CHAPTER ELEVEN #3
All she had to do was find something about him that was repellant enough to negate her silly schoolgirl crush.
There had to be something. There was always something.
She searched her mind, trying to find anything that might turn her off from the idea of Elias, but it seemed that every quality she chose only served to turn her on.
If she thought about the way he chewed, it made her think about how his neck muscles flexed with the motion.
Trying to find something negative in the way he sat only reminded her of how hot he looked sitting in front of her on the coffee table, leaning forward as he tended to her wound, his mouth just a breath away from—
This wasn’t working.
She squeezed her eyes shut, banishing the memory and beginning to bounce her head against the wall in a steady rhythm.
Pain lanced through her skull when it connected with the stone much harder than she intended, her growing frustration causing her to drastically underestimate her force.
Hissing through her teeth at the lingering throb, she pressed her hand to the back of her head to make sure the impact hadn’t been enough to draw blood.
That would really round out the evening.
“I didn’t think the band was that bad.”
Cadi jumped at the unexpected voice, a strange fluttering feeling pulling in her chest as her head snapped toward the sound to see Elias walking toward her, slowing his steps to lean a shoulder against the wall.
In her futile attempt to convince her mind and body that she didn’t want him, she hadn’t even heard him come out of the bar.
Now, here he was, staring down at her with a look that lived somewhere between concern and amusement.
She blew a breath down her nose, lifting a single shoulder in a play of nonchalance. “I just needed some air. Clear my head a bit.”
Elias lifted an eyebrow. “By giving yourself another concussion?”
Cadi laughed, hating the way the sound came out much higher and louder than she’d intended, its intensity nowhere close to proportional to the quality of the comment.
“What can I say, it’s been an intense week. I needed something a little stronger than booze.”
Elias smirked. “That’s right, Sera told me you made the switch to the dark side. How does it feel?”
Cadi shifted, resting her shoulder against the wall to face him. She lifted her gaze and knew instantly that it was a mistake as her entire body tried to turn to jelly beneath the warm chocolate brown staring back at her.
Perfect. Now she was comparing parts of him to food. Not good. Definitely not good.
His eyebrows lifted, and Cadi realized that she was still staring, and he was still waiting for her answer. Sucking in a breath, she tried her best to remember the basic elements of sentence structure and conversation.
“It feels great,” she said, the corners of her mouth tipping up. “Though I think it would have been easier if Polly hadn’t been so nice.”
Elias let out a soft laugh, his gaze lowering to the ground between them. “Yeah, she’s always been that way. She has a real talent for getting people to say yes to things just because they don’t want to disappoint her.”
Cadi perked up. “You knew her?”
Elias nodded, lifting his gaze to hers, which forced her to focus hard to keep from melting. “Our paths crossed. It never made sense to me how someone with such a pure heart could get pulled so deep into an organization like that.”
She had never thought about the fact that Elias likely knew many of the members populating the higher ranks of the Order. After all, he had been part of it for … well, come to think of it, she had no idea how long he had been involved with the sect.
Cadi opened her mouth to ask one of the million questions dancing on the tip of her tongue, only for them to be wiped away when the door to the bar swung open. Music poured from the venue as a group of inebriated mythics stumbled onto the sidewalk.
Elias twisted to watch them, and Cadi found her eyes drawn to the same neck muscles that had plagued her thoughts only moments ago, caught in the hypnotic way they shifted beneath his skin. He turned back, and she quickly fixed an innocent smile to her face.
“I suppose we better head back in,” she said, “I feel bad that we left Sera all by herself in there.”
Elias chuckled, shaking his head. “When I left, she was making eyes at a group of sirens. She may regret her choices later, but I wouldn’t worry too much about her feeling ditched.”
Cadi’s heart seemed to take on a mind of its own at that unsolicited bit of intel, but she cleared her throat, forcing the organ to settle itself back into place.
So they weren’t together, and it would appear that Elias may not have the right setup to be Sera’s type anyway.
But that didn’t change anything. And Cadi knew better than to believe that it did.
“Well, in that case, we should save her from a watery demise,” she said.
Elias let out a full laugh, the sound nearly taking her out at the knees as he pushed off the wall and gestured for her to lead the way.
He fell into step next to her, the healthy distance doing nothing to ease the charged air that brushed against Cadi’s skin as they walked together back toward the bar.