Chapter 147
Chapter 146: Grace: Zero to Sexty Caine tries to jerk his hand back, but I hold on, my fingers tightening around his wrist. No way I’m letting him pull away now. The strange current between us is back, and I’m determined to figure it out, damn it.
Otherwise I can’t hold Bun.
“It’s too dangerous,” he snaps, but his resistance is already faltering. Though his muscles remain taut with tension, he stops trying to break free of my grip.
“I’m never going to learn to control whatever this is if you don’t touch me,” I say, my voice far steadier than the lack of certainty in my head. I can feel it, but it doesn’t mean I’ll be able to control it. Still, I want to try. “You can’t protectby keepingin the dark about my own power, Caine.” He groans, dropping his head forward until his dark hair falls across his face. “Look at yourself, Grace. You’re exhausted. Weak. You need rest, not… experiments.” “I feel fine right now.” I straighten my spine, trying to look stronger than I probably appear. “You just need to stop if I start looking… bad.” A corner of his mouth twitches up despite everything; I can see it, even from this angle. “You’ll never look bad.” I blink, momentarily thrown off balance. “Are you seriously flirting within the middle of this conversation?” I push indignation into my voice even as I fight the smile threatening to form. Butterflies dance in my belly. He looks up with a sigh, but his mouth is still half-quirked in amusement. “You’re killing me, Grace.” Goddess. Every the says my name…
Dear and darling do it, too.
Basically any the looks atlike that, I’m drowning in a sea of tingly, throbbing feelings.
“I thought you were the one killing me, though?” I counter, trying to make the atmosphere a little less… seductive.
He growls low in his throat. It doesn’t help the throbbing down below, damn it. “That’s not what I mean.” Okay. Better not to talk at all.
“Hush. I’m concentrating.” I turn his palm around, my heart racing as I slide my hand against his. Even the slide of his callused palm against mine sends frissons of excitement through my skin, and I fight the urge to wiggle. If I do, my reaction will be obvious, and the last thing I need is to be obvious.
I lock our fingers together, squeezing slightly as I focus on the strange sensation flowing between us and not the throbbing between my thighs. This tit’s easier to feel. Not just sense, but actually feel the current passing fromto him.
My eyes squeeze shut as I concentrate harder. My face scrunches. I probably look ridiculous.
Whatever this energy is, I need to grab it, control it. But it’s like trying to hold water-completely fluid, passing through my mental “hands” no matter how I try to grasp it.
Then, behind my closed eyelids, I see it—a glowing golden thread. No, not one thread-countless threads, pulsing and alive, connecting our joined hands. I can see our fingers, or at least strange, luminous outlines of them, like x-ray images dunked in a sea of iridescent rainbows.
Fascinated, I mentally reach out, stroking the threads with my consciousness. They respond, vibrating like harp strings.
Caine groans-not in my mind but out loud, the sound rumbling from his chest and shaking the bed a little.
My eyes snap open, but I don’t lose the sensation. The golden threads remain visible in my mind’s eye even as I focus on Caine’s face. His jaw is clenched, cheeks flushed with heat.
I stroke the energy threads again, experimenting, and his whole body goes rigid. His eyes darken, pupils expanding until there’s barely any gray left, and they drop to fix on my lips.
The intensity he exudes steals my breath.
“Um, I think I—” The words die in my throat as he lunges forward.
His mouth crashes into mine, desperate and hungry. The force of his movement sendsfalling backward onto the bed, his weight pressingdown into the mattress. The energy between us explodes from controlled threads into a raging river-wild, untamable, impossible to grasp.
But I can’t focus on that anymore. Not with his lips devouring mine, his tongue pushing into my mouth with bruising urgency. His hands move down my body with frantic need, finding my breasts and squeezing them through my shirt, fingers digging in hard enough to makegasp against his mouth.
The air around us suddenly smells sweet. My skin’s on fire. One of his hands shoves up my shirt as I try to wrest his off; we’re a tangled mess of kissing and shirts and oh my Goddess, his hand is in my bra and he’s pinching my nipple hard enough to hurt.
Except it doesn’t.
It does, but it doesn’t.
I give up on pulling his shirt off and grab at his other hand, shoving it down to my pants.
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