“I can't stop when she's looking at me like this,” he breathes out. To Cassian this time. “She's feeling good, Cas. She likes this.”
“Please, just…” I hear myself saying. “Just a little bit lower. Just…”
Cassian moves before I can blink.
One second, Talon is still touching me, still stroking his fingers down my stomach, still tracing lazy, sinfully soft patterns over my too-warm, too-sensitive skin.
The next, he’sgone.
Cassian yanks him back so hard that Talon stumbles, barely catching himself as he’s shoved away from me. The loss of contact is immediate—a brutal severing that leaves my entire being aching, my body locking up as if something vital has just been ripped away.
I gasp—an empty, mournful, devastated sound—and sway where I stand.
Talon steadies himself, and that smirk—the slow, infuriating, absolutely criminal smirk—returns like he’s savoring the aftershock of what just happened.
His eyes flick up to Cassian, amusement dancing in them.
“Well,” he breathes. “Someone’s jealous.”
Cassian doesn’t reply. He never does.
But the way he’s looking at Talon—one dark eye flat, the other an abyss of barely contained rage, jaw clenched so tight I canpractically hear his teeth cracking—makes the temperature in the room plummet. His fists stay curled at his sides, muscles flexed like he’s holding himself back from something deeply vicious.
For once, Nathaniel is dumbfounded. And I mean actually dumbfounded. He looks between the three of us, his expression flickering between horrified and very concerned. His mouth is slightly open, but for once, he doesn’t have anything to say.
I just stand there, my body humming with residual heat, my legs shaky, my fingers twitching at my sides like they don’t know what to do now that Talon’s body isn’t pressed against mine anymore.
And I hate it.
I hate how empty I feel without his touch. How cold. How the sensation of his fingers still lingers, phantom heat trailing down my stomach, leaving me hollow and restless.
I hate that Cassian was the one to end it.
And most of all, I hate that I wanted more.
“You're forgetting what she is, Talon,” Cassian grits through his teeth. “She's a fuckingghost.”
Talon’s smirk doesn’t waver. If anything, it grows.
“Didn't feel like a ghost to me,” he shoots back. “Felt pretty fucking good, actually. But hey, I get it. You wouldn’t know, would you? Too scared to touch, too scared to want.”
Cassian’s entire bodytenses. He looks like he's just a second away from sending his fists flying straight into Talon's smug face. He's there. He'srightthere. I brace for impact.
But then, at the last second, Cassian does something worse.
He walks away.
Just turns, shoots me a single sidelong glance, and then disappears into the hospital’s shadowed corridors.
“Thought so!” Talon calls after him. Then, with all the grace of a well-fed jungle cat, he stretches, rolling his shoulders backand raking a hand through his messy, fire-kissed hair like he’s physically shaking off the tension.
Finally, he turns to me, still looking like trouble incarnate.
“Well,” he sighs, eyes gleaming, “you don’t wanna leave anymore, do you?”
I glare at him. My body is stillbuzzing, my very soul somehow sensitive from his touch, my insides a chaotic mess of want, regret, and the ever-present need to make a series of terrible decisions. But my mind? At least that is starting to catch up.
“You’re an asshole,” I bite out.
