Page 12 of Insidious Monsters
He paused, hand on the doorknob. “Iwantedto tell you.” He frowned. “I really did.”
“Dude, just leave,” Nandi said.
“I’m truly sorry,” Quentin said.
His tone ached with sincerity and his expression was the picture of remorse, but this wasn’t something I could let go of easily. He’d broken my trust, violated it by slipping me a drug that had taken Telarion from me.
I turned my face away. “We’ll speak tomorrow.”
He left, closing the door softly behind him.
“You can leave too,” Telarion said to Nandi. “I’ll stay with August.”
Nandi’s brows shot up in surprise. She knew how he’d been avoiding me of late. “You okay with that, August?”
My gaze locked with Telarion’s and a shiver raced through my veins, nothing to do with the buffer drug and everything to do with the needy look in his eyes. Not hunger but something softer. The need to be close to me. A road we’d agreed not to embark on. But as a second shiver raced through me and my bones bloomed with aches, my resolve melted.
“It’s okay with me, Nand.”
She kissed me on the cheek and retreated. “Text me if you need anything.”
Once again the door closed, leaving me alone with Telarion.
He crossed the room to the bed. “Lie down.” He pulled the duvet over me. “Roll onto your side.”
I snuggled down, rolling so my back was away from the door, so I could watch the play of moonlight dancing in through the window. The bed behind me dipped and Telarion draped his arm around me.
My breath hitched.
He was holding me.
He was spooning me.
“You can’t trust him to put your interests above that of the Order,” he said softly. “You can’t let your guard down. Not around him and not around me.”
My eyes pricked. “I want this, Telarion. I want this for real.” God, this was so taboo, and we weren’t meant to go there, but in the dark, with only the moon as witness, it was easy to say the things I’d been holding back for the past few weeks. “I miss you. I miss our banter and our knocking heads and just…being close.”
His sigh reverberated through me. “We are forever close, August, and therein lies the problem.”
I reached down to cover his hand with mine, marveling at how tiny my fingers looked against his larger gloved ones. He tensed at the contact even though there was leather between us.
“Can you…can you take them off?”
“August…” He sounded achingly conflicted.
I should let it go, not push, but I felt like crap, and I needed this. I should have this moment. “Please.”
The leather melted from beneath my fingers, leaving us skin on skin. My stomach fluttered. How could such an innocuous contact feel so intimate? I traced lazy circles around his knuckles before trailing the tips of my fingers down to his.
His heart pounded faster against my back, quickening along with mine. I felt his breath like a warm caress on my neck, skimming up to linger at my lobe before skipping back down to the curve where my neck met my shoulder.
“Telarion, I want you to kiss me.”
He sucked in air between his teeth. “Dangerous ground, tiny human.”
He was retreating behind his monster to scare me away. It wasn’t going to work. Not this time.
I pressed my palm to the back of his hand. “Maybe I need it? Maybe I need to feed.”
