This wasn’t right or normal, and it terrified me.
I stopped suddenly, and so did Aiden. Holding onto my hand, he looked over his shoulder at me. “Alex?”
My chest hurt. “I can’t feel anything.”
Facing me fully, he cocked his head to the side, brows lowered. “What do you mean?”
I placed my free hand on my chest. “I can’t feel anything in here.”
Aiden started to let go of my hand, but I held on for dear life. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know.” I took a shallow breath. “I can’t feel anything except—except fear and pain. Everything else feels muted. I can’t cry—I didn’t even cry when I saw my mom.”
Shock flickered across his striking face. “You saw your mom?”
“See!” Panic dug in with rotten claws. “I didn’t even tell you about that, and I tell you everything. I haven’t even thought about it, not really. I’m like meh. Everything is meh.”
Concern replaced the surprise as he shifted closer. “Do you think it’s Seth?”
I shook my head so fast the choppy hair smacked my cheeks. “He’s not talking to me.”
“But that doesn’t mean it’s not him,” he reasoned, and anger flashed among the concern.
“It doesn’t make sense. What does he have to gain from doing this? Then again, does it have to make sense?” I pulled free then, tugging the hair back from my face. “What if I’m broken? What if this is how I’m always going to feel? What—”
“Whoa. Slow down, Alex.” Aiden cupped my cheeks. “You’re not broken. You’re not going to always feel this way. You’ve been through some crazy stuff. It’s going to take time for you to process everything. Take a deep breath. Come on, just a deep breath. Inhale, and let it out slowly.”
I gripped his wrists, barely able to get my fingers around them, and did what he said. “Okay. I’m breathing.”
“Good.” The silver hue of his eyes was my entire world. “Keep breathing with me.”
I kept breathing, but I also started moving. I don’t know why I did what I did next. Maybe it was because if I didn’t really feel this, I was screwed six ways from Sunday. Rising up on the tips of my toes, I kissed Aiden.
Yeah, totally not appropriate after-funeral behavior.
But I kissed him.
I needed to feel something other than numbness, pain, and anger, if only for a little bit. And when Aiden kissed me, I’d always felt so many emotions I was dizzy from them.
Aiden lifted his head slightly. “Did you feel that?”
“Yes,” I breathed, shivering as our lips brushed.
His lips curved into a one-sided smile. “I was kind of hoping you’d say you didn’t so I’d have a really good excuse to kiss you again.”
My fingers dug into his arms. “You don’t need an excuse.”
And I didn’t have to wait long. His lips were on mine again, an incredibly gentle sweep that sent another tremble through me. It was slow and soft, kicking my heart rate up. The tingling in the back of my neck resided and returned, spreading across my belly and lower, but it was a different sensation. I felt Aiden—I felt love in his arms, and I didn’t want to lose that feeling.
Desperate to keep the numbness and colder, darker feelings at bay, I pressed against him, practically stepping on his shoes. He was so much taller than me, but we made it work. Well, Aiden did. The arm around my waist tightened, and I was lifted onto the tips of my toes. He supported most of my weight as I reached a hand up, threading my fingers through the hair resting against the nape of his neck. Heat swept through my veins; it felt like it had when Seth lent me his energy. Like I was opening my eyes again and coming alive. Glyphs rushed to the surface and spread across my skin.
So all I needed to do was kiss Aiden to feel something real and good?
Sign me up for that.
But in the back of my mind, I knew that wasn’t normal, or right, or half a dozen other things. I ignored that annoying voice because, seriously, that voice wasn’t helping right now. I deepened the kiss, parting his lips and sweeping my tongue inside his mouth. A deep, sexy sound rose up from his chest, and his other hand wrapped around the back of my head.
“Alex.” There was a soft warning in his voice.
“What?”
His head tilted to the side, causing his nose to brush mine. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
I almost laughed. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”
“Gods…” Aiden cradled my cheek as he shifted my hips closer to his. My stomach dipped in such a pleasant way. “You’ve been through a lot. You’re still healing and—”
“And what?”
“I’m not perfect. I only have so much control.” His eyes were like heated quicksilver. “And if you keep kissing me like that, we won’t even make it somewhere private.”
Oh, me likie the sound of that. “And there’s something wrong with that?”
“No. Yes.” He pressed his forehead to mine, and the once-wonderful dipping motion suddenly twisted. “You’ve been—”
“I’m okay. I’m better than okay when I’m like this with you.” A desperate edge rose to my voice as I clutched his arm. “I need this. I need you, Aiden. Please don’t—”
Aiden’s mouth crashed into mine. Whatever I had said was like finding the map to a treasure. Bam. Right there. His kiss swept me up into a place where I wasn’t thinking. There was no Ares. No looming battle to plan for. No Seth. No pain or fear. All I felt was warmth and love and Aiden.
All I felt was him.
We made it into the closest building—the training center. Aiden opened the first door he found unlocked. A supply closet. It would work.
Our gazes locked. His were like liquid pools of silver, and his chest rose sharply. “We need to talk about what you told me,” he said.
“I know.”
“But not right now.”
A breath caught in my throat.
In one powerful lunge, he was on me. Our mouths came together as he backed me up. My hip bumped into a cart. Folded white towels toppled to the floor. There was an ache in my bones, but a deeper one drove me to ignore the pain. “When you were in that room, I thought…” He kissed me again as his hands dropped to my hips. They trembled. “I thought I’d never have this with you again. Gods, Alex, I…”
I brought out mouths together, silencing both our fears. Aiden’s fingers were tight on my waist as he lifted me up, placing me on the now-cleared cart. My heart skipped a beat as his lips trailed across my forehead and my cheek. There was a lot we should be doing, but at the moment, nothing seemed more important than this.
We kissed like it was the last time we’d have the luxury of drinking each other in. My breath caught again. Coldness seeped into me like a chilly, rainy day. My insides numbed. The moment that thought formed, I realized how true it was. There was no promise of tomorrow or the next hour. Ares could find a way in. Seth could show up. Aiden could—
“Hey, where’d you go?” Aiden asked softly, holding my cheeks with the tips of his fingers.
When I didn’t answer, he brushed his lips over mine, coaxing them open with infinite patience. He pulled me back into the moment, away from the coldness building in my chest.
He gently tilted my head back. “Stay with me. Okay? Stay with me.”
I curled brittle-feeling fingers into the front of his shirt, grounding myself in the feel of him. His lips touched mine, pushing away the invading numbness. He tilted his head, deepening the kiss and—