Page 86 of Bound By Fury

We’re not saying anything. Just looking at each other. He reaches up to tuck a wild curl behind my ear, and any other night I might be embarrassed by the heat that spreads across my face from such a simple touch. But tonight is different.

Around him, it’s like my volume is turned down. All that electricity, that constant, incessant buzzing, the whispers and the power that thrums thrums thrums inside me—it’s like he takes some of that away. Not all of it. But enough to bring the barest peace. Maybe that’s because he sees me in a way no one else does.

I look at him from beneath my lashes, my voice taking on a tone I’m not used to. “You know, I really missed you, too.”

“I know,” he says softly.

He cups my waist and pulls us away from the crowd so that his back is against a large tree, his legs stretched out in front of him, nestling me between his thighs.

I can’t remember a time when my mind has been this quiet. He’s so easy to get lost in.

My lips tingle where his eyes keep dropping.

“I never wanted—” he cuts himself off, a dark look shading his face as he turns away.

“What is it?” I ask, prodding his jaw with my fingers until he’s looking at me again.

He leans into my touch. “Nothing,” he says. “It’s in the past.” He wraps his arms tighter around me, guiding my mouth toward his. My eyes flutter closed as his lips nearly brush mine. Again. The buildup is so agonizingly tense that I’m not sure I can take it anymore.

“Can I kiss you?”

I can barely hear him over the thundering of my own heart.

“Yes,” I whisper.

And he does.

It is not rushed, despite the raging party around us, the electric pull somewhere deep in my core, my magic flaring hard in a bright flash before dampening just as quickly. My arms wrap around his neck, and he groans softly into my mouth.

Glimmers of that last summer, of an almost kiss, of Malachi’s face all screwed up between the bowing trunks of the cottonwoods, the way the water cascaded down his lashes later that night. His words piercing through me.

It’s been so long. So long since I’ve felt this free. So long since someone truly saw me. And maybe I should be angrier with Lucas. For the silence. For not stopping Malachi from getting behind that wheel. Maybe I shouldn’t have forgiven him so easily. Maybe I’m love starved or crazy, or on the verge of something great and terrible.

But my life has been filled with people who make me hide.

My dad made me hide the parts of me that are desperate to be loved.

My mother made me hide how much I needed her.

Gigi made me hide my connection to her stories about magic.

Kai made me hide how much I loved him.

Lucas doesn’t make me hide.

Never has.

When our lips part, I’m breathless and dizzy. In the dim light of the party, his eyes look almost iridescent. Reflective.

“I’ve waited my whole life for this,” he whispers as if awestruck, and maybe I am a bit too.

I laugh. “You’re beautiful,” I tell him, and he hooks his hands behind my back and spins us until we’re giddy and falling to the ground like when we were kids.

Eventually the tempo of the music slows, and his breath brushes the shell of my ear as he trails quick kisses down my neck.

Suddenly I feel those familiar, watchful sparks. White hot like TV static against the side of my face, across my shoulders, down my back.

I grip Lucas’s biceps to steady myself, and he tenses beneath my touch, pulling me even closer to him. I shouldn’t search the crowd for who I know is there.