Page 79 of Under a Wicked Moon
Don’t look at her lips. Don’t look at her eyes. Look away.
The desire he knew he’d find there would be his undoing.
He took a deep breath and willed himself to stare at the pile of crowns she’d arranged on the small rock. His fist opened and closed at his side as the temptation grew to reach out and touch her.
“Anyway,” she continued. “I dream about a man every night.”
“What?” Anger he recognized as jealousy streaked through his mind, lighting him on fire to erase all men other than him. Now he was going to kiss her. Screw concerns. Was it the Simon character they planned to find tomorrow that she dreamed of?
“Who?” He barely choked it out beyond the fury gripping him.
“I’ve never seen him. I hear him. He saysyou’re safeand then I know I am. Then I relax.”
That’s me.
She said, “I want so much to remember something…anything. Maybe him. I have moments when I fall apart. But then his voice comes back to me. It levels me.”
He didn’t know how to react. So he stood there frozen and unsure.
She watched him closely, curiously.
She knew the voice was his. This was a test.
She wove her hair into a messy bun, securing it with a hairband that’d been around her wrist, and stood. “I’m sorry. Sounds crazy. I know.”
Of course she’d misinterpreted his silence. He grabbed her wrist before she spun away. Knowing but not caring that it was a bad idea to touch her, he pushed a few stray hairs behind one of her ears. She dreamed of him.Him. She hadn’t forgotten everything. That meant more than he could get into words.
He wanted to try to say something to convey that. “Don’t apologize. You took a brave step, braver than even I think I could’ve done to erase everything from your head. Makes sense your brain would cling to what it considered important.”
“Was it important?” Her voice dropped to an almost inaudible whisper. “Are you important?”
“Not anymore.”
Her eyes fluttered down, and pursed her lips. “You’re hard to read. I can get something from everyone else. As in, I can get a complete something to help me understand them, but fromyou…I can’t tell what you’re thinking.”
“That’s not a bad thing. Sometimes you have to go with your gut about a person. Like me about you. I trust you even with amnesia.”
“Because of the will-o’-the-wisps? Or something else?”
“You’re the first person I’ve ever met who they’ve spoken to other than me.” An ache made him reach out to rub his thumb over her lip to calm her. He’d liked how tough, even ballsy, the old her had been, but he also liked this vulnerable new her.
Her chest rose and fell with each breath, the fabric of her shirt stretching beneath the jacket over her breasts. How he wanted to rip it off to rub his scruff across the smooth skin to mark her. Claim her.She’s mine.
He shouldn’t have touched her at all. He shouldn’t be out here, alone, in the most magical of places in the world where anything could happen. The magic here was raw, wild, and beautiful, like her. She belonged here. Now he understood why her parents chose to live in this part of the world.
Silence stretched between them as she stared at him. He realized he was rubbing his finger in circles along the top of her hand. Small circles over the smooth skin. The touch breathed life into him. It soothed him in parts that had felt as if they died when he let her go.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
He slipped his hand away to run it through his hair. “Nothing. We’re doing nothing. We should go,” he said gruffly. “This was a bad idea.”
“Escorting me was a bad idea?” She crossed her arms. Her voice sounded hurt.
“I shouldn’t have come out here at all. You and I together alone was a miscalculation on my part.”
“Why? Because there is something from the past?” Her eyes narrowed. “You feel it, too, don’t you? This connection.”
I want to do everything with you out here. But I’ll get you killed if I get attached, if my handler realizes I’m attached to you or anyone.
