“Well, it’s fucking awesome.”
His vitality was such a contrast his former pallor that it reminded her all the more of how sick he’d been. How sick he could become again.
She panicked. Obviously this was only going to end terribly. She spun on her heel and walked out of the room, saying over her shoulder, “I’m glad you’re better. I’ll see you later.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
An invisible hand tightened on Warren’s throat as Esha walked out, so there was nothing to do but follow her. Light spilled out of the room that she’d claimed as her own, dim enough that it was likely torchlight.
He stepped up to the cracked door and knocked, though he didn’t wait for an answer before he pushed it open. Esha whirled from where she stood near the tall glass window.
“Is anything wrong?” she asked.
“Nay. I’m fine. Better than I’ve been, well, ever, really. But you doona seem all right.”
“I’m fine. You should go rest. Just to make sure.” She turned back to the window.
Warren was behind her in two s
trides, his hands gently gripping her arms. “Wait. You’ve been acting strangely. Distant ever since the night we kissed.”
“Nothing is wrong. We’re fine.” She looked up at him and nodded encouragingly. “Go rest, Warren.”
But she didn’t pull out of his arms. Just being close to her made his heart speed up. Made something in his mind settle. If he’d had a soul, he’d have said something settled there as well.
She was afraid. He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about how different her life was from his. Similar in that they were both loners. But he’d chosen his lifestyle. She hadn’t. Not from the time she was a child and had been made an outcast at school because of what she was, and not now. He’d at least grown up within his clan, knew what it was like to be part of something.
All she’d known was rejection by the people she thought were her friends and the boy she thought she loved. He hadn’t helped that by being an ass to her for a decade. Though she presented a tough front to the world, one in which she was happy with her life, the reality was bloody depressing. She thought so too, or she wouldn’t be avoiding him after admitting that she knew she was an outcast. He was getting under her shell, figuring out the real Esha she kept hidden from the world, and she didn’t like it.
He turned her around to face him, then reached up and brushed a swath of hair back from her face. Though she scowled, she leaned into his hand almost imperceptibly.
“We’re friends, Esha.”
“I don’t really know how to be around friends. I’ve Ana, but what you and I have is very different.”
“Aye,” he said huskily. “I’d say that what I feel for you is more than friendship.”
She shrugged and looked away. “Sex? Sure. There’s that. I’ve wanted you for ages. Now you finally want me back, and frankly, I’m not entirely sure what to do about it.”
Just sex? Far from it. She was becoming the light in his dark world. The only one who saw who he really was, yet kept coming back. “You’re running.” From me.
“No.” She shook her head sharply.
“Then you’re afraid.”
“Of what?” Her voice challenged him.
“You’re afraid of being close to another person.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Everyone wants to be close to someone. I just don’t want to be close to you.”
“That’s a lie. You’re too clever for lies.”
His gaze ensnared hers until he was all she could see. He was what she wanted, had been for years, and now he wanted her back. And it terrified her. He’d asked her what she was afraid of. She was afraid of him. Of his taking her up to the sun like Icarus’s wings, then dropping her. Which he inevitably would, because someone like him wouldn’t stay with someone like her. They were from two different worlds.
The thought gave her the strength to tear herself from his arms, to stride across the room. But not to leave. She couldn’t bear to, because even though it hurt to be so close and yet so impossibly far from what she wanted, she couldn’t break away. So she walked to the other window to give them space, to see what he would say.
But he didn’t speak. Instead, she felt the heat and hardness of him at her back. One big hand was braced against the glass. So strong, with the scars to prove it, yet so beautiful. She wanted to reach up and touch it. She clenched her fist instead.