Chapter 15 #2
“I am.” My words were barely above a whisper, but they didn’t waver. His gaze dipped to my mouth, and the tension stretched between us, thick and shimmering, alive. My heart hammered so violently, I thought he might feel it through the scant inches between us.
Then, without a single sound, he reached past me.
His chest brushed my shoulder, just enough to short-circuit every neuron I had left.
He plucked a book from the shelf behind me and gently placed it in my hands.
The spell cracked, but it didn’t break; it just shifted.
I blinked down at the old leather cover lying warm and gentle in my hands.
It had an English title, faded, fragile—definitely old enough to make me wish for my cotton gloves to handle the precious volume.
“Come,” he said, guiding me across the room with that same light touch that simultaneously steadied me and set me on fire.
He sat me on the couch like I was precious cargo, then crouched in front of me, one hand braced on the cushion beside my thigh.
“What do you want to eat?” The question had me grappling with reality for a second.
Eat? Oh, right… My stomach rumbled on cue.
Dinner. Food. You know, basic human needs, those things.
“I...uh...something,” I managed. “I don’t care.” Who thought of food at a time like this—when he had his hand so close to my jean-clad thigh that I could feel heat thrumming like a pulse between my thighs: inappropriate, sensual, intense.
He arched a brow as if this were a perfectly normal question and I were the one acting strange.
Maybe I was, but I could not forget how blatantly he’d admitted to being insanely attracted to me.
This throbbing need that pulsed in my flesh, it was not one-sided.
“Risotto? Truffle pasta? Carpaccio?” he listed, his voice dark and sinful, as if he were uttering dirty promises instead of dinner options.
I stared at him, licking my lips. He followed the movement of my tongue with avid eyes that were anything but cold right now.
I couldn’t help it: my eyes dropped from his face, slid along his chest, and down to his groin.
His slacks were stretched as he crouched, but a helpful, or perhaps very unhelpful, shadow fell across his thighs.
“I would honestly be thrilled with a sandwich,” I whispered.
Or more of that scorching kiss he’d surprised me with in the library, but that I didn’t dare say out loud.
“That won’t do,” he said, far too dismissively for someone who was leaning over me like the hero from a gothic romance cover. Then he rose and swept toward the small kitchen, calling over his shoulder, “Read.”
The single word curled around me like a command, and I felt it low in my spine. I glared uselessly at his back, then looked down at the book, determined not to think about how my body still thrummed from his touch. Focus, Jade. Words. Pages. You know how to do this.
I opened the book and promptly forgot how books worked.
It looked like a history, but not of the world I knew.
The index alone listed kingdoms I’d never heard of and spoke of battles with names I couldn’t pronounce.
A quick flip through the pristine pages made my gaze land on things that were fantastical and impossible: battles fought with magic, creatures that belonged in fantasy novels, not…
not here. Not real life. This had to be some kind of joke, an ancient first attempt at a fantasy story.
Luther had given me this book for a reason, though, as a way to introduce me to his world, his secrets.
He’d dared me to find the answers in the books in the library but denied me access to the supposed hidden collection in the basement.
My questions about Belfry had remained unanswered, but they were a hint.
My head spun as I flipped carefully through pages describing alliances between sorcerers and winged beings, whole sections on blood rites, wards, things that should have been entirely made-up.
There was even a chapter on the history of familiars, with beautifully drawn images of bats and black cats, toads and owls.
When I lifted my head, heart racing, I froze.
Luther had set a table, an actual, honest-to-God candlelit table.
White tapered candles flickered softly, while red roses in a slender vase leaned toward the glow.
And the plates… the food… everything looked like it belonged in an expensive European restaurant, not in a small apartment above a suspiciously well-stocked general store.
He stood beside the table, hip against the dark wood, holding a glass. Deep red liquid swirled inside, reminding me of the expensive red wine from last night. Wine made sense, he was a man of taste, even if that fancy wine had been a bit rich for my blood. Oh… what if that wasn’t wine?
My mouth dried instantly, and my gaze dropped to the book in my lap, fingers carefully flicking back to the index and scrolling past the many chapters it contained.
There, right there, staring me in the face.
I wasn’t ready to go to the chapter and read it, but that ever-present curiosity…
“What are you?” I whispered before I could stop myself.
He didn’t answer; at least, not directly. Instead, he lifted his glass, the light catching on the rim, and his voice wrapped around me like silk. “Come here,” he said softly. “And find out.”
The words tugged at something inside me, something helpless and wanting, and completely beyond reason. I rose, carefully set the book aside with shaking hands, and walked toward him like a moth courting its own doom.