“Unidentifiable,” she murmured, staring at it, amazed.
“And atomic structure? This…it’s got to be a new element.”
Her breathless wonder was broken by Finn revealing another piece of even more unlikely information. “It has no atomic weight, Mare.”
“That’s not possible.” She just stared at him.
“I know.” He shook his head, half-smiling, and shrugged. “It has volume, it has mass, it takes up space. But you can’t measure it. It has no atomic weight. “
“But…”
Just when she was coming to terms with that impossible fact, he dropped another, equally as implausible, into her lap. “It also has no half-life.”
“What?” She held the sample up to the light, frowning. “Are you sure you tested it right? Maybe there’s something wrong with the computer…”
“Please.” Rolling his eyes, he sat back in the chair with a sigh. “I’ve been calculating atomic weight and half-life since I was in high school. Everything decomposes and gives off some sort of radiation, right? But this doesn’t. The graph won’t move-it’s a solid flatline. This stuff is…it’s infinite. It’s some sort of infinite energy source…”
“I know.” Mary couldn’t begin to explain her feeling, the certainty of her strangely drawn conclusion. She had no logical basis for it, although Finn’s research was going a long way toward convincing the Miss Microscope part of her that her intuition was correct. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes, and just said it, “It’s God.”
When Finn didn’t respond-she’d expected laughter, at the very at least, coupled with a sarcastic comment-she opened her eyes to look at him. He was thoughtful, staring at the test tube in her closed fist. She went on, “You feel it just as much as I do.
I know you do. What we’ve discovered…all the laws and rules of physics, of the entire universe, just turned upside down. This proves—”
“This doesn’t prove anything.” He did laugh then, shaking his head. “You might as well say we just proved the existence of Santa Claus. It would hold about as much weight in the scientific community. Hell, why not? We’re at the North Pole, aren’t we?
Let’s just call the new element Santa Clausium!”
“I think…” She took a deep breath, ignoring his sarcasm, and pushed forward. “I think it’s here for a reason.”
“Well, in that sense, I guess everything’s here for a reason.”
“No, I mean here.” She waved her hand around. “Up here. In the Arctic. Frozen at that particular depth.”
“What do you mean?” He frowned.
“I think it wanted to be frozen.”
It took a moment for him to respond. “Are you saying…this substance… is sentient? “
She ignored his disbelief. “I also think it wanted to be found.”
He laughed. “I think maybe your fever’s back.”
“It’s everything and nothing all at once.” She reached out, opened his fist, and put the test tube in it. He looked down at their hands, and then back at her, his eyes searching. “It’s an infinite source. What else, Finn? What else could it be?”
He opened his mouth to deny it, she knew him well enough to know, but she pressed her fingertips to his lips, shaking her head. “Don’t think. Just feel. Hold it in your hand and feel it.”
It was an incredibly unscientific request, but he swallowed and did as she asked.
Shaking his head, looking pained, she knew he was struggling with the part of him that required facts, proof. He had them now in his very hand, and still his mind wanted to deny it. She searched his face as he opened his eyes and knew which part of him had won.
“It’s everything. It’s nothing.” His voice actually trembled and she nodded, silently agreeing. “It’s limitless power. For good or evil, that’s what this means.”
The idea was thrilling, beyond words, and she naively mused aloud for a moment. “In the right hands…”
Finn shook his head, his eyes flashing. “In the wrong ones…”
The endless possibility of that thought hung there between them. Mary closed her eyes with the weight of it, leaning her head back against the wall. She felt like crying, laughing, screaming. It was in her, everything at once, almost too much to bear.
“Are you okay?” His hand was warm on her forehead and she wanted to turn her face to it, encourage him to touch her, to bridge the gap. “Fever?”
“No.” She opened her eyes, watching his hand fall to his lap. “Just…it’s…” She shrugged, unable to say, but he nodded.
“I know.”
This time it was her voice that trembled when she asked, “What are we going to do?”
Finn closed his eyes again, pursed his lips, that pained look briefly crossing his face for a moment before he looked at her and said, “The right thing.”
The right thing.
Mary reached for the test tube, meaning to take it from him, set it aside, but he caught her hand, turning it over. She thought he was going to place the substance there, but instead he lifted her palm and kissed it, his breath hot against the sensitive inside of her wrist, his lips impossibly soft.
She stared at him in wonder, daring to ask, “So, just what is the right thing, Finn?”
“Right now?” His eyes searched hers, looking for an answer that had always been there. “Right now, it’s this.”
There was no resistance in her. She let him lean in and capture her mouth, press her back and then down onto the cot, welcoming the weight of him. She heard the faint
“tink” of the test tube hitting the floor and then rolling as they came together on the small confines of her little bed, mouths slanting, tongues seeking heat.
Never had she wanted him more. If she could have cracked herself open to the core, absorbed him completed into her, she would have. Instead, she wound herself around him by degrees, her fingers in his hair, her legs twined with his, her arms snaking around his neck, her tongue circling the hot recesses of his mouth. Finn didn’t object, his hands roaming up under her flannel, exploring the soft valley of her waist, the indent of her navel, and-oh, god, finally-the sloping curve of her breast, the rise of her hardening nipple.
Her room was never warm. She went to bed every night nearly fully dressed, but now she was suddenly hot, more than feverish, her body on fire with a heat that could melt ice. Eager, she tugged his dark turtleneck out from the waistband of his jeans, her hands roaming the hard arch of his back, the wings of his shoulder blades, his muscles tight and thick but melting under her touch. Finn helped her pull his shirt off, and she took a brief, breathless moment to admire the broad, masculine emerging shadow of him above her before her trembling fingers found the buttons on her own shirt, working her way down while he worked up from the bottom, their hands meeting in the middle.
He looked at her and groaned when she revealed herself, shrugging out of the shirt, wearing nothing then but the thin barrier of her panties rubbing against the hard press of denim between her thighs. He caught one of her dark-tipped nipples between his lips, his tongue bathing it with the heat of his mouth, a shocking juxtaposition to the cool air. Her body arched all on its own, her hand moving between them, seeking the softness of her mound and the hard press of his cock as they rocked together.
Finn gasped when she cupped her hand over the denim bulge and then pressed his hips forward hard, trapping her hand, his mouth covering hers, tongue plunging deep. His excitement made her bold and she quickly unbuttoned and unzipped him, maneuvering to slide her hand in and pull the length of him out.