Page 55 of Research with Rivals
My veil cat chose that moment to perk up. If I were in my animal form, my tail would be ticking back and forth, keeping time. Ambrose’s hand flexed at his side before he balled it into a tight fist. And finally, I understood what was happening.
He was fighting his wolf. I hadn’t seen it from this side, but the tension in his body was so obviously an attempt to control. Itsurprised me that this—the shared room, the shared bed—set off his wolf. Hadn’t he said he rarely lost control anymore? Was he so affected by the idea of a room shared with me?
I couldn’t help but consider how my veil cat reacted to Ambrose.The animal is never wrong.Fine. I knew deep down it wasn’t only my veil cat’s reaction. Her goal was to be near him; she found peace with him—comfort—and I acknowledged that, lately, I did, too.
If he experienced something similar, we needed a topic to de-escalate this tension in the air between us.
My mind served up the perfect idea on a silver platter: Research. No one got into confusing, sexually charged situations while talking about research. Right?
I charged forward before I could mentally contradict myself.
“When I shifted today. When you … touched my chest…” My cheeks heated. This was not headed in the direction I’d intended. The words got away from me, like they were two steps ahead, and I was jogging to reach them before the next ones slipped out.
Ambrose’s spine straightened, and his knuckles turned white as he clenched his fists at his side.
I cleared my throat and tried again. “When you touched me, when you were explaining the shifting magic, my fire magic flared as if it knew what you were trying to tell me.”
His head tilted, and he seemed to inspect both me and the bed, probably trying to understand how this story connected to our current predicament.
It didn’t, but Ambrose was sharp. He’d catch up eventually.
“I’m sorry. I thought it was only me.” Ambrose cleared his throat. “It must be an effect of the blood magic connecting us, something our skin-to-skin contact sets off.”
I shook my head. “That’s not…”
Wait. Did that mean his magic flared when he pressed his palm against me in the woods? I set that piece of information aside to obsess over later.
My mind had wandered again. Ambrose waited for me to continue. “That’s not what I meant to imply,” I said. “It was good that you touched me.”
His eyes widened.
Belatedly, I heard the words, but it was too late to take them back. I’d said what I said. As with our attempt to break the magic connecting us, the only way out was through. “When my fire magic flared, it flared toward you. It was almost like…” Here I was somewhat exploring the feeling verbally. I hadn’t tried to describe it to myself, so I wasn’t sure what words to use. It had been strong, something solid that wouldn’t break, like Ambrose. It had also been flexible, fitting the shape we required. “It was like a rope … of fire, leading toward you.”
I didn’t think he was breathing. “A rope,” he repeated.
“Yes. Have you felt it?” I asked. Really, I just wanted to hear him speak a complete sentence.
He shook his head. “It has to be the magic connecting us … What Lord Arctos described.” His hands were in his hair again. “I’m so sorry, Evelyn. I don’t know why it’s presenting that way for you. The last thing I could have possibly wanted was for—” He straightened his spine and cut himself off. “We’ll get rid of it. I’ll put my entire focus on it.”
I stepped into his space to halt his hands from further tousling his hair. It had fallen in a perfect swoop across his forehead. I liked it just the way it was.
When I looked up, I realized how close we were. I held both of his wrists in place, and mere inches separated us. I craned my neck to meet his hazel eyes. The gold ring around his pupils had receded to its usual size, but the flecks hidden in the green came alive in the lamplight.
“You’re missing my point,” I said. “I was sharing this because I think it’s an interesting development for our research. There was a physicality to the magic. Maybe with time, you’ll feel it, too. Either way, the more tactile the magic is, the more possible it is to break.”
A breath swept from his lips on a heavy exhale. His relief was palpable. His breath skimmed the top of my head, reminding me once again of our proximity and how much space he took up in this small room.
“I have no doubt you’ll understand it better soon,” he said.
I didn’t have to look up at him to imagine the way his lip curled into that almost-smile. I did anyway. When I had seen this one previously, I assumed it was a condescending smile, one that said,You’re trying, and I can’t bring myself to tell you all the ways that you’re wrong.
Maybe this was the work of the magic, but my time spent with Ambrose had made me realize that wasn’t quite right. This was the smile he gave me when I mouthed off to Lord Arctos. Or when I came up with a new lead on a project, even when Landon told me it would never work. If I was willing to admit how long I had cataloged Ambrose’s smiles, I might also have said it was the first one he gave me, the one in the Records Office when I’d told him which books he needed without being asked. With what I knew now, I wondered if this smile said something closer to,You’re amazing, and I can’t quite bring myself to tell you.
We’d been staring at each other for too long. If I had hoped to use talk about research to diffuse the weighty feeling in the room that pulled us together like a gravitational force, I’d failed miserably. I still held his wrist in place, and I found my fingers outside of my control as they slowly crept up his arm, pausing to fan out around the breadth of his biceps.
Seriously, does he do a thousand curls a day with the books in the Great Room?
His eyes tracked the movement of my hand. The gold in his irises thickened again, but this time, he didn’t look tense—he looked focused. I moved slowly, giving him plenty of time to get away. But the way his eyes tracked me, I wondered who was the predator and who was the prey.
