His eyebrows nearly dance off his forehead with delight. He crooks his finger as if beckoning me close, and my body rises from the stool without my doing. My legs push me up. My back straightens. And my hands grab my ass.
“Hey!” I laugh.
I move my hands to my hips when I feel him let go of his control. “That’s it?”
A long groan rumbles in his throat as he walks me up to his chest, moving my feet with only his mind. Or heart. I can’t quite tell how he does it, where he keeps that piece of me he took. I can’t tell which part of me is missing either, but it brings new meaning to the feeling that I’m not whole without him.
The space between is unbearable, the forbidden touch torturous. I stare at his chest, at the silver gleam of the knives, at each expansion, each sign of never-ending life, then my head is tugged upward without his touch. He lifts it until I’m looking up at him. Then raises his hands to my cheeks, holding them so close I don’t want to breathe for fear of contact.
“I can’t wait anymore.” Agony is scribbled all over his bruised face.
“You have to. I don’t want to hurt you again. Well, I do—a little—but I don’t want to feel that way.”
He flutters his fingers next to my cheeks as if itching to touch me, a quirk of a smile forming. “You’re holding back your darkness. That’s why you can’t control the magic in you. Emotions and magic are connected. You can’t resist the flow. Magic becomes stagnant like that, uncontrollable. It throws you off balance.”
“I don’t want to be a killer. I don’t want to like the look of pain on someone’s face. To think death is beautiful.” I swallow down the self-disgust, the shame… the urges. “I’ve been trying so hard to stop it. Tonotlet out this dark cloud inside me. This… this rage. These feelings. It’s getting worse—the desire in me, the need. I want to do terrible things.”
Eli’s eyes are pure midnight, the brown and green and gold gone, even the white is almost consumed by the darkness leaking out. The scar on his jaw sharpens. He licks those gorgeous lips, his hands trembling. “I don’t care how much it hurts—Ineedto kiss you.”
“No, you—”
But I’m too late. He pulls me closer. His palms cup my face, strongfingers on my jaw, thumbs pressing into my cheek bones. His lips meet mine.
And I love it. I love the feel of my warmth against his cold skin, of his tight grip, near bruising. I love how safe I am in his grasp, how I belong. And I even love the groan of pain that racks his body, the violent tremors that overtake him. But I bury those thoughts as quickly as they surface. He slips his tongue past my lips in a moment of sheer, wet ecstasy before tearing himself away. He leans over, hands on his knees, gasping.
I hug myself, cold and numb from the surge of magic and the absence of his touch. The room grows larger as I shrink into myself.
“Shut up, Kelter!” Eli snaps up, gripping either side of his head as though he wants to remove it from his neck.
“Kelter?” I roll my head around the music school in search of him. “Why are you talking to him?”
“Because he won’t fucking stop talking to me.”
What?“Eli, I needyouto be the sane one right now.”
Chapter 17
EVER
He says—no, I’m not telling her that.” Eli closes his eyes and shakes his head as if trying to stop the words from coming out of his mouth. “Kelter says he shouldn’t have left.”
My brain trips over reality. “You’re actually talking to him? How? I thought he only had your memories.”
“He’s in my godsdamn head. I can hear his thoughts too. And feel what he feels.”
I can’t quite find a response.
“And he can hear mine. And feel whatIfeel,” he adds.
I spin the ring on my pinky, the metal warming with the rapid motion. “Are you telling me he heard everything you thought while back in my room?” I cover my face with my hands, trying so damn hard not to believe him.
“And saw. And felt. I can control what I let through to him as long as I pay attention, but not when I’m pissed. Or when I want you.”
“That’s always.”
He snorts. “I can’t stop it from reaching him when a feeling is too intense or if we’re already talking.”
The tips of my ears burn. “So he knows what we did? He felt you come?”
