Chapter 5 Hangry #2
And I’m lying here wondering what it would feel like if he touched me on purpose.
Finally, I can’t stand it any longer.
“Hey,” I whisper, then flinch at how loud it sounds, my voice shattering the silence. “Are you awake?”
“Yes,” he whispers back, which is kind of silly since it’s just the two of us in the room, but I’m glad he’s being quiet. Soft. There’s something delicate here, wavering between us, that I don’t want to break.
I wonder if he feels it too.
“I can’t sleep,” I tell him.
“Me either.”
For a second, nothing happens.
Then—
I don’t know who starts it. It’s like we’re both moving at once.
Our hands on the pillows, moving them one by one.
The wall between us comes down. The room is still mostly dark, only a bit of late afternoon light filtering in through the sides of the curtains.
Enough that I can see the way his eyes gleam as he rolls onto his side to face me.
There’s a flash of light in them, like a reflection.
The way a cat’s eyes glow when you shine a flashlight on them.
A reminder that he’s not of this world.
That honestly should scare me a lot more than it does.
“Why can’t you rest?” he asks, staring at me intently.
Because I can’t stop thinking about having sex with you, my mind helpfully supplies.
“I just have a lot of questions,” is what my mouth says instead.
“Ask,” he says, like it’s that simple.
I swallow, suddenly nervous. “You mentioned a bond? Marking? I don’t really understand what it all means.”
He moves onto his back and stares at the ceiling. His quiet lasts so long I start to wonder if he’s going to answer. “It’s not something to burden yourself with,” he finally says, his voice low. “I know you didn’t choose it.”
“Choose what, exactly?” I ask, wishing he’d turn back so I could read his expression better. He’s hiding from me, which only makes me more anxious.
“My world is different than yours,” he starts.
“Well, yeah, duh.” I roll my eyes, then flinch, worrying he’ll mistake sarcasm for being cruel. It’s happened before. In the past, I’ve had people, boyfriends, take offense when I didn’t mean it that way.
Instead, he laughs, a dark husky chuckle that slips through the dark and brushes over my body like fingertips. That sound alone quickens my pulse, sets off dangerous reactions inside my body. Heat blooms beneath my skin in a way that feels suspiciously like anticipation.
Sorren’s head whips my way, and his nostrils flare.
“Sorry,” I say quickly, warmth on my cheeks. Mostly for the sarcasm. But also for…whatever that was. The way my body reacted to the sound of his laugh.
I don’t know if he would want that. He’s shown hardly any interest beyond the bite.
“Different how?” I prod, forcing my voice steady. “Your world?”
His gaze lingers on me before he looks away.
“In my land, we have a mate that’s determined before we’re born. We are taught that the great Eldryn chooses for us—”
“Eldryn is like your version of God, right?” I interrupt.
“Yes. You have many names for the same idea. God. Buddha. Allah. A being who sees all and knows all. Who you can talk to but doesn’t speak back.” He shifts, settles deeper into the mattress, his face still directed at the space above him.
“Whatever force you believe guides the world,” he continues. A minute like he’s thinking, then he finishes with one word. “Fate.” He looks over at me. “Maybe that’s the best, most universal way to explain it.”
“And this…mate thing?” I ask, still absorbing what he said. “It’s like marriage?”
“It is not a ceremony,” he says. “It is not a contract that may be broken. It is…recognition. When we find the one chosen for us, something in us knows. The bond forms. It is meant to ensure we do not waste time. That we do not turn elsewhere.”
“What happens?” I ask, trying to sound curious instead of suddenly very invested. “You just meet them and that’s it?”
Sorren hesitates.
“If both parties accept the bond,” he says slowly, “it deepens. Strengthens. It becomes…difficult to ignore.”
My mouth goes dry.
“And if they don’t?” I ask.
His gaze flicks back to mine, sharp and unreadable in the dim light.
“Then it remains,” he says. “Quiet. Unfulfilled.”
The air between us feels heavier somehow. A sense of deep sorrow lingers, but I can’t tell where it’s coming from.
“So,” I say, choosing my words carefully, “you’ve…had this happen before?”
“No.”
Why am I so relieved to hear that single word?
“There is only one mate for each of us,” he says. “One who was born for us and us for them.”
“Oh.”
I don’t have any other word for something that big.
Silence settles between us again.
Too thick. I fidget with the edge of the sheet, rubbing it between my fingers.
“And how do you know?” I ask, because now I really want to understand. “When it’s happening, I mean.”
Sorren goes very still.
“You feel it,” he says at last, his eyes flicking to mine, then to my mouth, and the air goes thin.
“Feel what?”
His gaze shifts back to the ceiling.
“A pull,” he answers. “An awareness. Their presence is difficult to ignore. Their scent. Their voice. Their safety.”
My stomach turns uneasily. I remember back to earlier. In the dark.
How I couldn’t stop thinking about him.
“That sounds intense,” I manage past the lump in my throat.
“It is,” he says.
Another pause stretches out.
“What about the marking? The bite? Is that a part of it too or totally separate?” I ask the question I really want to know. I can’t stop reliving that moment. How it felt when he put his teeth to my wrist. That should be a bad memory, or at least neutral, but it’s not…
“Here, in this world where there’s hardly any magic, I need the bite to transform. To shift.” He pauses. “The bite gives me the magic. Shifting is my choice.”
“But in your world? How does it work?” I supply.
“There we can shift at will without any assistance. The bite is used there more for, uh, um,” stuttering for the first time since I met him, “mating.” He drags in a breath so loud I hear it.
“It’s used during mating. It strengthens the bond.
It allows the magic to settle between two people. To take root.”
The room is suddenly too warm.
He’s not done though. “It allows us to track one another. To draw strength from one another.” A pause. “To feel one another.”
My skin prickles.
“Feel how?”
He finally turns his head toward me, his gaze catching mine in the dim light.
“Emotion. Pain. Fear.” Another beat passes before he adds, quieter, “Desire.”
Heat floods my face.
Had he known what I was thinking about earlier?
“And here?” I cut myself off before I spiral. “Can you sense those things here in my world?”
“Yes,” he says. “And it deepens over time with each bite. Both here and in my world.”
I flush, grateful for the low light so he can’t see.
“Which is why we should be careful,” Sorren adds. “The bite is binding. Dangerous to you.”
Something in me cries out at that. Disappointed. Frustrated. Because if I’m being honest with myself, when I pictured us like that, intertwined with each other, breathless, and I thought about his mouth on me, it wasn’t just kissing.
The realization hits me, hot and heavy, equal parts mortifying and impossible to ignore.
“Do you sense it now? The bond?” I ask, embarrassed by the desperation in that question. I might as well be in fifth grade, passing him a note that reads do you like me? Mark the box yes or no.
He smiles at me. A small smile tinged with sadness. “I always feel it when I’m with you, Nora. I can’t help it.”
Every nerve lights with those words. Hope, desire, even fear, flare to life. It’s like I’m standing at the edge of a cliff, staring down at an abyss and wanting to jump.
“What if,” I say in my smallest voice, “I feel it too?”
He stills. “Do you?”
“Yes,” I breathe out. Gathering my courage, my strength.
“What if…I want to touch you?” I ask him, my voice wavering.
He turns to me fully then, his eyes burning in the dim light. His hands lift toward me before falling back to the bed, like he’s forcing himself not to reach.
“It is not wise,” he says in a strained whisper.
“I know,” I say, as I roll onto my elbow and close the distance between us. My hand comes up to cup his cheek, rough with stubble, warm beneath my palm.
“Nora.” My name is a whispered plea. A warning.
I kiss him anyway.
One kiss.
It ignites between us like striking a match over dry kindling. Blazes into an inferno.
Sorren makes a strangled sound in the back of his throat. In one smooth motion, without breaking the kiss, he flips us so my back hits the mattress and he’s hovering over me.
I may have started the kiss, but once we make contact Sorren is fully in charge.
His hand cradles the back of my head, his fingers threading through my hair.
I tilt my jaw, and he deepens the kiss, his tongue moving over mine in smooth sure strokes.
I moan into his mouth, already warm in my core, already thinking of the next steps.
My hand traces over his back, strong muscles that shift and move, and down to his ass. When I grip it and press my body up to his, Sorren groans. “You don’t know what you’re doing to me,” he says, his voice low and husky.
I wiggle out of the sheets tangled around my legs and hook my leg around the back of his calf. I pull on his leg, and he collapses onto me, his body heavy and warm but not suffocating.
“Nora,” he pants against my neck, and I can feel him hardening against my thigh. So maybe his anatomy will work with mine? To test it, I push into his erection, and he groans again, louder this time. His hand comes to my breast, kneading through the fabric of my shirt, and it’s good but not enough.