Sun Catch Her (Book 1: Three Rivers Deep series) COMPLETE

Chapter Twenty-Eight | B

"Beautiful," Micah echoed, but he was no longer looking at the dress.

I closed my eyes as he exhaled, and I took it in, parting my lips to taste a honey-sweet flavor I'd never experienced from him before: natural with a hint of wild.

"I'm sorry that I've been gone so frequently." He touched my elbow hesitantly as he said this, the light contact producing what seemed to be an experimental hum that pulled sensation to my surface, deeper than a tickle. He then bent to say through my hair, "I'm yours for the rest of the day."

"Everything is okay then, with the valley's security?"

"Nothing was ever of extreme importance," he responded

truthfully, though his words were carefully selected. "Paranoia, mostly. It was good to familiarize myself with 'Lagoon's air defense."

"Oh?" I looked up then at his amethyst eyes, intrigued, as the receding pupils disappeared.

He let his otherworldly gaze wander over me. "Your aura is an intense white light given off by your spirit as it works to keep your two souls bound to your body."

"I know that," I said, remembering what Alex told me.

"What you don't know is what I am seeing right now: your

aura as it is changing colors. With just this little bit pressed to your front, the aether is reacting to how strongly you throw light as you experience an emotion. It tints your aura with color. The colors run from red to green, green being the most intense. In a way, it's comparable to starlight, how the lowest temps burn red, the strongest burns blue."

"But this only goes to green?"

"A devvi's aura doesn't burn hot enough to produce beyond green."

"The stronger I feel an emotion—any emotion—the brighter my aura becomes? So, in a way, aether acts as a mood ring?"

"Sort of." Micah continued to run fingers along my skin, barely touching. Leaning closer, he murmured something about me smelling like an unopened box of chocolates, the sweetness still clinging from the previous dress.

Break the seal and take a nibble, my parted lips contemplated saying, but I froze, the sound of metal rubbing against metal drawing my attention: a spotlight being adjusted on an easel. We were playing a dangerous game by even considering testing the boundaries of our relationship with our Alpha in the next room. Indy wouldn't approve of this—us. Together.

"What color is my aura right now," I asked, trying for casual facts.

"Orangish-yellow." He traced his fingers up my arm, saying as they moved closer to my shoulder, "Yellow, intense yellow, yellow- green..."

I exhaled when his touch moved with a bolder stroke into the hollow of my neck.

"Green," he murmured.

"Micah, we...we shouldn't." Not with Indy so near.

My cheeks became hotter when his hand left my throat at my protest. It wasn't that I didn't feel attracted to him; the tangy saliva flooding my mouth indicated otherwise. I just didn't want us, him, getting into trouble.

I swallowed when he caressed the downward tilt of my chin. "Aurora, it's okay." Micah's voice was hushed as he persuaded my head to lift with small, coaxing gestures. Something in my middle trembled. "Open your eyes for me. Permit yourself to feel."

Torn, I allowed him to lift my face and push back my hair. I didn't want Indy to send him away if she walked in on us like this and she... But I wanted to feel what he was offering! I opened my eyes to look into his—and sensed nothing. I blinked at the sudden void.

Confused, I pulled back to search his face. I breathed the air between us, trying to taste what he was emoting, all the while Micah quietly contemplated my analysis with an unknown emotion that apparently ran so deep it sharpened the color of his eyes until they glowed like warm, red wine. Wine that you would expect to have an abundance of flavor.

But still, even when he exhaled and lowered his forehead to rest against mine while his fingers hummed strongly with power on my throat, I could not for the life of me decipher what those eyes were eluding to. It was as if his emotional signature had totally gone offline. What the heck—why couldn't I read him?

"Micah!" Indy materialized behind us in the archway, hand going to her hip when we jumped back from each other.

Posture straightening, tight with fear, I almost let the gown drop. We were caught.

"You've given her the dress, now, for the love of all that's holy, give the girl some space!"

My clairvoyant senses perked in her direction when a sound slipped from her, not anger. It was...concern? I blinked, trying to understand as she turned to walk back into the front room.

"You can take her out for a sight lesson as soon as she is decent. Now get your ass in here and put up this light fixture."

It wasn't until she sent a backward glance my way and Micah set a hand on my elbow, saying he'd give me a few minutes, that I realized just how hot his touch had become. Live-wire hot. Turning from the sound of his retreating footsteps, I began to see Indy's disapproval of my guardian's attachment to me for what it really was: worry.

My clothes were folded on the counter, and I as went over to get dressed, my attention was drawn to my reflection. Marks?

Pausing in front of the mirror, I moved my fingers along pink trails that started faintly at my elbow. The coloring deepened like a sunburn as they traced along my collarbone and neared my throat, marks from where Micah's touch trailed off. He didn't know he was leaving them.

It then became abundantly clear why Indy had been pushing Alex on me—Alexander, a water devvi, whose underlying nature lay in an element that was much more docile. She doesn't think I can handle a physical relationship with a lightning devvi.

I watched my reflection touch the red line along my collarbone that was becoming a long, thin welt before I turned my back on the mirror. In the hospital, the boy could have killed you, her words of yesterday echoed to make my heart sink.

I'm not strong enoughfor Micah. My eyes closed, and I let the dress drop.

----------------------------------------------

How fun would it be if there was color-changing "mood fabric" to make clothes from!
VOTE if you'd at least give a "mood-fabric" shirt a try, haha :)