Page 48 of Brighter Shades of Light

“I don’t want to sit.” He walked closer. “I want to talk.”

“Very well.”

“Look at me.”

My gaze was fixed on the chair he refused to sit in. Slowly, I did as he said. A strange feeling coursed through me as I met his stare, a pull to him I had worked so hard to ignore. Why did it have to be a student? Not just a student, but one who would be leaving for the Marine Corps in a year.

“Am I wrong in feeling like this?” he asked, his eyes wide and unsure.

“Like what, Mr. Miller?”

“Stop calling me that.” Cody moved even closer, causing me to back up into the desk. He stood a foot away, clenching his fists at his sides.

“It’s your name, is it not?”

His eyes narrowed, like a stormy sea crashing against jagged rocks. “I know what you’re doing. Pretending like you don’t care, when you really do.” The storm moved closer, invading the bubble I kept around myself. “I know you feel it, too.”

My breath hitched, and I wanted to flee the room…but I also wanted to close the short distance between us. Ididfeel it. Yet, I wasn’t allowed to feel this way. It was wrong.

“You should leave, Mr. Miller.”

Cody didn’t move. “From the first day we met, I felt something with us. Even when you were trying not to kill me in the professors’ lounge, I sensed there was this unspoken thing between us.”

I suppressed a smile at the memory. I had compared him to a gnat after that first meeting, buzzing around my head and annoying me when all I wanted was to be left alone.

Things had certainly changed since then.

“All the times after that—the random run-ins, the talks after class, and the chats during coffee—they mean something.” Finally, Cody moved, but it was closer to me instead of toward the door. So close I felt his body heat. “This thing that keeps pulling us together is getting stronger.”

I stared at him, at a loss for words.

“Tell me you don’t feel the same,” he whispered, his breath touching my lips. “Tell me you feel nothing for me, and I’ll leave.”

“I…” My gaze flickered from his eyes to his mouth and back up again.

I couldn’t lie to him. Emily had said I was incapable of lying; that I told the truth, no matter how brutal, or I stayed quiet.

“If you don’t want me, say it.” Cody’s fingers ghosted over mine, almost touching me but not quite. He tilted his head back, gazing at me through his long dark lashes. His lips were so close. “But if youdowant me…kiss me.”

I was on fire. If I wasn’t careful, I’d catch Cody on fire, too. But his intense gaze told me he was already burning.

“Cody.” His name fell from my lips, an acceptance entwined in the breathy syllables of his name. There was no more running from him. No more denying us what we both wanted.

I slid my hand to his nape and pulled him to me, crushing my mouth to his.

He groaned and gripped my side with one hand, moving the other to my chest. His lips met mine gently at first, and then he deepened the kiss, taking my breath while at the same time giving me life.

The feelings for him I’d tried so hard to hide burst forward and reflected in the kiss—the way my heart beat faster when I was around him and how I wanted his body close to mine.

I moved a hand down his spine and brought him closer to me, our lips still fused together. He tasted a little salty and a bit sweet, a perfect combination to match the man those lips belonged to. His energy field circled me, too, adjusting my course and aligning it with his.

“Dr. Vale,” he murmured, playing with the collar of my shirt before lightly touching my neck. He lowered his head and kissed the base of my throat. “I want to taste you.”

“Call me Sebastian.” I pressed my hips into him and groaned when I felt his erection. My desire for him was the strongest emotion I’d felt in years. For so long, it had felt like I was on this earth but not actually a part of it. As though I was floating through the universe, unseen and alone.

I didn’t want to be alone anymore.

“Okay.” He smiled against my neck. “I want to taste you, Sebastian.”