92. The Stranger
Chapter Ninety-Two
The Stranger
I t takes longer than I expected to be free of Paradis, and even longer to return to Annwn, which delays me from reaching out to her even further.
Unknown
I’m free of Paradis.
Dodging Morrigan was unpleasant and not something I anticipated having to deal with. I should have killed her. I considered it, but in the end, I’ll simply extort the kingdom she clings to, encouraging a war to keep her eyes from me, but more importantly, from Summer.
Summer
How does it feel?
Disappointing. To be outside Paradis means a return to the eyes that constantly watch me, and a return to my avatar if I want to be around her. The worst part of the avatar is that I can’t touch or taste her. Even her scent is absent when I am in that form. I already miss the ease of the glamour.
Unknown
Bittersweet.
Summer
How so?
As if she doesn’t know the answer already, as if she’s not feeling the same thing I am. My fingers brush against the bracelet of shells she gave me, recalling the matching one she now wears.
Unknown
I’m unable to move as freely, but more importantly, I can’t touch you as easily.
Conjuring my avatar, I land in her bed with her as I hit send. I grin, but then I look at her, and her eyes hold so much sadness that my heart clenches. I cup her cheek, staring at her, asking the silent question.
“It’s nothing,” she says, leaning her face into my hand.
That’s a lie. After this weekend, I am more adept at reading her expressions. She’d left the guilt here and spent the last few days free of it, but now that she is back, it has returned full force. I brush my lips against her forehead and wrap my arms around her, tucking her close against me.
“You can’t stay,” she whispers.
I hate that I expected those words from her, even as she curled into me. She’s going to push me away now, feeling too exposed, too vulnerable. I under-stand it as much as I hate it.
“I can’t?”
“We made a deal. It was All Souls only,” she says, even as she wraps her hand around my biceps, holding on to me. “And I agreed to it knowing you wouldn’t back down on any of your limits.”
My limits. More like my insane jealousy and extreme possessiveness. She fails to mention her boundaries, and I know it’s because the lines are blurring for her as they have for me, and that scares her.
“I wasn’t saying I’d sleep here, princess,” I say, brushing her hair behind her ear again.
She flushes, her mouth forming a small o. She goes quiet for a long moment, her thoughts practically screaming into the silence, but they move too fast for me to grab the tendrils of them and listen in. “It’s weird being back. You can’t feel me.”
“You can feel me?.?.?.” I say, nuzzling against her cheek, remembering the feeling of her skin, her taste, her scent, bringing them to the forefront of my mind so I can replace them now, when everything has been taken from?me.
That has to be enough. Yet I’m greedy for the weekend we just had, for more.
“It’s not the same,” she whispers, unknowingly voicing my own thoughts.
She pulls back from me slightly to stare into my eyes. Into the outline of my indiscernible features.
“Our time at All Souls makes the lack even more obscene,” I admit.
She nods, stroking my chest with her hand.
“The ache is sharper.” Not just sharper but nearly unbearable. To know exactly what we could have, to taste it, only to be stripped of it after a few hours.
“Much sharper,” she adds, emphasizing it.
I didn’t expect her to feel the loss as keenly as I do. She can still feel me. Reaching down, I pull her leg over my hip, pressing myself into the cradle of her hips. Burying my face into her neck, I pull her scent again to my memory, replacing reality with it as if that could ever be enough.
“Even the few hours apart felt unbearable.” I cup her cheek, locking eyes with hers. “Did you miss me, truly?”
“You don’t believe me?”
It’s not that I do not believe her. It’s that it’s surreal to think she feels more for me. That she might be surrendering to me slowly, day by day, hour by hour.
“I need to hear it.”
I need to hear it from your lips so maybe I will actually believe that you feel even a fraction for me that I do for you.
She presses a kiss to my chest. “I missed you.”
Fuck, I shouldn’t have asked? her to say those words. “What would you do if I dropped my avatar right now? Dropped all my protection in this moment?”
“What do you mean?” Her eyes flicker and then darken to black.
I shouldn’t have asked when it’s not possible, but I’m too desperate for more of her, even if it’s only in her imagination.
“What would you do if it were me, truly me, lying in your bed right now?”
This is a bad idea, but I can’t stop myself.
“We probably shouldn’t talk about that.” Her voice turns husky, and her nails curl into my chest .
“I want to hear it.”
“Then you’ll want to do it, and you can’t feel me.”
Again, about what I can feel. I didn’t think it would be as torturous for her as it is for me.
“Tell me anyway,” I insist. I need to hear how things have changed for her. Before this weekend, she would never have entertained a question like this from me.
She’s quiet for another long moment before saying, “Well, first, I’d kiss along your jaw, slowly moving my lips to yours.”
And because I’m a fool, I ruin the moment with a simple phrase.
“You know what I’d want if you kissed me.”