Page 73 of Synodic

I didn’t know a kiss could feel like this, like I was coming undone. The tendrils of my aura extended and intertwined with Rowen’s until I couldn’t tell where one of us ended and the other began.

Rowen wrapped his arms around me and effortlessly lifted me up by the backs of my bare thighs. He hoisted me on his waist, and I locked my legs around him, threading my arms behind his neck.

I was lost to all time and space and reality as I kissed the man once hidden in the mist of my dreams. Weaving my hands through his soft, thick hair, he was as real as anything, strong and solid beneath me, and I wanted him.

I rocked my hips against the outline of his hard cock, and a deep groan spilled from his mouth, filling me with a breath that went deeper than oxygen ever could. I went to undo the lacing of my vest only to remember Rowen had loosened it earlier today.

Good. I was already halfway there.

Rowen suddenly went still. “Keira,” he whispered against my kiss.

Why was he stopping? I wasn’t done with him, not by a long shot. I refused to break my mouth from his, wanting more. Needing more.

He smiled against my lips, then pulled back fractionally, and my whole body leaned forward to find him.

“My bandage. Your leg.” His eyes flared with heat but his body froze. Two warring emotions.

Despite everything within me, I pulled back an inch and looked down to where my thigh rubbed against his injured side. The moss had pulled from one of his gashes, covering the inside of my leg in his blood.

Undeterred by his torn bandage, he didn’t release me, he just continued to hold me up with his forearms. I made no move to withdraw myself either and I settled my hands on the mounds of his muscled shoulders.

I met Rowen’s smoldering stare and held it, our chests heaving from the need and desire we just ripped from each other. The lingering effects of the venom must have been wearing off because even though his pupils were still huge, they weren’t as blown out and crazed as before.

My hair was a mess from where his hands ran through my waves, and my lips felt puffy and swollen, but the way he was looking at me shifted something fundamental within my core. It frightened me, yet I wanted more.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said, lightly placing kisses along my jawline, cheekbones, and forehead. Each plant of his mouth sent electrical shocks through me like a live wire exposed to rainwater. “Every part of you.”

“So are you,” I unabashedly admitted. “I’ve always thought so, even when I hadn’t been able to fully see you beyond the mist. I knew.”

He smiled, the luminance of happiness etched into every line and curve of his face. I had never seen him this happy, this incandescent. It was magnificent to behold and I wanted to spend however long I could making him look that way, but in an instant, it was quickly shadowed over with anger, or was it regret?

My body went rigid in confusion.

Did he already regret what we’d just done? What he’d said? Did he remember almost killing me?

My breath caught in my throat as his complete demeanor changed. This couldn’t be the same Rowen who’d kissed me like his life depended on it. Like I was what tethered his very soul to his body.

It was a devastating look that scared me and chilled my roaring fire into a single aching ember. He seemed to be raging war within himself, and he looked as torn as I imagined a person could be.

Still, he didn’t let me go, our bodies clinging to each other in the belly of our cave. It reminded me of a mutual zugzwang in chess, where the only move, was not to move.

He appeared uneager to set me down as if I might disappear and break the connection in half, separating us permanently, something he both wanted desperately and yet not at all.

“I better fix your bandage,” I finally said; eventually one of us would have to move, acknowledging the stalemate. I couldn’t take the look on his face for one more second. Was I the one causing that look of regret mixed with something else I couldn’t quite place? If so, I couldn’t bear to be the one that made him look as if his whole world was crumbling beneath his feet.

He gently slid me down off his body, making sure I was perfectly placed on my own two feet. His hands lingered on the bare sliver of flesh between my vest and underwear, embossing his fingerprints into my flushed and needy skin.

He dug his fingers into my hips and tugged me flush against his body. He dipped his head to run his nose along the curve of my jaw. “Keira. I’m so sorry, but I can’t have you.” His tone was strangled with torment, and his words hit me like a gut punch. Those weren’t the words I wanted to hear from the lips I’d just tasted.

His hands fell away from me completely, leaving an ache where his touch had been. He looked at me through darkened eyes, then twisted his torso and fixed his bandage, realigning the moss to secure it in place.

“I shouldn’t have done that. Kissed you. It won’t happen again,” he said, taking a step away from me, punching me again while I was already down. I was not good with receiving rejection; I was normally the one doling it out. But I had never been in a situation like this—where someone was still so obviously in love with a ghost.

“I understand. You still love her.” It was the hardest thing I'd ever said, and the words tasted like ash in my mouth. Maybe saying it out loud would help me get over him. I couldn’t compete with a lost love, and I had to—no—neededto accept that. The sooner the better.

His eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared. “You understand nothing.”

He might as well have slapped me across the face with how much those words stung.

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