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“Because you were in pain, and I wanted to comfort you,” Darien said, his voice a quiet rumble. “I didn’t know you very well back then, though.”
She studied him, wishing she could read his expression, but she never really could. He was a walking mystery with far more layers than anyone could ever hope to unpack. “And how well do you know me now?”
“Enough to tell when you’re in need of support but are too stubborn to ask for it.” The edge of his alluring mouth quirked with a smile. “But my middle name is ‘Stubborn’, so I don’t blame you.”
She smiled through the pain. “What is it, really? Your middle name.”
“I don’t have one.”
“It’s ‘Fucking’,” Jack joked. “Darien Fucking Cassel.” He chuckled. Neither Loren nor Darien looked at or responded to Jack; they just watched each other.
When Giovanni was finished, Loren had to force herself to let go of Darien. It didn’t escape her that he wasn’t the one to do it first. She could feel herself getting in deep with this man, and she barely remembered him.
A crush—she must have had a crush on him these past six months. That would explain where all these emotions were coming from.
Loren held up her hands to look at the ink on her palms.
On one hand was a small sun, drawn with gold ink that shimmered whenever she moved. On the other was a crescent moon in glittering, metallic silver. They were such simple shapes, but that didn’t stop them from being beautiful.
Jack’s exhale was audible. He murmured, “Sun. Moon.” He said it as if it the tattoos were far more important than they looked.
Darien was still watching her. “The same but different,” he said, his voice as awed as Jack’s. “Different but the same.”
Ten minutes later, Darien held the door to Giovanni’s open for his girl. She walked out into the cold, hands bundled in her pockets. As she walked, she stole glances at him the same way he stole glances at her, but while she could never catch him doing it, he caught her every single time.
Until she’d put that jacket back on, Darien had found that he couldn’t stop looking at the tattoo on the inside of her wrist.
The C stood for Caliginous on Silverway, but Darien had imagined, when he’d first seen it, that it stood for Cassel instead.
It was just a letter, and it was just his imagination running wild with a foolish idea, but it made his heart so fucking full.
He was fucked. Well and truly fucked.
He managed to hide every trace of his emotions as they got in the truck and went back to Roman’s house.
Loren didn’t speak for the whole drive, but she looked at him whenever she had an excuse to—like when Jack or Kylar said something that required he say something back. He could sense that she was on edge, but he couldn’t get a firm grasp on her feelings.
A memory had come to her in that room—he’d seen it in her eyes. And he knew it scared her.
It made him wonder which of their many moments together had come back to her today, and how much time would pass before other, far more important memories found their way back to that beautiful mind of hers.
Maybe he should tell her, but…he didn’t want to jump the gun. The way she’d looked at him with fear and surprise, the way her heart had stumbled in her chest, made him worry for the day when those other, much more important memories came back to her.
Patient. He just had to be patient and have faith that this would be over soon.
But pretending made him feel like he was losing his mind. He wanted his girl back, and he wanted her right fucking now.
55
The Cristala Power Plant
STATE OF WITHEREDGE
Roman sat in the driver’s seat of his car as daylight shifted to dusk. He was well aware of Shay stealing glances at him every few minutes—she had done it all day—but he kept his eyes on the cristala plant just up the road.
He wasn’t avoiding her for the same reasons he knew she was avoiding him. Instead of feeling awkward about their encounter last night, his reason for putting distance between them involved attraction—because he’d enjoyed having his hand between her thighs a little too much.
He’d told her not to make a big deal out of it, but he was beginning to think he should take his own advice.
