Cillian reaches around me to flick off the tap, then wrests the plate from my hands and places it on the drying mat. When his damp hand closes around the edge of the countertop, and his breath glances against my neck, and his heat surges against my spine, I stiffen. He waits without moving for the tension in my bones to ease.
When a full minute slips by, and I’m still wound as tight as a tripwire, he expels a deep exhale. I suspect he’s about to abandon his plight to win me over. After all, how much fight does a person have in them?
But Cillian Lowry doesn’t step back. It’s as if he’s waiting for the version of me brave enough to turn around and admit that I’m no longer in love with Malachi.
My heart wages a war with my head. A week ago, I was pining over another man. An hour ago, that other man was here, and I felt nothing.
My breathing pattern changes, sharpens. My forehead throbs and spins. I’m panicking. I haven’t panicked in…in…since…
My arms burn as though a thousand needles were plunging through my skin.
“I c-can’t…” I stammer.
I’m aware not all humans are after our blood, but once they learn we have magic, the allure of it becomes intoxicating for most.
I think of Malachi’s baby brother, of his delicate web of blood vessels, and how he’ll probably need to be taken away from his parents at some point.
I think of my biological mother.
“Can’t what?” Cillian breathes, his voice slow and sultry. “Admit you feel something for me?”
“You’re off your rocker,” I grit out.
His lips move along the shell of my ear. “Want to know another thing my mother told me, Miss Serran?”
I hold still.
“She said that there’s nothing more frightening than when you find your one-and-only, because you realize the amount of power a person can hold over you.”
“Maybe she should’ve listened to her heart instead of her gut and chosen a less dominating man.”
My comeback draws the sort of sigh reserved for dim-witted children. “Turn around, look me in the eye, and swear you feel nothing for me.”
“The only thing I feel is annoyance.”
“Don’t say it to the sink. Say it to my face.”
I whirl. The heat that engulfed my spine now fires across my ribs.
His face dips. He’s so close that I can taste the sweet creaminess of dessert on his breath. “You’re so beautiful.”
His compliment is so unexpected that it blanks my mind.
Nevertheless, one blink carries me back to sanity. “You’ve got to let me go,” I rasp. “I’m no good for you.”
“Why don’t you let me be the judge of what’s good for me?” His mouth is so close to mine. Closer than any mouth has ever gotten.
I’m breathing so fast that I start to feel dizzy and have to clasp the island at my back. “Because you don’t understand what you’d be getting in bed with.”
“You meanwhoI’d be getting in bed with?” He slants his mouth just the slightest bit, the tip of his nose ghosting over mine.
“No.What. We, Atlanteans…we’re…we’re a unit. We’re complicated. We don’t mix well withothers.” I summon my magic to push him away, but it plays dead, as though the force he’s exerting over me has trapped it in its tracks. “Which is why I’m not asking you to let me go but demanding you to do so.” I breathe in and out. In and out. “I’m trying to preserve your sanity.” Another ragged breath saws through my lungs. “You deserve some sweet, stable, uncomplicated girl.”
His nose drags along my cheekbone with the precision of a scalpel. When he reaches my ear, he says—excruciatingly slowly, “I don’t want sweet…stable…and uncomplicated.”
The warmth of his breath spills down my neck and trickles around my ribs. I shiver.
“For fuck’s sake, Cillian.” I shove myself out of his space and away from the irrational gravity dragging at my bones, then do what he refuses to do: I leave.
