My voice bounced along the trees and rode over the hills, carrying my message for what I hoped was miles. Soft and uncontrollable giggles—yes, fucking giggles—erupted out of me before being smothered into James’ shoulder, his hand on the back of my head pushing my face into him.
“Oh my fucking hell. Nightmare,” he groaned, trying to swallow down the laughter clotting his throat. “How do we shut you up?”
I started lifting my head out of his shoulder. “Well—”
“Don’t.” And he smothered me back down, squashing my would-be dirty suggestion into the crook of his neck.
The rest of my amusement rippled into his skin, my nose buried against him as he held my head there. Notes of sweet sandalwood crawled up my nose, sating my laughter as I relaxed in his arms and breathed him in.
“Are you smelling me?”
“Mhm.” I nodded, doing it again. “You smell like the woods.”
“Are you sure that’s not just... the woods?”
Shaking my head, his fresh aroma swelled my lungs, ruminating like the coldest winter night in my chest until I blew out the chill, my lips frost-bitten with his scent.
“It’s you.”
A breeze of silence followed, and I stole a glance up to James to see why. He kept his eyes forward, but in a way that was lost to what was right in front of him.
He kept walking, and I left the silence alone, leaning my head to rest on his shoulder.
A brusque hiss shot through James’ teeth. “Careful,” he warned, and I perked up in his arms.
Intrigue pulling my strings, I lifted my fingers to the collar of his shirt, and tugged it to the side to show his shoulder.
“Woah.”
A damn near perfect ring of dark purple marred his skin, indents of teeth tattooed in even strokes.
“Did I do that?”
“That would be your artwork,” he replied flatly.
The bruising bite mark had to be the prettiest shade of purple I’d ever seen, and I had to fight the urge to run my fingers around the edges of it. I imagined it had to hurt like a bitch.
“You can return the favor anytime, ya know.” I drew back to look at him, smiling gently as his eyebrows flatlined. “It’s only fair,” I pushed.
“You have no filter, do you?”
I shrugged my good shoulder. “I don’t care enough to filter myself.”
“You just say whatever’s on your mind?”
“I do, yeah.” I uncurled my hand in front of me, tracing my fingernail up the closing gash in my palm. “You should try it.”
James scoffed. “That’s asking for a disaster.”
“Come on.” My hands dropped back down into my lap, focusing back on James one-hundred percent. “What’re you thinking right now?”
His mouth curled into a grimace. “How badly I wish we were out of this hellhole.”
Unsurprised disappointment filtered a sigh through my chest. “I thought you hated liars, Agent?”
James paused, shifting his stare down to me. “Who says I’m lying?”
It almost astounded me how unaware he was of his tells. They were boring down at me with such clarity, you’d have to be willfully blind not to see them.