Page 100 of Falling in Love with A Tiny Bat

That is far more tame a response than I expected. But I’m not complaining. “Is that all?”

“What do you expect me to say?” His eyes meet mine, and his simmer with undefinable things. “Lust?”

I swallow, hard.

The heat mellows. “Sorry. Was that too far?”

“Is it true?”

His stretching silence answers before he wets his lips and looks elsewhere. “I like you, snowflake. Of course I’m feeling all sorts of overwhelming things right now, like this. That doesn’t mean I’ll do a single thing you don’t want me to. I’ve promised. Physically, I can’t disregard consent if I’m to touch you.”

“No such laws protect you from me.”

He chuckles. “You have my heart in your palm, angel. You’d be hard-pressed to find something I don’t consent to.”

“Force feeding you mushrooms.”

“I stand immaculately and swiftly corrected.”

A laugh escapes me. “I thought you’d learned not to underestimate me.”

“As did I.” He presses the backs of his fingers against his mouth. “I might be shutting down. You smell…very good. And…” Red plunges through his cheeks. “…your heartbeat is frantic. I want to hold you. I doubt either of us could handle the sensation. This form holds onto more information than when I’m a bat. It’s harder to regulate so much more space.”

“Sounds annoying. So. I probably shouldn’t touch you, right?”

His eyes widen. His voice cracks. “Please do.”

I flush. “Desperate much?”

“Insatiably.”

My eyes close as I free a sigh. “Roll over.”

“Roll over?”

“I’m going to play with your hair. Unless you don’t want me to?”

He rolls over, putting his long, trailing braid toward me. Along with his broad, bare back.

I focus on the braid. Scooting closer, I undo the tie, watch its magic dissolve between my fingers.

He shudders as I comb the strands out. They are a straight, silken mess of ink, pouring like water in my hands, leaving me to wonder what kind of conditioner he uses. Because,dang.

“I’ve never seen your hair down before,” I murmur. “It’s pretty.”

“I hate it,” he whispers. “It’s so unnecessarily everywhere. All the time.”

“Why don’t you get it cut?”

“Cutting it wouldn’t be a permanent solution. I’d have to keep getting it cut. And I hate how it feels when I cut it… I envy Pollux and Meda. Their shifting abilities allow them to chooseevery detail of their form. I do not have that luxury.”

My wayfaring fingertips diverge from their objective of playing with the pretty dark hair in favor of tracing the line of Alexios’s wing bones, then the bumps of his spine. Several minutes pass before I realize his breaths have hardened and he’s shaking.

I close my fingers off him. “Sorry… Existing seems pretty…painful for you.”

Dismantled, he casts a trembling look over his shoulder. “Don’t worry. This…is not painful.”

Breath catches in my throat.

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