Chapter 84 84
Kaelen's POV:
I caught her waist and pulled her closer, which was a mistake because now she was pressed against me and I could feel every inch of her through our clothes and my brain was rapidly losing the ability to form coherent thoughts. She made this sound against my mouth, this small desperate noise, and I backed her up until she hit the wall next to the fireplace.
"Kaelen," she breathed, and then we were kissing again, deeper, her fingers in my hair and my hands on her hips and the bond wide open between us, every sensation doubled, tripled, bouncing back and forth until I couldn't tell where I ended and she began.
Her leg hooked around the back of mine. I lifted her without thinking about it, her back against the wall and her thighs around my waist, and she gasped into my mouth and rolled her hips and I had to break the kiss just to breathe, just to not completely lose my mind right there in Marcus's living room.
"We can't," I said, but my voice came out wrecked and I was already kissing her neck, that spot below her ear that made her shiver. "The walls—"
"I know." She pulled my head back up and kissed me again, biting my lower lip in a way that made my whole body tighten. "I know, I just—"
"Your father is right upstairs."
"I know."
"Marlen can hear a pin drop from three rooms away."
"I know, I know, just—" She kissed me again, slower this time, but somehow worse, somehow more devastating. "Just a little more. Please."
I pressed my forehead against hers. We were both breathing hard, her legs still wrapped around me, my hands holding her up against the wall. Through the bond I could feel everything she felt: the frustration, the want, the absolute unfairness of being this close and not being able to do anything about it.
"This is torture," she whispered.
"I know."
"I hate your sister's bat ears."
"Me too."
"And my father's strategic room placement."
"Especially that."
She laughed, this shaky breathless sound, and unwrapped her legs from my waist. I let her slide down until her feet touched the floor but I didn't step back, couldn't, not yet. We stood there against the wall, her hands on my chest and mine on her waist, both of us trying to remember how to be normal people who didn't want to tear each other's clothes off.
"The kitchen," she said suddenly.
"What?"
"In my aunt's kitchen. Before we left. That feels like a week ago."
"It was four hours ago."
"Felt longer." She traced the collar of my shirt with her finger, not looking at my face. "I keep thinking about it. The way you held me. The Denny's promise."
"The sticky menus."
"And the bad pancakes." She finally looked up, and her eyes had that red ring, the one that showed up when she was feeling something strong. "I want that, Kaelen. I want boring Saturday mornings and stupid arguments about food and a life where nobody is trying to kill us."
"We'll get there."
"Promise?"
I kissed her forehead. Then the bridge of her nose. Then the corner of her mouth, soft, barely there.
"I already promised," I said. "Denny's. Grand Slam. Maybe even the milkshake if you're nice to me."
"I'm always nice to you."
"You literally just bit my lip."
"That's a different kind of nice."
I laughed, quiet, and she smiled, and for a second we were just two people standing in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, smiling at each other like idiots even though the world was falling apart around us.
Then a floorboard creaked upstairs and we both froze.
Footsteps. Someone walking across the hallway above us. Probably Lucian going to the bathroom, or Marlen checking the perimeter because Marlen was paranoid like that, but it didn't matter. The spell was broken.
Annabeth stepped back. Ran her hands through her hair, which was a mess because I'd had my fingers in it about thirty seconds ago. Picked up her bag from where she'd dropped it.
"I should—" She gestured toward her room.
"Yeah."
"We should sleep."
"We should."
Neither of us moved.
"This is ridiculous," she said. "I'm standing ten feet from a bed and I can't—"
"Eight feet."
"Not helping."
"Sorry."
She groaned, this frustrated sound that went straight through me, and crossed to her door. Stopped with her hand on the handle.
"Kaelen."
"Yeah."
"If I can't sleep because I know you're right there on the other side of this wall, I'm blaming you."
"Fair."
"And if I come out here in the middle of the night—"
"You won't."
"But if I DO—"
"Then I'll send you back to your room like the responsible adult I definitely am."
She snorted. "You're twenty-two."
"That's adult."
"Barely."
"Go to bed, Annabeth."
"Fine." She opened the door, stepped halfway through, then turned back. "For the record, I'm not going to sleep. At all. I'm going to lie there and think about what just happened against that wall and I'm going to be extremely frustrated about it."
"Good to know."
"Just so you're aware."
"I'm aware. Go to bed."
She made a face at me and closed the door. I stood there for a second, staring at the wood, feeling her presence on the other side through the bond. She was right there. RIGHT there. I could be in that room in two seconds if I wanted to.
But I didn't. I wouldn't. Because Marcus was upstairs and Marlen was upstairs and this wasn't the time or the place and we had to be smart about this even if being smart felt like slowly dying of frustration.
I picked up my bag and dropped it next to the couch. Sat down and immediately discovered that Marcus had lied: this thing was not comfortable at all. The cushions were too soft in the middle and too hard at the edges, and my feet hung off the end because I was too tall for furniture made in whatever decade this came from.
Through the wall, I could hear Annabeth moving around. Putting down her bag. The creak of the bed as she sat on it. The rustle of blankets.
I lay back and stared at the ceiling, which was wooden beams and shadows.
This was going to be a long night.