Page 39 of The Discovered
“Terrible. Worst sex I’ve ever had. Now that we tried and failed, we can go back to being reluctant friends.” Despite the smile I had when I said it, his jaw tensed and his hold on me slackened.
He narrowed his eyes. “That’s not funny.”
I laughed, but I couldn’t ignore that his tone gave me a bit of a chill. “Oh stop,” I said. “I just didn’t want how I truly felt about it to go to your head.”
He brushed some of my hair behind my ear. “Too late.” He smiled back, his features softening. “It certainly sounded like you enjoyed it. Or you’re a fantastic actress.”
I gawked, feigning great offense. He caught my wrist and lifted my hand to plant a kiss on my knuckles. We stared at each other for a moment, and I had the familiar desire to read him. Part of me was glad I couldn’t, though, because I knew deep down that I’d often used my gift as a crutch to avoid true intimacy. As scary as it was, this was my firstrealrelationship with someone without all of my usual tricks. I actually had to trust that the parts Daelon showed me were genuine and that whatever he hid wouldn’t change how I felt. I had to take the plunge and hope he was going to save me from drowning.
“Can we just pretend we’re normal tonight?”
He feigned shock. “Are you calling me abnormal?”
“Well, yes. But I mean… human normal.”
“Well that just sounds boring.”
I sighed. “Fair. But you know what I mean.”
“Yes, I do.”
A sadness crept into his eyes, and I somehow knew he was thinking about the dark and the cold—all of the things he so desperately wanted to shield me from. That was the sadness I wanted to avoid, at least for this one night.
“I’m in, although I don’t pretend to understand what drives humans. Especially not their preoccupation with currency and fame.”
“Kind of an oversimplification, but I guess that’s one way of putting it,” I laughed. “What are witches preoccupied with then?”
Daelon thought for a moment. “Currently, power. And pleasure.”
“That doesn’t sound much more evolved,” I scoffed. “It doesn’t sound like we’re all that different.”
He wrinkled his nose like the notion was preposterous. “We used to be much more evolved thanhumans, trust me. I guess not so much anymore.” Something uncertain flashed in his eyes. “Some of us still are.”
“As are some humans.”
“Touché,” he said. I could tell he was already moving back behind some of his walls, shielding me from the truths he’d decided I wasn’t ready for. “Want to take a shower?”
I wanted to probe further, but his spell was still in full swing, and I said I wanted to feign normalcy tonight. So, I found myself holding back and following Daelon, questions and doubts be damned.
We stood in a massive walk-in shower against a rustic stone wall. Showering with Daelon was somehow more intimate than actual sex. He couldn’t keep his hands off me, for starters. It was like he thought I might disappear, at any moment, if there was any space between us. I wasn’t going to complain. Especially not after he insisted on washing my hair, lathering silky shampoo through its length and massaging my scalp more expertly than any hairstylist. He kissed my neck when he was finished and turned me back to face him.
Next, he ran soap across my skin, his fingers delicately trailing across my body’s curves and contours in a dedicated silence. His touch was an act of devotion, like he was tending to a priceless piece of art. The intensity of his gaze when he refocused back to my eyes sent my ability to speak away once more.
“I want to do you now,” I said when I finally found my voice. I reached for the soap.
“And I want to give you everything you want.”
Our eyes locked, and I couldn’t help but smile. I didn’t know what to say. So, I started to touch him instead. I moved my fingers along his body, appreciating the curve of his defined muscles, the firmness of his form. The parts of him that were smooth and the parts that were rough. There was a scar on his back, white and raised like the mark of a surgical incision.
“What happened here?” I asked, smoothing my fingers over the mark.
“Sparring accident.”
“Sparring?” I giggled. “Like with swords?” So much for normalcy. Daelon stiffened. I didn’t think he was very amused, so I dropped it and continued my admiration of his body.
After I finished, he pulled me in for a kiss under the warm water. His hands held my waist, and it almost felt like drowning as I ran out of oxygen with his lips thirstily moving against mine.
He pulled back. “Let’s go make dinner. You need to eat.”
