Blood of Zeus (Blood of Zeus #1) - Meredith Wild Page 0,15
it for all the color in her eyes. The awareness in her stare has blocked everything from my view except her ink-dark need.
“You think hell is just for the pages of a book when you’re near me?” I ask.
Her touch gentles. Her fingertips are in my beard, seeking contact with the skin beneath. “Hell is something I thought I knew—until you touched me the first time.”
Now she’s done it. Obliterated any hope I had of issuing the denial she dictated. But I’m also just as certain of another truth—and the importance of saying it aloud. Speaking it will make it easier to abide by.
I hope.
“All right.” I untangle my hand from her silky ebony strands. “You’re not wrong. This is definitely something…”
“Something?”
“Different.”
“Okay,” she states with quiet resignation. “Different…” But there’s a question in that repetition too. A demand she’s not about to let me ignore.
“Yes.” I use a beat to ram my thoughts back together before finally gritting out, “And dangerous.”
I disconnect from her touch completely and stride around the podium I rarely use, but I’m damn happy for its bulk in this moment. I start gathering up paperwork, realigning it all fifteen times just for something to keep in my hands. Something besides her succulent curves and soft skin.
“Because you’re my professor?” She lets out a little huff. “I’m not exactly a freshman out of high school. Even when I was, life had taught me some tough lessons already. And I’m pretty sure we’re not the first teacher and student, even here at Alameda, who have—”
“It has nothing to do with that.”
She folds her arms. The sight isn’t one I need right now, since the action pulls down her cotton blouse and exposes her cleavage in all the best—goddammit, worst—ways. Once again, thank fuck for the podium—and how the wood hides my obvious arousal.
“Meaning exactly what?”
“I don’t know.” And that’s the bald truth. “I can only say that I’ve already thought about it more than I care to admit. About…whatever the hell is going on here and what it would be like to tell our invisible Charon to take us to the other side.” I almost laugh at myself. I’m the guy who likes studying poetry, not composing it.
Kara adjusts her weight from one foot to the other. She seems unsure and certain at once. Bold one moment and ready to bolt the next. What I want and what I need are two different matters as well, and I worry it’s the same for her.
“What did that feel like?” She captures her bottom lip beneath her teeth. “Imagining that jump with me?”
I push air out harshly through my nose. “It felt a thousand kinds of wrong.”
But a million kinds of right.
But I clamp that part inside despite the wince across Kara’s face. A pain that’s pure torment to witness. But I can’t elaborate on what I’ve said to her. I can’t explain how I know this to be a truth I can’t cross—only that I do know it, with primal certainty. I’m as certain of it as the fiber of my muscles and the marrow of my bones. She’s gotten to me even in those places. Awakened parts of me that deep…
Besides, Kara’s already got a full plate of psychological crap thanks to her own birthright. The more I look at her family tree, the more I wonder how the woman has remained halfway sane. But my brooding has now given her cause to reattach her mask of surreal—even slightly scary—resignation. Maybe that’s for the best. The more time I spend with Kara Valari, the more I don’t want it to end.
But the more I know that it has to.
“Will that be all, then, Professor? I’m meeting my sister, Kell, at the library to study.” She pops out a hip and cocks her head in challenge.
I lift a skeptical brow. “You know that’s an oxymoron, right? ‘Kell Valari’ and ‘study’ in the same sentence?” The comment, simply meant as my awful way of lightening the mood, accomplishes the opposite. I deserve her glare, to which I respond, “All right, that wasn’t fair. I don’t know Kell—”
“Damn right you don’t,” she levels.
“It’s just staff cafeteria gossip,” I fill in. “They should know better. Hell…” I scrub a hand over my jaw. “I should know better.”
She contemplates my piss-poor apology with an all-too-quick stare. “I’m leaving now,” she announces flatly before pivoting on her stilettoed boots and making her way back to the desk risers.