Page 39 of The Last War We Ever Fought

His mouth twitched and he dug his lip on his bottom lip, barely containing his smile. “Oh?”

Rolling her eyes, she spun round and headed inside the forest, feeling his warm presence right behind her, so close that she wished he’d hold her hand again.

Elijah had sat in his designated stool, watching her yet again as she dried her hair with a towel. Rowan had never known him to be so silent as he was being with her today.

When she stood in his direction, his shoulders straightened and he looked up at her, almost hopeful.

“Your hair is wet, too,” she said, handing him the towel.

He took it from her hand, his gaze intent on her as she slowly backed towards her mattress and sat on it cross legged, watching him back.

“Why aren’t you saying anything?” she asked after too many long minutes of silence on his behalf.

He lowered the towel from his hair. “I just want to look at you as you are now.”

“You look at me all the time.”

His mouth twitched. “Glad you’ve taken notice.”

Rowan got to her feet, and he got to his feet, too, causing her to burst into laughter. “I…I was just going to take the towel from you,” she said, still laughing, slowly stepping in his direction with her arms mockingly raised to signal surrender. “Just the towel. Don’t be scared.”

He extended the towel to her. “Can’t help it.”

When she grasped the other end of it, he tugged, pulling her with it. The moment their bodies touched, Rowan jumped a step back, panting. “I…I—”

“Yes?” he asked, closing the distance between them.

“Don’t,” Rowan murmured, flinching away from the reach of his hand on her face. She hadn't meant it like that. She couldn’t remember when someone touched her because they wanted to touch her. She had never been touched like that. But it wasn’t that what terrified her. It was the fact that Elijah didn’t only want to touch her, he looked like he needed to touch her. Desperately.

Hand frozen near her, he merely ghosted it where he had meant to touch her.

Rowan’s eyes drew shut, her chest rising fast as if his hands truly were on her. She could feel them as if they were, and her teeth dug on her bottom lip, muting a gasp.

“Open your eyes for me,” he said, and Rowan heeded to the order, not because she’d been used to obeying, but because she wanted to obey.

She had not realised up until then how much peace there was in the eyes of war. How calm the centre of chaos was. How soft anger could be. How gently did it look back at her. Ever since the day she was made part of war, she’d never once wished or desired peace. She realised why. Peace was just another war. Rowan was losing it. She was losing her war.

“I’m not her.”

“I know,” he repeated yet again.

“Don’t touch me like I’m her.”

“I won’t. I’ve never gotten this close to her before.” His smile was shaky, unsure, almost stunned as he touched her. “I wouldn’t know how anyone else feels. Only how you do.”

Reaching a hand to his chest, she took a step forward, and then another. Until she was pressed to him, her cheek resting over his calm heart and her arms banded tightly around his hard body. Once his scent of sandalwood filled her lungs, she heaved a heavy sigh, suddenly all weightless and boneless before the last war she swore to ever fight.

“I’ve never given one of these,” she confessed, burying her face in his hold. “They’re not so bad.”

Gently, as if could scare her away, Elijah put a hand around her and then another, pulling her closer, tighter when she made no move to slip away from him.

The gentlest trap she’d ever fallen into.

A sight left her when he pressed his lips against the crown of her hair and then again on her brow.

“Why are you so quiet?” she asked, suddenly greedy for his voice to fill the space around her.

“I don’t wish to scare you away.”