I felt him tense behind me, but I didn’t look back. This was his choice. He had to know how poignant this moment was. If he chose to give me those pieces of himself, then...we would never go back to what we’d been.
We’d be friends.
We’d be more.
There’s no going back, Kas.
If you speak to me, I won’t stand a chance against you.
Give me your past, and that’s it. You’ll have a champion in me forever. You’ll never be alone. You’ll be loved and—
“Okay,” he breathed, almost choking on the word. “I’ll try.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
I’D AGREED TO DO something I didn’t know if I had the strength to deliver.
Terror siphoned through me. I didn’t want to hear her first question. I needed time. I needed distance and space, and why the fuck was the night suddenly burning up with connection? Why couldn’t I breathe without her scent flowing into my lungs? Why couldn’t I look at her without my entire body hardening?
It took fucking everything not to give in to the screaming in my heart and take her.
She’s mine.
I wanted so fucking much to believe that, to deserve that.
But if I told her what I was, what I’d done, it would be over.
Panic made my thoughts scramble.
I was right when I’d believed I was schizophrenic.
I was even more sure now.
That was why my mind sought emptiness in brief flashes. Why one moment, I wanted to be vulnerable and open with her, and the next, I wanted to shove her away from me and keep her tied up in the dark.
I couldn’t cope, and all these steps toward boundaries I wasn’t brave enough to cross were pushing me into sporadic forgetfulness.
Fuck, I was weak.
I didn’t want to have such splits in my psyche. I didn’t want to be black and monstrous, craving her cries as they somehow healed mine, all while drowning beneath shyness and curiosity, wanting so fucking much to know her.
To answer her questions and ask so many of my own. To actually want to remember what she told me and imagine a world outside of this valley.
I’d trapped her body, but I hadn’t been allowed access to her mind. And I wanted to. Christ, how I wanted to.
Fear made me snappish, and I placed a none-too-gentle hand on the crown of her head, pushing a little too hard. “Duck under. Get wet.”
She shivered. Her skin reacted with goosebumps. Clear evidence she was as aroused as me—or was it fear? Would she be wet if I dipped my hand between her legs? Did she know how throbbingly hard I was while kneeling behind her?
Maybe it wasn’t just me suffocating in this strange and scary night.
Suffering seemed inevitable at this point. Whenever we were close, we reacted. It didn’t matter if we were fighting or ignoring one another; our bodies didn’t seem to care about our words or worries.
Mine definitely didn’t. All it cared about was Gemma was created from the same molecules as me. Our blood was destined. Our bones were fated. That bond had happened against my control. It’d happened the very fucking moment I’d met her.
It was just the other shit I kept ruining that kept us apart.
She allowed me to push her underwater, drenching her hair and giving me time to choke on an exhale without her hearing how scared I was.
My mind relived our kiss from before.
How I’d slipped my tongue into her mouth and almost collapsed at her feet. I’d kissed countless guests in countless areas, yet I’d never been completely undone by anyone else. She didn’t taste like anything on earth. She was rich and sweet and good. Her kindness had a flavor. Her sweetness had a scent. Everything about her drowned my senses, and I wanted her.
Goddammit, I wanted her.
Don’t drown her then, you fool.
Ripping my hand away from her head, she shot back to the surface, wiping her face free from sheeting water.
Her presence, her trust—it all punched me right in the chest.
Gemma had always affected me. From that very first trespass—I’d vibrated with hunger, hatred, and hope. I’d felt that kick. That belief. That unsurpassable knowledge that she was different.
So why couldn’t I accept that? Why did it scare me so fucking much?
“What’s your favorite food?” she asked softly, ripping my attention to her and making me laugh in a weird, lost kinda way.
“My favorite food? That’s your first question?”
She turned and looked at me, her face absolutely stunning in the dark. Her hair floated on the surface while her body remained submerged. The shadows of fire danced over her cheekbones, the silver of moonlight twinkled over her brow, and the refracting blues of the water made her eyes glow bright with hazel caution.
And fuck me, she looked totally untouchable—a fallen star sent to torment me. The same star that bounced and blazed in my heart.