The auroras.
His coat around her shoulders.
The way his hand had cupped her cheek so gently it stole her breath.
And then his words.I won’t stop.
Heat flushed through her even now, a slow, curling warmth that settled deep in her chest and lower, making her acutely aware of her own body. Jakob hadn’t pulled back because he didn’t want her.
He’d pulled back because he wanted her too much. Dangerously much. The realization both thrilled and terrified her in equal measure.
She stared at the ceiling and blinked against the sting behind her eyes. A quieter fear crept in beneath the longing, one she hadn’t let herself name until now.
She was inexperienced. Untouched. A virgin.
The word felt heavy, outdated, like something that shouldn’t matter anymore, but it did. At least to her. She wondered if Jakob sensed it somehow. Maybe her hesitation and carefulness marked her as someone fragile. Someone he had to protect from himself.
What if that was part of why he kept pulling away?
The thought lodged painfully in her chest. She wasn’t naïve. She wasn’t a child. But next to him, someone so controlled and so intense, and probably experienced, she worried she was already at a disadvantage.
She forced herself to stay in bed all day, and by morning, she was exhausted in that hollow, wired way that came from too much thinking and not enough rest.
So when Jakob appeared at her door with his face unreadable, eyes dark-rimmed, and voice strangely hoarse, she didn’t hesitate.
“Do you want to see something,” he asked, not quite meeting her gaze, “most people never will?”
She nodded before he even finished the sentence. After leaving a note for Brooke and Violet, she grabbed her heavy jacket and followed him without question.
They walked in the opposite direction of the marked trail to an area where the woods seemed too thick and rugged to enter. Jakob easily found a wooded path that led through the trees and a world hushed and damp with early morning dew.
As they went deeper, the air shifted and grew warmer until Mallory unzipped her jacket. Up ahead, she saw steam drift upwards from behind a jagged rock formation
“What is that?”
“We’re almost there.” Jakob slowed, then led her through a narrow gap in the stone.
Mallory stopped dead.
A hidden hot spring lay nestled in a ring of smooth, dark rock. The water glowed pale green in the morning light with mistthat rose in lazy spirals. The air smelled clean and mineral-rich and wrapped around her skin like warm breath.
“Jakob,” she whispered, afraid to break the spell, “this is… magical.”
“It’s old,” he said softly. “And forbidden to most.”
She turned to him. “You brought me anyway?”
His jaw flexed and tension rippled through him. “I wanted you to see it.”
He sat at the edge of the pool and slipped off his boots before he dipped his feet into the water with a quiet sigh. Mallory hesitated and her nerves fluttered low in her belly before she pulled off her boots and socks and joined him.
Heat rippled up her spine from the water and the awareness of him so close sparked in her chest. The steam curled around them and softened the world into a pale, shimmering haze. Their legs dangled into the warm water, close enough that her foot accidentally bumped his.
A shock raced through her entire body.
Jakob inhaled sharply and jerked his foot back as if she had burned him.
Mallory looked up.
