Closing my eyes, I resign. My body gives up, and I lean forward, resting against his chest.
His arms wrap around me while I let mine hang limp at my sides. His scent envelops my senses. Burning pine. A crackle lights in my mind with every inhale. Night. The coolness of black sky caresses my trembling parts.
He is a wildfire in the dead of darkness—merciless and devouring; visible for miles; a blazing, horrible reminder that humans can’t control nature or disaster.
“Are you well?” he asks, breaking my pictures of flames licking at my skin and turning me to ash.
“Yes.”
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
I fill my lungs, let them burn. “We’ve already been to the other side of the world for me. Is there anything I can do for you?”
When he lifts my face, I expect a kiss that won’t end until he has taken more than I have ever wanted to give anyone. I expect him to demand I read his mind and answer the question correctly as proof I’m as desperate to know him as he is to know me. I expect a grand many things in the moments it takes for him to tilt my chin up.
I do not expect him to say, “Talk to me. And don’t stop until you’re so tired you fall asleep in my arms.”
As my eyes widen, he separates us, takes my hand, and pulls me through slices of moonlight, toward a lounge.
Chapter9
~~~~~~~~~~~~
I’d rather not talk about it.
My body is a fire of bad decisions and murky ideas. I’m delirious with heat, sipping the sweetest nectar I’ve ever had. My life is a blur of horrible, no good, awful things. Perfect little dolls in their boxes, and me, among them, biting my tongue because plastic lips aren’t meant to open.
Castor hasn’t had a single taste of the liquid he gave me, but—given that he’s the only thing in focus on the couch in this room—I can confirm he looks how I feel.
Flushed.
Delirious.
Drunk.
Mm.
I slip my fingers through his hair while he sits on the floor, resting his head on my thigh and smiling. His touch draws endless squiggles over my side and stomach, mindlessly, while I find words. Any words. All the ones I have.
Somewhere in this mess of heat, I’ve lost all my sense.
“I’m soover it. Every day,Danielle, do this. Danielle, do that.A little to the left. A little to the right. Did you forget to shaveeverywhere? You missed a spot. I can see your lunch. What did you have for lunch? I don’t think you should have dinner until you’ve finished your workout for today. You don’t have enough calories left for it unless you add a run.” I swallow another sip, overpowering the bitterness in my soul with the smooth liquid in my glass. “It’s horrible, Castor. Everyone expects you to be perfect, less than human. Women with trained smiles scan you from head to toe, and youknowthey’re thinking of the places where they’re better and the places where they’re worse becauseyou’re thinking it, too. You’ve been trained to think it. It’s branded in the back of your brain, and you spend the minutes before you fall asleep each night wondering how to fix it.”
My eyes water.
I force the tears down.
“You’re nevergood enough, even if you’ve been on international magazine covers. There’s rejection, and blame, anddo betterevery single week if not every single day. There’s a new bedroom every night during weeks packed with jobs. New cities, new faces, new, new, new. Nothing’s stable. Throughout all of it, the only consistent thing has been my mother. And…” My words fizzle as a sniffle rises from my quivering chest. I don’t want to talk about her. I don’t want to think about her. It would never be too soon if I forgot about her completely. “What is this stuff?” I murmur instead.
Castor lifts his head to press a kiss to the place where my nightgown dips into my navel. It tickles just enough to make my toes curl. “Wine.”
Faerie wine?
I swear I’ve read stories about that, and how it absolutely shouldn’t be given to humans. I’ll be drunk for days, weeks, months,years. Maybe the rest of my life.
“Don’t stop talking,” he says, nuzzling.
Right.
