Without realizing what I was doing, I brushed my hand gently along the lines of his abdominal muscles, letting the hardness of pure muscle tone flex beneath my fingers. I blushed into a deeper glow, removing my hand quickly and apologetically meeting Seth’s eyes. He stared back at me, more amused than ever, but there was something deeper behind his obvious entertainment, something I wasn’t quite ready to investigate yet.
“Sorry,” I laughed, trying to lighten the sudden tension between us. “I was just making sure they were, uh, real.”
Seth smiled wider, disarming me with his charming, boyish grin. He sat up fully then, leaning forward and cupping my jaw with his strong, calloused hand. “Stella, what are you doing here? Seriously, are you Ok?”
I wasn’t expecting the gentleness of his tone and felt my face heat beneath his hand, realizing he might actually start to believe I was as crazy as I felt.
“I had this dream…. I mean, I’m pretty sure it was a dream now that I think about it, even though I can’t really remember that much about it now….” I rambled, trying to distinguish what had exactly happened and what it was that made me rush over here. “To be honest, I don’t know what I’m doing here. I woke up and I just knew you were in trouble. I could feel you Seth, your agony, your fear…. And I could feel the Darkness here. What may have started as a dream…. a dream I can’t remember at all…. turned into real fear when I woke up and believed it was actually happening to you. I rushed over here, prepared to save your life when I got here. Except, when I got here, you weren’t being attacked by hordes of Shadow minions, you were just sleeping. But I felt it everywhere, I felt the Darkness everywhere, Seth. I was so scared, even when I got here. The air was so thick with evil…. I have honestly never been more scared in my life. I was positive you were in trouble. I mean, I was so sure.” I finished feeling exhausted and deflated. I just wanted everything to make sense. There were so many changes happening in my life, so many different things I needed to adjust to I didn’t really want to deal with being crazy right now.
I just wanted to fight the Darkness. Completely sane and with all my mental faculties completely intact.
Why did that feel so unattainable?
“Oh, Stel,” Seth sighed sympathetically, pulling me into his arms. I leaned against him as he wrapped his strong arms around me and held me tightly against his chest. “So what you’re telling me is that all I have to do to get you into my bed at night is pretend to be in danger?”
I snapped my head up, not expecting his joke. He smiled down at me in a way that let me know he was joking so I slapped his bicep, pretending to be very offended. He just chuckled, dipping his head into the crook of my neck and holding me tighter.
“We are going to figure this out,” he whispered, his breath hot against my already heated skin. “You’re not crazy, and there’s nothing wrong with you so stop thinking those thoughts right now.”
My shoulders trembled from the seriousness of his tone and I desperately tried to obey him. But how could I believe there was nothing wrong with me when the walls of my sanity seemed to continue to crumble.
“Seth? Where are you?” Jupiter’s sharp voice called from somewhere else in the house. “Are you Ok?”
“I’m in here, I’m fine,” he called back. He adjusted us on his bed so that I wasn’t curled completely into him and we were sitting side by side instead of me basically in his lap.
I heard Jupiter making his way through the small house to Seth’s room, but got distracted when I noticed Seth reaching down to pull sweatpants over his bare calves and thighs and oh dear lord…. boxer briefs.
I quickly turned my head, shielding my face with a hand over my eyes. Unfortunately Jupiter entered the room at the exact moment Seth was pulling his gray pants over his waist.
“Oh,” Jupiter grunted suddenly making this whole situation extremely uncomfortable. “Uh, sorry, I didn’t mean to, uh…. I was just wondering what happened to the front door?”
“This isn’t what it looks like!” I blurted, standing up and putting distance between Seth and me. “I was just worried about Seth and I needed to make sure he was Ok!”
“So worried you had to break my front door?” Jupiter accused, but his mercury eyes blazed with something I could almost define as humor for just a second before settling back to irritation.
“She felt the Darkness again,” Seth explained solemnly. I wasn’t exactly prepared to share everything with Jupiter, although I knew that I should. Mostly I just wanted to forget this night ever happened and I would have stayed in bed where I belonged.
“You felt it here?” Jupiter questioned, his bushy eyebrows drawn together in concern making it look like he had a long, white, fuzzy caterpillar crawling across his forehead. “You mean with Seth?” Jupiter clarified and suddenly I didn’t feel so crazy or wrong, suddenly I felt like Jupiter might understand me. But he didn’t say anything more; he didn’t even attempt to alleviate my fears. He just continued to look between us.
“Where are you coming from?” Seth broke the silence, noting Jupiter’s worn leather jacket and brown loafers that had tracked in snow.
“I met Serena and Nate earlier tonight, they were having issues down in Rio. They called for backup, and I decided to go and let you two rest,” he explained, his eyes flicking over the room as if continuing to search for the evil we had all decided wasn’t there to begin with.
“Thank you,” I offered politely and then clarified, “for letting us get a full night’s sleep. Or at least attempting to let us….”
Jupiter grunted off my thanks and explained, “It was more for me. I haven’t been in a good fight in a while and was feeling antsy. I needed a good workout.”