Blood and Moonlight by Erin Beaty

Author:Erin Beaty
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

CHAPTER 34

I’m not prepared for how it feels to kiss Simon in the moonlight.

The whole time we talked, I’d focused on his voice and his face, occasionally distracted by the scent of his clothes or skin or the silver light on his hair and eyelashes as he moved. Whenever I’d touched him, the shock of that sense was quickly lost in the conversation. On some level, I believed I’d gotten used to all of it.

That assumption shatters the instant our lips touch. Small as it is, the contact blossoms in my mind like the reddest rose. His mouth yields in surprise, then immediately seeks to meet mine, filling the gaps between us with soft yearning.

Until Simon eases away.

He doesn’t go far, though, holding himself near enough that I can feel his breath curling through the air with warm tendrils. “And what if I drag you Beyond the Moon and to the Gates of Hell itself?”

“Then we’ll find our way back.” Painful as it is to resist, I know I can’t kiss him again. If this is going to continue—and in this moment I would give up all my magick to make it do so—it has to be his choice. “Simon, for once in your life, consider that you might be worth saving.”

One hand comes up to my cheek, and I feel his pulse—quick and erratic—through his fingertips and then his palm. “Is that what you believe?”

“I do.” I skim my own fingers up Simon’s arm to the tendons at his wrist and settle them between the ridges of his knuckles. “But it only matters if you believe it, too.”

He shivers and tenses, bringing me a fraction of an inch closer. “I think I’d believe the Sun was the moon if you said so.” Simon leans in, his nose grazing mine. “Thank the Light you’re too honest to take advantage of my trust.”

I think he was trying to make me smile, but his words slice through me so deeply that I flinch right as he moves to close the gap between us again.

Simon freezes. “I thought you wanted … I’m sorry—”

My hand on his shirt keeps him from moving away again. “No,” I say, shoving my guilt aside and following the heat of his breath back to his lips. “It’s exactly right.”

And it is.

It’s the soft molding of his mouth to mine, the sharp tickle of short whiskers on my upper lip. It’s Simon’s other arm slipping around my waist to pull me against his chest until his heartbeat echoes through me like a Sanctum bell. It’s his shuddering inhalation between kisses that never quite end as the next begins.

It’s warmth and color and light flowing through my veins to every inch of me, inside and out.

I don’t realize I’ve been holding my breath until a different dizziness forces me to stop. Gasping, I open my eyes to see the half-moon staring at me through the narrow stone columns, so bright I immediately squint.

“Is something wrong?” Simon asks, and I can tell he desperately doesn’t want it to be him.

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