Chapter Fifteen #3
He shook another blanket out. “Are you worried that I’ll catch cold?”
“I’m worried that you’ll forget what it is to feel shame.” She let out a breath. “It’s still cold.”
“I’m afraid you’re going to have to sit by me.” He propped himself on the edge of the creaky bed. “For warmth.”
She shook her head. “Absolutely not.”
“Suit yourself,” he said with a cheeky shrug. “Just know that I am a veritable furnace.”
A moment’s silence passed before she uttered a curse and came to sit a considerable distance from him. She seemed so much more alive without the disguise, so much more vibrant now that her secret was no more. This was exactly who he’d been hoping to see, exactly who—
“Who are you?” he asked in wonder.
She scowled. “You know who I am.”
“No, I mean—who are you normally? Outside of all this.”
“Oh.” She bit her lip, the gesture beckoning him the way flames beckoned moths. “I’m just a woman from Gloucestershire who loves science. That’s all.”
“And you want to join the Society.”
“I want to one day publish work under my own name. And I want to learn techniques at the same rate as the rest of you.”
As she deserved to, he thought.
“I—well, since you can’t—I—you have friends now, don’t you? You’ve a friend who can teach you anything you like.”
“I appreciate the offer,” she said, “but it isn’t the same. Why should I have to cross an extra bridge simply to arrive at the same knowledge that is given so freely to you and the others?”
Oliver nodded in understanding. She deserved to hear the truth, so he would tell it. “I’m afraid you’re on a pointless crusade with Comerford, though. He’ll never budge.”
“I’ve abandoned my crusade, thank you,” she said, the words laced with resentment. “But I’m sure I’ll end up trying some other time. Some other way.”
Of course she would. As much as she wanted to give up, Oliver knew Kalila well enough to know that she’d never settle. Her spark would come back, as would her resolve to see her plans through.
A jumble of questions still swam in his head, and so he picked one at random and went forth. “How in the hell did you come up with all your theories?”
At that, she scooted toward him. Only slightly, but enough to thrill. “The same way any scientist does.” She sighed. “I lost my paper, you know.”
Oliver’s eyebrows shot up. “You what?”
“At the university,” she said, her voice wavering. “I can’t even begin to tell you how much time I wasted on my so-called crusade.”
“Now, Kalila—”
“And you ought to go to hell for making light of my work,” she whispered. “I know you have your reasons, and I believe them, but—”
“Cause, not excuse,” he replied. “I’m sorry.”
She wilted. “I know. I’m not angry at you. I’m angry at myself.”
“We’ll find your paper,” he promised. “We’ll make this whole thing worth it.”
He wished he was what could make it worth it for her.
She pulled the blanket tighter around herself. “I don’t know.”
“I do know,” he said. One last question, and he’d leave her be. “Kalila?”
“Yes?”
“Why did you say you weren’t for me?”
The question seemed to stun her. “You can’t be.”
“Is it really all because of him?”
“No,” she said. “It’s so much more than that. It’s just—nobody is for me. You have to understand that.”
Oliver studied her, with her luminous skin and exquisite features. He had to do this. At least once. “Are you sure? Because I’d very much like to kiss you.”
She frowned even as color bloomed on her cheeks. “We shouldn’t. It’s not—it doesn’t make any sense. You know that just as well as I do. Our connection is not—that.”
“Perhaps not,” he said, trying to hide the sting brought about by her rejection. “But if you’d like me to kiss you, then we may as well get it out of the way. When it’s all over and done with, I can return to not being for you, and you can continue to swear off men.”
She thought about it before saying, “I suppose there’s some logic to that.”
“It’s just the one kiss,” he coaxed, cupping her face in his hands. “Hmm?”
“Just the one,” she repeated, allowing him to pull her forward.
He slanted his lips against hers gently, imploringly.
She reached up to grasp at his shoulders, the dusty blanket falling around her waist and revealing her naked torso.
In response, his hands traveled downward, skating over her bare arms before coming to rest at her waist. She was fragile beneath his hands, too fragile for one so strong.
Why did she think this didn’t make sense?
Nothing had ever made more sense to him.
To his surprise, it was Kalila who deepened the kiss, pulling him ever closer until the electric, delectable brush of her breasts against his chest seemed to send her plummeting back to Earth.
She shifted away abruptly, pulling the blanket around her with incredible speed.
Oliver stared at her, rendered almost speechless. “Kalila—”
“The rain’s stopped,” she said, standing up. “Let’s go.”
As he watched her try to get dressed underneath the blanket, Oliver could only think one thing.
That he wanted, more than anything in the wide world, to be for Kalila Darwish.