In Flames - Elise Faber Page 0,25

thighs clench around him.

“Hmm.” His tongue flicked out, tasting her, raising gooseflesh on her arms. “You sure?”

“Yup.” Although even she could admit that it wasn’t spoken steadily.

A pause.

Then she found herself off his lap, tucked against his side.

“I—” she said, fully aware that it wasn’t the most intelligent of responses, even as she blinked at the speed with which he’d moved her. It probably should be annoying, as she’d never enjoyed people taking advantage of the fact that she was rather pocket-sized, but instead she found herself impressed by the way he moved. Graceful and rapid, barely jostling her in the process.

One second on top of him, the next at his side.

“You what?” he asked, resting his chin on her head.

She didn’t know what he was talking about, nor even what she’d been thinking. She was a whole lot turned on and a whole lot tired, and suddenly she was starting to feel overwhelmed again.

Or maybe less overwhelmed and more sexually frustrated, or maybe she was—

Graham sighed. “I’m sensing a trend here.”

Her brows drew together.

“Your brain.” He lightly tapped her temple. “Tornado.”

“That’s not—”

“It is,” he interrupted. “But that’s one of the things I’ve always admired about you, Suz. You’re smart and capable and even though sometimes you have the bedside manner of Nurse Ratched—”

“Hey!”

“You’re still brilliant,” he said. “And while I thought that staying away from you was the right thing, especially since I’m old and decrepit”—he smiled down at her, a smirk that demonstrated quite easily how he was leaps and bounds away from being old and/or decrepit—“but I’ve decided,” he finished.

Just I’ve decided.

“What does that mean?” she asked.

A shrug. “I think the bond knew you needed me, even when neither of us recognized it.”

The words were nice . . . kind of. Because she didn’t like the idea of needing anyone, least of all this man who’d ignored her for so long—even if he were trying to chalk it up to doing right by her.

“Ah,” she said.

“Suz?”

She felt his brain probing hers, a light tickle in the back of her mind, but she quickly side-stepped that presence, turning her focus to the trees.

Anything had to be better than the creeping feeling in her stomach.

The one that said she both couldn’t be vulnerable, and also that Graham was just trying to make the best of a tricky situation—read: he didn’t want to lose his magic, more so than he was interested in her. Both made her feel sick inside, and frankly, both made her feel pathetic. She should be taking a page from his book, lifting her chin and accepting her fate and finding a way forward.

But . . . she couldn’t quite shrug it off.

Not when—

“Is Earth magic your specialty?” she blurted, desperate to turn away from her thoughts. She wasn’t this uncertain, drifting creature. She was focused, and once she set her mind to something, she got her shit done.

He nodded but didn’t give any indication about that tornado in her brain. Heaven help her, but it hadn’t gone away. If anything, it was growing, spinning closer.

“It’s always been really easy to grow things,” he said. “What’s yours?”

All Rengalla first learned their magic through the elements—each having an affinity for either fire, water, earth, or air. Earth specialists tended toward the greener aspects—florists, gardeners, landscape art, even though all Rengalla could couple their skills with secondary specialties, such as Suz’s profession of healing.

“Water,” she murmured. “I was forever overwatering the trees your kind were growing.” She stifled a sigh, forced herself to keep her tone light. “You were probably cursing me every day of the week.”

“I probably would have been,” he said, “but I never had much patience for the landscape arts. As soon as I could, I went into defensive magic.”

“Oh.”

That was strange. Most Rengalla stayed in their vein of specialty for at least a little while.

Even her healing magic was derived from her affinity to water. She used the liquid between cells and inside cells, the various fluids in the body to focus in on the injuries she was healing.

“But it’s not all growing plants,” she said with a frown. “Those with earth magic built the Colony and they . . .” She trailed off, trying to recall something the earth crew did that wasn’t related to plants or lumber or growing something. They tended the food the Rengalla ate, created the outdoor spaces, grew the trees they harvested for furniture. They even helped put together the electronic components—though oftentimes, the Rengalla just went out