Chapter 18
VI
We stay that way for a while.
His hand is in my hair and mine are fisted in his shirt, my breathing gone from ragged to steady against his shoulder. My tears never fully materialized. They stalled somewhere, leaving me with a strange calm.
I become aware of the warmth of him through our clothing and the way his breathing rises and falls under my hands.
The smell of him is clean, kind of like pine, something I’ve noticed before but never from this close.
His thumb is moving across the back of my skull, barely there.
I don’t think he even knows he’s doing it. But I like it, a lot.
My grief is still there but something else is pushing through it, something warm and physical, not to mention kind of wrong for such a serious moment.
I drop my head back, just enough to see his face and his eyes are on me. The seriousness I’m used to with him is absent, and what’s left is something I haven’t seen before. For a moment, he seems open and unguarded.
His gaze drops to my mouth, then returns to my eyes, almost like he’s asking permission.
My stomach tightens as something electric runs through me, and I know he feels it too because he pulls me tighter. A blast of warmth heats my face, and I hope like hell I’m not blushing too much.
He lets me go.
Not abruptly, but carefully. His hands leave my hair and he takes one step back, just enough to break the circuit flowing between us. His expression is already returning to the old Sting, all control and walls going back up.
But his eyes. His eyes haven’t caught up with the rest of his face.
I stand in the corridor with my hands empty and I think, Goddammit.
“Let’s get the others,” I say in a breathy voice that I’m trying to hide. “I’d like to lay this out once, for all of us.”
Sting looks at me for another beat. Then he nods and walks away.
I collapse against the wall, my back flat against the cool surface, and breathe.
Focus.