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“He might be too deep,” I sigh. “Sometimes I think I don’t know him very well, even after spending all this time together.”
Ares and I have been roaming all over the island together. The colder weather hasn’t stopped us for a second—we bundle up and tramp anywhere we want to go.
But I feel like he pulled back from me after we kissed that night down on the Moon Beach.
“Have you fucked him yet?” Sabrina asks, noisily biting into a carrot stick.
We’re sitting on our respective beds, ostensibly studying, but actually just shooting the shit.
My books are spread out all around me. Sabrina hasn’t bothered to open hers. She’s eating a selection of snacks smuggled up from the dining hall, heedless of the impressive mess she’s making.
“No,” I say, flushing. “And not by choice. He’s driving me insane . . .”
“Yeah, he’s hot as hell,” Sabrina agrees, nodding approvingly. “I’m not usually into the strong, silent type, but you can tell he’s kinky as fuck under that buttoned-up exterior.”
“You think so?” I say hopefully. “I don’t know why he’s holding out on me . . .”
Sometimes Ares looks at me like he wants to rip my clothes to shreds and eat me alive. But . . . he never actually does it. He’s barely kissed me since that first time on the beach.
“Since when are you the type to sit around waiting?” Sabrina says, giving me a sly raise of one inky eyebrow.
“Since fucking never,” I say, shoving my books aside.
“That’s my girl.” Sabrina grins.
I head to the library,following the advice of Lucy Turgenev, who told me that she saw Ares walking in that direction an hour earlier.
Once inside the still, dry space, I walk all the way up the ramp looking for him. The library is one continuous spiral, with curved shelves set against the wall, so it’s not difficult to see who’s inside.
I don’t find Ares anywhere.
I’m about to leave, assuming I missed him, when he emerges from the pointed archway directly behind Miss Robin’s desk.
“Ares!” I call, making him jump.
“Hello,” he says, in his deep, smooth voice.
I don’t know how one single word can have such an effect on me. The greeting vibrates my whole body like a gong, seeming to hang in the air between us for far too long.
“What were you doing?” I ask curiously.
“The archives are down there,” he says, nodding toward the archway with its heavy wooden door still ajar. “I was looking for an organizational chart for the ‘Ndrangheta.”
“You didn’t find it?” I say, noting his empty hands.
“No.” Ares pushes back a dusty shock of hair with his forearm. “Just a lot of loose papers and mildewed books.”
Miss Robin sweeps out of the archives, pulling the door shut behind her. Unlike Ares, she apparentlydidfind what she was searching for—she clutches several crumbling scrolls against her chest, her thick glasses slipping down her nose, her red hair speckled with dust and fragments of ancient paper.
“Someday I’ll finish organizing that mess,” she sighs. Then, to me, “Can I help you with something, Nix?”
“No, thank you,” I say hastily. “I was just . . . here.”
I feel silly telling her that I was looking for Ares.
It doesn’t help that Miss Robin has a remarkably sharp and inquisitive stare behind those granny glasses. I thought her eyes were brown at first, but now I see they’re more of a dark hazel, with a burst of bronze radiating from the iris, inside a ring of olive green.
She’s incredibly beautiful. I’ve seen her before in passing, though not as often, I’ll admit, as my fellow students who spend more time in the library.
