doctor is going to do.”

“He needs the doctor,” Celia said, this time through clenched teeth. “He just almost died. Drowned. You can tell from his breath that there could be water in his lungs still. Which puts him at risk for all matter of things, including dying. He needs the doctor.”

Jean Luc, sitting up on one elbow, couldn’t help but goggle at Celia. Her face was lit turquoise from the side, due to the pool lights, and her eyes were sparking fiercely. Water still dripped from her hair. She was crouched next to him like a fierce little pixie ready to go down swinging. Her nose piercing glinted in the light and her hair was a dark silver slick, looking somehow natural despite the intentional inch of dark roots.

He had a memory then. It hit him all at once, almost as if he were transported back to that moment.

He took a breath, trying to calm the tidal wave of emotions that nearly ran him through.

“If he goes, there’s a chance he won’t come out,” Martine said, trying to keep a hold on her emotions as well. “He’ll be deemed as a medical freak. And what’s worse, he’ll be a famous medical freak. We can’t condemn him to that. If he’s holed up in some lab getting experimented on, we can’t protect him from Arturo.”

Celia, her eyes flashing, crouched all the way over him on all fours, and the barrel of his chest was a mere inch under her. “Martine, he could still drown just from the water left in his lungs right now. We don’t have the luxury of thinking about what the doctor could find.”

“You’re both right,” Jean Luc cut in, resting a large hand on Celia’s back, causing her instantly to remember herself and lean back. He instantly missed the heat of her. “I can’t go to the hospital. If I do, it’ll be all over TMZ within hours.” Celia opened her mouth to argue but he pressed his hand to her back, and she quieted. “But my childhood doctor, he doesn’t live far. He’ll come to the house. He’ll make sure my lungs are alright.”

Martine nodded immediately. “That’s fine by me. No blood tests. No imaging.”

Celia, her arms crossed over her chest now, eyed both Jean Luc and Martine, as if they might somehow be conspiring against her. “I guess that’s fine.”

“But for now we have to do something about your hands,” Thea said, rising to her feet. She could feel the tension pouring off of Jack. Both he and Tre were fluctuating between staring out at the dark woods behind them and staring down at Jean Luc’s prostrate body. “Let’s get inside.”

“Please, Celia,” Martine said, her expression contrite. “Can I see your hands?”

Celia looked at Martine in surprise. She held out her hands. “I’m not mad at you, Martine. I’m mad at Arturo.”

Martine studied Celia’s palms for a second before she looked up, pain and sadness written in every line of her face. “Arturo is doing exactly what he’s been trained to do. It’s me who failed you all tonight.” She sighed as she rose. “Warm water on those wounds. A bath or a shower. You’ll feel much better. Trust me.”

The group rose as a unit and it took most of them to get Jean Luc to his feet. They sat him in the dining room where he called his childhood pediatrician and explained that he was at his uncle’s house, that he’d had a mishap in the pool and he needed to be taken care of.

Despite the hour, the doctor was at the house in less than twenty minutes. Celia’s hands were stinging like crazy, but she didn’t leave Jean Luc’s side. Eventually the group stopped pestering her about it.

“Jean Luc!” The doctor, an extremely tiny formerly redheaded man, scuttled into the dining room like a beetle dancing over ice. He seemed to move every inch of his body at once.

Jean Luc rose and the two embraced each other.

“Julian Edelstein,” the doctor told the group. “Now, if I could have some privacy with my patient.”

All but Celia left, who would not be moved. A little smile on his face, Jean Luc waved off the doctor’s protests and told him to get on with the exam.

The rest of the group migrated to the living room.

“Oh, quit blaming yourself,” Thea said as she plopped down in an armchair, her eyes on Martine.”

“I have every reason to blame myself,” Martine said quietly and resolutely as she paced to one dark window and peered out. “If I’d been more alert, Jean Luc wouldn’t be having his lungs checked for water and Celia’s hands wouldn’t be shredded to hell.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Thea said, all but rolling her eyes. “Jack thinks the same thing and so does Tre.”

The two men looked at her in surprise, though Jack wasn’t entirely shocked that his woman was pretty much reading his mind right now.

“What?” Martine turned, squinting at them through the dark.

Thea put her feet up on the coffee table. “My man here is blaming himself for not being more tuned in to Jean Luc when the kid was in danger. He’s wishing that he’d woken up sooner, that way Celia wouldn’t have had to get involved. I’m assuming Tre’s thoughts are along the same lines.”

“I wish,” Caroline piped up, “that I’d heard Celia pass my door when she got up. We’re right next to one another. I could have helped.”

“And I wish I’d been there with her to jump in and save him,” Thea said. “I’m a stronger swimmer than she is, and Jean Luc’s big ass near drowned her.”

“You’re saying…” Martine’s eyes clouded.

“We’re saying that we’re all to blame,” Caroline said gently, realizing that though Thea was right, her demeanor wasn’t exactly helping push her cause.

“I should have been more alert. I should have realized…”

“What were you supposed to do?” Thea asked, a little frustration in her tone. “Stay awake all night, every night, knives drawn, just waiting for Arturo to pounce?”

“If that’s what it takes to keep you all safe, then yes. I have to keep you safe.”

“No, Martine,” Tre said in frustration. “It wasn’t your fault, it was mine and Jack’s. We weren’t tuned in to Jean Luc. We were trying to give him some privacy.”

“Why?” Caroline asked.

Jack and Tre looked at one another. Tre blushed, Jack smiled.

“Oh, really?” Thea asked. “Tonight was the night?”

“The night for what?” Caroline asked, looking around the group for answers. No one answered.

“Apparently Celia and the football star did the dirty,” Thea answered, a smile on her face. She thought that was a good thing. She liked both of them and it was obvious they liked each other.

“Oh, really?!” Caroline stood up, her hands clasped in front of her like she was in prayer. “Oh my gosh! That’s amazing! I’m so happy for them.”

“Well, don’t throw a party quite yet, darlin’.” Jack rose up and paced from one side of the room to the other. His eyes found Thea’s first and Martine’s second. “Based on the timing of when Arturo came after me that first time, I’d imagine that things didn’t go so well between Celia and our boy in there.”

“What do you mean?” Tre asked. If his feelings radar from Jean Luc at the beginning of the night had been any indication, things had gone very well for them. So well, in fact, that he and Jack had pulled each other aside to try and figure out how to turn the damn feelings radar down.

They’d actually been able to. They figured it was because they were starting to understand the shift a bit better than before that they were able to both concentrate, in tandem, and sort of turn down the volume on their read of Jean Luc’s feelings. It had been a welcome relief when he and Celia had been doing very dirty things to one another, but it was also likely the reason they hadn’t known he was drowning.

“I mean,” Jack said, his eyes on Thea’s, “Arturo came at me after Thea left. He knew I wanted her. Needed her. And he knew she was gone. It was when I was at my most vulnerable. And when Celia went after Jean Luc, Arturo’s power waned, he couldn’t keep Jean Luc under the water anymore. He can’t fight us when we’re together. He has to separate us out. Which, to my mind, means that they probably…”

“Weren’t together when Jean Luc was taken,” Caroline finished, biting her lip. “Maybe they had a fight or something.”

Thea thought about the first time she had had sex with Jack. She considered the life-altering nature of it. How she’d spent her whole life building a nice sturdy brick house around her emotions and goals. Then, after one night of passion, she’d woken up to see the whole thing smashed to dust. He’d, quite simply, destroyed her. Changed who she was. And she’d done the same for him. “Or maybe they’re just freaking out. Not on the same page yet. All of this is a lot to take in at once. Then you add great sex and…”

“Yeah,” Jack agreed immediately. “All we know is that Jean Luc was vulnerable last night. And we can’t let it happen again.”