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“Messy, indeed.”
I lowered my knees a bit. “Has anything happened to you lately? Maybe some incident coincides with the nightmares.”
Shame flowered around her, which seemed rather odd considering her usual bravado. While it wasn’t thrilling for her to experience it, I did feel some comfort in the shared experience.
“I suppose they started up when you came back,” she replied tentatively. “Why it’s coincided with your return is strange.”
Strange was one way to put it when I thought about my familiarity with her. Yeah, I definitely recognized her now. The way she hunched over her folded legs and stared at the water was much like the girl I knew back in Ambersky. Everything about her suddenly seemed more precious than ever, a delicate porcelain doll ready to crack if handled incorrectly.
Without thinking about it, I leaned over and hugged her to my side. There was some resistance, but she barely put up a fight, weakly slumping against me in a way that told me no one usually let her do this. Or if they did, it was rare.
“Sorry,” I whispered. “I know nightmares suck.”
“Yes, they indeed suck as you earthlings would put it.”
I chortled. “You make it sound like you’re an alien or something.”
“I believe the correct term is interdimensional being.”
Chuckles snapped a smile onto my lips. “Well, that is technically true.”
“I don’t understand why we’re like this, Xavier. I don’t like you, but I want to be around you. I sought you out when I woke from this nightmare. Why?”
“I’m not sure. I have no idea why you think I would be able to answer that.”
She sat up a bit, moving her braids away from my shoulder and playing with them idly. “That’s the stranger part of this whole situation. I feel drawn to you, but I don’t want to be near you. How is that possible?”
“Sounds like you have a crush.”
“Is that really what it feels like to like someone? To dislike them too?”
I dared to look at her, dared to challenge the shadowy night with a piercing stare of my own, a far more serious gaze than I was used to giving anyone. If this had been a date, I would have already kissed her. And it wasn’t that I didn’t feel the urge to kiss her. It was that I knew once I did, things would tumble right out from under me.
If I kissed her, then I would lose control.
But the more I resisted the urge, the more it took me over. It propelled me to caress her face, to run my thumbs under her eyes and inspire her to close them. Desire slithered through every inch of me until it was all I could think about, until her breath labored while I took her into my arms with an aching slowness that made me harden.
Midnight should have sent me home. Instead, I was sitting in a patch of grass near a pond with a woman in my arms who had been rude to me this morning. And it dawned on me that this was my chance to take back everything she had stolen from me. This was my opportunity to wrestle for control.
I laced my fingers into her hair, gripped it lightly, and tilted her head back. Her breath came in ragged waves, met by the wicked rhythm of my breathing, and then by my curious tongue. Dashing emotions wrangled me in until I gave up any type of control.
And that, funny enough, was what made me feel more alive than ever.
Chapter 6 - Galanthia
Such urgency from his kiss conveyed bursting desire. Inside me was reflected the same, my entire soul flooded with a yearning that made me think,again, that perhaps Xavier and I weren’t strangers after all. His touch carried beloved notions, hands scoping my curves while the breeze lifted us up, granting us breath after soothing breath.
Amid our enthusiastic groping, I felt his hardness, his body flush against mine while he lowered me to the ground. Strength like his hardly surprised me. Wolves of his stature were bound to handle more than the average shifter. His physique easily reflected his fascination with training, and each time he cupped my bottom to steady me, I felt his muscles tense.
Within me flowered a great longing I hadn’t sensed in ages. Not even during my travels had such a grand feeling appeared. Life hadn’t brought me many options when it came to mates, and even less when it involved this hookup culture that Izdor went on about. My interests had been in hiking and cultural exploration—and yes, I had shared a kiss or a touch with a local every so often.
But nothing like this. Nothingclose.
He nipped my lip. A pinch of pain radiated through me, followed by a wave of sheer ecstasy. How that happened was beyond my discovery, and unimportant in the motions that unfolded, for his touch and kiss were burning me. I needed water. I neededsomethingto offset the fever that was rising inside me.
Another kiss blew me apart. Yes, that would do the trick, wouldn’t it? Kissing, touching, drawing closer…
A gasp split my kiss, and I found myself straddling his lap with the same eager attention he had shown in his ravishing exploration of my body. Starry twinkles dotted my vision as I decorated his bare neck and shoulder, skin so smooth it felt like velvet under my mouth.
