Her chin tips up, proud. “You’re not the only one who gets to use a pen.”
My stomach goes tight with something that has nothing to do with irritation. God, Caelum, you have no idea what you dragged into this house. I lick my lower lip, slow, deliberate. Her eyes do exactly what I want them to do — track the movement. Stop there. Stay. “You know what I like about you?” I ask softly.
Her voice is strained. “Nothing, I hope.”
I laugh, low in my throat. “You’re going to besoeasy to ruin.”
Her breath hitches. I lean in again, close enough that she can feel the warmth of me down her side, close enough that if she turned her face a fraction she’d brush my mouth. I let my voice drop for her and her only. “You think you’re protecting yourself. You think you’re protecting Owen’s ghost. That’s almost sweet. But we both know that’s not why you’re hoarding it.”
Her lips part. “Excuse me?”
“You’re holding it,” I murmur, “because you like the way it feels when the five worst men in London have to sit around this table and treat you like you’re real.”
Her eyes flicker, her posture wavering slightly.
She doesn’t answer. And I know that’s the same as yes.
Her breathing goes shallow. I can feel it from here. Little quick pulls, like she’s trying not to show she’s shaking and shaking anyway. Her tongue darts out to wet her lips. My gaze drops. I make sure she sees that. Her pulse kicks.
“Tell me I’m wrong,” I whisper.
Her voice comes out ragged. “You are.”
I smile. “Liar.”
Her whole body tightens. That’s when I finally touch her. Not her mouth. Not her thigh. Not her throat.
Herwrist.
I reach down, slowly, and take her right wrist in my hand where she’s got it hidden under her leg. My fingers circle the thin bones — and yeah, there’s a tremor. Fine. Fast. She stills instantly, like the contact shorted something out in her nervous system.
Her skin is warm. Small pulse drumming against my thumb. I stroke over the ink there — the trailing vines and flowers curling up her forearm — with the pad of my thumb, lazy, like I’m reading scripture off her skin.
Her body shivers.
“You want to know what I think?” I murmur.
“No,” she says, which in Ember means yes.
“I think,” I say, “you want to be wanted. But you don’t want to beowned.”
Her lips part, breath shallow and quick.
“I think you want to be watched,” I continue, “but not handled. I think you want to be chased, but not caged. I think you wanta mouth on your throat and a knife in your hand at the same time. I think you want to be pinned down and told you’re safe by someone who absolutely isn’t.”
Her eyes flutter shut. There. That. That little broken exhale.
I lean in. My mouth is almost at her ear now. I can feel the heat coming off her skin. I can smell that faint, sweet note under the soap. I could take her right now, right here, on this table, and she’d let me. She’d scratch. She’d hiss. She’d say no with her mouth and yes with her body and I’d eat that contradiction until she forgot her own name.
But not yet.
I want herhungry.
So I exhale slow against the side of her throat, not a kiss — not contact — just breath.
Her whole body jolts like current. And then I let her wrist go. I lean back like nothing happened. Pick up my mug. Take a drink. Smile.
Her eyes fly open like I slapped her.
