Page 73 of Stone Seduction
“If it was up to me, we’d be flying away from here right now.” I traced the tip of my pinky finger along his jawline. “Just us out in the big wide world. Whateverusis. I’m not sure.” Butterfliesstirred, before I landed the next line. “I want more of you, Luke Garland.”
He looked up, killing me with those wide eyes. “I want…I want the same.” He pulled down part of his T-shirt, showing me the mark. “Not only have you marked me here, but you’ve marked…” A nervous breath. “You’ve marked my heart.”
I shouldn’t be falling for him. But when he said stuff like that…whoa. He sent me into a giddy spin. He had me. Man, did he have me. But confusion forced me to sit back. My right foot tapped as my apprehension rose, my eyes on the cars whizzing by on the motorway and the comings and goings of the humans stopping to rest here.
Motes drifted past the café, doing nothing, the day ticking by normally, people living their lives. Like Luke should be doing, not encumbered by this shit.
“Say something,” he said.
“I feel the same.”More than you know.
My heart called to me, ribbons binding us together.
“But I don’t know what to do about it,” I added.
Those ribbons frayed, his eyes lowering to the latte. “Oh.”
“Right now, I mean. In this café.” Shit. I reached for his hand again. “I know I want to…to be more to you.” Gods, the lightness in my chest was totally alien to a guy like me. This was what falling hard really meant. “I’m a tad scrambled. I can’t stop thinking about handing you over to Seth again.”
Luke patted my hand and gulped down half his latte, my coffee barely touched. He appeared relaxed, no hint of nerves.
It shook me up.
“I get it,” he finally said.
I leaned forward again, back to stroking his face. “What’s going on inside your head?”
He looked at me for several beats before turning his head to the side, facing the window. “Dreams of better days.” He sighed,sorrowful lines crinkling in the corners of his eyes. “I really should’ve gone to the library in Oxford.” He sat back, folding his arms. “I’m the failure here, Asher. I’ve really fallen by the wayside, letting Finn down, stumbling from one situation to the next. I’m caught in a loop with no exit. And soon I’ll be whisked off to the tower, yelled at, poked at or whatever, treated like a lab rat.” He groaned. “Sorry. Moan, moan, moan.”
His indifference gave way to fatigue.
“Seth won’t stop until he gets what he wants from me,” he added. “Whatever that is. It certainly doesn’t end with changing the world.”
Anger rumbled in my chest, hungry for a few violent rounds with the fur-wearing knobhead. “I’ll make sure he backs off.”
“How?”
“I’ll figure something out. He doesn’t get to have unchecked power. No pissing way.”
The corners of his mouth tugged into a smile as vehicles thundered down the motorway, making for the service station turnoff.
“Here goes,” he whispered, picking up his latte.
Shit. Here came the cavalry.
“Let’s do this quietly,” Luke said, resting his chin on his fist. “In a minute. I want to sit here until I’m forced to move.”
A minute later, he was forced.
TWENTY
Luke
Asher yelled and protested as they jabbed me with potion, warning each of the twenty knights to keep their hands off me. They respected his wishes, linking his arm with mine, leading me toward an idling black SUV at the center of a ring of identical vehicles.
I ignored them all, basking in the sunshine instead. Calm.
For some reason, I couldn’t get angry, kind of meh about this whole thing. Probably because I knew the feeble dose of potion would be purged the moment I came back online following my little rest.
