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“Answer the question.”

She looked away. I took another step closer. Close enough to feel her warmth sparking off my skin.

Close enough for those sparks to catch fire and blaze through my veins. My chest. All the places that made me weak for her. Only her. My heart was a jackhammer in my chest having her this close.

“Anaya,” I whispered through the aching need that had taken up residency in my throat.

“Yes?” She didn’t look at me. Instead she held her golden gaze on the half-open window, her profile like a work of art shimmering though the dark. The curtains glowed, brought to life by moonlight and a breeze that smelled like fresh-cut grass. I touched her chin with one fingertip and turned her face toward me.

“Tell me it was real.” I let my fingertip smooth across her jaw, down to her collarbone. A line of blue sparks trailed after my touch, stitching Anaya back to life. “I need it to be real.”

Anaya just looked at me for a moment while my fingers found their way into the braids that covered her neck. Then, slowly, she nodded.

“It was real.” She placed her open hand on my stomach and a sound escaped her throat, almost a whimper. “We…we were real.”

That was the only signal I needed. After all of the waiting. The wanting. I slid my hand up into her hair more firmly and kissed her, pushing her back until the closed door stopped us. Until there was just my weight against her. Her softness beneath me. The sense that every ounce of Anaya was filling up the empty hole in my chest. Anaya gripped the waistband of my shorts in her fists, opened her mouth beneath mine, and everything dead and dying within me roared to life. My right palm slammed into the door behind her to keep my balance and I lost myself in the warm sensation of her lips. The taste of her tongue. Her fingers brushing the bare skin of my abdomen. She whimpered and suddenly she was pressed against me, knee to chest. Jesus…she was going to kill me. And I didn’t care. Anaya’s fingers slid up my stomach and I couldn’t contain the moan that left me. I needed more of her, but one nagging little thought kept interrupting perfection. Was it me she wanted, or Tarik?

“I’m not him,” I gasped, forcing myself to pull away from her mouth. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to form a coherent thought other than what does she look like under that dress?

“What?” She looked dazed, her gold eyes creating a glow around our faces in the dark.

“I mean, don’t do this because you think I’m Tarik.” I took a deep breath and looked down at her lips. “Do this because I’m me. Because you want me. Not because you want who I used to be.”

Her eyes lit me up. Drinking me in. Considering. One of her hands slid up my chest. She spread her fingers out over my sluggish heartbeat and closed her eyes.

“I want you,” she whispered. “I wanted you before I knew.”

I wanted her, too. I couldn’t remember ever wanting anyone as much as I wanted Anaya.

I closed the space between us slowly, letting her lips draw me in with their next breath. Heat bloomed in my mouth, slid down my throat. I couldn’t get enough. I pulled Anaya against my body, wondering how someone who wasn’t alive could feel warmer than me. Maybe that just showed I was more dead than alive at this point. I didn’t care.

I stumbled backward, tripping over my discarded jeans in the floor, keeping Anaya pressed against me all the way. The backs of my knees hit the edge of my mattress and my pulse pounded a little harder. I was never nervous when I had a girl this close to my bed. But Anaya wasn’t just a girl. She wasn’t a girl at all. She was…everything. I kissed her harder, needing to be closer to her than I’d ever been to anyone. Heart pounding out of control, knowing I was this close to having her after wanting her for so long.

“You even taste like sunshine,” I whispered against her lips, pushing the white strap of her dress down her shoulder.

“Cash?” Anaya mumbled, sounding worried. She pressed her palm to my chest. I realized she wasn’t breathing anymore. Wasn’t kissing me back. I pulled away.

“What? What did I do?” I gasped for breath, trying to focus on Anaya and not the way the room was spinning out of control. I could hold it together. I would hold it together. For her. For this.

“Your heart…”

My eyes followed her gaze to where her hand glowed against my bare chest. My heart thudded, slowly, erratically, under her touch. I sucked in a breath. It felt like I was breathing through a straw.

She frowned and dropped her hand to the blade at her hip, rubbed her thumb across the handle.

“You need to sit down,” Anaya said, pushing me back onto the bed. She sat down beside me and ran her fingers through my hair as I tried to catch my breath. Tried to right the room that was spinning around me like a top. I felt sick. I buried my face in my palms and breathed into the hollow of my hands.

“This is so not what I pictured when I decided to try to get you in my bed,” I said, my words muffled by my fingers. Anaya laughed and kissed my shoulder, her lips leaving a little imprint of heat on my skin.

I looked up at her, trying so hard not to be angry. To not be humiliated. It wasn’t working.

“Sorry,” I said, wishing I could kick my ass into gear and kiss her again.

Anaya shrugged and swept a few braids off her shoulder so she could tilt her head to look at me.

“That was my first kiss in over a thousand years. I should probably pace myself anyway, don’t you think?”

I shook my head. “No. I don’t believe in pacing yourself.”

“Maybe you should.” She grinned. “Look at you.”

I took as deep a breath as my lungs would allow and pulled her onto the bed with me. Her braids spread out like a halo across my comforter, shimmering even when there was no light to reflect from them. I leaned over her and pressed a kiss to her jaw. Heat sparked across my lips.

“I’m okay,” I said, cursing my body for being weak. “We don’t have to stop.” Every nerve writhing under my skin was begging me to just give up and collapse. I couldn’t do that. This wasn’t me. This wasn’t what I wanted to be. I didn’t realize I was still, face buried in the warm hollow of Anaya’s neck, until she placed her hand on the back of my head. Moisture blurred my vision.

“I’m fine,” I said.

“You’re not.” Anaya slid off the bed and I scrambled to sit up. “You’re not okay,” she whispered, shaking her head. “You have no idea how close you are. I can feel it.”

“It doesn’t matter—”

“It matters!” Anaya’s fingers balled up into tiny fists at her sides.

I raked my fingers through my hair, wanting to pull it out. “What do you want me to do, Anaya?

Tell me. Because I’m open to suggestions here. I’m on my way out. There’s no stopping it. We’ve been over this.”

“There’s nothing you can do,” she said, smoothing her dress out where I’d wrinkled it. “It’s something I have to deal with. I made this mess. I’ll clean it up.”

“What mess?” I narrowed my gaze on her. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t have time to explain,” she said. “I have to go.”

“Someone’s going to die?” I asked, my eyes lingering on her blade as it started to glow and pulse with light.

Anaya tilted her face to look up at the ceiling as if she were seeing right through it. She looked determined.

“Not if I can help it.”

Chapter 23

Anaya

I let the heat blooming around me take me home.

Or as close to it as I was probably ever going to get. I stared at the gates, the ache of longing working its way up my throat. It would have been nice to see my parents again. But after today, that dream would be gone. A hum of peace danced on the breeze, sifting through my hair, tickling my ears.