Page 66 of Flames and Blood

His mouth. His hands, still resting on his knees, close enough to reach. The open collar of his shirt. The line of his throat. I know exactly how cold his skin is, because I rested against it for an hour. My whole body wants to find out again.

“Kalli.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not.”

“Okay, I’m not. Thanks for making a thing of it.” I press my wrapped hands flat on my thighs. “It’s warm in here.”

“It isn’t.”

“Then it’s me.”

“It’s you,” he agrees, and his voice has dropped, which doesn’t help at all. It’s rich and deep and rolls over my tingling skin.

I should tell him to leave. That’s the sensible instruction. I know it. I look at his mouth instead. He watches me do it. He doesn’t move, and that just makes things worse.

So I say the truth, because it’s the only thing I can think of.

“I want you.”

He goes still.

“I want you, and I don’t know if that’s me or the stuff they poured down my throat.” My chest hurts by the time I’ve finished saying it. I keep going anyway. “My whole life, I have known why I do things. And I’m sitting here wanting you, and I can’t tell you why, and I hate it.”

He doesn’t answer for a while.

“That’s the most honest thing anyone has said to me in years,” he says.

“Don’t be kind about it.”

“I’m not being kind.”

“Then what are you being?”

“Careful,” he says. “And I’m losing at it.”

I move.

I get a hand in the front of his shirt and pull. He comes forward off the chair. His mouth meets mine halfway.

It isn’t gentle. His hand comes up into my hair and closes there. I get my arms around his neck. He makes a sound low in his chest that I feel more than hear. He tastes cold, and my mouth is burning, and the difference makes me shiver.

He comes up onto the bed edge beside me without letting go. His free hand finds my waist through the shirt, and it isn’t careful anymore; it’s wide and certain, pulling me in. I’m against him from knee to chest. He’s cold everywhere and solid everywhere. I press closer instead of pulling back.

“Kalli,” he says my name against my mouth. His lips leave mine and go along my jaw, down, to the side of my throat. I tip my head back and let it happen. There are teeth behind those lips. Sharp ones that can kill. That should frighten me. It doesn’t.

His skin is cool against mine, and my breath is coming fast. His hand at my waist tightens. For a moment, he leans into me, all of him.

“Gideon…” My fingers are in his hair. His hand is at the small of my back, under the hem of the shirt now, cool against bare skin.

He stops.

Everything stops at once: his mouth, his hands, his skin against mine. He goes completely still. Then he takes me by the shoulders and sets me back from him. Gently. Firmly. All the way back, until there’s distance between us. He stands up off the bed. He puts the chair between us and keeps his hands on the back of it.

“No,” he says.

“But—”