Page 82 of Touch

This impossible mortal waits. However, because her heart has launched into her throat, Love does the only other thing a goddess can do when a mortal man is offering his soul to her. She accepts him.

Reaching out, her fingers brush against his.

Just like that. A touch.

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The world turns upside down. An onslaught of sensations blast through her skin and assault Love to the marrow of her being. The thrust of a cyclone against her chest, a bolt of lightning through her veins, an eruption across her flesh. The contact shatters something within her, while also filling a cavity that no soul has ever reached.

It’s a simple thing. Yet it’s catastrophic.

Andrew’s eyes widen, the irises flashing with shock. A split second of indecision, and Love scuttles backward with a petrified gasp, the motion compromising her balance. Staggering, she fights to keep herself upright on the skates. Then she spins, intending to flee.

A gruff noise resounds from behind, followed by the thud of Andrew’s stick hitting to the ice. A pair of desperate arms catch Love, tug her backward, and band around her middle. He surrounds her with a protective, imploring, and terrifying weight, the embrace robbing her of oxygen as his chest—his heartbeat—thrusts hard against her back.

Someone is touching her. Andrew is touching her.

He holds Love carefully, tenderly, firmly. “Wait,” he begs. “Please.”

Although she trembles like a string pulled to its limits, his voice soothes the terror, his breath stoking the ledge of her ear. If Love commands it, this mortal will release her. Yet his strong grasp becomes a safe haven, a refuge.

Remarkable. Surreal.

This is how it feels to be Holly. This is how it feels to be like everyone else, brittle and comforted.

Her body quakes, on the verge of breaking easier than glass. Shallow pants vacate her lips as she stares at their reflection in the ice. Two bodies entwined, their arms clasping, her fingers digging into his forearms.

She does not wish for him to let go. If he does, she might chip apart like the stars.

A hoarse noise rumbles from Andrew. Shuddering, his forehead drops against the side of her jaw, his eyes on her through the frozen surface. Together, they watch one another, a dire need to release these feelings building inside Love.

She has been touched by deities. But never by a human.

And not by him.

She wants to scream. So she does.

Keeling forward, Love sucks in a breath, then bursts into noise. The howl rips from the pit of her stomach, the frayed sound launching into the sky. She cries out, the cacophony endless and cleaving through the forest.

All the while, Andrew clutches her, his body anchoring Love as she empties her lungs. When it’s over, she collapses into him, her muscles deflating. Andrew brushes his mouth into her hair, the motion helpless. His heavy respirations match hers, as though he’d shouted alongside Love.

Clarity returns. How strange to fit her body to a mortal’s, and how unfair that it’s never happened before.

Once he senses that she’s ready, Andrew steers Love around. Her breasts edge across his torso, everything softer yet harder than she’d imagined it would be. The second her fingernails burrow into the lapels of his coat, he buries his face in the edge of her neck.

“Are you okay?” he whispers, breath stirring against her pulse point.

Gooseflesh races across her body. Her forehead lands on the plank of his shoulder. “No.”

“You feel like a dark fantasy. Like the shadows gave you to me. I could hold you all fucking day and night.”

Indeed. But how? How is this happening?

Oh, Fates. It’s his influence on her, from the way she’s unable to outrun him or sense his emotions, to the fragments of power she loses each time they’re together. Touching must be no exception.

“It happens the longer we’re with humans,” she guesses.

“Itwhat?” Andrew’s growls. “You didn’t tell me!”

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