That's the part I can't stop thinking about. Not the sex—although God knows I'll never stop thinking about that either, about the way she arched against me, the sound she made when I finally slid inside her. Not even watching her on Cal, watchinghimwithher…
No. It's what happened before.
I don't think you know how desperate I am for you to touch me, Gwenna.
I said it out loud. Like an idiot. Like a coward, like the proverbial atheist in the foxhole with a last-ditch attempt at redemption.
And she did it. Touched me. Because of course she did.
Giving her the roses was dumb. I know that. Not giving her flowers, exactly, but the idea that I could give her something without having to touch her. That I could love her from a safe distance, through, I don’t know, eye contact and random gifts and the careful maintenance of six inches of space between our bodies at all times.
What a fucking joke.
Because even alittlecloseness is painful. That's where I live now: in the aftershocks of accidental contact. One morning she walked past me to get coffee, her shoulder brushed mine, and I felt it for the next three hours. Then I had to just sit and watch as Kingston had his hand on her lower back at breakfast. Casual. Proprietary. Like he didn’t even realize he was doing it. Like he gets to just touch her without thinking, because he does.
Well, I can’t. And I can’t stop thinking. I think about touching her the way a man dying of thirst thinks about water. Every minute. Every breath. She's ten feet away and I'm swallowing sand.
My cheek presses into the linoleum, and from down in the basement—the fencing salle, not the Black Table—I hear footsteps. Kingston and Kai, I think. But they're not who gets to me first. It's Callahan.
“Lanz.” His voice sounds strained when he sees me. Coming in from the living room, he rushes,runsover to me, pulls me up under my arms so I'm sitting against the kitchen cabinets.
He smells nice. He always smells nice. And he looks relaxed for once, in a Caliburn hoodie and joggers instead of anything pressed and formal.
“I'm fine,” I mumble. “I just got dizzy making tea.”
It's like Cal isn't even listening. He's just searching my face, sweeping his eyes over every corner like he's looking for signs of injury or signs that I'm lying.
I swallow hard. I don't know which would be worse to find.
It's been getting worse, much worse, since St. Ignaty’s. On that stupid fucking island, when she was taken from us, I felt like a fish out of water, flattened, gasping. And then we found her again,savedher, and I could breathe.
But then the cycle renewed. We flew back, we all tried to get our bearings again, we all pulled apart somewhat, and the pain picked right back up. Duller, at least, not like the knife stabs of this morning, but still getting steadily more and more intense, to the point where I couldn't sleep, like no position was comfortable.
And then she came in living room and touched me and kissed me and asked me to...
Andbeggedme to...
Only if you want to, she'd said. Like there was any universe where I didn't want to. Like I wasn't burning alive with how much I wanted to.
I couldn't not. I had to. It was everything,shewas everything, and I gave in. I knelt behind her on that Persian rug in the parlor, Cal sprawled on the couch in front of us, and I let myself have her. Felt her clench around me as she moaned into him. Watched her come undone between us, because of us, and I thought: this is it. This is everything. I would die for this.
And the terrible thing is—I think I might. She felt so transcendently perfect I actually thought I might be dying then and there, inside her and wrapped around her.
But I didn't. I felt better. I feltsomuch better, like I could fight fifty Russians and the prior-at-arms and God himself.
Except I knew it was only temporary, that the rebound was coming. Because I woke up this morning and she was gone. Back to her own room, her own bed, and the absence of her was a physical thing, a black hole where my chest used to be. Every breath hurt. Every heartbeat was a knife.
The relief never lasts. It's like a drug that wears off faster every time, and the withdrawal gets worse, and worse, and worse.
And sure enough, here it is, and I'm not sure I can hide it much longer.
Especially not from Cal.
“What's going on?” Kingston comes up first, with Kai right behind.
“Sounded like an earthquake,” Kai murmurs, and then sees me. “Jesus.”
Callahan doesn't even look at them. Doesn't tear his eyes away from my face.
