Page 4 of Touch

Love ignores the coat. Confusion assaults her logic. Humans do not have the ability to see deities, apart from the rarest and most perilous of circumstances. And he’d moved with agility, proving himself a formidable opponent.

Perhaps she’d been wrong earlier. He could be a Dark God like her. She’s heard of elite archers who were careless enough to get themselves banished from The Dark Fates, the realm where celestials reign over deities in the same manner fictional titans rule Olympus. Yet that does not explain the human bow and the riveted way he regards her physical appearance. Moreover, Love smells the earth on him and had sensed his emotions when he first appeared, something she cannot do with a peer.

Last, a deity would never have offered the coat. Not that her kind needs warmth. Quite simply, they are too selfish to make such a gesture.

The man sucks in a breath when she disarms, her hand reaching out and swimming through his sternum. Very well, so he’s not an exiled god. Perhaps some form of demon? Nonsense. No such rivals occupy this world.

Love slaps the coat from his hand. Then she drops the longbow, windmills the arrow through her fingers, and ramsthe stem into his chest. The momentum plows him against the nearest tree. Only when her breasts hover close to his pectorals, her body inches from passing through his, does she pause.

The man doesn’t resist. Yet neither does he cower, his eyes glittering like polished steel. “What do you want?”

“I wish for you to be quiet, mortal,” she commands.

Yet she also wants him to speak again. His voice is a deep symphony, bursting into that place humans call the heart but deities merely consider an organ. A pounding rhythm quickens within her, throbbing as though she has swallowed a drum.

Is this what it’s like to truly feel her pulse?

Her free hand traces the contours of his body. More to the point, theyattemptas much, from his straight nose to that sharp jaw.

That’s when his irises flicker with more than intrigue. Something deeper, darker, and distressing. Their bodies pump oxygen, inflating through one another with each respiration. Despite being near enough to fuse together, the only thing that makes physical contact with him is the arrow wedged against his torso.

He stalls, muscles taut as he watches her skim his frame. For an instant, those pupils expand, and his lips part on a husky exhalation that caresses her own mouth. Like this, she feels him tangibly, the stimulation gripping her lungs.

The man’s eyelids hood, fixation and vigilance playing a tug-of-war across his face. This one isn’t the type to capitulate easily, but neither is he immune to her proximity. Every place she brushes through produces a different reaction from him—a ragged intake, a flare of his irises, a clench of his teeth. The phenomenon draws her in like a moth to a flame.

Love’s hand has barely drifted along his throat when she jolts back, releasing the man. She clutches her fist, which crackles with energy. This reaction to a lowly human isn’tnormal. Worse, she’s made a grave mistake. What has she done revealing herself to him?

Stars almighty. What has shedone?

“Wait!” he shouts as she breaks the trance, veers around, and launches up her tree, scaling its heights like a member of the fauna.

She tastes-smells-hears the proof of his shock on her way up, but it’s not due to her momentum, for Love isn’t moving as fast as she could. No, it’s because he sees beneath her dress, viewing the evidence that deities never bother with undergarments. She’d been too fast during the battle for him to notice, but at this moment, her ass and cunt are on full display. For nudity is hardly sacred among her kind.

Love dashes across the branch, evergreen needles obscuring her form. It’s a novel exercise that causes her face to do things it isn’t accustomed to, such as squint in confusion. Unnerved, she yanks on the dress’s hem to cover herself.

His voice echoes through the woods. “What the fuck! Get down here and put on this fucking coat!”

She stops tugging on the dress and scowls. This mortal shit has the gall to direct her with an order?

Grinding her boot across the branch, Love kicks a pile of snow off the edge and relishes the sound of him cursing as it strikes his head. Perhaps she has fallen asleep on the branch, and this is a nightmare. Or perhaps the isolation has outdone Love, and this human is a figment of her solitary imagination.

He stalks around the tree, forcing her to hop from bough to bough while wrestling with her dress. As much as she enjoys games, this cat and mouse chase is a nettling chore. She is biased and doesn’t care for it, not when she’s the target.

The man swears under his breath. He must not like the game either. Not when the objective insists on changing.

“Who the fuck are you?” she demands.

“Who the fuck areyou?” he throws back.

The sun has almost set. Exasperated, Love slaps the tree trunk. “Be gone!”

As he hesitates, she catches the renewed scent of his concern wafting from below. She will be lucky if this man is an illusion. Otherwise, she’s in danger.

“Piss off, dammit!” she shouts.

The man must hear the hysteria she has failed to mask, because he grunts in resignation. “Christ,” he mutters, swiping his coat off the ground.

Love’s fingernails stab the bark as she peeks around the tree. The man braces one foot on a fallen log. He digs through the inside pocket of his coat, pulls out a pen and small notebook, and thumbs through the contents until he reaches a blank page. She watches his head bow as he writes, his knuckles flexing, the ink of his pen bleeding onto the paper.

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