City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments, #6)(149)

She scrambled to her feet as quietly as she could. “All right.”

He was up instantly, taking her hand and tugging her down the west corridor that led away from the central cave. They went in silence, her witchlight lighting the way, a silence Clary felt almost afraid to break, as if she would be shattering the illusory calm of a dream or a spell.

The massive cavern opened in front of them suddenly, and she put her rune-stone away, dousing its light. The bioluminescence of the cave was enough: light shimmering out from the walls, from the glimmering stalactites that hung from the roof like electrified icicles. Knives of light pierced the shadows. Jace let go of her hand and walked the last steps of the path down to the edge of the water, where the small beach was powdery and fine, glittering with mica. He paused a few feet from the water and said, “Thank you.”

She looked over at him in surprise. “For what?”

“Last night,” he said. “You saved me. The heavenly fire would have killed me, I think. What you did—”

“We still can’t tell the others,” she said.

“I didn’t last night, did I?” he asked. It was true. Jace and Clary had maintained the fiction that Clary had simply helped Jace control and dissipate the fire, and that nothing else had changed.

“We can’t risk them giving it away, even by the wrong kind of glance or expression,” she said. “You and I, we’ve had some practice hiding things from Sebastian, but they haven’t. It wouldn’t be fair to them. I almost wish we didn’t know. . . .”

She trailed off, unnerved by his lack of response. Jace was looking at the water, blue and depthless, his back to her. She took a step forward and tapped him lightly on the shoulder. “Jace,” she said. “If you want to do something different, if you think we should make another plan—”

He turned, and suddenly she was in the circle of his arms. It sent a shock through her whole body. His hands cupped her shoulder blades, his fingers stroking lightly along the material of her shirt. She shivered, thoughts flying out of her head like feathers scattered on the wind.

“When,” he said, “did you get so careful?”

“I’m not careful,” she said as he touched his lips to her temple. His warm breath stirred the curls by her ear. “I’m just not you.”

She felt him laugh. His hands slid down her sides, gripped her waist. “That, you are definitely not. Much prettier.”

“You must love me,” she said, breath hitching as his lips traveled excruciatingly slowly along her jaw. “I never thought you’d admit anyone was prettier than you.” She started as his mouth found her own, his lips parting to taste hers, and she leaned up and into the kiss, determined to take back some control. She wound her arms around his neck, opening her mouth to him, and nipped gently at his bottom lip.

It had more of an effect than she’d bargained for; his hands tightened on her waist and he groaned low into her mouth. A moment later he’d broken away, flushed, his eyes glittering. “You’re all right?” he said. “You want this?”

She nodded, swallowing. Her whole body felt as if it were vibrating like a plucked string. “Yes, I do. I—”

“It’s just, for so long I haven’t really been able to touch you, and now I can,” he said. “But maybe this isn’t the place—”

“Well, we are filthy,” she admitted.

“?‘Filthy’ seems a bit judgmental.”

Clary raised her hands, palms-up. There was dirt embedded in her skin and under her nails. She grinned at him. “I mean literally,” she said, and indicated the water nearby with a jerk of her chin. “Weren’t we going to wash off? In the water?”

The sparkle in his eyes darkened them to amber. “Right,” he said, and reached up to unzip his jacket.

Clary almost squeaked, What are you doing? but it was perfectly obvious what he was doing. She’d said “in the water,” and it wasn’t like they could wade in with their gear on. She just hadn’t quite thought this far ahead.

He dropped the jacket and pulled his T-shirt off over his head; the collar caught for a moment, and Clary just stared, suddenly hyperaware of the fact that they were alone, and of his body: honey-colored skin mapped with old and new Marks, a fading scar just under the curve of his left pectoral muscle. Flat, ridged stomach tapering to narrow hips; he’d lost weight, and his weapons belt hung loose. Legs, arms, graceful like a dancer’s; he pulled free of the shirt and shook out his bright hair, and she thought with a sudden sinking in her stomach that it just wasn’t possible that he was hers, he wasn’t the sort of person ordinary people got to be near, much less touch, and then he looked up at her, hands on his belt, and smiled his familiar crooked smile.

“Keeping your clothes on?” he said. “I could promise not to look, but I’d be lying.”

Clary unzipped her gear jacket and threw it at him. He caught it and dropped it onto the pile of his clothes, grinning. He unlooped his belt, dropped it as well. “Pervert,” she said. “Though you get points for being honest about it.”

“I’m seventeen; we’re all perverts,” he said, kicking his shoes off and stepping out of his pants. He was wearing black boxer shorts, and to Clary’s mixed relief and slight regret, he kept them on as he stepped into the water, wading in knee-deep. “Or, at least, I’ll be seventeen in a few weeks,” he called back over his shoulder. “I did the math, with my father’s letters and the time of the Uprising. I was born in January.”