I don’t. Some part of me still wants to be around. Even if they make me consider ghosting them—literally.
God… I think Talon’s sense of humor is rubbing off on me.
“So,” he says, “what do you feel when you look at me?”
The question is so loaded that, for a moment, my brain misfires. Because some dumb, embarrassing, undead part of me thinks he means something else. Something way too complicated.
But then I remember what we’re actually doing here. I’m supposed to be reading his soul, after all.
“Nothing,” I say. “Not what you want me to.”
His tongue rolls over his lip piercing again. “You're not even trying. I can see it.”
“Iamtrying.”
“Mhm.” His eyes glint with something—challenge, amusement, the knowledge that he’s absolutely getting under my skin. Then he extends a hand toward me. “Come closer.”
My heart pounds.
This is a bad idea.
This man is a bad idea.
I don't know if he realizes the kind of pull he has on me, but… Fuck, I think I have a pull on him, too.
I push off the table, closing the space between us. When I stop just in front of him, he doesn’t move. Like he’s testing me. Like he wants to see if I’ll take the final step on my own.
I don’t.
So he does.
His hand lifts, slow and deliberate, like he’s offering me a chance to run while I still can. I don’t. His fingers brush the inside of my palm—barely a touch at all. And yet, I feel it.
Just like with Talon.
A slow heat blooms beneath his fingertips, creeping up my arm, threading into my chest like invisible strings pulling me toward something I don’t understand. He doesn’t grab me. Doesn’t force me closer. But then—then—he stands up.
Which would be fine, except… He’s so tall.
Was he always this tall?
“Try to squeeze my hand,” he murmurs. “And look into my eyes.”
I swallow hard, my throat suddenly dry as a desert. Once upon a time, when I was alive, I thought of myself as a happy woman. I had a handsome, successful husband who took care of me. He wasn’t the most intimate man, but he was resolute.
I found that attractive.
But no amount of resolution could compare to the way Nathaniel looks at me now. Like he’s deciding if he wants to consume me spiritually or biblically.
“Focus on my soul,” he whispers. “Search for it.”
At first, all I can search for are his very real, very distracting features. The way one of his eyes is slightly lighter than the other. The tiny mole beneath his right one. The freckles dusted so lightly under them they’re barely visible. The bruised-peach color of his lips. The way his tongue flickers against his lip ring like he’s tasting the air between us just to be annoying.
But then… then I search deeper.
I close my fingers around his, grip his hand, and reach for the part of him that I shouldn’t be able to touch at all.
His soul.
