My blood pounds as he touches my face and searches my eyes. He’s waiting for something, a noble hesitance that further enflames smoldering embers. It’s too much, and I pull his head down, igniting an explosive kiss that knocks the air from my lungs. Grabbing his jeans, I wrench him closer, intoxicated by the smell of bodywash and mint. He’s just as desperate, though I have no way of knowing if he’s guided by the same addiction. At the moment, I don’t care. I just want everything. The heat and chills, the feel of hard flesh. I take as much as I can in that brief contact, struck by an odd fear that we could never be close enough. It’s a strange feeling. Wonderful. Terrifying. But for once, there’s no doubt in my mind. This moment is right, and I’ve just committed to letting go when he jerks away as fiercely as we’d come together.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
I’m devastated when he retreats several steps.
“Nothing. It’s…” He closes his eyes and shoves his fingers in his damp hair, furious for some reason.
“It’s okay. I want this.” I close the distance and reach for his fist.
He ducks away and stalks to a pile to grab a shirt.
“Daniel! I said, I want this.”
“So what? I want it too, but it doesn’t matter what we want.” I catch a hint of frustration and self-loathing in his heated glance before he directs it to the floor.
“Don’t do this. Don’t keep pushing me away. Please!”
My pleas clearly hurt him, but I don’t care. I need him. He’s the one who doesn’t understand.
He shakes his head, fists pressed to his temples. “Stop thinking that, Rebecca. You don’t need me. You’re just caught up in the emotional swing of what’s happening. We both are. We’ve only known each other for a few hours.”
I freeze. Stare at him in shock.
“Fuck,” he mutters, running a hand over his face.
“You can read minds,” I whisper. “That’s your gift?”
“I have to go.”
Not a chance.
I take up my new favorite place: stationed before his door. He stops in front of me but won’t look at me.
“Why are you so concerned? That’s amazing and, quite frankly, not so unusual.”
“Yes, I read minds, but that’s the tip of the iceberg.” It’s an apology, not an explanation.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I don’t just read minds.” His eyes meet mine again. Fear. Regret. So many stories I’m afraid I’ll never know. “I could be you if I wanted to, Rebecca. Thoughts, memories, emotions, personality, everything. I can take your whole existence inside me.”
“But you don’t have to, right? You can control it?”
“Not without the drugs I can’t.”
And there it is. We stare at each other in the loaded silence.
After a long pause, he backs down and leans against the post at the end of his bed. “The truth is I don’t mind the drugs. I’ve come to need it. I can’t handle the constant bombardment. It’s like this ocean of sensations and information crashing down on me all at once. I drown in it. It drives me to blackouts and worse.” Worse? I shudder as he blinks back an emotion I can’tread. “I don’t want to know things. I certainly don’t want to know everything.”
“What does that have to do with us being together? You were practically unconscious from the dose they gave you when I arrived.”
His jaw sets in a hard line, and I know I’ve lost. “The drugs only dull it, they don’t eradicate it, and when we’re close, in that way…” He presses his palms to his eyes. “It’s like the drugs are powerless. I see everything, feel everything. With other girls I don’t care. I know it doesn’t mean anything and soon it won’t matter. But it’s not like that with you. How can I do that after criticizing you for taking a single memory from me?”
“But I don’t mind. I have nothing to hide from you.”
“I do. I don’t want this, Rebecca. I don’t want to know things anymore.” The pain in his voice tears at me, that broken rasp. It must be killing him to confess all of this. Gosh, how much is he hiding? “You should go before the others get back.”
I take his arm, hoping he has enough of his abilities to sense the compassion in my heart. Part of me is frightened that we’ve grown so close in such a short time, but our last twenty-four hours was hardly a typical introduction. Because of his abilities, he knows me better than I know myself, and I… I still don’t know. What’s clear is that he’s right to stop this, even if it’s for entirely different reasons. Feeling so strongly about anyone after any amount of time can’t be healthy.
