Page 101 of Balance

No.

I reached out, pressing my hand against his chest before he could think to flee. This time it wasn’t me. Or rather, my particularities.

“We’ve done this before?” I breathed, the memory fading as quickly as it had come. Like grains of sand, the vision was impossible to hold on to.

I was certain this wasn’t new. We’d had this conversation in the past, in a location very much like this one.

Within an instant, Miles’s expression morphed from white-faced horror to scarlet mortification. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He was wrong. I couldn’t describe this feeling, but there was something just out of my reach.

“No, you said so yourself. What happened?” I asked. Why wasn’t he telling me? I thought they wanted me to rememberthingsfrom past lives.

And honestly, it was a strange, dizzying experience. A haze had settled over my thoughts, and my body didn’t feel entirely like my own.

That was, until Miles grunted. Without so much as warning me, settled himself beside me and pulled me into his lap. It was probably a good thing my mind wasn’t quite there as he tucked the blanket around the two of us, because the feel of skin against skin barely registered as my thoughts scrambled to keep up.

By the time reality set in, I was already warm and comfortable lying on him with my cheek pressed against his chest. There had been no time to even be embarrassed, except belatedly. “Miles!”

He grinned down at me apologetically. “One of us had to be brave enough to make the first move,” he explained, acting like this had been his idea when it’d totally been mine. “Why don’t you try to get some sleep now?”

I was going to argue, to point out that this wasn’t the first time he’d taken my idea and turned it against me. But as he continued to hold me, closing his eyes and resting the back of his head against the stone wall, a different sense of wrongness pulled at my senses.

It had nothing to do with him holding me, or that we were naked. In actuality, now that it was done, I was far too comfortable to feel anything more than mild embarrassment. He’d made no move to even touch me further outside of wrapping me against him. And as a person, Miles was unthreatening.

This was almost nice.

There was something else there though. Something out of place.

WhyhadMiles suddenly gotten brave? He’d been so unsure about the whole thing.

His demeanor had only changed when I brought up the possibility that something had happened between us in the past.

He was trying to distract me, and I couldn’t help but wonder…why?

Chapter Twenty-Three

Bianca

Feel

The first thing I noticed was the blank stone inches from my face. I wondered, briefly, what had happened to the orange tent. Still, this was comfortable, and warm. For the first time in a long time, I woke up feeling completely safe.

Still, awareness began to trickle into me. First was of my nose, which was incredibly cold, and second was that there was something warm pressed against me, preventing me from covering my face with my hands.

In fact, I really couldn’t move at all. The weight draped over my back, down my legs, and wrapped around the front of me, holding me in place.

A soft breath moved over my cheek, brushing against my hair and tickling my neck.

Miles sighed in his sleep, burrowing his face further into my neck as he muttered indistinguishable words under his breath.

I was now completely awake and fully conscious of the feel of his bare skin flush against mine. He seemed comfortable enough, pressing me into the wall and using me as a body pillow. He’d even thrown his leg over mine as he spooned me.

My butt was also nestled against his groin.

Contentment had turned into discomfort—and my throat closed.

I was barely aware of how we’d gotten to this point. There was the brief recollection of Miles drifting off to sleep, head drooping forward, as the two of us snuggled in front of the fire. He’d moved us then, laying me down before putting himself between me and the cave’s entrance, and I’d been too out of it to even be embarrassed.