Shane’s intense blue eyes suddenly flicker downwards, and I’m close enough to see his pupils dilate. His lips part slightly, and his tongue creeps to the edge of his mouth.
Oh, shit. He didn’t even notice what I was wearing until I announced it to him!
My first instinct is to scurry backward, but a faint feeling of magnetism keeps me in place. I’m looking so deeply into Shane’s eyes, it’s as if I’m falling into a bright blue sky, stars dancing at the edges as night begins to fall.
He takes a breath, and I feel it on my lips. We’re so close together, I can feel the heat from his body. I’m still up on my tiptoes, slightly off balance.
The logical course of action would be to put my hands on his shoulders…
The thought runs through my mind, and I can almost feel his warm, hard muscles under my hands. I see myself leaningforward, a thrill preemptively running through me as I imagine our bodies coming together.
Stop!
I try to tear my gaze away from Shane’s eyes, but I’m still caught by the pale blue prisms that only seem to get deeper the longer I look. I try to take a breath, but it gets caught somewhere in my throat, and all I can do is gasp.
Shane looks down, his eyes turning from mine as he focuses on what’s hiding behind the thin fabric of the night gown. I feel the faintest movement from him, and I realize he’s about to touch me.
For a split second, I do nothing. Then panic surges into my throat, and I scurry backwards, the spell broken now that I’m not looking directly into his eyes. The clean yet deeply male scent of him still lingers in the back of my throat. My body prickles with waves of heat, but I’m no longer being held prisoner.
But I am, I remind myself. I am a fucking prisoner.
Shane jumps a little as I scurry backwards and blinks several times as if he’s coming out of a daze. He focuses on me and shakes his head a little.
“What… what were we talking about?” he asks, his voice soft and full of confusion.
“I’m going to put on a robe,” I say. “I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”
Shane turns away, and I practically flee back to my room, my heart racing and my breath burning my throat.
What the fuck just happened?
Tears fill my eyes, and I brush them away angrily. As I find a robe to put on, I ignore the throbbing in my body and the singing heat searing along my thighs, down from my nipples and meeting at a hot point between my legs.
Okay, he’s hot. So what? I’m not going to fucking jump him just because he’s cute. It’s the worst idea in the entire history of bad ideas.
The swirling, endless blue of his eyes plays through my mind, and peace falls over me. I close my eyes to savor the memory in full detail, letting the delicate blue color and sense of movement soothe me.
Like waves slowly lapping the shore… a perfect blue sky dappled with the Milky Way…
“Stop!” I whisper, grabbing my temples. “This is fucking insane.”
Don’t think about his eyes—got it.
I shake myself as I stand up, literally stretching out every limb and waving them around to generate blood flow and force me to focus. After a few long, steady breaths, I straighten my robe and head out to the kitchen.
Shane is sitting at the table with two cups of tea and a plate of cookies. I’m afraid to look right into his eyes, but instead of avoiding his gaze, I face the challenge straight on.
As he looks up at me, I pay attention to the details of his face. The long, sharply angled chin, the high cheekbones, and the bow-shaped mouth. With a faint hint of anxiety, I slowly let my gaze rise until I focus on his eyes.
Relief flutters in my chest as I see that they’re blue, but a clear, bright sky-blue, and there doesn’t seem to be anything strange or magical going on within them.
Maybe I can only see it when I’m really close. If I were sitting in his lap…
Stop it! Fuck.
“I made you some tea,” Shane says, gesturing to the cup.
I just nod and sit down, reaching for the tea and wrapping my hands around the mug so the intense heat forces me to focus.
