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“Why are you stopping again?”
Lucy tapped her foot, gaze flicking almost frantically between the doors ahead and the Ghoul behind. She stood amidst carnage, surrounded by a slew of feral bodies and the dusty remnants of people long since passed.
“No reason, darlin’, just…” the ghoul inhaled, that ever-present smirk twisting just slightly into something that loomed almost… happy. He scoffed. “Just admirin’ the view, is all.”
She blinked at him, finding stillness for the first time since leaving the small, lived-in NCR outpost. He… she…
He laughed, shaking his head.
“Come on, killer, let’s go find that daddy o’ yours.”
The small hint of scepticism in his tone wrinkled her, frustration hitting her almost shockingly easily. Then, so did happiness, earlier, when she’d stared up at the sun. Exhilaration, as she’d fought the ghouls.
Drugs.
She just had to stop thinking about it. Not let her mind wander to the rattling bottle of pills in her bag, to how easy it would be to grab another, to the realisation that she, that Lucy MacLean, was addicted to drugs.
Oh, what would her fath-
No. She took an errant shot at the shadow of a radroach, feeling twitchy. Annoyed at herself for taking the drugs and annoyed at her father for putting her in this position. Annoyed at the whole Shady Sands… situation, and the horrible fact that her father was a mass murderer.
“You alright there, Killer? That stroller look at you wrong?”
Stroller? What was he… It wasn’t a radroach. She’d shot at an abandoned stroller, its tattered blanket moved by the errant breeze.
What was wrong with her?
“I thought it was a…” she sighed, biting her lip, “I… never mind”
She didn’t know what was wrong with her…
No, that was a gosh-darned lie.
Luc knew exactly what was wrong with her. She hadn’t eaten a proper meal in… so long. Her sleeping had been less than optimal for weeks now, far too short and heavily disturbed. Her personal hygiene had taken quite the dip, even if it did look -and feel- like one of the NCR soldiers had cleaned her down, and she was addicted to drugs.
She was going against every single informative pamphlet Vault-Tec had ever given her. Except, of course, the one about teen pregnancy. She’d excelled at avoiding teen pregnancy. She’d taken all the tablets, they’d utilised prophylactics, and they’d often prioritised oral enjoyment over penetrative sex, exactly as recommended in the “so, you’re exploring your body!” pamphlets their teacher had given them all as teens.
Even now, as an adult, she’d successfully avoided all possibility of unplanned pregnancy.
Gosh, it was warm.
She swallowed, nodding, and took a few steps before lowering the zip on her vault suit, pulling down the neckline of her tank top to try and get any of the stale air to cool her sweat-soaked skin.
He was watching. Eyes charting her, uncaringly.
He had no sense of decorum at all!
Still, the way those intense eyes lingered only intensified the heat, sending a bead of sweat down the small of her back. “It’s,” she coughed, rocking on her heels, “real warm today, huh?”
He didn’t reply, not really, just a quirk of that lip and an “uh-huh” that sounded oddly like he was laughing at her, and she had to press forward to catch up as he pushed open the doors to New Vegas.
It was… not what she imagined.
The Ghoul had told her bits and pieces, when truly pressed. Drunken crowds, falling over one another. Lights, blindingly bright, laughter and fun and what he called sin from every doorway. It had been… less than ideal outside, the strangely dressed ghouls and the bodies and all, but somehow she’d still pictured here as something like what he described, even if that raised some questions as to why her dad had been so heck-bent on getting there.
Instead of crowds, there were bodies.
Caps lay strewn about, half-rusted and scratched up to oblivion. Cracked bottles and rusted cans lingered amidst toppled robots, the land reclaiming the cavity of their screens. She toed what looked to be a legion soldier's cuirass, leather and half-rotten feathers coated with a thick layer of dust.
“What happened here?”
He didn’t answer, and she bounced on the spot, needing to expend some of the fire that rattled within her.
Everything felt...hazy.
She needed to move.
She needed action.
Needed to shoot, to search, to run after her-
She was on the floor.
She blinked, rolling onto her back, wincing as everything came into focus all at once. What was…
He was laughing.
She tried to get up but paused as the nausea hit, leaving her gagging in the dirt.
“What-“
Oh, she felt like a screw that had gotten caught in one of the turbines, mashed around and bruised. She shut her eyes, heart racing, body boiling, and tried to breathe slowly. It was the creaking of leather that had her looking up again, the body of The Ghoul blocking out the sun. Her mouth felt dry, and strange, and she waggled her jaw this way and that against the tenseness, realising it ached like she’d been grinding her teeth.
“Shame we ain’t got much in the way of lollipops.”
What was he talking about?
“What’s wrong with me?”
The words came out, eventually, and his hand reached down to cup her aching jaw, blissfully cold, which was odd, as she usually found those hands so warm. “Welcome to the wasteland experience, Miss Lucy.”
What?
“See, the drugs you’re taking, Darlin’, were popular with footballers, back in my day.”
Footballers?
“And those fella’s, well…” he whistled, still crouched in front of her, knees practically framing her. “They already had to eat a fair amount before the buff-out, but after…”
“...Am I dying?”
He snorted and brought his face close to hers, close enough that his warm exhale fanned across her already boiling cheeks.
“Nah, you’ll survive, you-”
“Do I need more drugs?”
He shook his head, eyes wrinkling at the sides as he obviously found her situation funny.
“What you need, darlin’, is to eat.”
He dropped her chin, the absence of his hand feeling like the loss of stability, and stood back up, stretching his back and staring up at the sky. “Seems as good a time for a break as any.”
A break? She… no, no. Lucy forced herself up, scrambling in the dirt to try and get to her hands and feet, holding onto the ruins of a streetlight to reach an unsteady standing position. “We need to go get my dad.”
The ghoul hummed and raised his eyebrows, shooting her a look that had this new, frothing frustration bubbling within her.
“We can do that, sure,” he shrugged. “Question is, Bambi, can you walk?”
She glared, jaw still clenched, holding onto the pole. She needed to go, needed to fight, to shoot, to maybe try and wrestle one of those cigarettes off’f him, to act.
Her legs just seemed to have other ideas.
“See, that’s what I thought,” he grinned, “sit your ass down against that car, and we’ll eat. Hooey, I bet you feel like a lit fire.”
He muttered the last bit, shaking his head with a laugh, a laugh, at her expense. Weeks of walking, him striding ahead and her rushing to catch up, and now he was making her sit, now he insisted on rest? The world felt topsy-turvy, all upside down and sideways, and she hated it.
“The rangers packed you somethin’, here-“
He unwrapped a parcel from his bag, sticks of meat with cold, congealed fat along the edges, wrapped in paper. They’d been charred, thick dark lines marring the sides of the cubes. From the next bundle of paper he pulled a tub and unscrewed the lid, quirking an eyebrow at whatever lingered within before handing the lot over.
“Guess they knew you’d have the appetite of a linebacker, here.”
“They… “ she blinked, surprised. “They knew I'd take the drugs?”
He hummed before opening the pouch he kept his own rations in, one she never liked to look at. “Most folk do, though I suppose they just pictured I’d eat it if you chose to shit and vomit the withdrawals out.”
He was disgusting, but saliva filled her mouth regardless of his crass words, and her fingers trembled as she reached for the metal tub, filled with some sort of dark, bean-based slop. She was starving. Starving for everything, for food, for action, for…
She swallowed and lifted the beans up, only locking eyes with The Ghoul when she dared to, without those hungers lapping at the front of her consciousness.
Oh gosh. He was eating jerky.
The nausea rose once more, overtaking any other types of hunger, and she almost dropped the spoon as she begged for him to stop.
“Why? This jerky’s kept me alive long enough, I don’t see-“
“I cannot watch you eat a person right now, I-“
He scoffed, sliding it back into the greasy leather pouch. It hadn’t dried fully, and squelched uncomfortably as he secured it safely back in its little compartment.
“And what do you propose I eat instead, or am I expected to live on air whilst you banquet, dar-“
She cut him off with a shove of her foot, pushing the roasted meat into the space between them.
“I’ll share, just… not that, alright?”
She swore he did it to annoy her. He knew she hated it, hated the way he just ripped the… the meat free, the way it moved and…
She was going to ruin her food.
There was just something in the predatory grin he always shot her that told her he did it to rile her up. To shock her, to test her ‘delicate sensibilities’. Sensibilities she had, of course, even if they seemed to have vacated her mind, today. Because the sight of him biting into whatever animal existed on those skewers should have been absolutely perfunctory. It should have been nothing at all, just lips and teeth and fingers, just a throat bobbing as he swallowed, as hers did, around her chilli. Especially after she’d just seen him partaking in casual cannibalism…
Instead, though, she couldn’t stop watching as he ate, almost mindlessly lifting the spoon to her mouth as she did. He seemed to favour the more charred pieces, canines catching her attention over and over again as he savoured the meal. He had an attractive throat, she realised, watching the tanned length of it as he swallowed, his Adam’s apple shifting invitingly. He sucked the grease from his fingers one by one before re-donning his gloves, tongue almost shockingly pink against the sepia of him.
“Can I help you with something?”
What was she doing?
She almost choked on the beans at his question, pulling her canteen from her side with shaking hands - already feeling better after some food.
“I was, um, you see, it’s nothing, really, I was just- I just feel so warm, I don’t-“
“You know, Vaultie,” he winked. “There are more ways than just fightin’ to work some of that energy out, but-“
Sex. He was talking about sex. Offering sex, to, to her. She blinked owlishly, feeling her already stark blush only deepen. The Ghoul was offering to sleep with her.
The Ghoul.
Was offering.
Sex.
He snorted, shaking his head. She heard his words, vaguely, as he bit into another piece of meat and teased her for her soft nature, her Vault-Tec mentality, but she didn’t pay attention. Not really. Not as her mind whirred through a catalogue of positions and opportunities, urged and spurred along by the drug coursing through her system. She’d gone so long without the touch of another, and heck, didn’t get a moment alone now they travelled together, and…
“Yes.”
That shut him up.
For a moment, silence spread between them, and she placed her bowl to the ground, forgotten.
“Yes.”
She nodded, perhaps a little faster than she would normally, and reached behind her head to tighten her ponytail.
“Yes.”
“You can stop sayin’ yes now, fuck.”
Oh.
Had she misunderstood? Was he saying no? Had she… oh. Disappointment and a strange pride surged as she realised she’d called his bluff.
“Sorry,” she apologised, and reached for a few pieces of the cold, grilled meat. She chewed one slowly, wondered between iguana and brahmin, and understood why his swallows seemed so heavy. “I hadn’t realised you were joking, it’s alright,” she smiled, the expression half forced and fully practised. She realised with a sinking feeling that maybe he couldn’t, that he wasn’t expecting her to accept. “You don’t need to feel bad, I-“
“Feel bad?”
His reply was a sputter, half-laugh, half-barked surprise.
“I realise for ghouls there’s some understandable soft tissue loss and-“
Oh, that seemed to do it, seemed to fully rile him, a spluttering noise coming from The Ghoul as he sat up straighter, as he glared across their meagre spread.
“I assure you, darlin’, I am fully intact and I more than know how to use it, don’t you concern yourself-“
She nodded, fighting a rapidly losing battle against her gaze dropping to his crotch. “It’s okay, I fully understand there’s a level of potential social awkwardness after a misunderstanding like this, and I can assure you as your travelling companion, however temporary, that you do not need to be concerned-“
“Don’t you HR me, you little-“
They stared at each other, both suddenly silent, the energy between them as charged as a laser pistol.
“That part of the wasteland experience is not suitable for a virginal Vault-Tec girlie, that’s all.” he insisted. “Believe me when I tell you, I am fully capable of doin’ whatever I wish, anytime-”
Virginal.
She exhaled, frustrated. Riled. Cutting him off with little more than a sound. “Why does everyone assume I’m a virgin?”
“…What?”
He paused his canteen, partially lifted as if to swig, and she shrugged at his taken aback expression, grabbing another piece of meat and sliding it, unthinking, into her mouth. “The legion, they, hang on.” She lifted a finger, chewing as quickly as she could. She was annoyed, and frankly, a little horny - which only made her more annoyed - but drew the line at talking with her mouth full, no matter how much she wanted to get her point across. The Ghoul just stared at her lifted finger as if she’d shot him, agast.
“There, thank you. What was I…“
“You were tellin’ me about you not being a virgin.”
“Oh! Yes, the legion assumed I was a virgin too, and I told them I certainly wasn’t, and that was a very outdated belief to have, because I was married, and-“
His eyebrows furrowed as he looked at her, surprised. “You’re married?”
“Widowed,” she shrugged, continuing before he could divert the subject, before she missed making her point. She needed to correct him, immediately. “But, before that, I more than experimented with a lot, let me tell you, of cousin stuff, and-“
He lifted a hand to his chin, staring at her. “You fucked your cousin?”
He was looking at her like she was mad, and she stood, shaking her arms, needing to get some of the energy out, back with a vengeance now she’d eaten - even if she probably hadn’t eaten enough. The words flowed from her, an unstoppable, quick-fire barrage, like bullets from a Gatling gun
“It’s really not that strange as long as you don’t procreate, though of course some do, we try to keep track, but sometimes family lines are hard to follow in vaults, and-“
“…Ain’t you just full of surprises.”
He’d cut her off with his words, his laughter a bark that broke her train of thought, but she stared down at him, heat flushing through her regardless. He leaned back to look up at her as she’d paced, weight shifted back on one hand, the other loose in his lap - the picture of nonchalance.
He was attractive.
The Ghoul was awful, and a cannibal, and irradiated, and he’d rescued her, he’d kept her alive, he laughed at her, and he’d really increased his smile-to-glare ratio lately, and..:
And she wanted him.
She stared at him, right into his eyes.
“Would you like to have sexual intercourse with me, or not?”
There. She’d asked, hands on her hips, stance wide and assertive, and if he said no, then she’d burn this energy elsewhere.
Surely there were more ghouls to fight.
He blinked instead, though, the corners of his lips downturned in surprise.
“Well fuck, this is not how I pictured today going, let me tell you, sunshine.”
For a moment, she thought it was a no. For a long, agitating moment, she thought she was being told no, again. And then he stood, hands coming to undo his belt.
“Well, Vaultie-“
“Lucy.” She corrected. “It’s Lucy.”
He huffed, shaking his head and stalking towards her. His face was intense, his smirk ever-present, and… He was trying to scare her off - she could see it in the way he moved, the hungry look; over the top, meant to dissuade - but she wouldn’t step back. Maybe the Lucy of last week would have, instinct and danger-sense screaming, but the Lucy of right now just wanted to act.
She all but ran at him.
They met in an aggressive meld of lips and teeth, his surprise palpable on her tongue, notable in the brief hesitation before he kissed back, before his hands pressed hard into her waist. Her heart felt enormous, too big, too fast in her chest as she pressed her tongue against his, as she grabbed at his clothes, as she held him so tightly the space around them finally stopped spinning.
This man.
This strange, aggressive, otherworldly man.
He kissed like he had centuries of practice, like he was just as pent up as she was, pulling her bottom lip between his teeth hard enough that the pain overtook the pleasure, just for a moment. It should have ruined it, it would have ruined it, a few months back, but all she felt was curling heat within her stomach and an aching in her core, the kind that would have her wondering, later, if this was just some strange part of herself, one she’d locked away.
One he helped her discover.
For now, though, she just gripped his coat hard and jumped, wrapping her legs around his middle, inhaling his surprised laughter like jet. It was strange, kissing someone without a nose, having nothing preventing her from being impossibly close.
“Absolute fuckin’ wildcat,” he moaned, the words edging on a snap as she moved her lips up, licking a hot stripe up the side of his neck to bite down, hard, on whatever was left of his ear. It worked, though, and he stepped them forwards to press her against an ancient car, hands flexing against her ass-cheeks - biting out his words amidst moans as she licked and bit and played. “I aught’a wrap you up in my lasso, string you up all pretty and tied.”
She moaned at the thought, not needing to wonder how it would feel. She remembered the pinch of the rope, the way her skin ached - and oh, if the thought didn’t have her rolling her hips against his belt, desperate for friction.
“Oh, you like that, don’t you, Darlin’? You like to be all in control, but I just know you’re desperate for the opposite.”
He was wrong, he…
“I pictured you all priss,” he groaned as she bit down on his neck, tasting the sweat there - feeling the radiation like a fuzz against her teeth. “But here you are, kissin’ me like-“
Weeks, she’d been trying to get him to talk.
She’d asked him questions, nudged him towards landmarks, heck, she’d even tried pretending to ask the dog questions.
He seemed more than happy to talk now.
She sucked, hard, hard enough to bruise, hard enough to stop his mouth in his tracks - not that she was listening, not fully, too entranced by the way his throat vibrated as he spoke, at the deep cadence of his voice. Every touch, every press, heck, even the taste of the meat on his lips as he pulled her higher, as he kissed her again - it all felt wonderful.
Better than anything she’d felt before.
“That’ll be the drugs, sweetheart.”
She hadn’t realised she was speaking. Fudge, how long had she been speaking?
“The drugs?”
“Yep,” he groaned, lifting her again and depositing her onto the top of the car. He dipped down, grabbing her ponytail as she tried to follow and pulled, keeping her head pointed up towards the hazy, cloud-tipped sky. “They make everything feel better. Brighter, stronger.” He paused to unzip her suit, the rush of it sounding impossibly loud. “Why’d you think folk love 'em so much?”
She could get used to this. Used to how colourful the world felt, around them to the way the itch seemed to still as his hands pulled her suit down, exposing her bare skin to the open air. She lifted herself to help him, grunting with annoyance as her boots refused to budge. When it was done, though, and she sat atop the broken car in nought but her bra and pants, she couldn’t help but stretch like a preening cat, oblivious to the noise he made against her.
She felt amazing.
The sun had begun to dip, drenching the two of them in syrupy, golden light, and she only caught his look of awe in a brief glance before it was sequestered away, as he shoved his face between her slight breasts, dragging the neckline of her tank top down to get to her sticky, over-warm skin.
There’d never been real passion before, she realised, as she captured his slight waist between her bare legs, as she mewled at the sensation of his lips at her breast and his hand, skirting lower. He complained, of course he did, that if she kept grabbin’ him like that he wouldn’t be able to reach her, but she didn’t care, not as he bit down on one part her and pressed his fingers hard to another, as he worked with the space she gave him, as everything all at once had her seeing stars in that cloud-filled sky.
It would rain.
She could see the tinges of it above her, curling lines of dark purple and green, unnatural, the entire opposite of what they had in the vault - but somehow it just worked. It felt real, stunning, an extension of the landscape, as if radiation reached towards the heavens. She slid her hands away from The Ghoul, in turn, reaching up as if she’d be able to grab them.
He bit her, hard.
“Eyes on me, kitten.”
Kitten?
The pet name sent a swallow in her throat and a curl of pleasure in her core, and she gave him exactly what he wanted. Her eyes, locked on his, her hands on his skin, blunt nails biting half-moons into the scarred skin of his head til his hat threatened to topple down. He lifted it, sliding it onto her head as he slid his fingers within her; groaning at her wetness as she gasped at the wonderful intrusion. When had she ever been ready so quickly? She’d heard whispers of short dalliances, but with Chet it had always been drawn out. She’d always had a good time, of course, but had always taken a while to get there…
Was it the partner, who had her so wet, so quickly, or the drugs?
Chet never twisted his fingers just so, leaving her breathless.
Chet didn’t bite down on her sensitive nipples, the cooling breeze feeling electric against her wet skin.
Chet didn’t make her feel like her world was being unmade, just with a simple touch.
Chet didn’t pause to lick an errant splatter of blood from her face, muttering how delicious she was.
Chet didn’t mutter, an endless stream of dirty talk. Didn’t tell her how wet she was, how good she felt, how tight she was around his fingers - she’d asked him to try, once, and had told him to then stop after a few minutes. It had been too… awkward, too forced.
Nothing about this felt forced.
“I want you inside me.”
The admission, the request came tumbling from her lips almost instinctively, and he winked up at her - the same wink that had sent a spike of heat through her, before. It had felt like a betrayal from her own body, then, but now?
Now she sobbed around a moan as he crooked his fingers, as he stepped back just enough to shuttle his fingers within her mercilessly.
“Now, I thought I liked what the drugs were sayin’ before,” he muttered, unflinching, unmoving - keeping the brutal pace up as he brought her closer and closer towards her finish, only to pull out the moment her thighs started to twitch.
He pulled an inhaler from his pocket, and she realised it wasn’t his usual one - this was smaller, almost, the liquid darker. He brought it to his lips and inhaled deeply, smirking as he caught her curious glance. She… she didn’t want to try, per se, not that the idea didn’t strike her, but he shook his head regardless, sliding it back into his pocket before exhaling, the sound almost ragged. His pupils dilated, and she couldn’t help but stare into their depths.
“Darlin’, you ain't even remotely ready for this little baby. When did you last take one of your own little sweets?”
“I…” her mind swam a little, and he laughed.
“You ain't nowhere near ready for another - I ain't in the habit of fuckin’ unconscious women. Now, roll over.”
Roll over? Where? Had he forgotten she was on top of a car, had he-
He pulled himself free from his trousers, and her mouth went dry at the sight of him. Scarred, yes, and absolutely intact - no worrying loss of soft tissue to be found.
No soft tissue to be found at all.
He told her again, and she just nodded, mind blank, lying back and squirming onto her stomach, pulling at her vault-suit to bring it underneath her. It was clumsy, and as far from seductive as she was sure was humanly possible, but she would do anything, she realised, to feel him within her. The car wasn’t exactly tall, something she was sure would have been described as sporty in a former life, but somehow presented her rear at the perfect height for this.
For him.
He grabbed her hips and tugged her backwards just enough to leave her gasping with surprise, a sound which turned into something far deeper as he parted her folds, pulled her underwear to the side and slid deep within her. His gloves were still on, she realised, as he slammed one down onto the car beside her, he’d… he’d done those things with his gloves on. Her scent, her juices, all soaked into the leather he wore daily.
The thought was enough to make her shudder, mouth dropping open as he started to move in earnest, pushing into her from behind.
“So fuckin’ hot.”
It was. Her skin felt alive, burning regardless of the encroaching chill in the air, sweat beading on her brow. It was intense, the feeling of him behind her, around her, inside her, close in a way she wasn’t sure she’d ever really experienced before.
“Hips, up.”
What could she even begin to do but exactly what he said, scrabbling a toe-covered sock against the empty window-frame for purchase, just enough to lift her hips into his awaiting hand. The angle took him deeper, the burn and bruise of it perfect. She’d wanted action, wanted activity, and by heck here it was - all at the hands, or, well, anatomy, of the person she never expected. The scarring felt amazing, she realised, none of the smoothness she’d experienced before. He was practically ridged, those uneven edges catching and hitting her in all the right places, leaving her gasping for more as her body shuddered and tensed.
Would he want to go again? Immediately, later, tomorrow? She’d been so close, before, and knew as he pummeled into her at a near-punishing pace that she wasn’t going to last, now. The hat started to slip, atop her head, and she reached up to hold it firm, lifting her torso up in the process, the tensing in her core leaving her desperately moaning again.
“Look so fucking perfect in my hat, don’t you dare,” his words garbled into nothing as he grunted, as he lifted up with one hand and moved the other to clench her hip, to knead the meat of her ass.
“Perfect, prim little thing like you, all golden fuckin’ rule, fuck, the sight of you killin’ all those fucking impersonators-”
Well.
“You liked that?”
She sounded breathless, coy even to her own ears, but as she twisted as much as she could, as she looked back at him, oh, it was worth it. His eyes were lidded, as if it felt too good to keep them open, his jaw clenched as tight as hers must have been, before.
He didn’t answer, not really, just grunted with a nod as his movements turned uneven.
“Better,” he moaned through gritted teeth. “Better than watchin’ you miss on purpose. You’re good with that gun, MacLean, really fuckin’-.”
He paused just long enough to catch his breath, to press deep within her and bring one of those hands down hard across the skin of her cheeks. She gasped at the sting, the pain, the sound turning into a moan as he did it again, as he pressed his gloved fingers into the red skin, as he watched it turn white once more.
“I bet I could have you finish like this, smartin’ from my hand against your ass.”
How was she supposed to survive his constant dirty talk?
She stretched forward again, lay across the top of the car, squealing as he shifted her hips, as his fingers found her clit. He couldn’t move much, not with one hand lifting her and the other pressed tight between car and flesh, but the pressure was enough to have her orgasm building, to have her legs twitching beneath her once more, each thrust from behind taking her closer and closer to the edge.
It was so much. Everything felt too vibrant, too loud, her skin overheated and the pleasure overbearing and she came with a shout, a yell, the sound almost a scream that seemed to echo around them, his own orgasm a muted groan in contrast.
“How’s about we add a radaway to that cocktail inside your body, eh?”
A rad… oh.
She nodded, limbs shaking as she slid from the car, his hands either side of her hips for stability. He threw her a grin as she turned, the slightest hint of laughter at its edges, and whistled low and slow.
“You are full of surprises, Lucy MacLean.”