Page 80 of Wretched Thorns

His heartbeat was wildly erratic for one so calm. And infuriating, she thought.

The thrum in her chest and his pulse under her hand weren’t running at the same tempo, but they were running in the same direction, and she had decided somewhere around the time she pulled out a new protection charm from her Grandmère that she wasn’t going to fight her grandmother’s body-knowing about what direction either of them was running in anymore.

“With me,” she said. “So where will it be, the floor or the bed?”

She didn’t smile at her own joke.

He didn’t either.

“Dex.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m scared. I have been scared since the morning Serena’s voice cut out on me, and I am out of places to put it. The only thing in my body right now that isn’t fear is the thrum I have when I’m in the same room with you.”

He set the whetstone down.

“I know,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. “I feel you, Tara. I’ve been feeling you since you smacked me with a bond on your grandma’s porch. I didn’t realize at the time what your fear stemmed from.”

“I don’t want to talk about her tonight. I don’t want to think about her tonight. I want to be alive in this cottage for a couple of hours.”

“Okay,” he said.

“Wait,” Tara pulled back. “What do you mean I smacked you with a bond?”

He chuckled. He placed her free palm at his lips and nipped.

“Tara.”

“Dex.” She drawled, sliding her hand down between their legs and grabbing a handful of him. There was a lot of him to grab.

“Fucking hell, woman.”

***

The cottage bedroom was smaller than the kitchen. The bed was still neatly made, untouched enough that Tara knew immediately he hadn’t been sleeping in it. Something about that gave her pause.

She sat carefully on the edge of the mattress.

Dex stayed at the foot of the bed.

He’d been looking at her differently since the second she walked through the door. Not softer. Less hidden. Like he was tired of holding pieces of himself back around her.

“Sit down,” she said.

He sat down on the bed beside her. Half-facing her. Hand on his knee. The third knuckle had the long-healed scar she’d noticed at her grandmother’s table the first night.

She watched his hand and not his face. She picked it up and laced her fingers through his without asking.

He didn’t move.

“My father walked out when I was ten,” she said.

His thumb moved a quarter-inch against the back of her hand. He didn’t say anything.

“Grandmère came up that summer and took me home with her. I never really went back to my mother’s after.”

She made herself stop there.