Chapter 24 #2
“I’m just happy to be included,” Veselko said. “Also, I enjoy expanding my resume.”
“I look forward to hearing how you spin these vital contributions to Tanalian freedom,” Evelyn said, gesturing to Veselko with a grin.
There was a knock on the wall, and they all turned to see Aiden. He was clutching a small whiteboard and a fistful of markers.
“Thought you might be able to use this,” he said, lifting up the board.
The others made transparent excuses to leave the cramped room. The moment they were alone, Evelyn felt her pulse start to rush, like her heart was conditioned to race when Aiden was close by.
She pointed at the board. “I don’t know how helpful it will be for my homework, but I can absolutely use it to keep track of yours.” She bit her bottom lip in an effort to refocus her body. It didn’t work.
He grinned at her. “Am I going to collect gold stars?”
“Only if you’re a very diligent student,” Evelyn said. She couldn’t help the smile that crept onto her face. Screw it, she could use a little flirty distraction to take the edge off the dread that lurked in the unopened boxes.
Just a few more minutes to feel desire rushing through her veins before she succumbed to being a freak for the rest of her life.
He positioned the board next to the door opening on the wall, then took two hooks out of his pocket and installed them. They self leveled, and he mounted the board.
“I tend to master subjects I take an interest in.” Aiden turned and walked to her with determined strides that made her breath hitch.
Two steps, three, and suddenly he was so close she could feel the heat emanating from his body.
His arm snaked past her to place the markers on the table, and as he brought it back, he grazed her hip, making her breath catch.
I may die before I become a freak. Implode right here from pent-up need. Not a bad way to go, all things considered.
“Is that so?” Had her voice ever been that breathy before?
“Indeed. And what about you? Are you a diligent student, dollface?”
Evelyn swallowed hard. “I take my studies very seriously. I take all of my responsibilities seriously.”
“I like that about you,” he said. Aiden gazed down at her and she felt like she was the only thing that existed in his universe. But then the shame she had been desperately trying to keep at bay since Corvinia had ripped her eyes open last night came tumbling down.
He deserves better than you.
“Same goes. Listen, Aiden . . .” Evelyn took a step back from him, from the warmth of his body, but the intensity of his gaze was impossible to escape.
“You’re about to say that we’re embarking on a dangerous endeavor and that you don’t want to be . . .” He trailed off as he stepped away from the table. “A distraction? Or that I’ll be one.”
She had been, but now she didn’t know what to say. Stupid perceptive hot man. She chewed her bottom lip. “Well . . . That is a factor, yes.”
He pulled out the chairs that flanked the card table and gestured for her to sit in one.
She did, and wished she had something to do with her hands.
She fiddled with the button on her cardigan.
Aiden sat down facing her. He spread his knees and pulled her chair as close to his as he could get it, sandwiching her legs between his.
Evelyn’s pulse thrummed faster than the last time she’d attempted cardio, the combination of his proximity and the directness of his communication sending her poor rabbit heart into overdrive.
“Let’s discuss factors. Factor one: I may like to fancy it up, but I’m a crook. I’m an expensive thief for hire. My life is a series of dangerous endeavors. I take that seriously, and I’m good at it. Probably because I have an incredible team at my back. I don’t take any of that for granted.”
He took the hand that wasn’t furiously fiddling with the button. Evelyn wondered how many casual touches she’d get to have before the electric awareness of him in her veins ceased and she achieved some level of immunity to his presence.
“Factor two: We’re about to attempt a political coup.
Planetary control is easily the largest thing we’ve ever been contracted to steal.
Calling this gig a dangerous endeavor is the understatement of the millennia.
It’s not just us who’ll be screwed if this goes poorly.
That’s a lot of pressure for everyone involved, and I can’t imagine the pressure you feel personally. ”
She gave him a sad smile, and he nodded as he continued laying out the facts as he saw them.
All awkward conversations would be better in list format.
“Factor three: You and I have the most undeniable chemistry I’ve ever experienced.”
Her stomach flipped at that, a joyful flip. She wasn’t experiencing some horrifyingly one-sided infatuation; he felt it too.
Then her heart sank again, reality crushing in from every side. “I just don’t want you to feel obligated.”
“Obligated?” He tilted his head to the side, trying to understand.
She nodded. “Obligated. Because of who I am. What we’re doing. I don’t want to be an obligation.”
“Dollface, if you had taken Vinnie’s offer to go herd goats on some rock on the other side of the galaxy I’d have figured out a route to have an excuse to drop by.
You are not an obligation. Not to me. I will, however, cede that you’re distracting as hell.
” His thumb skated over the back of her hand.
“One point scored,” she said softly.
“If it makes the weight a little lighter for you, frankly, I’m happy to be a distraction. It’s not like I’ve been able to focus on anything but you for days, anyway.”
Evelyn gave a little unexpected burble of laughter at this. “You may want to rethink that once you find out what I have to learn to do in this room.”
She gave his hand a squeeze before extracting hers from his grip and leaning over to open the box.
She could see the confusion on his face as she unloaded the box, item after item.
Cheap electronic items littered the table: calculators, egg timers, alarm clocks, portable speakers, miniature robotic toys.
Finally she unloaded a trio of small plants.
She placed them on the corner of the table, gingerly.
“I know you think that I’m this selfless, brave person who gives too much of myself.”
She let loose the iron grip she kept on that part of her she’d always been told to hide.
Her vision pulsated with the vitality of everything around her.
For a second, she let herself bask in the calm, steady energy that radiated off Aiden, that sense of peace and rightness and home that she was sure would never really be hers to bask in.
Not after this demonstration. She took a small music-playing device and turned it on, a cheerful melody filling the room.
Then she maneuvered the display toward him so he could see the power level.
Here goes nothing.
Cradling it in her hands, she closed her eyes and concentrated on the music player’s energy.
For the first time, she coaxed the energy from a device on purpose.
The melody began to slow and warp as the power drained from the device.
She felt the small spike of energy flow through her body, undirected and wild, as the device died in her hands in a burst of warmth.
Opening her eyes, she blinked down at the results of the first deliberate use of her talent.
“I think I’m designed to take.”