Page 108 of The Heart Trials

He pulls back for a second, as if to ask if I’m okay, if I want to do this.

I open my eyes. “Don’t stop.”

He kisses me again, deeper this time, slower. His hand rises to cradle my jaw and I press into it, leaning toward him like he’s the first solid thing I’ve touched in days.

I didn’t know a kiss could feel like this—not cheap, not forced, not painful, but reverent.

I didn’t know a connection with someone could radiate through me like sunlight through glass.

I didn’t know a kiss could feel like letting him touch my soul. Like his fingerprints will always be there.

I feel weightless and entirely anchored all at once. He comes up for air and breathes against my skin, and I wonder if it feels the same for him as it does for me. He looks at me, gaze burning with a care, a concern, a longing, a question that I cannot answer.

Do I love him?

Could I?

My ribs flutter like wings trapped in a cage. I hook my arms over his shoulders, pressing our bodies back together again, wanting more of him. All of him.

He kisses me again—harder this time. Like something inside him has come alive. I gasp into his mouth, and he swallows the sound, pressing me back until my spine meets the wall. A sound I’ve never heard escapes me. His hands find my waist, gripping like he’s afraid I’ll vanish if he lets go. My hands are clumsy, roving for skin to touch. His arms. His neck. I don’t want to let him go. My fingers slide into his hair, tugging him closer, needing more. He holds me so tight, he kisses me so deep, I am a part of him.

It’s overwhelming and somehow still not enough.

I lose track of time. Of breath. Of how my name sounds when he whispers it against my neck. I part my lips for him again, and he groans softly, a low rough sound that makes me tremble. His thumb brushes the hollow beneath my ribs.

Then—

He tears away.

Like he’s been burned. Like the wall that belongs between us has reasserted itself all at once. He stumbles back a step, his breath ragged. My hands are still suspended in the air where we stood. I’m trembling, my lips are thick and swollen. My body burns in a way it never has. But it’s my chest that aches most—to touch him, to hug him again.

He lingers, speechless, a heartbeat more, chest rising and falling fast. He peeks out in the hall, his brow slick with panic. “I need to go before we are caught and it ruins everything,” he says hoarsely.

“Right.” I straighten my disheveled clothes. “Thank you, for, uh—I, uhm, feel very ready for tomorrow.”

“Good. I do too.” He gazes off bashfully, and a smile tugs at my lips. Then I scrub it off my face. What am I doing? The walls wedged between us feel like they are threatening to fracture in on me. Loving him will cost me a ship. Loving him means losing Serafina. That’s not a thought I will even entertain.

“We can’t do that again,” I say.

“Why would we need to?”

“We won’t. The trial is tomorrow.”

“Agreed.” He turns to go.

I collapse onto my bed, torn between savoring the scent of him all over me or crying myself to sleep.

36

They come for us at night.

Kade and Rhythe’s list of targets claws at my mind—it’s kill or be killed. Mercyenforcers drag us down the hallways with hushed voices, ordering us to be quiet.

“Trial of Strength?” Jace whispers to Talia, and a Mercyenforcer’s fist slams into his face.

“You’re hurting him!” Talia cleans the blood from his swelling lip with her sleeves, glaring at the guard. “We have to be our strongest today.”

The Mercyenforcer raises his fist at Talia.