Chapter 47: Dangerous Thoughts
Rosalie:
The smile had disappeared from his lips, leaving behind something infinitely more dangerous. Something intense, focused, and unwavering.
The blue of his eyes seemed brighter in the light filling the tunnel. And for one terrifying moment, I forgot about the storm. Forgot about Blackthorn and about everything else except the fact that Eiden Thorn was looking at me as though I was the only thing in the world worth seeing.
Neither of us spoke. Neither of us moved. The silence stretched between us, thick with something neither of us seemed willing to acknowledge aloud. And as his thumb brushed lightly against my jaw, my heart betrayed me completely. Because suddenly I wasn’t nervous about the earlier incident anymore.
I was nervous about him.
Yet I couldn’t look away. Not when his hand was still beneath my chin, not when those impossible blue eyes held mine captive, and definitely not when every coherent thought seemed to have abandoned me.
The silence inside the car stretched between us, thick and suffocating in a way that had nothing to do with fear. My pulse hammered so violently that I was certain he could hear it. Maybe even feel it through the fingers resting against my skin.
The tunnel around us had disappeared. The storm outside had disappeared. Everything except Eiden seemed to fade into the background until all I could focus on was him.
Then I noticed his gaze shift. Slowly, deliberately, his eyes dropped from mine... to my lips.
My breath caught, and without meaning to, I felt my lips part. Just slightly. It was a tiny, unconscious movement. Yet it had his jaw tightening as if he was internally struggling.
The moment I realized what I was doing, horror flooded through me. The realization hit me like lightning and I immediately pressed my lips together.
Oh goddess! What was wrong with me?
I stared at him in disbelief before mentally turning that disbelief on myself. Because this wasn’t normal. None of this was normal. It felt as though I had completely lost control over my own body. As though it had decided to betray me without permission. And I knew exactly who was responsible.
The mate bond.
It had to be. Because there was absolutely no other explanation.
Why else would I be reacting like this? Why else would my heart be trying to escape my chest? Why else would my breathing become uneven every time his eyes lingered on me? And why else - goddess help me - would I suddenly find myself staring at his lips too?
I immediately looked away from them. Then looked back without meaning to, and then quickly looked away again.
Every instinct in my body screamed that I should not be thinking about whatever dangerous things were attempting to form inside my head.
It’s the mate bond. Definitely the mate bond. There was no other explanation. Absolutely none.
And yet the more I tried convincing myself, the less convincing the argument became because the warmth spreading through my body didn’t feel like something forced. Instead it felt frighteningly natural.
Only moments ago I had been freezing. My clothes were soaked from the storm. My fingers had been numb. My teeth had nearly chattered.
And now?
Now a completely different kind of heat had settled beneath my skin. A slow, dangerous warmth that seemed to spread with every second Eiden remained this close.
The air inside the car changed. That was the only way I could describe it. It grew heavier, denser, and charged. As though the atmosphere itself had become aware of something neither of us was saying aloud.
Neither of us moved. Neither of us spoke. But somehow that made everything worse. Or perhaps better. I honestly couldn’t tell anymore.
His eyes lifted from my mouth, and met mine once again.
And the world stopped. There was something terrifying about the way he looked at me. Not because he appeared angry, nor because he appeared cold. But because he looked entirely focused as though there was nothing else in existence worth paying attention to.
As though, for these few moments, I was the only thing he saw.
The intensity of it stole the breath from my lungs. My throat felt dry. My heart stumbled. I couldn’t think, couldn’t speak, couldn’t even remember why I should.
Those blue eyes seemed endless, deep enough to drown in. And for one horrifying moment, I forgot that drowning was supposed to be a bad thing.
Then... a phone started ringing.
The sharp sound shattered the moment instantly. I blinked as reality crashed back into me so fast it almost hurt. The tunnel, the storm, the car, the night - everything returned. I inhaled sharply, finally remembering how breathing worked.
But surprisingly, Eiden didn’t move away.
The phone continued ringing. His phone. But he didn’t acknowledge it at all. His gaze remained on my face and before I could understand what was happening, his thumb brushed lightly across my lower lip.
The touch lasted less than a second. It was barely anything. Yet every nerve in my body reacted as though he had set them on fire.
I froze completely.
Then his fingers slipped away from my chin. Relief should have followed. But it didn’t. Because instead of pulling back entirely, his hand traced a slow path downward - across my jaw, along the side of my throat before stopping at my collarbone, just inches above where my heart was attempting to beat itself straight out of my chest.
His eyes flickered there briefly. Then he reached for my hair. I hadn’t even realized how tangled it had become from the rain. Carefully, he gathered the wet strands and brushed them over my shoulder.
The phone finally stopped ringing and silence returned. Yet he still made no move to answer it.
Instead, he shifted slightly and unfastened his seat belt before slipping out of trench coat. I watched in confusion as he leaned forward, and before I could react, the heavy fabric settled over my shoulders from the front, wrapping around me like a shield.
Warmth immediately surrounded me - his warmth - along with his familiar, intoxicating scent that had me inhaling deeply before I could stop myself. My heart immediately found another reason to lose control.
Fortunately, Eiden hadn’t noticed anything. He was pulling his sleeve between his fingers, and then to my surprise, he reached for me again.
This time using the sleeve of his expensive shirt, he started wiping my face with a gentleness I didn’t think existed.
I stopped breathing.
No one had ever treated me like this ever since my parents passing. Not even the alphas. And they had been really nice and gentle with me.
And yet, this felt different in all the right ways. There was no impatience, no frustration, no demand... just quiet care - simple, uncomplicated, and gentle.
The realization hit me harder than it should have. And suddenly my racing heart had nothing to do with mate bond, or tension, or dangerous thoughts.
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