Page 60 of Creatures that Breathe

“Diabolical.” I’m breathless. Flirting with the male whose single blow could pulverize me. He’s stone against me, six and a half feet of rake-me-over-coals-in-a-thumb-war as he lifts my chin, exposing me to those swirling, inverse galaxies.

Whatever he’s about to say will wreck this. I can see it in the slight dip in the corner of his mouth, the faded amusement in his eyes.

And I’m tired of it, of talking about death and gifts.

Of feeling weak and exhausted.

I want to stay here, in this stifling bathroom with this intense male, with the floor of black smoke, and flickering lights that follow him.

I peek up at him from beneath heavy lashes, memorizing the concern in his gaze. It’s intoxicating, being cared for and listened to. It gives me ideas, like pushing up into him and licking Baltic salt off his throat. Like dragging him to me and asking for everything.

“I found you in Rome,” I say.

His bruised lip drops. His eyes narrow, his palm pasting itself to my hip to pin me in place. “No.”

“Yes. Outside the Basilica.” It’d been after midnight. Broke from dumping a Plutonian number of coins in the Trevi, suffering aftershocks of a stracciatella brain freeze, I’d been footing it back to the hostel when I caught something different from the corner of my eye. An ink spot splashed on ancient stone. “I recognized you immediately.”

Processing, he unfolds to his full height, knee slipping to press in between my thighs, slotting us closer, movement as natural as gravity.

Cross laughs then. A marvelously throaty laugh that wracks his shoulders until he winces, prickles every inch of my skin.

“You,” he says, amazed. His forehead touches mine. I inhale him. Clean. Dusting of sea and orange peel. “You were in Rome. You found me in Rome. And then you found me in Tallinn.”

He’s in awe. I’m light as air. “No. I followed you to Tallinn. Needed that favor, didn’t I?”

I watch his throat work against the brutal black band. A mini-revolt. And then he suddenly lifts me, hot hands sliding under my bottom to arch me. I stifle a gasp, bending somewhat helplessly as he presses into me, nose scraping my collarbone through my shirt and inhaling shamelessly.

“What do you want from me, Leni?” His words rumble over my skin, stones tumbling down a cliff, building speed. “I’ll give it, if you give me the truth. I’ll do anything you ask. No manipulating, no ten steps ahead. Just tell me, point blank.”

The truth will get me killed, so instead I offer, “I already told you.”

His knee brushes my inner thigh, his mouth hovers above mine. “You took it back.”

“I’m doing it again.”

“No.” He sounds pained. The black of his pupils destroy my favorite view. “No,” he repeats, grip hardening on my hip. “Nobody wants me. Nobody remembers me. Nobody…” he trails off, fixated on my mouth. “But you, you’ve been following me for weeks.” His fingers sifts into my hair, curls around my nape, tilts me up. “You found me.”

“Yes,” I whisper.

“How?”

I lick my lips, gather boiling hot air into my lungs. “The impossible becomes possible when you’re desperate. I want you, Cross. For the first time in my life, I have the privilege of making a choice. This is me making it.”

Can he see how badly I mean it? How terrified I am of rejection? How this is the last move I have on my board before I’m boxed in.

“I found you,” I murmur, just to see his face glaze with desire and stir the liquid warmth low in my belly. “I found you and I think I deserve a prize.”

“Leni,” he says, like, quit torturing me.

My thighs close around his knee. I can almost taste him. I want to taste him. “Cross,” I fire back, like, do something about it.

His eyes shut. He exhales. “What was your nightmare about?”

If he feels me go rigid, he doesn’t react, keeps holding me just as close, as tight.

“At least tell me what triggered it,” he relents.

I push lightly on his chest, and he releases me easily, steps back. I blink against the sudden glare of the light. I owe him an answer for rescuing me or cheering me up. Both. “The bed triggered it.”

---