Chapter 26 #4
“I think you’d give me anything I want. I could take every dark thought that’s ever run through your head. I could force you to spill all your secrets. I could make you drop down and blow me in front of all these people.”
As he spoke, the pictures flickered in her mind—pictures of embarrassment, humiliation, fear. It didn’t matter that she’d grown familiar with this magic, with the way it floated through the mind to erase inhibitions. She was a slave to it same as everyone else.
But David would never do those things to her. He had the ability, not the desire.
And that was the moment she realized that she trusted David Berkeley. She knew she liked him. She looked forward to her time with him. She could even admit that she found him attractive.
But trust?
She hadn’t expected that. Not of someone with his magic, hypocritical as it was.
“Is that what you want, Anna?” he whispered, his breath disturbing the strands of hair at her neck. “For me to prove beyond any shadow of doubt that I have no need to fight?”
“No.”
Flames licked at her skin every place he touched, hottest where his hand gripped her throat. So gentle, that hand. Like he held something precious and breakable, even as he threatened to destroy it.
“Then tell me what you want from me.”
So many answers flooded her mind—things she’d never wanted, things the pixie in her had suppressed, just waiting for the right person.
I want you to kiss me again. Harder.
I want you to drag your hand down my body and touch every bit of it.
I want to wrap my legs around your head.
But the greatest desire of all was the one to spill from her mouth.
“I want you to stop.”
He released her at once. The heat of his touch fizzled as he stepped away. Dazed, she turned to face him.
His smirk was in full force, but crests of color stained his cheeks and the green of his eyes had thinned behind dilated pupils. “I think it’s better if we keep pretending you can bring me to my knees. Don’t you think?” He nodded toward the crowd watching them. “It keeps the children happy.”
The image of him on his knees, staring up at her, pleading for her, poured through her mind. It woke something hot and pulsing deep inside. What would it take to bring a man like David Berkeley to his knees?
She suspected she’d never have enough influence over him to find out.
“They do like to watch you, don’t they?” she asked.
“They never stop.”
“Which means…they’d watch me, too,” she said mostly to herself.
His eyes narrowed.
Anna wasn’t sure if anything would ever spark between them, but she couldn’t live under scrutiny like Sean and Isobel.
If David showed the slightest interest in someone, they’d be examined under a magnifying glass.
They’d be called a Follower and spurned.
If people watched her closely enough, they’d discover her secret.
And besides that, any sparks would flare and die under so much pressure.
She wanted these sparks to blaze.
Her voice lowered. “Did you mean that kiss yesterday?”
“I don’t do things I don’t mean.” His brow lifted. “Unless I’m forced to.”
Tingles cascaded across her skin. So he was truly interested, then? This wasn’t a game or a mask to hide behind?
If so, she wanted to tread carefully. Gently. Starting with—
“You wouldn’t tell anyone, would you? About us?”
As soon as the question left her mouth, his face drained of color. The glimmers she usually caught behind the ice went dead. He laughed softly. “There’s nothing to tell.”
Shit. Had she overestimated her importance again? Was she looking for things that weren’t there? “I—I didn’t mean to imply there’s an us,” she said, taking two steps closer.
He took two careful steps back. “That’s good. Since there’s not.”
She waited for the added Yet.
It didn’t come.
Stinging heat crept up Anna’s face as humiliation settled into every crack and crevice. She fought the urge to walk away. Pretend it didn’t happen. Ignore her idiocy in thinking this was anything other than a tentative friendship, and barely even that. A single kiss didn’t mean he wanted more.
Of course he didn’t.
But she held firm and even managed to look him in the eye when she said, “Right. My mistake.”
His eyes flared with something close to surprise, but he remained otherwise still.
“David?”
Incandescently gold hair fanned over his scarred forehead as his head quirked. “Yes?”
“You’re okay?”
A weird smile twisted his mouth out of its straight line, far different than the curve of temptation from earlier. “I’m always okay, Anna.”
Anna sensed the inexplicable distance between them expand. She preferred the fake flirtation over this cold, emotionless shell, but she didn’t know how to fix this, didn’t understand what she’d done wrong.
“Are we done here?” David asked. “There’s a pile of books waiting for me in the library.”
“Oh.” She blinked a few times. “Sure. Mind if I join you?”
He stared for a moment, opaque eyes scrutinizing. “To what purpose?”
A fist squeezed around her heart, and pressure built behind her eyes. She’d nearly forgotten she hadn’t visited the library with him in weeks. “Never mind. I’ll see you at training tomorrow, then.”