Iniquitous (The Marked #3)(22)

I sat up in my bed and looked back at him. “I had a horrible dream.”

“You’re just nervous about tomorrow, angel,” he said, without moving. “It’s understandable.”

I’m pretty sure that would make anyone sleep bad, but it wasn’t even that plaguing my mind. It was something more.

“I’ve had this dream before. The blood-red sky, the dark woods.” I shook my head, deciding to leave out that part about him being in the nightmare more often than not.

“Blood skies?” He slid his hands into the pockets of his black pants.

I nodded. “I can’t help but feel like something bad is coming. Something really bad.”

“How long have you been having this dream?”

“A few weeks. Maybe months?” I wasn’t sure of time anymore. “What does it mean?” I asked him.

Somehow, I’d come to depend on him for answers, like he knew the secrets of the world and could make me privy to them if I just stayed close enough to him.

“It’s just a dream, angel.” He hesitated, and then pulled his hands from his pocket as he moved towards the bed. He sat down on the edge, sitting dangerously close to me, the moonlight dusting his face with the most divine highlights I’d ever seen. “You need to rest,” he said, brushing a lock of hair from my eyes.

I shivered from the brief contact and immediately found myself wanting more of it.

Something had changed between us recently. I wasn’t sure what that something was, but it felt like everything. The only thing I knew for sure was that I felt better when he was near me, when he was speaking to me—touching me—but I didn’t know what any of that meant.

I shook my head: at him, for him, because of him. I wasn’t sure anymore. “I can’t sleep. I’m too nervous.”

“I know, angel. I can feel it.” He titled his head to the side and examined me, read me like an open book. “Would you prefer that I stay with you until you fall asleep?”

That was exactly what I wanted, but I couldn’t answer him. Something else he said had snagged all my attention. “Did you say you can feel it?”

He paused, not realizing he let that slip and then tipped his head up once.

“You can feel what I’m feeling?” I verified.

“I can feel your emotions—your uneasiness in particular.” He looked down at me with compunction in his eyes. “The bloodbond goes both ways, angel.”

My eyes rounded out in surprise. That was brand new info to me.

“There’s a connection now,” he explained, almost as if to justify himself. “A tether between us that lets me know when you’re upset or scared or angry. All I have to do is let myself feel it.”

“Let yourself?”

“Allow the connection,” he clarified.

“And you have? You’ve let yourself feel it?”

“Sometimes.” He blinked tiredly. “In spite of myself, of course.”

“What does that mean?” There was something he wasn’t saying. Something he didn’t want to admit.

“Never you mind that, angel. Just try to get some rest,” he said, leaning in beside me to prop my pillow up.

I turned towards him, inhaling his scent. He smelled like chocolate and dark liquor, and something else. Something seducing and threatening all at once. “I don’t want to sleep.”

He turned at my words, bringing his lips within inches of mine. Heat danced across my skin in waves and I suddenly had the urge to kiss him. To taste his lips and see if they were as savory as they looked. Unsure of my intentions and completely detached from what I was doing or thinking, I leaned in closer to him, bringing my mouth as close to his as I could get, but he promptly pulled away from me before I could make contact.

It took me a minute to realize what just happened.

I dropped my eyes, embarrassment and confusion warring inside my mind. Confusion because I had no idea what was going on between us anymore—what was going on with me. It was as though I was in some parallel universe where I wanted Dominic but he didn’t want me. I couldn’t seem to control myself anymore; to control my urge to touch him; to kiss him. Somewhere in the deepest trenches of my heart, it felt wrong, but that voice was so small and distant now that I barely heard it at all.

“Why won’t you kiss me?” I asked him, despite my mind screaming at me to shut up.

He blinked slowly, buying himself some time to answer. “I’m trying very hard to do the right thing here, angel, but you’re making it very hard for me.”

“Since when do you care about doing the right thing? And what is the right thing? If I want to kiss you and you want to kiss me, why is that wrong?” I couldn’t believe the words as they were coming out of me. It was as though I wasn’t even in control of my own mouth anymore. “Unless you really don’t want to kiss me.”

“Don’t do that, angel.”

“Don’t do what?”

“Don’t play that game with me. It won’t end well for you, I promise you that.”

A slither of fear crawled up my back. It was a warning if I ever did hear one, and yet my damn mouth persisted anyway. “I’m not playing any games with you, Dominic.” I scooched in closer to him; as close as he would allow me to get.