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“Shit,” he curses as he skitters around, struggling to get his balance.
As his feet skid across a patch of ice on the bark, we end up twirling around and spinning toward the edge of the branch. At the very last second, though, he manages to swing us around and press us up against a vertical branch sprouting from the branch below.
“Holy crap,” he breathes out with wide eyes. “You just about killed us.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say, feeling awful. “I didn’t think before I pinched and I…” All of my guilt evaporates as he grins.
“I’m just fucking with you, lightning eyes,” he says as he struggles not to laugh. “Even if we fell, the wind would catch us.”
“What?”
“It’s how things work around here. Nature is part of the faerie magic and it protects the fey. And since our magic is part of nature, it protects us too.”
“Oh.” I crinkle my nose. “Why didn’t you tell me this before you carried me down the branch?”
He presses back a grin. “Call it payback for making my own power rain on me earlier. And technically, I think that means I win this one.”
“We weren’t even challenging each other,” I argue, but he just grins smugly at me.
Instead of getting pissed off, I smile sweetly at him then pinch his nipple again, this time much harder.
“Ah,” he cries out with laughter tickling his throat. “You better watch it or I just might pinch you back.”
I continue pinching him until he’s laughing so hard his legs nearly give out on him. He removes one of his arms from around me and braces it against the branch I’m leaning against, most of his weight pressing against me.
“All right, you win,” he finally surrenders breathlessly.
Smiling to myself, I remove my hand from his nipple.
“You’re ruthless,” he breathes out, working to catch his breath with his head resting beside mine.
A grin spreads across my face. “You should remember that the next time you try to take me on.”
He chuckles before pushing back and looking me in the eye. He doesn’t say anything, just stares at me with a pucker between his brows. The longer he stares, the more drawn I feel toward him, an invisible force tugging me toward him, a force I’m not sure is created by the link, but by something inside me.
I wonder what it’d be like to kiss him…
Confusion sets in along with panic as I realize the urge to kiss him isn’t connected to anything other than my own feelings.
What the hell is wrong with me? I can’t want to kiss East. Not when I want to kiss Foster and have been kissing him. And if I tried to kiss East, it’d probably kill him!
Easton abruptly clears his throat then slants back, looking away from me and muttering, “Let’s get you down off this branch, okay?”
I nod, mortified.? Did he know I was thinking about kissing him just barely? God, he should be afraid of me. And with how quickly he gets us off the branch, I have to wonder if he is.
It’s times like this where I really miss Nina and Gage. They were always good at helping me work through my guy problems, although there were never really many problems. Still, it was nice to have someone to talk to. But even if I could talk to them now, I could never fully be honest with them.
Alone.
I feel so alone sometimes.
“You’re not alone,” Easton says as he hops off the branch and onto the ground.
With a quiet sigh, he sets me down and steps back, sweeping strands of his hair out of his eyes.
A breath eases from my lips. “Thanks for saying that, but I kind of am.” I fold my arms around myself and stare at the mossy ground. “I’m really starting to get tired of this altered link and you guys being able to feel all the stuff that I do. It’s becoming beyond embarrassing.”
“Maybe for you.” His tone turns light. “But personally, I find it amusing.”
