I chased after it, inhaling again, deeply. My grip on his clothing tightened, and a primal sound ground up from his throat. He buried his face in the loose braid above my ear, and I clung to him, trying to draw a mental image from this ghost of a sentiment. Trying to identify it. To define it.
At last, I let him go with a sigh. Embarrassment burned beneath my skin.
“I do apologize. That was entirely inappropriate—”
“Nonsense.” He reached out and tucked a strand of loose hair behind my ear. “It was…What did you call it? A chemical reaction? This is us, setting up that experiment, anew.”
“Exothermic as hell,” I murmured.
“Indeed.” His pupils flared. “Though I suppose we should close the door.”
I grinned. “Scandalous, Mr. Gregory.”
His smile widened. “One can only hope, Ms. Fallbrook.”
Wilder pushed the door closed, then crossed the room with several purposeful steps and sank onto the edge of the green armchair. The change in his bearing—the almost formal way he sat and the way his gaze kept returning to the door—sat heavy on my heart.
“You’re not coming tonight, are you?” I asked.
We’d made plans to study in the student lab that evening. Well, plans formeto study—to get caught up on lab techniques and common practices—while he furthered his illicit black-market business.
“I’m still coming,” he assured me. “But I’m going to be late. I have to make a delivery across the bridge, in Saltstrand.”
“What kind of delivery?”
His grin faded into a soft but unyielding look. “The kind you’re better off not knowing about.”
“I already know what you do in the lab after hours,” I pointed out, quite reasonably, in my own opinion. And while he nodded, there was something unspoken in his smile that made me feel naive.
Perhaps I didn’t knowallof what he did in the lab after hours.
Perhaps his illicit side business could work to my advantage.
“Will you…Will you make an elixir for me? Will you give it a shot, at least? Or perhaps work with me to create what I need?”
Wilder’s left brow arched, giving him an intrigued look that I found inexplicably alluring.
He leaned forward and took my hand. “Whatever can I do for you, Amber?” he asked as he tugged me closer.
The low pitch of his voice tugged sensitive threads deep within me. Was it possible that obvious and true interest in a woman’s needs and ideas could make an already fetching man even more appealing? Was anyone at the Alchemary studying that phenomenon?
“Wilder, Imustrecover my memory. Desmond insists that I’m in danger here, and my father believes that danger comes from some specific, unknown source. From an individual. And that the threat may not have passed. I remain unconvinced by either of those theories, yet I cannot dismiss them. And even if they prove baseless…I need my life back. I need to remember what I’ve learned, and what I’ve accomplished, and how I’ve changed, and how my relationships have evolved.” I squeezed his hand. “Youseem to have a treatment for every deficit. Concentration. Confidence. Tolerance. A man’s ability to…perform. Can you help me overcome the deficit of my memory?”
“With alchemy?” He seemed both interested in and skeptical of the possibility.
“That is generally the focus around here.”
“Indeed. But…there is quite a bit of trial and error in my approach.”
“I am aware.”
“And that takes time.”
“Which is unfortunate. But that time will pass regardless. I may as well be making layered use of it, don’t you think?”
He nodded slowly. “But Amber, I have no one to test developing versions of your memory elixir on, other than you. No one else has your symptoms. And I’m concerned that one of the aforementioned errors in the process could make things worse. That you could become ill or injured.”
I frowned, searching his gaze. “If you had someone else, you would risk injuring them in the testing phase?”
