Insult lashes at my pride to wound deep. “You regret it…us. Guilt. It’s what you’re feeling. Still, very natural.”

She claws at her hair, an act of desperation to make whatever is assailing her stop. I did this to her, and if I wasn’t so excited about what it means, I might share some of her shame. But she’s beautiful in her tortured state, feeling emotions she’s never experienced before.

“Guilt doesn’t quantify this, Alex. Disgust. Pure, deplorable revulsion…that’s closer. I fucked my abductor, the guy who tortures me. Like some Stockholm victim.”

“I’m not… That’s not who I am, Blakely. I’m your salvation, if you could just imagine the potential—”

“You’re not a god, Alex!”

My head notches back, her words a smack to my ego.

“You’re not a god,” she says again, her voice more reserved. “And I’m not your goddess. This has to end.”

“You’re right. I’m no god, I’m barely a scientist anymore. I set my whole life’s work aflame the moment I craved your lips.” I stride toward her through the water. “But you’re everything now. The result, the antidote. You’re my salvation, Blakely. I’m…obsessed with you.”

“You’re obsessed with the idea of me,” she fires back.

“We’re all just ideas. Concepts. That doesn’t mean my need for you is any less real. You make me weak, I admit that. I lose all purpose around you. I’m just a man with this insatiable need inside him that will never be sated. All I want is you.”

Her eyes meet mine with steel malice. “You’re deranged. You want me now—now that you think I can have real feelings for you? How sick is that?”

“Oh, you have no idea. You are my sickness, Blakely, and there’s no cure.” I tentatively reach for her, and she allows me to touch her cheek. “I wanted you before you were capable of loathing me.”

Her eyes close briefly as she drags in a breath to fill her lungs. When she opens her eyes, letting me glimpse the green that has tortured me, she spits in my face.

“I wish I could loathe you,” she says, “but that would require an emotional depth I’m not capable of.”

I wipe my face, never taking my gaze off her. Her words implode the air around us, like a sonic boom detonating the moment she releases them. I hate the way the water beads down her lips, so inviting, her mouth the apex of my desire and pain.

“You’re confused,” I say. “Sensory overload. I’ll run tests. I’ll fix it…”