The Gender Lie(70)

I allowed the smile that had been threatening to form on my lips to come to life, and waved her over with my hand. “Come here,” I said, and she crawled over to me, until she was inches in front of me. I reached out and gripped her gently by her shoulders. I stared deep into her eyes, and then let out a sigh of relief, crushing her to me and holding her tight. I gave her a long moment to collect herself as her chest heaved. I also gave myself a long moment to just feel her against me.

Then I guided her to a sitting position next to me. I angled my body toward hers until our knees touched. I kept her hands firmly in my own, not wanting to release them just yet.

“So, what do you want to do?” I asked.

“I… I don’t know,” she answered, with an air of tired frustration.

“I get it. It’s hard pissing off the only friends we’ve got at the moment,” I said.

“I’ve talked to Desmond about these kinds of things before, and it hasn’t always ended the way I wanted it to. I doubt this will either.”

“So, what are you thinking?”

She pressed her lips together and shook her head, blowing out her breath. After a minute, she turned her gaze to mine and raised an eyebrow. “What are your thoughts?”

I ran through the options in my head. “Well, we can confront her or we can leave.”

“We can’t leave,” she said. “Not with those boys. You’re doing fantastic work with them… I don’t want to take that away from them, do you?”

“No,” I replied immediately. “But then that means we should confront her.”

“A part of me wishes I had just… I don’t know… found another way to save your life. Demanded that they made you stable and then delivered you to Patrus so that you could get healed up faster.”

I leaned over and cupped her cheeks in my hands. “Violet, no. You’re not at fault for this. I mean… how could you have known that she was willing to go to these lengths? You did what you had to do to help the people you care about. It’s what I love best about you.”

I froze at the words tumbling out of my mouth. I had just admitted that I loved her, which hadn’t been my intention. In point of fact, short of a few stolen kisses, we had never discussed what was between us. There was no label that felt applicable in our situation, not that we had even talked about labeling what we had in the first place.

I felt a wave of insecurity rush through me. I had no idea how she would react to this news, and I felt a pang of doubt at her dumbfounded expression.

Until a smile lit up her eyes, causing them to shine in that peculiar way that reminded me of mercury. Her mouth curled up as she reached out with gentle fingers to trace the lines of my face.

“You… love me?” she asked, her heart in her eyes and a teasing quality in her voice.

I felt my expression softening as I nodded. “Of course I do. Think I’d give up my homeland for just anyone?”

She laughed loudly, and I stooped down to lay a gentle kiss on her forehead. As soon as my lips tasted her skin, something in me shifted slightly, and I felt a sudden need to taste her more deeply.

I pushed her insistently, sliding her down the wall while simultaneously stretching myself halfway onto her. Rolling over on my side with my leg thrown over hers, a growl escaped my throat as my desire for her overpowered me. For anyone else, I was a man of deep control, but with Violet, my hold over myself was tenuous at best. With everything that had happened the last few days… I was fighting off a desperate and primal need to have her. And I was losing.

I stared down at her. Her face was tilted toward mine, angled for the kiss she seemed to sense coming. Her hands were on my shoulders, and I could feel the insistent press of them through my clothes. Bending down, I slid my hands over her hips and jerked her up slightly against me, savoring the feeling of her weight in my hands.

She gave a little sound of surprise as I did this, and then relaxed her legs slightly, allowing my knee to fall between them. I took her invitation, sliding my hips over hers as I settled more deeply into the cradle of her thighs, and she moaned. She lifted both of her legs and wrapped them around my waist, drawing our most intimate parts together until only a barrier of fabric separated us. I groaned, resting my forehead against hers. Our lips still hadn’t touched, and I kept my mouth millimeters from hers, our breaths mingling. Wrapping her legs around me was an entirely innocent move on her part, but it was like throwing gasoline on a raging fire that was barely being controlled.

She shifted her hips, unaware of the effect her squirming was having on me. It took every ounce of self-control for me to not give her an intimate lesson on the ways of men and women right then and there. I knew she wouldn’t protest—if anything, she was hungry for it too, given the erratic and enthusiastic movements of her body.