Chapter Thirty-Nine #2
The shower stops running. A few moments later, Pisces steps back into the room, a towel wrapped around his waist, allowing my eyes to roam over his chest. My eyes keep trailing over his piercings.
He has silver, straight barbells running through each nipple.
I think my brain short-circuits for a minute.
My eyes trail down his abdomen, following the V that’s visible just above the towel.
My power is definitely waning if even the seriousness of our situation can’t stop me from lusting over a guy I thought was an asshole until recently and who currently hates my guts. He picks up the folded pajamas, taking the bottoms into the bathroom and leaving the shirt on the bed.
Part of me hopes he never intends on putting that shirt on.
He comes back out in the pajama bottoms, his bare feet padding on the carpet over to the armchair. Droplets drip from his hair still and the image of him in the shower, with me joining him, jolts me, goose bumps erupting over my arms.
I force myself to look at his face, instead of his abs. Seeing again how sallow his skin looks helps shake off my lust. He needs to feed. And soon.
“Pisces, I—” I don’t know how to start. I try again. “If I saw a rune in your eye, I would have told you.”
He doesn’t so much as look at me.
“I know how the mating bond works, Bliss. If I see a rune in your eye, you see one in mine. That’s how it works.”
“I don’t know what’s going on, but I promise you, I don’t see one. But we can try to figure it out.”
“Just stop.”
I shut my mouth, preventing more words from spilling out. Instead, I take a deep breath and nod. He needs time to cool off. Fine. It’s not like we won’t have plenty of time to talk later.
But there is a more pressing matter. So I switch gears.
“Pisces, if you don’t feed and you get too low on power, you’re going to attack me and it will be painful.” I get up off the bed, going to stand in front of him. I’m not going to take no for an answer this time.
“I can go a while without that,” he mumbles, not looking at me. I step closer into his space.
“But you don’t need to suffer.” I kneel down in front of him, trying to get him to look me in the eyes.
“I’ll wait,” he says, looking at me for a few seconds. He has to squeeze his eyes shut, as if looking at me is painful for him.
“We aren’t getting out of here anytime soon, Pi.”
Pisces snaps up out of the chair, and suddenly I find myself lifted off the ground, back slamming against the wall, his hands caging my head in. “Don’t call me that, ever.”
I can’t breathe for a minute. He’s towering over me, a wall of muscle and height and anger. Swallowing thickly, I nod. “Okay,” I whisper, eyes falling to the floor.
He stiffens and sighs, arms falling away.
“There’s this other way to feed, a lure.”
“What’s that?”
“I focus on someone and sing, and they come to me. I didn’t kidnap you, okay? But it was my fault that you sleepwalked. I wasn’t trying to,” he adds hastily. “I was trying to lure someone else, but it didn’t work.”
He was trying to lure someone else? Another woman, maybe?
For some reason, that stings.
He lowers his head, almost touching his forehead to mine.
His damp hair brushes my skin, he’s that close.
If I move just a little, it would be so easy to close the distance and kiss him.
Why do I even want that? Suddenly, I’m no longer afraid of being caged in by him, but it’s like he reads the change in my energy and backs away, going to sit on the edge of the bed.
I stay leaning against the wall.
He looks up at me, his bottom lip curled inward the way it does when he’s upset. “Can I try the lure on you again? I’ll feed off your emotions instead of your flesh.”
Shakily, I nod. I don’t want to lose control like that, but it’s probably better than having those insane teeth shred my skin to pieces.
He closes his eyes and he’s silent for a little bit.
He opens his eyes and they find mine, and he starts to sing.
It’s not a song I’ve ever heard before, but the lyrics cause goose bumps to erupt all over my arms. Suddenly I’m striding forward, pulled to him by some invisible force.
I come right up to him, standing in between his legs.
He reaches out and grips me by the hips.
“I think physical contact is part of it,” he says, more to himself.
But I barely register it. I’m too focused on his lips, on the way he always breathes through his nose.
Strong breaths, because he has strong lungs.
I place my hand on his chest, wanting to feel his heartbeat, wanting to feel his skin.
I wonder what emotion he’ll feed off, because in this moment I only feel the closeness between us, the desire to touch him.
I only know he’s done feeding when it feels like I’m waking up from a half-sleep. My vision becomes sharper, and more awareness floods into me.
“Was that it?” I ask, a bit awed. It seems too easy.
He nods, a bit more color in his cheeks and a soft glow to his skin. Skin that I still want to touch.
He stands, pushing me back, gently this time, but his hands still grip my waist. I keep my hands on his chest. I don’t want to move.
At least, I don’t want to move farther apart.
Pisces inhales deeply, and I wonder if my scent does the same to him as his does to me.
I close the distance he put between us, catching his gaze in mine.
I wonder what my rune looks like to him.
If he fed off my feelings of lust, is he feeling it too? And if he took some of my lust away, what does it say about me that I still have some to spare?
I run a hand up over his chest, to the side of his neck, tracing his tattoo.
I’ve never seen it fully like this. Water lilies wrap from his left collarbone around his neck, ending below his right ear.
There are other details threaded through the tattoo that I can’t make out right now, too focused on how his skin feels.
My fingers just barely brush the ends of his hair.
I want to run my fingers through it. I want to bring his face down to mine and capture his lips.
I want to know what he tastes like.
Our breathing grows more labored and Pisces’ hands start running up and down the curve of my waist. He brings his fingers towards the waistband of the sweats I’m wearing, hooking into the band and beginning to pull it down.
Stars, how I want his fingers to find my core. I want him to push me back onto the bed and take these clothes off me. I want to strip him down to nothing and run my fingers up and down his length. I take a step closer, so our bodies are flush. And I can feel him. I can feel how hard he is.
Pisces groans as I lower his head to mine. He rests his forehead on mine. “Bliss,” he whispers, as his fingers dip into my pants, finding their way blocked by my underwear.
He runs his fingers along the outside of my underwear, brushing nowhere near close enough to that spot.
And then all too suddenly I see something flash in his eyes, some sort of change in energy. He pushes me away, his hands going into his pockets. Pisces glares at me and turns his back on me. “Bliss, I can’t feed you. I…” He trails off for a minute. “I don’t want to.”
He takes a blanket from the bed and pushes the armchair so it’s by the window, facing away from the bed, settling into it.
A pit forms in my stomach, gnawing into the lining and sinking its teeth in. I sit down on the bed, the little bit of warmth I was feeling while he fed off me gone and my mind whirling.