Moonlit Wishes

Chapter 17- Greece

     Awakening, Siobhan breathed in deeply, the fresh scent of Lucian’s shirt-clad chest soothing her residual confusion from the dream she just experienced.

Peeking through her wild red tendrils, she noticed that everyone but Ceara was sleeping, and she was deep into a book that suspiciously looked like a romance novel from the cover.  Knowing from years of growing up around her that those types of books were her grandma’s guilty pleasure, she repressed a chuckle and snuggled deeper into Lucian’s body instinctively.

His arms tightened around her and his steady breathing clued her into realizing he was asleep as well. The empty feeling in her head let her know that he wasn’t faking it, and neither was anyone else. Tilting her head up, she looked up at his peaceful profile freely, with no fear of being caught.

His face was relaxed and serene, no sign of the intimidating aura or piercing gaze she had come to associate with him, as his dark hair fell silkily around his shoulders. Without the tension he usually wore like a mantle on his shoulders, he looked younger and more approachable.

Long, thick, black lashes rested against his cheeks. Full lips, which she knew from experience to be very soft, twitched before smoothing out again. Reaching up slowly, she went to touch them but stopped herself. She didn’t want to wake him. On the other hand, she really wanted to kiss him…

That impulse made her freeze, shocked. Conflicted feelings rose to the surface of her mind, and she bit her lip, scared of the implications of her emotions.

Mentally shaking herself, she tried to think about Lucian calmly and collectedly instead of giving into her need to distance herself as far as possible from him, as she usually did.

From the first time she met him face to face, he had driven her bonkers. There was no better or truer way to put it. His smooth smile, assessing yet amused gaze that she was convinced hid laughter at her, and, at times, archaic attitude made the worst come out in her time and time again. The instances when she caught him studying her intently out of the corner of her eye, his gaze burning into her and making her feel like a she was under a microscope, made her want to squirm with uncomfortableness. In fact, his very presence in a room took her completely out of her comfort zone.

However, he also made her feel alive. His banter and behavior bringing her out of her purposefully made shell, he made her want to be the happy, easy going person she was a few years ago. The Siobhan who was amiable, sweet, carefree, and always got hurt from foolishly wearing her heart on her sleeve.  The one who was shattered so completely she never thought she would be able to put herself back together.

With a soft, sardonic snort, she quickly moved away from that line of thinking. It was too painful, and it would do her no good in this situation, even though she wanted to scream and cry for the parts of herself she had lost.

Lucian had fascinated her since she had first seen him in her dream, and the more time she spent with him in reality, the easier it was for him to move past her defenses.  When he had touched her hand outside of the hotel in India, the contact was enough to drive her out of her skin with feelings she had only read about in books. She realized now that she was an idiot not to see her attraction to him, though her mulish refusal to allow herself to have anything to do with most men and relationships was definitely the cause.

Though their time together had been short, Siobhan felt like the days had turned into years. Her normal life, which she had taken for granted a few days ago, was so far in the past now that it seemed unreachable. Everything was different. She was changing, and while she was trying to adapt, she still felt like she was playing a game of catch-up, or trying to complete a puzzle with missing pieces.