She swallows, her gaze going to the coffee table now. “Nothing? I’m just sitting here.”
“You’re practically hanging off the couch trying to get away from me.” I pause, smoothing my hands over my knees. “Did I do something?”
“No. I’ve just been…thinking.”
My chest tightens. I rub at the sore spot in one of my pecs, a tendril of fear snaking around my spine. What if Quincy spoke to her already?
“All right. Thinking about what?” I force out, even though I don’t really want to know.
She uncurls her fingers, staring at them as if they’re not even attached to her own body. “What do you think this thing between us is?”
I scratch the back of my neck. “What do you mean?”
“You’ve said it before, right? That this… You don’t normally do things like this. That from the moment we met, our connection feltdifferentsomehow. Like…fate, maybe, or I don’t know.” Her cheeks burn bright pink. “Maybe notfate, but something that keeps you from being able to stay away?”
“Yes.”
“Do you…honestly believe that?” She glances at me for the first time since we came back to the apartment, her eyes distant. “You believe there could be greater forces at work and no matter how much we tried to resist, we’d still have crossed paths at some point?”
“I wouldn’t agree if I didn’t,” I tell her, cupping her jaw before sliding my hands into her hair. “I believe it, yes. Destiny, fate, kismet—whatever you want to label it. I do not think for a second that we weren’t inevitable.”
“What if that isn’t true though? What if you’re just deluding yourself into feeling better about risking everything for me?”
She exhales, the sound a bit strained, and I realize a beat too late that she’s panicking. Over what exactly, I’m not sure, but I find the fact that she’s this unsettled completely unnerving.
“I wouldn’t risk anything if I didn’t think you were worth it.”
She gnaws on her bottom lip, a blush staining her cheeks. “What if it’s just this school making us think this way? Averniaclearly has influence over its students’ thoughts and even their actions, so what?—”
“Do you not think of me as a man capable of making conscious decisions? If I wanted sex, Elle?—”
“You could get it, yeah, I know.” She glares. “But what if?—”
“We can hypothesize all day long, and the results would remain the same. I would still want you, and you would still want me.”
She nods, leaning her forehead against mine.
I gently push her back until she’s lying flat on the couch and climb over top of her, skimming my hand up her side. She shivers, accepting my touch as it slips beneath the hem of her sweater, over the flat of her stomach.
“Elle.” I brush a strand of hair from her face.
She pinches her eyes shut, inhaling shakily. Two tears leak from the corners of her eyelids, and I bend down, kissing them away.
“What’s the real issue here, temptress?” I whisper, pressing my forehead to hers. “Talk to me.”
“I’m terrified.”
My eyebrows hike into my hairline, and I pull back. “Of me?”
She shrugs. “Of everything. Weird stuff is suddenly happening at rehearsals. I’m supposedly in danger because of Death’s Teeth. People hate me because of my last name. I don’t know what I’m doing, I have no real plans for my future, and I’m…scared that something I did a long time ago is catching up with me.”
“Something you did,” I repeat, cocking my head to the side. “Like an ex? That idiot director you said?—”
“No,” she says. “That’s definitely going to catch up with me. I accepted that a long time ago.”
Tension threads through my muscles, drawing them so tight that it becomes hard to move. “If he were to ever come near you, I’d kill him.”
That makes her laugh. “He’s a pretty well-respected director, you know.”
