Accidentally…Cimil? (Accidentally Yours #4.5)(25)
Author: Mimi Jean Pamfiloff

“Don’t, Cimil. Just… don’t,” Other-me pleaded. “You know this will end badly the moment he realizes what you truly are—the bringer of the apocalypse.”

Hell in a tie-dyed fanny sack!

The entire situation felt ridiculous! I couldn’t win. On the one hand, I was wired to unknowingly drive every situation toward catastrophe, which meant I always had to row my boat against the current. That also meant I had to sometimes do bad, bad things and simply have faith that good would come from it. Roberto would never accept that, especially not when circumstances led me to help someone like Philippe. Or those horrible Maaskab. On the other hand, I knew that loneliness would ultimately lead to our downfall. If the gods didn’t find love, we’d all go crazy and destroy the planet anyway.

But if I chose Roberto, I’d only hurt him, betray him. He was better off without me.

I. Was. Evil.

I gazed into his eyes and then stood on the tips of my toes, planting a gentle kiss on his lips, savoring the warmth of his muscular body against mine. “I cannot be with you.”

“I understand, my love. You need to learn to trust me.”

“Yes—wait. No.” I sighed. “I mean, we can never be together.”

He stepped back. “You are serious. I-I feel it in your light.”

“I am, Roberto. I am serious.”

He looked at me with suspicion. “But I sense something else. It’s… fear.”

I walked over to the armoire and opened it up, finding several silk robes inside. I shrugged one on. “Just leave, Roberto. And don’t look back.”

“I cannot do that.” I felt his hot breath on my neck.

Why was he making this so goddamned hard? Why?

“I will not. You do not command me,” he said.

Stupid, arrogant pharaoh!

That’s when I exploded. “Then I will kill you. Do you hear me? I will rip out your heart and eat it while you watch. I will dance on your sticky vampire ashes. Do you hear me?” I screamed. “Do you?”

The anger I felt was so dark and foreboding that it left a charred taste in my mouth. But I wasn’t angry at him, I was angry at her. The Universe.

Roberto’s eyes reflected the deep gash I’d inflicted on his soul. “As you wish.”

He disappeared out the doorway, that image of me smiling back. From his… back. So ironic.

I burst into tears. Uncontrollable laughter followed. My life had evolved into one giant farce. I could do no right. I would have no love.

I sank on the bed. “Why me?”

Other-me was quick to reply, “Good question. I wish I could remember how I specifically triggered the apocalypse. Maybe then, you could avoid doing that one particular thing.”

“Does it really matter?” I asked. “I’d find some other way to carry out the destruction of the planet. If I was designed for that, then that is what I’ll do. I am evil. I always have been, and I always will be.”

Other-me shook her head. “No, Cimil. Our actions are evil, but we are not. That’s why I came back to stop you. In my heart, I want what’s right. It just so happens that what I think is right steers the events in the wrong direction.”

It was true. My heart was good. I wanted to be happy. I wanted Roberto to be happy, which is why I had to let him…

“Oh my gods! That’s it!” I jumped up and down and did a quick lightning finger. “In my heart, being with Roberto is the wrong thing to do. I will only hurt him! That means I should do the opposite. I should be with him and subject him to my awful, terrible ways.”

“You truly are batshit crazy,” Roberto’s deep voice said from the doorway. He now wore a new pair of black leather pants and another white shirt.

I ran and hurtled myself at his large body and began kissing his lips. “Yes. Yes, I am. And I’m going to do everything in my power to make you the most miserable man on the planet, hopefully for eternity.”

Roberto peeled me off him. “While I do not understand what has occurred in the last ten seconds to cause you to change your mind, for which I am eternally grateful, you are making no sense.”

“I’m evil!”

Roberto tipped his head. “Not helping.”

“Aside from being in charge of the underworld and many, many other things, I am the bringer of destruction. The apocalypse. I don’t mean to be, but it seems that it’s the Universe’s little joke. Everything I do feels like the right thing, but really, it’s wrong. Look what happened when I tried to save you! I created vampires!”

He cocked one chocolaty brow. “And this means what?”

“It means that I if I want to be good, I have to be bad. Really, really bad. Most of the time. Unless doing something bad feels good, then I do something good.”

His face crinkled into a perturbed little ball. “And you came to this conclusion how?”

I pointed at Other-me and explained. Obviously he couldn’t see her, but I think he believed me because he made a polite little dip with his head to greet her.

She wiggled her fingers back at him. “Howdy.”

“If you are, in fact, correct,” he said, “then why do you still see this other future version of yourself?” he asked. “Should she not be gone now that you’ve taken appropriate actions to not do good things?”

“Excellent point.” This whole space-time continuum thing is all very confusing. Welcome to my kooky world! “Maybe there’s one thing left for me to do?” I winked at him.

He smiled. “Exactly how bad did you say you must be?”

I blinked and found myself tightly wrapped in his arms. “Very, very, very bad. I’m thinking we might need to see a priest afterward and confess our sins. Or perhaps, spank each other as punishment for our very naughty deeds.”

“I would very, very much like that. The spanking part, I mean. I am not a fan of priests. They always want to show me their crucifixes or moisten me with their little birdbaths. Most peculiar.”

I stared blankly and then shrugged. “Spanking it is!”

He pressed his thick, warm lips to mine and plunged his hot tongue into my mouth. I felt the particles of my immortal light begin to vibrate as if rejoicing. They were finally going to be reunited with the part of me that went missing so very long ago. Or, perhaps, that part of my light never truly belonged to me. I was just holding on to it until its rightful owner showed up.

He slid his warm hands inside my robe and pulled it down off my shoulders, letting gravity do the rest. Not once in my entire existence had I felt uncomfortable being nude. The gods know I spent half of my life wearing nothing but a fig leaf. On my head. But standing before Roberto now, I felt na**d for the first time. There were no walls of deceit to hide behind, no ulterior motives, no political agendas.