“Old stories,” he said instead, and it was also true. “Legends. Tales of heroes and villains and the gods who watched them both.”
She smiled. It was a small smile, barely a curve of her lips, but it sent warmth flooding through him.
“I’d like to hear them sometime. The stories.”
“Perhaps.”
Never,his mind insisted.Don’t let her any closer. Don’t let her see what you really are.
But his beast had other ideas. His beast was already planning which story to tell her first.
CHAPTER 13
Despite his best attempts, Tarek’s attraction to Jessa grew stronger every day.
He tried to ignore it, but proximity made it impossible. She was everywhere. Her scent lingered in every room. Her voice filled every silence. Her presence was woven into the fabric of his days like thread through a loom.
And the touches. Gods, the touches.
They were innocent enough, at first. A brush of fingers when she handed him a tool. A bump of shoulders as they worked side by side at the stove. An accidental collision in the narrow space between the table and the fireplace.
But even innocent touches were torture for a male who’d never wanted to be touched before.
He found himself constantly aware of her physical presence—the way she moved, the warmth that radiated from her skin, the subtle scent that grew stronger whenever she was flustered. His beast tracked her constantly, cataloguing every shift of her body, every catch of her breath, and every quickening of her pulse.
And she noticed. Of course she noticed. She wasn’t stupid.
Sometimes he caught her watching him the way he watched her, her eyes lingering on his hands or his shoulders or his mouth. Sometimes she let her touches linger just a beat too long, her fingers warm against his skin before she pulled away with a flush on her cheeks.
They were dancing around something. Something that felt both inevitable and terrifying.
He knew he should put a stop to it. He knew he should draw a clear line between them and refuse to cross it. But every time he tried to pull back, she would smile at him, or laugh at something he said, or just look at him like he was someone worth looking at, and his resolve would crumble to dust.
And then one day they were harvesting sunvines again…
He had been reluctant to bring her back to the mountaintop. The vines were dangerous, and he still remembered how they’d hurt her before, but she’d insisted. She needed more material, and she wanted to go with him.
So here they were, carefully moving through the cluster of vines. He cut the ones she indicated, and then she bundled them into her satchel, keeping a careful distance from the actual plants.
Despite the caution required, it was peaceful work. The mountain top was quiet around them, the only sounds the rustle of the vines and the distant calls of birds. Dani was back at the den, napping, under strict orders not to leave the main room, and for the first time in days, they were truly alone.
Which was, perhaps, the problem.
“You’re being very serious today.”
He looked up from the vine he was cutting. She was sitting on a nearby boulder watching him with that slightly teasing expression she got sometimes—the one that made his beast want to pin her down and demand to know what she found so amusing.
“I’m always serious.”
“You are,” she agreed. “But today you’re being especially serious. Even more serious than usual. Your eyebrows are doing that thing.”
“What thing?”
“That thing.” She gestured vaguely at his face. “The brooding thing. Like you have the weight of the universe on your shoulders.”
“I don’t brood.”
“You absolutely brood. You’re a champion brooder. If there were competitions for brooding, you would take first place.”
