The Serpent in the Stone - By Nicki Greenwood Page 0,34
need to touch him, she dropped the book.
It fell on his foot. “Ow!” He lurched backward.
“Sorry!”
He gave her a rueful, sidelong look and sat down on his cot. “Was that a hint?”
She blushed, still feeling the tingle of his mouth on hers. “No.”
“Good.” He grabbed her by the hand and pulled her down onto his lap for another scorching kiss. His mouth left hers to skim along her jawline. She gasped, feeling him nip at the tender skin just under her ear, and splayed her hands across his back to trace the ridges of his shoulder blades under the taut muscle.
In one fluid motion, he raised her arms and pulled her sweatshirt off over her head, then tossed it to the floor. His hands settled on her waist, burning hot through the thin fabric of her bathing suit. He bent his head to her throat and rained feather kisses there. It felt so good...
Too good. The last time she’d been like this with anyone... Had it really been so long?
Oh, God, how embarrassing.
She felt the weight of the amulet lift from her chest as he pushed it aside. Realizing where his trail of kisses was leading, she stiffened.
He stopped at once and raised his head. “What?”
Words stuck in her throat and she closed her eyes, trying to blot out humiliating memories. She hugged herself in dismay. Why was it still so hard?
His hands came to rest on her arms, urging them out of their protective embrace. “Don’t you want this?”
Oh, how she wanted it. There was no measurement for how she wanted it. She hesitated, trying to put the awkwardness into words, but he was so close, still touching her, confusing her. Had she spent the last couple decades buried in work just to avoid this? “You wouldn’t...”
“Understand?” His hands slid down to grasp hers. “Try me.”
Her cheeks burned even as she forced the embarrassment down. “I haven’t... Not since I was sixteen.”
When she stole a look at him, his expression hadn’t changed. He waited for her to continue.
“He was popular, good-looking, all of that. I thought he really liked me. We... Things didn’t go well the next day. I feel like such an idiot.” She tugged one of her hands out of Ian’s to rub at the back of her neck. “He spread it all over school. A couple of his swim team friends followed me around for the rest of the year, asking if I’d help them with their workouts. I never faced him about it, because I was afraid to get any closer to him, because then he’d find out about my powers, and make everything worse—”
Ian stopped her with a finger over her lips. “Kyle Wagner?”
“Oh, God.” She shot up. Bad enough that she’d spent the rest of her school years trying to live down the undeserved reputation Kyle had put on her...the attention from which had made it all the harder to hide her gifts.
Worse, that the man now kissing her and doing such mind-exploding things to her—and she still wanted it—had heard the gossip.
Ian stood, too. “Don’t even think about him. He doesn’t have a right to be in there,” he said, touching her temple.
The gesture was so close to a caress that she arched backward in surprise. “What do you know about him?”
“I know he was a punk, and he ought to have been castrated. He and his little cronies had a bet going on girls. One of them did the same thing to a friend of mine.” He touched a finger to the scar over his eyebrow. “That’s how I got this. And as for your...” He sighed. “As for what you are, he never found out, did he?”
She shook her head, studying him. “I could have used a friend like you.”
As soon as the words were out, she pulled away. She picked up the wildlife book from the floor. “Can I borrow this?”
“Sure.”
She moved toward the door.
Ian bent and scooped her sweatshirt off the floor. “Sara…why don’t you stick around for dinner?”
She smiled. “Okay.”
****
Ian enjoyed Sara’s company, which wasn’t very surprising in itself. The surprise was how much he enjoyed it. They had talked about their jobs with companionable enthusiasm, and now the sun dipped lower and lower in the sky. “Pass the coffee, would you?” he asked as they finished dinner.
She handed over the pot, and he poured himself a fresh cup. He sniffed it and took a sip, rolled it critically around his tongue, then swallowed.