Page 96 of The Last One
“Better?” he asks.
“Umhmm.” I give him a lazy smile. “Tell me…”
“About?”
“Why you’re covering the tattoo on your hand. You saw mine. Now I wanna see yours. All of it.”
He holds my gaze. “Some of us aren’t fortunate to have ink as intriguing as yours.”
“Let me see it up close and I’ll make that decision.”
He doesn’t move.
“I said, I wanna see it,” I slur, my tongue thick in my mouth, the tea still working through my blood, healing me, pushing me. “You’re gonna make me beg?”
He stares at me a moment more, then offers me his hand.
“Take off the bandage, please.”
He obeys and unwraps the cloth. The tattoo covers the top of his hand. Green ink, red ink, black, yellow, blue, creating a hand with fingers outstretched. One fingertip a flame. Another fingertip, ice. Water. Cracked earth. Darkness. In the center of his inked hand, there’s a large circle filled with a smaller circle, and then a smaller circle inside that circle until the final circle is a simple dot, with rings that ripple after a single drop of water disturbs the pool.
I trace my finger along that biggest circle.
Jadon closes his eyes.
My finger trails over to fire…ice…
“You should probably stop,” he says, his eyebrows high, his eyes still closed.
“You really want me to stop touching you?” My throat is tight, but not from Miasma.
“Oh, I want you to touch me.” He bites his lip. “I just want you to stop looking at my ugly tattoo.”
My finger trails from his hand to his wrist. “Where do you want me to look, then?”
His eyes open and pin me again like a rare moth. “I have another one. A nicer one.”
I quirk an eyebrow. “Ooh.”
He nods. “Yeah.”
“Where?”
“Here.” He places his hand atop mine and leads it to the center of his chest. His heart pulses beneath my palm, and I splay my fingers to take possession of his life-beat.
“What are you waiting for?” I say, my arm aching, all of me burning.
He pulls my hand to his lips and kisses the tips of my fingers.
I gasp, then whisper, “You want me to touch you somewhere else first?”
He studies me and holds his breath as I trail my fingers down his chest. He squeezes my hand before it can travel any farther, his bright-blue eyes darkening to bottom-of-the-sea blue. “Kai.” He says my name low, the same way he said my name that first time.
Flames lick across my skin as I lean closer, my gaze sliding from his eyes to his lips.
He whispers, “We can’t do this.”
“Hmm?” We are so close, just a breath away from touching, but I will not wait for that breath, and I pull closer to him and…
