Chapter Seventeen
With the stay-or-leave question settled, everyone began to go their separate ways. The other boys in the band headed off for showers and sleep, Brian with Dylan on his arm. Quinn and Ashe wandered off to do whatever it is that secret agents do, Ashe pausing at the door to fling a simple “behave yourself” back at London. If he meant what I assumed he meant by that comment, then London ignored the admonition. The second the door closed, London turned my face toward his and kissed me.
Our first kiss—had that really only been the night before?—had been tentative, uncertain. When he’d kissed me earlier in the night, it had been all heat and lust, demanding and damned near brutal. This kiss was neither uncertain nor demanding, but tender and passionate and confident. Maybe it wasn’t one of the five perfect kisses in the history of the world, but it was definitely one of the five perfect kisses in the history of Elizabeth Morgan.
That kiss led to another and then another, as they usually do. The desire I thought I’d buried earlier proved to have been lying in wait for just such an occasion, and for a moment or two I let it sweep me away—away from worry and fear and not knowing what would happen next. Only when I felt London’s shields waver, felt the beginnings of the dreaded echo effect, did I force myself to draw away, just a little, resting my forehead against his.
London sighed and traced his fingertips up and down my bare arm. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
I leaned back a little and cupped his face in my hands. When he raised his eyes to meet mine, I smiled at him. “What exactly are you saying ‘sorry’ for?”
He opened his mouth to answer, then closed it again and thought for a moment. “For being complicated.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Smiling, I wrapped my arms around him in an awkward hug. “I’m the Queen of Complicated, sweetheart,” I said. “If you’re smart, you’ll turn tail and run now.”
London grinned at me. “I’ve never been all that bright,” he said and kissed me again.
I giggled into the kiss, and London’s grin widened into a full-on smile. It made kissing awkward, sure, but the silly sweetness was a helluva lot easier to deal with in that moment than stronger, more serious feelings. And it just plain felt good.
The moment didn’t last long. London cupped the back of my neck and pulled me in closer, kissed me a little harder. I pulled away again, and I guess something of what I was feeling must have shown on my face because London apologized again.
“I really hate having to be ‘the responsible one,’” I said, my words coming out harsher than I’d intended. “It’d be nice if you could not make things hard on me.”
“I’m—”
“Don’t fucking say you’re sorry again.” I pulled away with an almost-growl of frustration and got to my feet.
“I am, though,” London said, catching hold of my hand. “I’m not trying to be difficult. I just want—”
“To be normal?” I guessed.
London nodded and inclined his head, his damp hair falling forward like a curtain, hiding his expression.
“Normal is kind of boring.” I reached out to stroke his hair, then changed my mind and cupped his chin instead, urging him to look up at me. “The idea of losing myself in you again, in your emotions—or, I guess, our emotions—well, I’m not gonna lie. That scares the hell out of me. Even though it felt really damned good. Maybe because it felt really damned good.”
“I get that,” he said. “It kind of worries me that it doesn’t scare me. That it’s what I want right now. What I feel like I need.”
“It makes sense that you want to lose yourself. Hell, it’s not just you, London. I want that, too. Being able to let go and forget every damned thing for a while sounds awesome.” I sighed. “And the more I babble about it the less I know why I’m resisting.”
London smiled up at me. “Good to know.”
I smiled back and tugged on London’s hand as I took a step back toward the bed. He surprised me by letting go, though he timed it so that I was steady on my feet and didn’t stumble.
“There are other considerations.”
I frowned, uncertain what he meant. Then I remembered the mad scramble for a condom the night before. Brian’s suitcase wasn’t here to save us tonight, and once the cumulative effects of London’s empathy hit us full force, we wouldn’t stop at making out. Maybe that’s what he was talking about.
“There’s a reason Ashe told me to behave,” London added. He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, hands clasped in front of him.
“What am I missing here?” I asked, perching on the foot of the bed.
“Um.”
“London?”
He looked uncomfortable. Embarrassed even.
“It’s like Ashe knew what would happen after the show. Like he knew I’d throw myself at you.” He shook his head. “He warned me that I should think of you as off-limits until I get better at shielding. Well, until I learn to shield properly. Using magic to throw up shields is only making things worse.” He paused. “I’m talking in circles.”
“Yeah, kind of.”
“The stronger my abilities get, and the stronger my feelings for you get, the stronger the...whatever you want to call it. The cumulative effect, I guess. The stronger that gets. If we give into this, it could be bad.”
“How bad?”
London sat back, leaning his head against the wall, and rubbed his face. “I think Ashe’s exact words were, ‘Imagine giving Viagra to a 16-year-old.’”
“Yikes.” I took a moment to process the thought. “So we’d...what? Screw until it hurt?”
“More like until one of us passed out.”
“And that concept didn’t bother you enough to think with your brain instead of your dick?”
London sat back, frowning. “Are you referring to right after the show, or just now?”
“Just now,” I answered. I started to pull my legs up to sit cross-legged, remembered I was wearing a skirt, and settled for crossing my legs at the ankle, all ladylike and proper. “I know that you just kind of broke earlier.”
“Yeah, I did. And just now, I didn’t push things anywhere near the point of no return. I wouldn’t do that.” London moved to sit beside me on the bed and wrapped his arm around my shoulder, pulling me against his side. “I care about you, Elizabeth. I’m not gonna take a chance on hurting you. Especially not after what happened last night.”
I snuggled closer to him. “Now it’s my turn to apologize. I know how freaked out you’ve been about that. And I know that you wouldn’t risk going down that path again.”
London hugged me closer and kissed the top of my head. “Let’s call it even and go to bed.”
I agreed and we took turns washing up and brushing teeth and, in my case, changing into pajamas. I crawled into bed beside London and he shut off the bedside lamp. In the darkness, I curled against his side, my head on his bare chest. Somehow, I resisted the invitation offered by all that smooth, naked skin, concentrating on the beat of London’s heart and the soft sighs of his breathing. Halfway through my silent bedtime prayers, I felt myself begin to doze. I raced through the rest of my prayers before my brain could wander off course again and then drifted off to sleep in London’s arms.