“Whoa, now,” I said, all those things I’d just told myself a lot more challenging.“I’m pretty sure this isn’t what you want to do.”
“Why not?Isn’t it what you want?”Her words were soft and slightly slurred, her gaze on her work rather than up on my face, like I was just a toy for her.“It’s what espersalwayswant.”
“Yeah, but not when you’re drunk.”
“It’s easier when I’m drunk.”
“Easy isn’t that important to me.I just know exactly what you can do and don’t really want to deal with you pissed off tomorrow when you wake up sober and angry.”
She blinked slowly, curling her fingers over my skin.“Do you know how much I’ve thought about this?It’s just quiet inside my head right now, so I can.”
And, yeah, fuck,thatproved so much harder to reject.There was this sweetness in her voice, this longing that I understood pretty well.If it were up to me, I would have probably given in right then and there.How could someone reject a girl in that state?Who would possibly just give that up and tell her no when she pleaded so prettily?
It seemed Kenyon could, since he stepped closer and caught her chin, turning her face so she focused on him rather than me.It didn’t stop the way she traced my abs, of course, but she locked her gaze on Kenyon.“Hey there,” he said in that gentle way he spoke.
“Please?”Her fingers moved down to run along the edge of my towel, the touch downright scandalous.
Kenyon’s gaze darted over to catch what she was up to, his fingers flexing to hold her chin a bit tighter.“I can’t sober you up entirely, but Icanclear your head for a minute.”
The electric feeling in the air said he was using his powers, helping her to think clearer, to lessen some of the fog from the alcohol.He couldn’t fully remove it, since the alcohol was still in her system, but he could at least reduce the effects for a short while.
Yun blinked quickly, some of that wariness returning to her gaze, and damn I missed the sweet innocence, the desire without fear.I much preferred that, even if it was caused by the liquor.
“Better?”Kenyon asked before removing his hand from her chin.“It won’t last more than a few minutes, but it should help you get some of your senses back.”
“What if I don’t want them back?”Her words were still soft, less certain, but they held sanity that she’d lacked before.When no one responded, she went on.“I don’t want to feel like this, okay?I don’t want to keep questioning everything, to have to doubt myself.Why can’t it just be easy?Why can’t my head be clouded so I can just be normal for a little while?”
Kenyon turned his gaze toward me, unsure.
Ingram came in, but he didn’t touch her, didn’t crowd her.“You know what you’re asking for, don’t you?Last thing I want is for you to come to tomorrow and start playing the victim, hating us for any of this.”
She nodded, her hair falling forward to obscure her eyes.“I know.I know what I’m asking for, okay?Like we didn’t realize it was going to go this way eventually, I mean,yousaid that yourself, Ingram.So if it’s going to happen, why can’t I use a little extra liquid courage, huh?”She shot the words like bullets, voice quiet but strong, gaze down.
I exchanged a loaded glance with Kenyon, Ingram and Shear, the question we all faced.
Sure, we fucking wanted this.Who wouldn’t?And she was clearheaded at the moment, so maybe that was the okay we needed?But, fuck, a part of it felt bad…
The idea that to do this she needed to be drunk, that didn’t settle well.Would agreeing just make this shit all the more difficult later?Would it give her reason to distrust us later?To run?To shove us further away?
I liked my plans, even if I never seemed that on top of them to others, so going into this having no real idea if it would get us closer to or farther from our goal wasn’t my favorite idea ever.
She dipped two fingers beneath the edge of my towel, the action loosening the terrycloth until the tuck job I’d done gave up the good fight.It left the towel covering me only because her hand held it, like some white flag between us.
“Please?”she asked again before dropping the towel, letting it fall to the ground as though it didn’t matter anymore, like it had done its job and was useless now.
And just like that, I knew we’d lost.No matter what other plans we had, what reservations about it, Yun’s sweet little please took all the control.She’d been so afraid that we’d control her, that she’d wilt beneath us, but when push came to shove, when it came right down to it, look what happened.
She wrested all the control right away from us.
“You’d better not regret this,” I said, forgoing that jovial attitude I usually put on, letting her see the truth beneath the mask I usually wore.“Becauseyoustarted this.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Yun
The wave of confusion hit me again, numbing the fear and pain inside me.It still existed, that edge I’d lived with since The Pitt, but the alcohol helped it to drift to the background.Instead of a bear tearing through my world, it was like one locked away inside a cage.
Close enough it could endanger me, close enough I could hear it, but still held apart so I could try to ignore it.
