Nadine was going to be different. Zhair'lo had realized that almost immediately.
First off, she hadn't tackled him at a run as Talla had. Nor did she have the bright eyed eagerness that had made Natta so ... so very much like Natta had been.
Nadine's eagerness was in a wholly separate class. It was in the way she called out his name, the way she took his hand. She wasn't any slower than Natta had been. No, that wasn't it. In fact she seemed even more certain in her desire to drag him off to his bedroom.
There was just something odd to her – a faint touch of darkness to which he wasn't accustomed.
He half expected an attack at the doorway. But no, Nadine was not Natta. He would have to remember that. Instead, she peered around the door frame before carefully walking in to the dark room.
He took the candle off the dresser and lit it from the torch in the hallway.
Nadine was looking around his room, apparently admiring the tiny, plain cube. She pushed open the shutters and looked out toward the Temple.
Weird. Not at all like Talla or Natta, then.
She turned to face him, leaning her butt and her hands on the window sill and letting the darkness of the sky silhouette her.
"Thank you," she said, looking him right in the eyes
"Um. You're welcome."
She took another look around his room – wall to wall and floor to ceiling.
"You have a place all to yourself," she observed with admiration.
"You don't?" he asked.
It wasn't as if his room was particularly luxurious. He'd had more space living with the blacksmith.
She shook her head.
"Four to a room at my rank," she said, shaking the fabric of her long, white skirt.
The two of them weren't that far apart, physically. The distance from his dresser to his window wasn't more than a step for either of them. If felt awkward, though, despite – or maybe because of - the clear look of desire in her eyes. Standing there, he couldn't figure out what to do with his hands.
"I've waited," she said. "A long time."
"Three tries, they told me," he said, deciding to fold his arms and wait her out.
Nadine nodded.
"They let a month go by every time," she explained without ever letting her eyes deviate from his. "Three months I've waited for that upgrade. And for tonight."
Zhair'lo, now growing quite self-conscious, gulped involuntarily. He wanted to look anywhere other than her eyes, but neither did he want to show fear. That was a lot of pressure she was piling on.
Her mouth opened slightly as if she needed more air. Her right hand went to the tie on her skirt, loosening it and letting it drop to the ground. She wore underwear – a tiny, white pair – which she daintily covered with both her hands.
She tilted her head down to look at her hands. Then turned her eyes to him and smiled, her eyes lit with some inner delight as she watched him through delicate eyelashes. He remembered her eyes from the night before. Oddly enough, he remembered them more than anything else about her.
"Wanna see what you did?" she asked, the burning in her eyes adding unnaturally to the reflection of candlelight.
He nodded, not trusting his vocal chords to be coherent or his brain to avoid some entirely unclever diversion. She seemed so far away and wasn't making any move toward him. How frustrating.
Her top was simple, much like the one that Talla had worn the night of her Initiation and Natta when she had visited. Just a rectangle of cloth that she pulled off over her head, revealing a very slim pair of breasts with wide, reddish-pink nipples.
"They're still very sensitive," she said as she touched one lightly with her fingers. "Y'know, from the upgrade."
She ran her finger gently around the edge of her areola. The nipple started to become erect. Her finger traced across her chest to the other side, where she repeated the gesture.
"They barely have time to get soft before they start getting hard again."
He nodded again in quiet awe. Point. He had given her a Point upgrade.
"You gave me two upgrades," she said. "Did you know that?"
His eyes went wide.
"What?"
"This is what two upgrades in Point looks like," she said.
He looked down at her chest – albeit briefly – before turning his wide-eyed gaze back to her eyes. He thought of Talla, shrieking in pain. He thought of his own wave of debilitating dizziness.
"Did it hurt?"
He hadn't felt any pain, at least nothing like what had gone before.
"Only a bit," she said. "Nothing more than normal, I guess."
She lifted her body off the window sill and gently slipped out of her underwear, careful to keep it from touching the floor. She folded it up in her hands, making a small, neat triangle. Taking very small steps, she approached him. He could feel his heart pounding by the time she came close enough for him to feel the heat of her body.
"Three months I've waited," she said, her eyes burning at him.
He couldn't take his eyes from hers, and he saw a desperate sadness there. Three months she'd waited for her first upgrade. Was that what hurt her? No. There was something else.
"You've waited a long time for your upgrade?" he asked.
She nodded.
"Not just that, though," she said and looked down. "It's that long skirt, too."
Skirt? Huh?
"What does the skirt have to do with it?"
"The long skirt," she said as she untied his pants. "It means I've never Served."
His pants fell to the floor and she kissed him, trapping his erection between their bellies. Revelation and passion hit him at the same time. Talla had worn a long skirt her first night. So had Natta. No one had ever told him the skirt meant anything. Did all clothing mean something?
The softness of her lips, the texture of her tongue and the pressure of her naked body were an onrushing river, flooding over its banks, threatening to sweep the train of his thought from its track.
But gods damn it, it was important to understand ...
