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“What?”
When I opened my eyes, she was staring at me with those big, blue ones. “When I’m with you, I don’t feel like a monster. I forget.” And that was the damn truth—a scary truth. “I forget all the things I’ve done that make me not deserve this.”
Josie didn’t respond, and for a long moment, she didn’t move, but then I felt her soft lips brush my forehead. The gentle, chaste touch shocked me, and I jerked back, staring at her. My heart pounded like a jackhammer.
Her smile was hesitant, but her grip on my arms was strong. “You’re staying with me,” she said, flushing pink as she ducked her chin. “It’s settled, like it or not.”
Then she sort of climbed up, forcing me back against the headboard and onto my ass, her movements awkward and shy as she looped her arms around my shoulders. I stiffened as she wiggled down, getting herself comfortable in my lap. Once situated, she grabbed my arms and folded them around her.
All I could do was stare at her, but as seconds turned into minutes, and as my muscles began to relax, I stayed with her.
Chapter 26
“YOU RUN like a girl.”
I scowled at Seth’s back and huffed out, “I am a girl.”
“Doesn’t mean you need to run like one,” he called out, hitting the main pathway that led around the academic buildings.
This time I made a face that didn’t last long, because I felt like I might pass out. Luke had bowed out on the afternoon run. Not that I blamed him. A cold snap had dropped the temps into what felt like lung-freezing territory and I couldn’t feel my face.
I hated running.
However, I did not hate the view in front of me.
Long, lean muscles flexed under his deep-gray thermal. My gaze dropped to his butt, and I almost tripped. I could seriously stare at his body all day. It was a work of art.
But my attraction to Seth ran deeper than the physical. He was still that puzzle I’d only barely begun to arrange. Like I’d gotten all the outer pieces with the straight sides lined up, but the meat of the puzzle still needed to be pieced together. Those moments when he was unbelievably kind, or when he was patient during training, or when he stayed with me when I’d turned into a hysterical mess, or when his guard completely slipped, and I saw the teasing, easy-going nature that I knew was at the heart of him—all of them had lured me in.
I wanted to get inside his head. Maybe that was some of wanting to study psychology left in me. Maybe it was just Seth. I didn’t know.
It had been two days since I’d seen Apollo and had a minor mental breakdown, and two days since we kissed. There hadn’t been any more of that, but Seth hadn’t left the last two nights. He stayed, and I guessed that was progress—frustrating progress.
I had gotten somewhere with him that night. I knew that, but I also knew there was so much more than what he’d shared with me. And I couldn’t help but think back to what Erin had said, to how Deacon and Luke behaved around Seth.
There was more.
The strange—but becoming more and more familiar—feeling unfurled deep inside me as we passed the library. Without meaning to, I slowed down, and then I just stopped in the middle of the pathway, unmindful of the brutal wind whipping through the statues and olive trees.
My gaze crawled up the long, wide set of marble steps beyond the veranda, and to the heavy, unmoving doors.
“Hey.” Seth had circled back to me, his body blocking the wind. “You okay?”
I nodded. “Yeah, it’s…” Shaking my head, I smiled up at him. “Never mind.”
Rays of sunlight caressed his high cheekbones as his brows knitted. “What?”
Glancing back up at the library, I shrugged. “It’s just… Every time I see the library, I don’t know, I want to go inside.”
“That’s weird.”
I laughed as I pressed my chilled hands together. “I know.”
“You haven’t checked it out with the guys?” Seth grabbed my hands, capturing them between his. “Gods, your fingers are like ice cubes.”
My gaze drifted from the library to him. His head was bowed, and shorter strands of his hair had slipped free, brushing his cheeks, as he rubbed his hands over mine. It was such an intimate thing to do that I didn’t want to respond at first. “No,” I said quietly. “Neither of the guys is keen on the whole library thing.”
“Neither am I.” He shifted closer, still concentrating on my hands.
“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
He peeked up through long, thick lashes. “I’ll have you know I’m practically a genius.” I snorted.
“You’ll pay for that,” he warned lightly. My fingers were all kinds of toasty now. “So, you want to check it out?”
“What? The library? Don’t we have to run eight more miles or something?”
Seth chuckled. “Joe, you can’t run eight miles.”
Yanking my hands free, I smacked his arm. “You just wait until I’m a demigod. Then I’ll run hundreds of miles around you. And don’t call me Joe.”
He grinned as he reached up, catching a few wind-swept strands and tucking them back behind my ear. His touch lingered.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
His lashes swept down, shielding those unique eyes. “I don’t know. Staring at you.”
I laughed even as I felt my cheeks flush. “Okay.”
His grin spread, and my tummy flopped. I thought for a moment that he might kiss me, but his gaze moved from me to over my head. The curve of his lips straightened out, and I twisted around.
Three students stood beneath a statue of some robed lady that I assumed was a goddess. They were staring openly at us, not in a bad way, but definitely in a weird way. That happened a lot, especially whenever I was out and about with Seth. Wherever we went, people stared at him. Just like they had when his mother put him on display.
My skin pricked with anger. “Let’s go in. Now.”
He blinked and centered his focus on me. I forced a grin. “Race you to the door?”
A brow arched mockingly. “You’d fall on the steps and break a leg.”
“Dick.” I shoved him in the chest, and he didn’t budge. “You’re going to eat your words later.”
I spun to get a head start, but by the time I reached the middle of the steps, he was already standing by the large marble columns. I strutted past him, flipping him off in the process.
Seth’s deep laugh floated like music on the wind. He sidestepped me and opened the door. The first look at the inside of the library almost knocked me flat on my butt.