Page 32 of Gothikana

Corvina looked up at him, her hand coming up on its own to touch his mouth like he’d touched hers in the library. His eyes flared, his arms bulging as he locked himself in place. His lips were soft, full as she traced them with her fingers, their eyes never moving off one another.Her pulse fluttered in her neck, her nipples hardening against the fabric of her gown.

The breeze gentled around her, the moon hiding behind clouds as though giving her the privacy, the secrecy, the courage she needed. Lifting herself slightly from the rock to elevate her body, stretching her neck, Corvina raised herself and pressed her lips to her fingers over his mouth, their noses touching as she tilted her head and removed her hand, leaving that last inch of space between them.

‘If this is madness,’ she whispered almost against his lips, ‘drown me in it.’

‘Jesus fuck.’ The expletive left his mouth right before he closed the distance, crashing his lips over hers. Tingles spread out from the point of contact, radiating over her body, making her legs too weak to hold her weight. She gripped his sweater with her hands, fisting them to hold her body in place as their lips stayed locked. He pulled back slightly, still leaning over her, his arms braced on the rock on either side.

‘If this is madness,’ he told her, echoing her words against her lips, ‘I’ve already descended too far.’

His mouth came over hers again, this time with the weight of his large palm at her lower back, holding both their weights with one hand anchored on the rock. He opened his lips slightly, and she imitated under the delicious pressure, her hands fisting the fabric of his sweater as their tongues connected, glided, melded together. He tasted of smoke and coffee and something rich, forbidden, dark. It made something warm and tight flutter in her belly, low and deep and liquid.

Their breathing grew ragged as she tugged him down harder, stretching as much as she could in the position to get as close to him as possible. Her breasts felt heavy, her nipples aching with a pain only touch could satisfy. She wanted those skilful, beautiful hands to touch them, hold them, play them, and set her afire. She wanted this deviant mouth that kissed her like she was his feast after relentless gnawing hunger to kiss her in places no one had. She wanted, shewanted,to the marrow of her bones, oh how she wanted him, without truly knowing him, not knowing who he was or where he came from. It was madness. The molecules in her body recognised the molecules in his, the madness in her blood recognised the madness in his, the melancholy in her soul recognised the melancholy in his.

They kissed, and kissed, and kissed, spinning in a kaleidoscope of sensations. She kissed the intrigue on his lips, the mysteries on his mouth, the secrets on his tongue. She kissed deeper, going to the darkness in his marrow and the enigma in his blood as he held her in place, probing and prying into her soul, dissecting her open and examining everything she was inside. It wasn’t the first kiss she’d ever expected to have, but now she couldn’t imagine another, his entirety branded upon her in that moment.

She felt a noise leave her throat, a noise that made him pause and pull back, the warm muscles of his chest heaving under her fists. They looked at each other for long moments, both of them getting their hearts under control before she saw his eyes flicker over hers, an expression shift over his face, his eyes moving to the side.

Regret.

He regretted kissing her.

Something warm, a different kind of warm, flushed through her body, an emotion she’d not felt enough to recognise. She just knew she didn’t want to see the regret on his face. In fact, as he pulled back, she wanted to wipe the wanton way she had kissed him from his mind and never see him again.

Throat tightening, Corvina put a deliberate smile on her face, letting go of his sweater and sitting back down on the rock, collecting the cards that had fallen in the folds of her nightgown. ‘You don’t have to worry. It wasn’t serious. I have no expectations of this ever happening again.’

He studied her for a long minute, the line of his jaw hard as he clenched his teeth, his mouth still wet from her lips. ‘You should go back.’

Corvina tucked her hair behind her ears, still flushed, her nose twitching, and broke their gazes. ‘I’ll see you in class, Mr Deverell.’ If the earth didn’t swallow her whole, that was.

With that, she bent down to gather all the cards that had fallen down, her lips still tingling but her will determined to ignore it, aware of him going back to the piano. She didn’t know if he was going to stay the night but she had to leave, and possibly never be alone with him again, not if she wanted to avoid the embarrassment of kissing a man for the first time and having him regret it immediately. As first kisses went, ithad been… extraordinary, right until the end. Her second would be better, she was certain. Hopefully with someone who wouldn’t regret it.

As she went to collect the last of the cards, her hand froze.

Three cards lay face up on the ground, the only three cards to be that way.

The Devil, The Lovers, and The Tower.

The same cards her mother had pulled in her nightmare.

CHAPTER 10

Corvina

She managed toavoid him for the next few weeks.

She tried. He absolutely did not.

She had stopped going to the ruins and started escaping to the library, curling up with her studies or a good book or her journal, simply spending time hidden away in the beautiful dungeon with coffee and books, and Mrs Suki, the librarian, for company. And almost every time, he had been there in one of the armchairs with lion heads carved into them, wearing glasses and doing some work of his own. She spent time with her friends, and somehow he was somewhere in the vicinity, crossing over, walking around, or just watching from a window. She loved and hated his attention in equal measure.

Jade and Erica, although very different from her, had become her friends. Jade had started hooking up with Troy again so the boys had begun to hang out with them more and more. Corvina didn’t mind, especially Troy. He was what she imagined brothers could be like — occasionally irritating, fiercely protective, and mostly nice. She was more restrained around Ethan and Jax, even though they brought a nice energy to the whole group. She was still the quiet one, but she had begun to trust them enough to relax slightly around them.

Jax especially had become interested in her from what Erica said, but she liked that he never pushed. He respected that she wasn’t into him and didn’t make it awkward, and she appreciated that about him. And the silver-eyed devil noticed it all. He was the one she was very, very into, and she shouldn’t have been, not after the weeks that went by, not after that disastrous look of regret on his face after their kiss. Thankfully, she was good at pretending all was as usual.

She never looked at him in class and he never singled her out, even though she felt his eyes on her. She saw him in the dining room and around campus, and she walked away in the other direction, ditching her attempts to pretend she wasn’t avoiding him, even though she secretly caught a glimpse of his darkly beautiful form sometimes.

She also ignored the pang she felt at never hearing the sound of the music drifting to her from the tower again. She didn’t know if he simply stopped playing that particular piano and spent his night repairing the one in the ruins, or if he was avoiding her tower, but she missed the music.

Shaking herself out of her thoughts, she entered the admin wing for the first time since getting her books that first week months ago. The weather had gotten considerably colder over the weeks, enough for her to begin wearing her thigh-high boots for warmth under her woollen skirt. Troy had told her it would stay cold for a few weeks before it got warmer again.

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