Rawlins’s mind moved off the fact of their accomplishment and instead was struck by Ellsbethherself.Standing in front of him. Her wrists immobilized in this way, for…what? Another minute and a half? He felt a surge of excitement at her incapacitation—and was alarmed by his own reaction. It was a predatory instinct, stirred in some distant evolutionary remnant of his mind. The part of his genetic heritage that had once savored domination over prey. A corner of his libido that he had long since sought to civilize into submission.
He felt shame, for a moment, at discovering the thoughts—not even thoughts, theimpulsesthat were stirred by her helplessness. He tried to suppress the instinct, to deny it. He shook his head and looked away, attempting to bring himself to his senses—but, again as though she could read his mind, she said simply, quietly, “It’s okay.”
Heat spread through his chest. Without even being aware of whathe was doing, he stepped forward into the ritual circle. Approaching her.
The soft hum of the magic persisted, and the glow of the metals cast flickering golden light across her features, making her skin look ethereal. He pondered her face more closely than he ever had before, her expression a study in contradiction. There was joy at their success alongside terror at what they had done. There was pride in her work, andpower,alongside the natural, inevitable fear response of being physically captive.
But there was something else that burned even more brightly.Desire.He could see it nakedly in her eyes, and he knew exactly what it was, unmistakably, because it was pitched in exact proportion to his own, which was growing by the second. He fought to keep his expression restrained, not to betray what was happening inside him, even as it felt like a tether connected her body to his and was reeling himin.
This was not the force of magic, but of…what? Biology and psychology and chemistry in some blend that could not be untangled, that had not had a hold on him like this since he was a much younger man. A more foolish one. He was not about toabandonhimself, to lose his senses, to succumb.
Yet he could not bring himself to retreat, either. He enjoyed riding the edge of this feeling.
As he strode across the platform, he savored how every step that brought him closer to her intensified the connection between them. Was this what it felt like to genuinelywantsomeone? Had it been so long he had simply forgotten? Or perhaps this was unique to the circumstances…unique toher.
He stepped directly in front of Ellsbeth. “Give me your hands.” She lifted her arms and he grabbed her wrists, encircling them tightly, feeling the softness of her skin under his fingertips, the delicacy of her bones.
Then he pulled her wrists apart, forcefully, and her hands separated as he overpowered her. He held them a foot apart for a moment, and her armsshookwith effort, resisting him involuntarily, fighting to press back into each other. The moment he stopped pulling, her wrists snapped back together. “Guess you’re stronger than me,” she said, andthose few words flooded his brain with the primal urge to keep holding on to her wrists, to pull her closer to him.
But there was a lesson to teach. He let her wrists fall. “What did we just prove?”
“It’s internal,” she said, her voice hoarse. “The effect is onme,from within. As opposed to an external force pressingagainstme, from without.”
“Most likely the ritual is affecting your nervous system,” Rawlins said, keeping his voice level, acutely aware of their proximity, as he instructed her softly. “Your somatic nervous system. But you’re blushing, Miss Storer, and your heart rate is increasing, which indicates?” His voice was low. He raised his eyebrows, waiting for her to answer.
“My sympathetic nervous system isn’t affected,” she said. Ellsbeth’s eyes sought his, but he wouldn’t quite meet her gaze, fighting to maintain some semblance of control, fearing what he would do otherwise.
“The other muscle groups? Still functioning correctly?” Rawlins asked.
In answer, Ellsbeth raised her arms, still bound at the wrist, and put them behind his head, her forearms resting on his shoulders, her fingertips grazing the back of his neck, as if they were slow dancing.
Rawlins struggled to breathe normally, but it suddenly felt like an effort to drag air raggedly through his throat. And he was so close he could feel the warmth from her lungs, grazing his chin, intermingling with his own breath in the charged space between them.
“You blushed,” Rawlins said, and his finger brushed her cheek, where the skin was turning red, blood blossoming just below the surface. “Just like you are now.” He felt the warmth of her flesh, and his finger trailed down, to her jawline, to her throat.
“Pesky sympathetic nervous system,” she said.
He had no more academic points to prove. No more reasons to be standing so close to her, with her bound wrists around his neck pulling him even closer. He was suspended in this limbo, on an impossible precipice. Physically unable to retreat to safety, but not willing to leap forward. Hewantedto grab her and pull her into him, press her body into his. But he fought the urge, because he didn’t know where it would stop.
His hands found her waist, and Ellsbeth shivered under his touch as his thumbs tightened into the contours of her rib cage through the soft fabric of her blouse. Simultaneously holding her and holding her back, in sync with the warring impulses inside him.
Ellsbeth leaned forward, bridging the distance between them, her lips moving toward his.
He was so acutely inclined toward her, it was almost like he couldalreadyfeel the sensation.
But his chest tightened as the guilt that he had been trying to keep down roared to the surface. She may not be helpless, he thought, she may want this as badly as he did, but she was his student. She was hisresponsibility,and the prospect of violating that trust was repulsive to him.
So his hand came up between them, and he put his thumb to her lower lip, stopping her. She froze, embarrassed and exposed in the middle of the act. He searched for the right words—to explain, to apologize, to soften this—but couldn’t find them.
Instead, he pressed the pad of his thumb into the tenderness of her mouth, barely grazing her bottom teeth. He could feel her soft breath on his thumb.
His resistance began to collapse into itself, and he could feel his body begin to relax, ready to let go of the self-control he had been fighting to maintain.
But at that moment, the energy in the room shifted. The glow of the metals dimmed, and the hum of the ritual went silent. A tremble convulsed her body; her shoulders shook and her arms relaxed, her wrists separating as the effect of the ritual ended.
The spell was broken. Two minutes wasup.
Even though it was darker than ever, it was as if the lights had been thrown on at the end of a high school dance, the music cut, and without thinking they both took a step back, separating, suddenly self-conscious.
