Kindling the Moon (Arcadia Bell #1)(78)

“Don’t you dare tell him I said it or he’ll use it against me. What a manipulator! Maybe he got that from you, huh?” I grinned, elbowing him, and we both laughed.

I propped my chin back on my forearms. I was finally thawed out. My face was even starting to get a little warm.

“What about me?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Am I … easy?”

A bold question, considering the amount of time we’d known each other. I laid my cheek on my arm to look at him. I thought he might be teasing me, but I wasn’t sure, so I answered honestly. “Not exactly.”

Considering my answer with the barest suggestion of amusement on his lips, he drew his legs up to his chest, mimicking my posture. The flames from our less-than-romantic fire cavorted across his face, deepening the long hollows of his cheeks and darkening his tight eyes. He made a small noise, then spoke again. “When I’ve said that I ‘sense’ someone’s feelings with my ability, that’s not really accurate.”

“Oh?”

“Especially when I’m touching someone. It’s more like I feel what they feel. I experience their emotions as if they were my own. But when I’m not transmutated, I can’t read their thoughts, so it’s like solving a puzzle; I have to figure out what caused the emotion.”

“Like a blindfold taste test,” I suggested.

“In a way, yes. It’s like someone has blindfolded me, stuck a piece of raw fish in my mouth, and I have to figure out whether it’s salmon or toro.”

“I think I could tell. Toro is way better.” I grinned at him, and he extended his foot to gently kick me.

A few moments of silence passed before he spoke again. “Remember when I shook your hand? When Father Carrow introduced us?”

I nodded in affirmation. “When I meet someone, I feel their first impressions of me. I call it listening, but I suppose we could call it tasting, like you said. And everyone tastes different.” He poked a finger through his blanket to scratch his cheek. “When I met you, well, I knew there could be something between us.”

“Hmph. That’s probably just because you saw me in my underwear that first night,” I teased.

“That was just a bonus.” He grinned. “What I meant is that there could be something more between us than just me wanting to jump in bed with you.”

Huh. Okay. Not exactly poetic, but his words made me smile.

“Have you been serious about anyone in the past?” he asked.

“Not until recently. It’s always been difficult. Last year, I saw someone for several months, but I broke it off because it got to the point where it either had to go forward or stop. I couldn’t tell him who I really was, and I couldn’t keep lying.”

He shifted under his blanket. “But you don’t have to lie to me.”

“No … no, I don’t.” Not much of a choice in that; but I guess I really didn’t mind too much, and he probably knew that.

A long moment stretched as we sat together in silence, staring at the fire. His eyes fell on me now and then, but he didn’t say anything. Then a detail of what he’d said shifted around in my head. It wouldn’t go away, and I became self-conscious that we were both sitting there naked, with nothing between us but a couple of ratty blankets.

His lips curled into a slow smile.

I groaned in annoyance, then gave up trying to hide anything. What was the point?

“So you don’t think I’m too young?” I challenged.

“That depends. Do you think I’m too old?”

“Like you told me before, you’re not a ‘f*cking grandfather’ or anything.”

He chuckled.

My blanket had dipped down my back, so I rocked forward onto my knees to pull up the slack and tug it over my shoulders.

“Are you on birth control?”

I froze, kneeling in front of the hearth. Several seconds ticked by before I answered.

“I am. Is that your idea of seduction? Because if it is …” I turned in place to face him.

He rose up on his knees and waited for me to finish, a merry glint in his eye.

“Because if it is,” I repeated in a softer voice, “you kinda suck.”

His head bobbed up and down in resignation. Clearly he agreed with my summation, but felt powerless to do anything about it.

“Do you trust me?” he murmured.

“Should I?”

He nodded. “And I trust you. Are you still cold?”

“No …”

“Then drop your blanket. I want to see you.”

I squinted, heart on a roller coaster headed up an incline. “Nope. You first.”

Frankly, I didn’t expect him to consent so fast. The blanket fell around him, and there he was, on his knees, proudly on display in front of me without a stitch of clothing.

I looked him over as slowly as I could manage, appreciating the beautiful intricacies of bones and muscles, the angle of the scar over his ribs … using every ounce of willpower I could muster not to follow the golden line of hair on his chest all the way down. But, half a second later, when my eyes disobeyed me, my lips parted. I began breathing hard through my mouth. My belly tightened.

“Hmm?” he inquired, one brow arched.