I tentatively prodded the leg of the couch with my foot. Straight through. As I’d thought.
“Just come here,” sighed Leland. “Sit, and I’ll explain why I kept lying to you.”
That time, I took his hand and let him guide me, albeit stubbornly. If he was offering me answers, I’d be stupid not to take them, so I sat, and didn’t fall through.
“I don’t like you right now,” I said, ignoring the tingling in the pit of my stomach as he made me come closer until our thighs touched. To blot out the places my mind was going, I stared up at the steel roof with my head dropped back on the couch.
“You’re the only one who knows,” he said quietly. “Case might’ve figured it out, but that’s it. Everyone else thinks Truth-Teller means I can’t lie to them.”
He felt like he looked. Hard, with lean muscle in some places, warm and yielding in others. He dropped his head back, too, tilting so we faced each other. His hazel eyes turned more and more reluctant with every passing second, while the majority ofmythoughts revolved around my knees angling into his legs. Andthatneeded to be fixed.
“So that’s your excuse? You lied to me because you’re lying to everyone?”
“I lied to you because I don’t want to bond,” he said.
“Yeah, me either.”
I shouldn’t have said that. Because as soon as I did,Forcing the Bond, the Counterpart text I ran out of Briary’s with, dropped out of his pocket realm and landed next to me on the couch, indenting the cushion. I felt a flash of panic, remembering I never paid for it.
“Leland,” I said, my voice faltering. “I think Istolethat.”
“It’s fine.” He reached across my ghost to pick up the book. “I’ll pay them.”
The Most Eligible Bachelor in EverdenandForcing the Bondwere two things I wished I could take back. It had to be uncomfortable for him to have me pressed to his side, yet another eighteen-year-old girl obsessed with him. Agroupie, as Vyra had said.
And in a way I was.
Didn’t want to be. But I was. Ever since the Blessing.
“Why did you steal it?” he asked.
“I didn’t mean to,” I said.
“Not the part I’m concerned about.”
I wanted to die at the questioning look he gave me. I didn’t takeForcing the Bondbecause I wanted to seal the Counterpart bond with him. I took it because it was the one Counterpart text in Briary’s that wasn’t written by Helen.
“I don’t want to bond,” I said. “The text Ireallywanted wasCountering Your Counterpart. But then I saw . . .” I looked down at my lap. “This was the next best option,” I mumbled.
Leland’s thumb twitched against mine, prompting me to look at him. After a breath, he said, “The bond won’t seal if you don’t trust me. It’s why I’ve been lying to you. And judging by the way you were willing to let yourself disappear rather than touch me, it’s working out the way I planned.”
“There were multiple reasons I didn’t want to touch you.”
“Yeah? Why don’t you tell me them?”
“You’re with Vyra.” Why that was the first thing I went with, I didn’t know.
“I’m not with Vyra.”
“You had her lip gloss on your mouth.” I glanced across his body, at his left hand propped on the arm of the couch. “Her initial’s on your ring finger.”
“This?” Leland lifted the finger, bending it at the knuckle suggestively. He flexed his finger in and out. In and out. In and —
I reached over and put my hand on top of his, a motion that would’ve flattened it if I had a solid body. “Stop doing that. You’re giving my circulatory system ideas.”
He laughed, softly, then gazed at me for several moments with intense eye contact. “Tattoo’s not for Vyra.Vyra,” he said, taking his time with her name, “knows we’re not in a relationship. We only — doesn’t matter. It’s not going to last past August.” Again, that mouth twitch. “Should you be this jealous when you ‘don’t like me right now’?”
“I’mnot.” I blew out a breath and waved at my form. “Other parts of me have other ideas.” I really did want to be anywhere but in this closed-off alley with him, thigh-to-thigh and holding hands, even if it only felt like air to him. “It’s the withdrawals. I get this possessive feeling and start burning. Then when I burn for too long, I become . . .” I indicated my vague form again.
