His eyes pierced me. Not with pity but with understanding. Like he’d known my secrets all along. And then, “A person only welcomes pain to either feel, distract, or suffocate something that hurts more.”
I narrowed my eyes, trying to pull away from his grip, but Stone grabbed my wrist.
My body jumped into panic mode. “What are you doing?”
He brought my fingers to his mouth.
The fracturing pain in my finger throbbed with my heart each time his bottom lip brushed the splinter. Like he was feeling the foreign thing for himself. Seeing how deep inside me it was.
All my thoughts curled into the corners of my mind.
I didn’t know what would come next. It both terrified and excited me.
With my hand in his, he trapped me with his gaze.
We were trapped in the daring spaces in the middle of seconds with his cold breath ghosting over my skin. Then his lips wrapped around my finger.
I inhaled a sharp breath. It lodged in my throat.
My heart flipped and turned and raced.
He had my hand in his gloved one, and he tilted his head, dipping my finger into his mouth. Then his eyes closed as he drew the splinter out.
The way he did it wasn’t to seduce, but to take care of me. No one had ever put me in a position like this. To be honest, I didn’t know what to think.
The pain dissipated when he slowly pulled my finger from between his lips. He swiped the sliver of wood from the tip of his tongue, and it met the floor. A bead of blood appeared where the splinter once was, and Stone’s gaze darted to it as if he sensed it. Then he licked it, collecting blood on his tongue.
“There,” he whispered, and everything had gone serious.
Somehow, I’d found a hidden passage winding into the tomb he’d built around himself. Inside, Stone had a heart that wasn’t as black and cold as his eyes. He just didn’t know how to use it.
His face was like a marble statue as we stared at each other. His breaths were quiet again, whispers through carved blue lips. He looked into my eyes, and each time he blinked his lashes splayed across his muted cheeks like soot.
I inched closer and pressed my lips to the center of his forehead.
His skin was like ice, so I kissed him softly, secretly, as if I may break him.
An exhale trembled from my lips as I pulled away.
His gaze slammed into mine again.
“You kissed me,” he said in a rasping, confidential voice.
I could feel my heart slam. I didn’t think one could ever feel their heart beating until I met him. “It was only a peck on the forehead. It was no big deal.”
Stone’s eyes shifted between mine. “No one has ever kissed me before.”
“It was nothing more than what a mother would do when her child is sick. I promise it was nothing.”
“I have never known what that is like.”
“Your mother has never kissed you?” I asked, then regretted my words. Stone only stared at me, a dark gaze dragging across my face. My shoulders softened as I was sitting between his spread legs. “When I was a little girl, whenever I was sick, my mother kissed me right here on my forehead.” I rubbed the pad of my thumb across the space between his brows where my lips once were. “It was her way of checking my temperature, but also a small gesture to let me know she cared for me.”
The snowstorm was raging outside by this time, beating against a fogged window while the wind whistled through the covered one that was broken. A cusp of white from daylight threading through snow stroked his face as he looked at me with eyes that were vast but transparent.
Then his gloved fingers were light as they came down on the nape of my neck.
I held my breath, waiting to see what he’d do.
