Private Finished Stand Face to Face with your God

"Yes," Lochlann said. "I'm looking for information on the man who took the photos."

He didn't elaborate. He tucked the photo back into the book and stuck it back in his jacket pocket. Once he was satisfied, he looked at Guin from the corner of his eyes.

"I'm showing it to you because it's not the only one. There are other photos," he said. "Some with more...detail...than the others."

Once again, he didn't elaborate. He already got what he came for whether Guin realized it or not, and truthfully, Lochlann didn't even realize this was what he actually wanted until they were here.

If she were a god, he would have worshiped her. He supposed her divinity didn't matter.

"If you're not interested, you're not interested," he said. "But I'll need a referral. Can you make any recommendations for someone who might be up for this challenge?"

He was surprised that he hurt.

For as much as he gained with his sobriety, there was a lot that Lochlann lost, too. He missed the numbness the most. He missed the way pain was reduced to a dull echo, not the sharp knife that twisted in his middle when she said why do you care?

His voice was almost as cold as the ocean when he said, "I thought you of all people wouldn't need to ask me that question."

He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw. The wind blew back his hair and mussed it to the side. A whole moment passed before Lochlann ran his hand through it, trying to straighten it back to where it belonged.

He'd forgiven her for killing Dani a long time ago, but he didn't forgive himself. It seemed like an endless equation: girl meets Lochlann, Lochlann desires her, Lochlann is responsible for her death.

Sometimes he felt guilty when he didn't think about the people he'd killed for a while. Sometimes he'd make a list of numbers on textured pieces of paper and then drop them in piles of water until they were so soggy they dissolved. He'd had it burned into him, literally and figuratively, to never, ever write their names. So they were numbers, or at least they were numbers until Lochlann realized he'd lost track.

He wonder if Guin kept track of the names. For some reason, he didn't think she did.

"Are you willing to help me or not?" he asked. His voice was normal again, although now it sounded tired.

Lochlann chewed on the inside of his cheek.

He was unprepared for this conversation and he knew it, but up until a few seconds ago, he thought he'd been doing fine.

That all changed when Guin looked into his eyes. He wondered what he was looking for. He could see himself reflected back in her own, but he had know idea how she saw him.

He didn't know how to answer her.

The words would be easy: I need your help to find out who takes the photographs of delinquent students. I need your help to make sure you weren't photographed coming to see me the night Dani was shot, because I don't want anything to happen to you. I wanted to hate you but I can't.

But how could he say that without explaining what he'd been doing for the last year? How could he say something inside me broke on the day of the tsunami, Guin, and I went looking for the missing pieces. I went looking to kill for the first time and I've come back without blood on my hands and teeth. But I would kill to make sure no one touches you like that ever again.

He couldn't tell her that, because Guin might tell him not to. He knew she could defend herself. She was stronger and more capable than him.

So he said nothing for another long moment.

Instead, he whispered the words. He figured they were half disappeared with the ocean breeze, but he didn't care.

The welsh came easily to him.

"Because you're mine."

That knife that twisted in Lochlann's insides when she asked why he cared withdrew. He felt like he was bleeding out now, and maybe all the blood was going to her face, because she flushed scarlet.

He was a predator so he moved when she did. He didn't even think about it.

She stepped back and he stepped forward, almost as if they were dancing, keeping the space between them narrowed and small.

He didn't touch her--even now, he remembered how she withdrew from him before, but he didn't need to touch her. With the tip of one finger, He traced the curve of her neck and the underside of her chin without touching her, as if willing her to tilt her head up towards him.

He leaned down (she seemed so much smaller? Was that possible?) until his mouth was close to her ear.

The only thing that touched her was his breath.

"You're mine," he whispered. "Or did you forget?"

"I could be wrong, but I don't think I am," Lochlann said. He was switching between Welsh and English haphazardly, as if he wasn't even sure what language he was speaking in. His voice was low and husky.

Her face was red. Something in him was buzzing.

"Do you know why, Guinevere?" he asked. He lilted her name with his accent until it was almost obscene. He made it rhyme with the promise of sex.

"I think I am still very much yours," he said. "And I think I can prove it to you if you give me the permission to."

"I've never belonged to anyone else," he said.

He let her have that step back. He stepped to the side, almost as if starting to circle her. Lochlann reached for the top button of his shirt and fascinated it. He worked the second one, too, and pulled his shirt just enough to the side to pinpoint the ragged scar over his heart.

"Every time I fuck someone else, they see this, and they know who I belong to," he said. His released his shirt and now he did step behind her, leaning forward so his breath was against her ear again.

"You said you'd kill me if I ran," he said. "But I'm still alive, because I think even you know that last time....I wasn't running."

He was on her other side now and his eyes were narrowed. His mouth was set in a firm line.

"Let me prove it to you, Guin," he said. "Ask me to prove it to you."

Lochlann wasn't sure if it was magic or if it just felt like magic.

When Guinevere gave him permission, he felt like he was doused in water after a long drought. He moved in one fluid motion, stepping before her and now he did touch her. He did drag one finger up her neck, tilting her chin up towards him. He looked into her eyes and then he closed his.

He kissed her.

A year of not kissing her and this small press of his lips against hers shouldn't have been enough, but it was.

It was surprisingly chaste for him but there was a force behind it. Lochlann's language was sex and he was telling her he missed her.

She broke the kiss but the important thing was that she'd kissed him, too.

The distinction was one Lochlann had difficulty putting into words when he was first kissing girls. There was kissing and being kissed. The latter was a gift at best and a punishment at worse, although given the magic that bound him he was lucky to have not kissed too many unwilling people. Kissing, though, Lochlann loved. He loved the collaboration. He loved that kissing had two i's and two s's. When he first learned the word, he learned it by imaging the two i's where tiny people holding out snakes to each other.

Lochlann's family were fae so the only familiarity he had with judeo-Christian religion came from books, but even he knew the fable of the snake.

If Guinevere were a goddess, Lochlann pledged himself to her each time he kissed her, but each time they kissed he felt like he was receiving her blessing.

When she said don't, Lochlann saw it for what it was.

It was a lie.

He let her have her lie, though, because she'd let him have his.

He might not have seen it if he had a drink, but of course Lochlann did not recognize his clarity came from sobriety. He assumed it came from distance.

"Okay," he told her. His voice was low and soothing. It was the kind of voice he might use to whisper to another horse, but there was nothing in his manner that suggested he was treating Guin like an animal.

He felt naked before her for some reason. He closed his eyes and tried to compose himself again. Guin left him feeling raw and charred, like he was catching fire.

I missed you, he thought. I don't even want to sleep with you. I want to talk to you.

He didn't understand this feeling.

He slid his hand back into his coat for a second. Then, he reached out and snatched her hand, lifting it towards him as though he were going to kiss the back of it. Instead, he flipped it over and looked at the surface of her palm.

He traced the pen down her life line and her love line.

"I see something interesting in your future," he told her.

He pressed the surface of the pen to her hand as if he was writing a binding contract on her skin.

He left his phone number.

Lochlann obeyed her. He stepped back, tucked the pen into his pocket, and the edge of his lips twitched into that smirk again.

"I'll be seeing you, Guin," he said.

He was walking away for a while before he turned around and blew her a kiss.

It was the most obnoxious, infurirating thing he could think to do to her. He'd learned his lesson, though.

This time Lochlann was too far away for her to kick him.

He waited until he was completely out of sight before he exhaled a breath he didn't realize he was holding.

He was home.