Starflight (Starflight, #1)(71)

This was what Doran had secretly hoped for. He pulled Solara closer than he probably should have, and when she didn’t object, he eliminated another pocket of space between them. She locked both her wrists behind his neck and rested her chin on his chest, grinning up at him as they moved in a lazy sway. Her cheeks were flushed pink, and her eyes practically glowed from exertion. In that moment, he wondered how he’d ever believed she was anything less than spectacular.

She glanced at their fused bodies and told him, “The nuns would say we’re not leaving enough room for the Holy Spirit.”

It took a second for Doran to find his breath because she’d stolen it. “That’s all right. The Holy Spirit doesn’t belong here. He would just get in the way.”

The longer they clung to each other on the dance floor, the lighter Doran’s limbs felt. It started in his toes as a fizzy sort of warmth and bubbled through his veins until a sensation of euphoria overtook him, stronger than any champagne buzz he’d ever known. And strangely, the music sounded better. The vibrations created so much pleasure inside his ears that he rested his forehead against Solara’s and groaned.

“Hey,” she said. In the seconds since he’d last looked into her eyes, her pupils had grown wide and chased away all the amber. “Do you feel kind of…drunk, but not? Like all your skin is trying to float away?”

For some reason, Doran found that hilarious. He began chortling and couldn’t stop. “I think I know what that mushroom really was,” he said between chuckles.

“The magical kind?”

“Uh-huh.” And if he felt this blasted now, he was lucky he hadn’t eaten the whole thing. He worried about how sick he’d feel in the morning, but then a ticklish warmth settled over him like a blanket, and a delicious shiver rolled down his spine.

Solara peered up at him with a wide grin. “You’re sparkly.”

He noticed that she was, too. Her skin shimmered as if she’d dipped her face in diamond dust. He cupped her dimpled cheek and simply took her in, so moved by the girl staring back at him that it hurt to breathe. “And you’re beautiful,” he told her. His gaze landed on her birthmark, followed by the sudden urge to trace it with his tongue.

“I’m not beaut—”

Before she could finish, he tipped back her face and licked the base of her throat. Her skin was salty with a hint of sweetness layered beneath, so perfect that he did it again and again, until she let her head loll back. He wanted more, so he moved to the side of her neck and sucked a trail from ear to shoulder, right there in the middle of the crowded dance hall, without a care for who might see.

When she pushed away, her eyelids were heavy. “Is it hot in here?”

“God, yes,” he said. “So hot.”

“We should get some air.”

“Air is good. Let’s do that.”

They ran outside, and a dozen heartbeats later, he had Solara flat on her back in the cool grass behind the barn, her legs wrapped tightly around his hips while he lay atop her and sucked his way down the other side of her neck.

His heart was about to explode and he couldn’t catch his breath, but nothing mattered except tasting more of her skin. When he reached the base of her shoulder, he tugged aside her collar to expose a fresh patch, and then raked his teeth across her flesh. The drug had somehow rerouted half his nerve endings to his tongue and the other half to his ears, because everything below the waist had gone numb while all her little noises and sighs vibrated his eardrums in a surge of pleasure that made him see stars.

“Doran,” she whispered.

He lifted his head to glance at her lips, and it struck him that he hadn’t kissed her yet—something he’d fantasized about for weeks. But when he lowered his mouth to hers, he felt nothing. There was no brush of skin, no meeting of tongues, no thrill of contact. The deadened sensation reminded him of a trip to the dentist.

She must have sensed the invisible barrier, too, because she turned her face aside and panted, “It’s not working. I can’t feel you.”

“Me neither.” He shifted his weight to one elbow and paused to catch his breath. “My lips are numb. My skin’s numb. Everything’s numb.”

She pushed his chest, and he rolled off her and into the grass. After their breathing slowed, they lay there for a while, side by side, occasionally giggling or commanding the moons to stop spinning. Doran was about to say that the mushroom they’d eaten would make a better anesthetic than a drug when a thought struck him and he sat upright.

“I know what I want for a souvenir,” he said.

“Yeah?”

He took her wrist and brushed a thumb over the delicate skin there. “Let’s get matching tattoos, so we never, ever, forget this day.”

Her lips parted in a gasp of delight. “That’s a great idea!”

“Really? So you’ll come with me?”

“Of course I will,” she said. “Let’s hurry before we change our minds.”




“Rise and shine, you crazy kids.”

Someone kicked Doran’s boot, jerking him into consciousness. He didn’t have to open his eyes to know the sun was up. It pierced his brain right through both lids, causing his whole head to throb. Groaning, he rolled onto his side and clutched his temples. Something dry and scratchy tickled his hands, and he cracked open one eye to find brown grass beneath him.