She didn’t understand this. And at the moment, she didn’t want to.
She just lay breathing softly.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
In–
A finger.
His finger, ghosting over her wound.
It wasn’t a light touch. It wasn’t a touch at all. It just was.
Hovering right over her skin, on the precipice of a cliff but never truly falling, a ghost touch, almost tentative, tracing the butterfly bandages with a butterfly stroke she would never have detected had she been anything but intensely conscious of his every move.
Her heart almost stopped, the skin of her entire arm cackling, perspiring, straining.
The ghost touch disappeared, and Morana almost opened her eyes to call it back, when it reappeared over her jaw, light as the air. That ghost finger, never really touching her, pushed back a strand of her hair and exposed the entire line of her throat and naked shoulder to his perusal. She could feel the pulse fluttering at the base of her neck, a drop of sweat beading on her upper lip as that finger ghosted over the line of her jaw, like the way his gun had traced it hours ago.
The memory of that solid, insistent, cold metal, and the reality of the light, barely-there, soft digit sent a bolt of electricity straight to her core. Her entire being strained towards that almost touch. Her entire body was famished to feel it on her flesh. Her brain was tripping slowly, her control over her faculties getting dazed, her lungs starving for a gulp of air she refused to take.
Only instinct, that bothersome thing, told her that he would vanish if she showed any indication of being conscious. And she didn’t want that. Not yet.
This… this was… enlivening her.
The ghost finger traced the shell of her ear.
Her toes almost curled.
It traveled over the terrain of her heated skin, going over the line of her jaw again - and she both cursed and blessed the fact that he didn’t touch her, or her skin would have betrayed her charade. It was like eavesdropping on the most private, most intimate of conversations. Her heart thudding, beating almost too fast for her to keep up with it, she pr
essed her thighs together to find some purchase.
And then, the ghost touch stopped at her lips.
Fragile purchase lost.
Those sensitive, swollen lips, that still bore the mark of his mouth, trembled.
Just minutely, but they did.
Her heart stopped.
Did he feel it?
Still.
Everything inside her stayed still - like a prey scenting a predator.
Everything about him stayed still - like a predator scenting a prey.
But who had been who in the past few minutes?