Page 52 of The Gods Forbid

I got that familiar dip of fear in my stomach, but this time it settled lower. Noticeably lower.

Oh. Oh.

It wasn’t fear at all. The signs were similar, to be fair.

The increased heart rate, the awareness of him in the room, the way I didn’t know whether to shrink away or lean into him…

It was attraction.

Oh.

That was very inconvenient. No, severely inconvenient.

That was fine. This was fine. I’d be fine.

Sure, I’d never been attracted to any residents of Prometheus. No one was quite so … well, quite so Sebastian.

And all the attraction I’d felt in the past felt quite different than this. That’s why it had taken me so long to realize what it was. Everything in the past was just so very mellow. It was a quiet appreciation, a flame that would flicker on the edge of a candle.

This felt rather violent.

Even now, staring at the line of his nose, at the curve of his shoulders as he worked at the stove, I had the strangest urge to try to flay his skin open and try to crawl inside of it with him.

There were so many things wrong with that. It was gross, for one. It would be completely insane. And yet, it didn’t seem so bad.

I shifted on the counter top, hoping the cool marble would dispel the war raging in my chest. It did no such thing.

I would just have to hide it. It was clear he had no interest in me, beyond making it very clear that he thought living under the same roof as me was equivalent to torture in his eyes.

Let alone the fact that he was leaving in less than five months. Let alone the fact that this was wrong. Let alone the fact that nothing could ever happen between us.

Not even a kiss.

Oh, goodness, now I was going to start noticing his lips in a way that was unavoidable. Before, when I thought it was fear, I could tell myself that I was focusing on his mouth to catch his words the second they left his lips, preparing for an attack.

Now, I would think of kissing. That was bad. Very bad.

Rolling my shoulders back in an attempt to regain some much needed composure, I wracked my brain for a reminder of what we’d been talking about.

Sebastian was involved, I knew that much. He’d said a name that had shocked me at first.

Right.

I didn’t think I’d been lost in my thoughts for all that long, but I would never have been able to discern one way or another from Sebastian’s face. He was staring at me with that artist’s gaze again, looking down to the individual brushstrokes, while also maintaining that methodical stirring movement.

The heat from the stove was the least of my worries. Actually, it was probably wise for me to stay here. At least then I’d have an excuse for the fiery blush on my cheeks.

“You met Penn?” I said, tucking my hands under my thighs so I wouldn’t fidget.

Sebastian nodded slowly, like he was trying to remember if he was recalling the memory correctly. “I did.”

There was something more there. Something he was hesitating telling me. I really hoped that it wasn’t bad, but my gut was telling me that Sebastian had been kind—even if he wouldn’t admit it.

Penn was young, too young to have been caught up in what he had. My heart ached for him more than others. His brain worked differently than most, making him sensitive to changes in his environment.

He’d told me once it felt like he saw too much, like he saw things through a microscope and when he tried to explain the minute differences to people, he’d receive nothing but confused looks and, at the worst, shame.

While I didn’t understand exactly what that was like, I could empathize with it.