Page 151

Disbelief wafted around her light, but he felt desire on her, too––and something more. His words had touched her, somehow. They touched her in an emotional way, and he felt denser glimmers of that. As he explored it with his light, his own pain grew unbearable. Reaching up, he brushed the hair off of one of her cheekbones.

He caressed her skin lightly with his fingers.

“Do you want to be my girlfriend, Gina?” he asked, his voice formal that time, polite. “We can talk about the particulars, if you like…”

He trailed, seeing that wrinkle return to that section of skin above her nose and between her eyebrows. Worried again that he was saying too much, too quickly, he reminded himself that she was human.

She would not know what was happening with their light.

She would not be used to the formalities seers engaged in to normalize such connections. She would not be familiar with the agreements they often made with one another to ease one another’s minds.

She might not even be used to the intensity of a strong light connection, period, depending on her romantic history.

It was unlikely, though. She’d had a child with a human.

She might have been married––to the father, or to someone else.

The thought brought up a thick wave of jealousy, but the other part of his mind remained relatively clear. He needed to ease her into this. He couldn’t pressure her with words any more than he could with his light, simply because he couldn’t control himself.

Thinking about this further, he frowned.

“I am sorry,” he said. “I am doing this wrong for you.”

Her eyes cleared slightly at his words.

Even so, he felt the distance she had put between them, and knew he hadn’t been wrong.

A few seconds later, she shook her head.

“No. It’s not that. Not exactly.” Hesitating, she tilted her head, a gesture that felt almost like an admission of something. “Honestly, this allfeelsjust fine. It’s when I stop to think about it that I realize how completely insane it is.”

Trailing, she shook her head.

She stared at the far wall, seemingly at a loss.

It occurred to him that maybe she was avoiding looking at him. When she gazed down at him next, however, her dark eyes had sharpened, as had those gold and green glints of lighter color in her irises.

“Okay, I have another question,” she said. “When’s the last time you had a girlfriend, Loki?”

Loki thought about that, too.

Frowning slightly, he tried to answer her question as accurately as he could. Then he realized his answer might only make her more nervous.

“It has been quite some time,” he admitted.

“How long?” she pressed.

Glancing up at her, he felt his jaw harden somewhat. “We live much longer than you,” he said, hearing the defensiveness in his own words. “I’d wish you to remember that, cousin, before you judge my answer too harshly.”

Something about that amused her, though.

She grinned at him, rubbing his forearm with one hand and distracting him all over again.

“An older guy, huh?” Her dark eyes grew teasing. “How long, lover boy?”

“Over twenty years,” he told her, deciding to keep it at that.

He saw her eyes widen, but the smile didn’t leave her face. She’d heard the evasion behind his words, or must have, because she quirked her eyebrow again.