While he was not as bigoted as he had once pretended to be with Grace, he had not known many humans very well. He had met those who were just as he had said, conniving and too interested in the search for Power. He had also met some that he enjoyed, and he had taken humans as lovers before.
As lovers they had been toys, a game he had played at, meaningless diversions when he had been bored and looking for a change. He had taken on his physical form for them, because the human lovers Khalil had known couldn’t sense his full, invisible aspect. They didn’t have the presence or the Power to align with his. They couldn’t know what brought him the deepest, truest pleasure, and he always quickly lost interest in them.
Grace had the ability. She was like no other human he had met before. Her Power was, quite literally, unique. She could match him, fit to his presence in the way that Djinn made love to Djinn, share in formless pleasure and arousal. It was bizarre.
It was perfect.
For the first time he seriously wondered what pleasures the actual human senses might have to offer.
His physical form gave him a limited imitation of what humans experienced with all their senses, bound in flesh as they were. But he never really felt the depth of real physical hunger or pain. He never fully tasted, as humans did, the delicacy or nuances of flavor in food, nor did he know to its fullest extent the intensity of physical sexual pleasure. He only played at those appetites, as did most Djinn, sooner or later.
Taking on a physical form took effort and Power. The more real the form that Djinn took on, the more it cost them. To create a fully human form, with the most complicated thing of all, a brain, was an irreversible act. The Djinn called it “falling into flesh.” There were between stages of formation that were reversible, but most Djinn only bothered with forming a facade.
If he created a more complete form, with real skin, he could discover what she felt like when he licked her lips. He could truly know why that sensation shivered through her energy and Power, and heightened her arousal to a fever pitch. The effort would be tiring and cost him more Power, but as long as he did not fall completely into human flesh, he could discard the form whenever he chose.
And then he would know.
He returned to Earth with a more settled frame of mind and went through the rest of his day.
Now as he knelt in front of Grace, he tried to initiate a controlled, rational, balanced exchange, but she denied all of it. She denied him. Worse, she ordered him to leave.
He usually liked when she dictated, but he didn’t like that. He glared at her angry face. Those plush, soft lips of hers were folded into a tight line. She sat bolt upright with her arms wrapped around her middle. She pressed her legs together and turned them to the side. None of that looked promising, controlled or rational. It certainly didn’t look balanced.
He frowned and studied her more closely. She didn’t just look angry. She looked hurt and resentful, but he would be damned if he would leave just because she ordered him to go. He gritted his teeth. “I kissed you last night when I was angry. I shouldn’t have done that.”
Surprise changed her expression and posture. Her arms loosened, and her tight lips unfolded. “Are you apologizing?”
He considered. The tricky thing was, he wasn’t sorry for the kiss. After a moment, he said, “I don’t know.”
She watched him. A shrewd spark had entered her eyes. “You were more than just angry.”
His own gaze narrowed. He did not reply.
She began to enunciate, as if she were speaking to an idiot. “Here’s what you should apologize for: you left last night without saying a word. And you arrived this evening without a word of greeting to me. You wouldn’t even look at me.”
“I looked at you,” he muttered. He couldn’t stop looking at her, in between reading the pages of Chloe’s book. Grace moved with athletic grace, despite her leg. That was when he had noticed that her limp had become pronounced again.
Her flow of words hiccupped only for a moment. “You were rude. You tell me I can’t take back calling you my friend. Well, let me tell you something, Khalil. Friends don’t treat each other that way.”
He felt as if she had punched him between the eyes. Not because she had told him off—she had been lecturing him since they first laid eyes on each other. He tried to think back. He was almost certain that this was the first time she had ever said his name. That changed something, somehow. It was…more intimate.
“Grace,” he said, experimenting. She had a lovely name. He watched her face change and grow uncertain; she must have felt it too. “I have had much to think about. I am sorry for leaving so abruptly and for coming back so—” Conflicted. Convoluted. Contrary. He finished, “Complicated. And I don’t want to be friends.”
She flinched, and said sarcastically, “Oh, so I can’t take that back, but you can?”
“I don’t want to take it back,” he said, putting emphasis on the last word. “I want to change it.”
She froze again. “What do you mean?”