Page 72 of The Witch They Crave

"Tonight," he agrees, against my hand.

I fall asleep with his arm around me and my fingers curled against his jaw, and for the first time in longer than I can remember, I don't dream at all.

Chapter 17

Aamon’s flirting with me before I've even set my bag down.

"Miss Dellaby. Center of the room, please."

I bite the inside of my cheek before following his instructions.

This is the game now. We played it all last week and we're playing it again this morning, down in his lair with the door shut and the wards humming low. There’s no one here to perform for, but we can’t help ourselves. No open door, no passing faculty, no reason on earth to keep six feet of stone floor between us except that we've decided to.

He decided to.

He stands across the room with his sleeves rolled to the elbow—the tattoos I've had my mouth on running down into the bunched black fabric, which I do not look at—and he calls me by my surname in a private room where the only witnesses are his ancient furniture and my own thundering pulse.

I stand where he tells me to stand.

I wait for instruction like a good student.

But all I can think about is being back in his arms again.

The discipline of it is its own kind of torture. That's the part nobody warned me about—that a man holding himself back can be louder than a man who isn't. Every inch of space he leaves is space I'm painfully aware of. Every "Miss Dellaby" is a door closing that I watched him open a week ago with my name breaking apart in his mouth.

"Channeling exercise. The one from Tuesday. Open the flow, hold it, close it. Slow."

I guess it just isn’t as difficult for me to compartmentalize the way I feel about him.

"Is that what we're doing today?" I keep my voice even, conversational, the way he keeps his. "Channeling exercises? From all the way over there?"

"That's what we're doing."

"Mm." I tip my head. "Because a week ago you weren't so worried about the six feet."

Something moves behind the hazel. A flicker. The amber threatening to warm.

"Miss Dellaby."

"I'm just saying. For a man who has a whole speech about consistency in training, you're being awfully—"

He crosses the room with his vamp speed.

He's just suddenly here, the six feet gone, his hand coming up to catch my jaw, and the amber's gone all the way dark when his mouth comes down on mine. It isn't gentle. It's a week of aching space breaking at once, his fingers firm at my jaw, tilting me exactly where he wants me, and I make a sound against his mouth that I'll be embarrassed about later. My hands find the front of his shirt and—

He pulls back.

Just as fast. Just as controlled. His thumb drags once along my jaw as he lets go, and the flat is already sliding back over his face, the architecture reassembling, and I'm left standing there with my lips stinging and my whole head gone soft and white at the edges.

"Focus," he says. Even. Unbothered. Like he didn't just do that. "From the top."

Bastard.

I know he’s right and I need to train, but I’ll be damned if I tell him that.

I exhale and inhale, then reach for the core of me.

It answers too fast, heat blooming up under my sternum, pressing out toward my palms, and it takes me an extra second to gather it because my thoughts are still scattered all over the stone floor where he dropped them. I hold it there.