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Almost naked— she had on a full face of makeup. Raspberry purple lips, heavily lined eyes, thick, dark lashes. Her hair was done, falling around her shoulders in dark waves.
She was a siren, rising from the water. Beautiful like the inky dark shadows of the forest surrounding us.
“Hey, Merrick,” she said.
“Hello,” I said, scanning her body. “Clara.”
She put the cigarette to her mouth and inhaled deeply, letting her head fall back. Smoke streamed from her glossed lips.
“Took you a long time to get here.”
“I came as quickly as I could.”
“Stop along the way?”
“Once.”
“Why?” Her lashes flickered.
I shrugged, stepping closer. “Needed to take a piss.”
She tilted her head, staring at me hard. There was something different in her eyes, a wariness that hadn’t been there before.
“He’s dead. Isn’t he?”
I nodded.
She moved through the water to the edge and beckoned me. I went and she took my hands and turned them over to look at my knuckles. They were scabbed over, swollen, and ugly beside her pretty fingers.
“Clara.”
Her eyes jerked up.
“Did you run from me because I frighten you?”
Her brow arced and her shoulders went back. “Do I look afraid?”
“Why then?”
She was silent for a long moment. Then she lifted her eyes to mine and they were calm.
“Adele said you were a good man who does bad things. It didn’t make sense to me then, but it makes sense now.”
I took the cigarette from her fingers and pulled from it. Releasing the smoke and handing it back.
“I ran because it’s time for me to make my choice,” she whispered. “And that part scares me a little.”
“It doesn’t scare me,” I said. “The first night you slept in my bed, I got up and went out to look at engagement jewelry. Then I started thinking how stupid that was when you could still choose Osian.”
“I don’t think I was ever going to choose Osian.”
“Neither did I,” I said. “But just in case, I fucking killed him.”
Her jaw dropped and the stunned silence was loud.
She turned as she put the cigarette back to her mouth. I was completely distracted and hard in my pants. Entranced by her naked, wet body and that lipstick stained cigarette balanced in her fingers.
Fuck, I’d do anything to be that cigarette.
