The Burning Shadow

by Armentrout, Jennifer L.

  Those eyes took on a heavy, hooded quality. “I did say that.”

  I lowered my head, stopping inches from his mouth. “Is it true?”

  “Yes.” His voice was deeper, thicker.

  The bridge of my nose brushed his. “Does it mean what I think it does?”

  His other hand lifted from his stomach and landed on my hip. “What do you think it means?”

  He was going to make me say it. “Does it mean you haven’t been with someone?”

  “There have been … others that I’ve had a few moments of … enjoyment with. Kissing,” he said, gently tugging my head back, exposing my neck. “Touching. Learning. Some level of pleasure.” His mouth found the center of my neck, and I shuddered. “But are you asking if I’ve ever been with someone?”

  I flushed from the tips of my ears all the way to my toes. “Yes.” My voice sounded coarse. “That’s what I’m asking.”

  He pressed a tiny kiss to where my pulse beat. “Then the answer is no.”

  My eyes drifted shut.

  “I could never be,” he continued, tone raspy. “I never wanted to. Not with the memories of you and what we could’ve been.”

  The swelling feeling in my chest returned, and I thought if I had memories of him, it would’ve been the same with me.

  But that wasn’t the case. I lowered my chin, opening my eyes. Those pupils were all white now, bright as the sun. “I was with Brandon. We—”

  “I don’t care,” he said. “That changed nothing for me. Changes nothing for me.”

  The next breath I took was shaky as I dropped my forehead to his. I didn’t know what to do with the knowledge that he’d never been with anyone because of me. There was an absurd amount of possessive glee at that knowledge, and part of me knew I should feel bad about that, but I didn’t.

  “I’m still not sleepy,” I whispered.

  “I know.”

  I didn’t respond. I didn’t get a chance, because Luc shifted—moving faster than I could track. He rolled me onto my back, and then he was beside me, one hand on my hip and the other holding himself up. My heart about came out of my chest as he lowered his head to mine.

  “Tell me what you want.” His lips brushed mine in the darkness. “You need to say the words, Evie.”

  “You,” I whispered into the space between our mouths, while my heart beat so fast I didn’t understand how it could keep going. “I want you.”

  He shook his head, and a lock of his hair brushed my forehead. “You already have me. So, that can’t be what you want now.”

  My heart clenched as the breath I held puffed out in a heady gasp. I lifted my hands, placing them on his shoulders.

  “I think I know.” His nose grazed mine. “You want my mouth.” Those lips touched my cheek. “You want my hands.” The hand at my hip squeezed. “You want my lips on yours.”

  He had been listening to my thoughts.

  I tilted my body toward his, willing his hand to move, his lips to touch mine. Something.

  Luc growled low in his throat as his hand pressed my hips back into the mattress. “No.”

  “No?” I repeated dumbly.

  He nodded. “There’s something you need to fully understand first.”

  I wasn’t sure I was capable of understanding anything at this point, but I would try. “What?”

  Those bright pupils latched on to mine, refusing to let me look away. “You have no idea how long I’ve waited for us to get to this point. I’ve fantasized about it. Dreamed about it. Had nightmares over it. There were times that I believed we would never get to this moment, but I never, ever gave up wanting this—wanting you. I never gave up hoping we’d find our way back to each other and that eventually we would be here, that you would find me and want me. That I would be worthy of you.”

  Worthy of me? How could he think that he wasn’t?

  “I want you so badly it hurts to breathe sometimes.” His voice grew softer, but his words became more powerful. “There is nothing I want more than to lose every part of me in you. Nothing. And yeah, that’s not an exaggeration. Screw world peace and fucking harmony for all species on this planet. You are all I’ve wanted for what has felt like forever.”

  Hearing his words was like being struck by lightning, and he wasn’t finished.

  “If I give you what you want, there’s no going back. Are you ready for that?” His hand slid up my waist, stopping just below my breast. “Because I’ve already waited forever for this—for you. I’ve done nothing but watch and wait, and I am not walking away again. If I kiss you, if I touch you again, I will not be able to go back to the way things are now.” The next breath he took trembled as much as I was. “I won’t be able to pretend that you aren’t my everything.”

  I couldn’t breathe.

  “That you’ll always have me. That you’ll always be mine,” he continued, his words fast and heated. “Are you ready for that? Because it’s intense, I know. I’m a lot to deal with. You think I’m a handful now? You haven’t seen anything yet, Peaches. I’m needy when it comes to affection—your affection—and I’ve been starving for it.”

  And I was starving for him.

  “So, tell me, please, did you really have a moment of clarity, Evie, or is this just a moment of need born out of a desire to distract yourself?”

  I touched his cheek with trembling fingers, feeling his skin hum under my fingertips. I felt like I was about to step off a cliff. “I want you to kiss me.”

  A snarl of satisfaction left him, and then his mouth was on mine. No time was wasted. His lips parted mine in a deep, powerful kiss that left me shaken. His tongue slipped against mine as I pulled at his shoulders, dragging him to me, and for a moment, we were chest to chest as he tilted his head, his hand cradling my jaw.

  Luc kissed like he was starving, like he could devour me with his lips, his tongue, and I wanted to be devoured whole. I tried to move, but the blanket had somehow tangled in our legs, keeping mine pinned. A groan of frustration broke our kiss, and Luc’s thick laugh lifted the tiny hairs all over my body.

  “Is that all that you wanted?” he asked.

  I tried to shake my head, but his hand held my chin in place. I had to speak. I did. “No.”

  “What else?”

  “You,” I repeated. My hands slid down his sides, finding the bare skin underneath.

  His head kicked back, and he groaned as my fingertips skated over the skin of his back. His chin snapped down, and he was kissing me once more, but he shifted off and onto his side. I didn’t get a chance to protest.

  Luc’s hand left my chin and made its way down my throat. I moved with the path of his hand, arching as his palm grazed over the top of my breast. He didn’t stop there, and disappointment flared.

  “Later,” he promised, and then his palm was trailing a lazy circle down my stomach, fingers slipping over my navel. His hand reached the band of my shorts.

  I might’ve stopped breathing.

  Luc’s gaze was pure fire as his eyes lifted to mine. Just the tips of his fingers slipped under the soft material. “This? Is this what you wanted?”

  I was beyond the ability to speak, my pulse pounding. All I could do was nod.

  Electricity danced over his hand as it slipped fully under the band, and I bit down hard on my lip to keep from crying out. I tasted blood, and I didn’t care. I reared off the bed as his fingers unerringly found their way.

  “Yeah.” His voice was thick as he stared down at his hand. “I think I know, but I just want to be sure. You know? What do you want now?”

  I dragged in a deep breath as I vaguely realized he was going to make me say it.

  One of his fingers moved, coming so close, a strangled sound came out of me. “Anything you want. Always. You just have to tell me.”

  “Touch me,” I gritted out. “Please.”

  Those glowing eyes shot to mine. “Of course.”

  And then he touched me, and my hips bucked and my head fell back. I thought I hea
rd him curse over the pounding of my blood. He might’ve said my name, but I couldn’t be sure.

  I was moving against his hand, hips lifting and twisting while he watched me, his eyes fixed to my face, soaking in every response. With anyone else, I would’ve been too uncomfortable, too self-aware to fully let go, but with him …

  With Luc, anything seemed possible.

  He swore again, and then he was leaning over me, taking from my lips as I clutched at him, my fingers digging into the taut skin of his side. He didn’t let up. He didn’t stop. My back arched off the bed, and he followed me, the tip of his tongue tasting the gasps parting my lips.

  “I’m going to have to remember that,” he murmured against my mouth. “You seem to really like it.”

  I did.

  I so did.

  Picking up my thoughts, Luc chuckled and then nudged my head back. His mouth blazed a hot path down my throat. “I know you’re going to like this more.”

  My entire body jolted, legs curling, hips lifting. I grasped his wrist as a low moan escaped me. Not to pull his hand away but to keep it there.

  “Knew it.” He nipped my neck, eliciting a sharp cry from me.

  His mouth closed over mine again, and I lost all sense of time, lost to the darkness of the room, to Luc. Breathing heavy against my parted lips, Luc cursed under his breath—

  It was all too much.

  The tension broke, and my cry was silenced by his mouth, by a kiss that was as fierce as the pleasure pounding through my body.

  There was a good chance my heart stopped at some point, and the only reason I knew I was still alive was because I could feel the soft kisses Luc dropped along my damp brow, my closed eyes, the tip of my nose, and across my cheeks.

  “Evie.”

  The way he said my name forced my eyes open, as if he were begging and cursing me in the same instant. There was a faint whitish glow surrounding him. His face was inches above me, and the need to shower him with the same attention powered through me. I wanted him to feel what I’d just felt, to share—

  I reached for him, slipping my hand down his stomach, farther. My heart about stopped again.

  Luc caught my wrist. “Peaches.”

  “What?” I strained against his hold. “I want to tou—”

  “God,” he groaned. “Don’t finish that sentence. You’re killing me.”

  “I don’t have to finish the sentence. Just let me finish what I want to do.”

  His laugh was strangled. “You have no idea how much I would love to let you finish me.”

  My cheeks flushed.

  “But not here.” He lifted my hand to his mouth and he kissed the center of my palm. “We’ll wake Sylvia.”

  I stared up at him. “Now you’re worried about her?”

  “Yeah. Trust me. I’ll definitely wake her,” he replied, and my brows lifted. “You want to give me something I want?”

  “Yes.” I did. I really did.

  “Just let me hold you.” He threaded his fingers through mine. “That’s what I would like right now.”

  Based on what I’d felt seconds before, I doubted that was what he wanted, but I had forgotten that we weren’t home alone, and we were pushing our luck.

  “Later, then?” I felt my face burning. “We have later.”

  A soft smile played over his lips. “We do.”

  “Okay.” I squeezed his hand. “I guess we can be responsible now and sleep.”

  He chuckled as he rose over me, kissing me quickly before settling beside me. A moment later, he had one arm underneath me and the other around me. My back was to his front, and he held me so close that there was no mistaking he was being responsible.

  More so than I was.

  I wiggled a little, grinning when he groaned in my ear. “Behave,” he warned, squeezing the hand he still held. “And go to sleep.”

  “Okay.” My grin grew into a smile and several moments passed. “Luc?”

  “Yeah?” He sighed.

  “Tha—”

  “Please do not thank me for that,” he cut in. “I know it was amazing. I could tell. I watched you the whole time. But it was my pleasure.”

  My eyes opened wide as I looked over my shoulder at him. “Wow, Luc. I was going to say that was something special.”

  “Oh, yeah, that, too.”

  “I wasn’t going to thank you, because that would sound weird and those two words sound nothing alike.” I placed my cheek back on the pillow. “You’re so arrogant.”

  “You love it.”

  My breath caught in my throat. I did love his annoying arrogance. It made me laugh when it didn’t tick me off. And I also loved how he was holding me, so tight there was no space between us, and with his fingers still threaded through mine. I loved what we’d just shared, because he found pleasure in giving me pleasure. I loved—

  “Go to sleep, Evie.”

  Drawing in a shallow breath, I closed my damp eyes. I did go to sleep, faster than I thought possible, and I slept deeper than I had in months, maybe even years.

  20

  Luc was gone by the time the first rays of dawn began to creep through the window. I rolled over and took a deep breath. The pillow beside me smelled like him.

  Closing my eyes, I shifted onto my back once more. Last night felt like a dream, but I knew it was real. Everything that I realized, everything that he said, and everything that we did.

  I didn’t regret a moment of it, not a single second, but that didn’t stop the nervous flutter that forced me from the bed and into the shower.

  Things had changed.

  In me.

  In Luc.

  Between us.

  I had all day to fixate over what exactly that meant and where it would lead, but right now there was another reason why I was rushing through getting ready an hour before I normally would be up.

  I wanted to talk to Mom before she left.

  Hair still damp, I hurried downstairs, greeted by the rich aroma of coffee. Mom was in the kitchen, pulling her travel mug out from the dishwasher. The cap of blond hair was tucked behind her ears, and she wore a black blouse and trousers. Her lab coat was next to her purse and briefcase.

  “You’re up early,” she said, turning to me, and there was no mistaking the dark shadows under her eyes. “Is Luc upstairs?”

  “What?” I stumbled to a halt, a whole different type of horror seizing my insides. Did she know … about last night?

  She lifted a blond eyebrow. “Do you really think I don’t know he hasn’t broken his habit of knocking on your bedroom window like a thief in the middle of the night?”

  Oh my word.

  The centers of my cheeks heated. “A thief wouldn’t knock on a bedroom window.”

  “Luc is the kind of thief that would.”

  I had no idea how to reply to that.

  “I haven’t said anything about Luc being here, because I know you’re a smart girl,” Mom began, and my eyes widened. This was not the conversation I was expecting nor wanting. Ever. “I also know after everything that’s happened and after everything you’ve learned, you’ve needed the support, and I don’t want to get in the way of that, so I’ve been very lenient with these visits, but he needs to start using the front door like a normal human being.”

  “He’s not a normal human being,” I pointed out, unable to stop myself.

  That eyebrow stretched even higher. “He needs to start behaving like one.”

  “Okay. I’ll tell him.” I shifted my weight from foot to foot. “You got home late last night.”

  “Yeah, a lot of stuff has been going on at work.” She walked over to the coffee maker.

  “What’s been going on at work? You’ve been working late a lot.”

  “I know.” Pouring the coffee, she gave a little shake of her head. “It’s the whole Luxen virus thing. We’re basically chasing rumors and impossibilities to see if we’ve possibly missed some disease that was transmittable.”

  I went to the fridge an
d grabbed the OJ. I couldn’t talk about Sarah, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t ask about her in a roundabout way. “Have there been more cases?”

  “Just a few sporadic ones.”

  “Anything like what happened to Coop?” I asked.

  Mom shook her head as she shoved the pot back into the coffeemaker. “Not that I’m aware of. Just more cases of people getting sick and some dying.” She reached up, grabbing a glass and handing it to me. “Is this why you’re up so early?”

  No, it wasn’t, and even though I wanted to prod her further on these cases, there was something else I needed to talk to her about before I had to go to school and she had to go to work.

  I took my glass and juice to the island. “Actually, there’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about.”

  She faced me, screwing the lid onto her mug. “Okay. I’m all ears for…” She glanced at the watch on her wrist. “For about fifteen minutes.”

  Fifteen minutes should be enough to go down the road that Luc wanted to be here for. He’d be ticked off if he found out what I was about to do, but I thought this was a conversation Mom and I would best have alone.

  “I was thinking about after you gave me the serum that healed me.”

  “Oh.” Surprise flickered across her face. “What about it?”

  I poured my juice. “Luc brought me to you in June?”

  Brows knitted, she nodded. “Yeah. Around the end of the month.”

  “How long … did it take for the serum to work?” I took a sip to wash away the dryness in my mouth and throat.

  “It took a couple of days for the fever to break and then a week or so for you to completely heal,” she said. “That’s when I told you about … Evie.”

  “And then what?” I asked, my grip slippery on my glass. “I’ve been trying to remember that summer before I started school, and all I have are these vague recollections of reading books and watching TV, but nothing concrete. It’s like when I try to think of who I was before I was given the serum.”

  “It was the fever and most likely a side effect of the serum.” She placed her travel mug on a coaster. “It did some damage to your short-term memory.”