Page 130 of A Heart of Bluestone

I catch his reflection in the mirror on the opposite wall.

Still, the milky blur clings to my sight, and I am seriously regretting the half-bottle of cheap ass tequila.

“So you can choke on your own sick?”

I watch him in the mirror. Watch how he peels off my socks, then discards them. How the shadows of the dim cigar room flicker over his face, darken the azurite hue of his eyes.

He is beautiful.

The pout of a full, lovely mouth, the tip of his nose, the warmth of his complexion, lashes I want to rip off his face and stick onto my own, and that chiselled cut just above his jawline, the one that darkens each time he clenches his jaw.

So beautiful.

But so, so ugly in the ways that matter.

Pretty packaging for a rotten soul.

Dray tugs the fleece blanket off the arm of the couch.

And since I found him in the mirror, he hasn’t looked away from me. Every movement, every action, he watches me,intently.

The simmer of his gaze is as heated as the hearth.

He drapes the second blanket over my legs with one hand. The other still pins, however loosely, my ankles to his lap.

My lashes lower. Not all the way closed, but it’s a fight to keep them open. I blink my weary gaze on the mirror.

Dray slouches against the arm of the couch, settled in, watching me. A frown comes and goes on his face, sometimes it’s a pinch of his brow, other times it’s a faint twist to his mouth.

His thoughts are spiralling, and I don’t where to.

I do know that his hands have slid from my ankles to my bare feet on his lap. The flesh must be cold to the touch, because he holds them, warms them with the heat of his palms. That explains the second blanket he pulled over me. The freezing temperature of the maze must have had an icier effect than I knew, than the tequila let me realise.

My lashes lower further.

I cling onto consciousness.

After a long beat of silence, Dray catches me off guard. His voice is a low murmur, tired and uncertain, “Do you like Eric Harling?”

I whisper, “No.”

Tonight, do I like Eric?

No. Not so much.

If I did, I wouldn’t tell Dray anything about it.

Either way, that answer was going to be a firm no, however drenched in fatigue.

I frown at the mirror. “Why?”

His head is lowered. Sawdust hair falls into his face. His gaze is lifted, burning from beneath long, dark lashes.

He considers me.

“Seemed you liked him on the old football pitch.” He shrugs nonchalantly, but there’s nothing casual in the burning blue of his eyes, like sapphire flames. “I was surprised at your… familiarity.”

There it is.

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