"I couldn't get your face out of my head. The way you looked when you grabbed that mic stand… it haunted me. I tried toexorcise it with graphite, but it just made it worse. Every sketch was a way of touching you when I knew I never could."
She looked at my hand. Then, slowly, she looked back up at my face. The scent of old parchment and blackberries spiked in the air, not sour with fear this time, but sweet. Heavy. Curious.
"You were obsessed," she whispered.
"I was devoted," I corrected. "I was the spectator who fell in love with the tragedy."
I moved then. I couldn't stop myself.
I shifted until my knee bumped hers. This time I didn't recoil, but pressed into the contact. I reached out and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. My fingers were rough against her soft skin, the contrast sending a jolt of electricity straight to my groin.
"You saw the panicked sketches," I murmured, my thumb tracing the line of her jaw, leaving a faint smudge of charcoal on her skin like a brand. "From last night."
She shivered, leaning into my touch instead of pulling away. Her eyes fluttered half-shut.
"I saw them," she breathed.
"I hated myself for drawing them," I told her, my voice dropping to a husky rasp. "But I couldn't stop. Just like I couldn't stop touching you."
"Simon," she gasped.
It was the first time she had said my name without venom. It sounded like permission.
I cornered her. Gently. Deliberately.
I shifted my weight, boxing her in against the stone hearth, creating a cage with my body. I wasn't the biggest Alpha in the room, that was Daniel, and I wasn't the most powerful, that was Anders. But I was the focused one. I was the one who noticed every micro-expression.
"Why do I get the feeling that you liked seeing my drawings of you?" I whispered, sliding my hand around to the nape of her neck, my fingers tangling in the hair at the base of her skull. "When you saw the drawing of my hand inside you, did your scent change? Did it make you hungry, Tessa?"
She let out a soft, broken whimper and surged forward.
She didn't run. She collided with me.
She buried her face in the crook of my neck, inhaling sharply, dragging the scent of dark chocolate and smoke into her lungs. Her hands bunched in the fabric of my hoodie, pulling me closer, erasing the distance.
"I am disgusting," she sobbed into my skin, but her hips bumped against my thigh. "I shouldn't want this. You watched me fail."
"I watched you survive," I swore, wrapping my arms around her waist, hauling her bodily into my lap.
She came willingly, a tangle of soft limbs and desperate heat. She straddled my thighs, her knees digging into the rug on either side of my hips. We were fully clothed, layers of fabric between us, but the friction was instantaneous and explosive.
"Make me forget," she begged, grinding down on me.
It wasn't the frantic, hallucinogenic grinding of the fever dream. This was lucid. This was Tessa Kane, the woman, deciding she needed friction to ground herself in the here and now.
"Yes," I hissed.
I ran my hands down her back, pressing her closer, molding her body to mine. I gripped her hips, my fingers digging into the soft flesh through her leggings. I bucked against her, meeting her rhythm, the hard ridge of my erection straining against the zipper of my jeans.
"You feel so good," I groaned, burying my face in her hair. "God, you're real. You aren't just a drawing anymore."
She smelled like a library on fire. The scent of her arousal was no longer tinged with rot, it was pure, sharp brine and berries, sweet enough to make my teeth ache.
"Simon," she panted, her hands coming up to cup my face, smearing charcoal across my cheek as she stared at me with wild, dilated eyes. "Don't just look. Do something."
I did.
I grabbed her thigh, dragging my hand upward until I hit the junction of her legs. I pressed the heel of my hand against her mound, right through the fabric of her leggings.
