Wild and Out of Control

|chapter fifty|

|Xaden|

Danica looks beautiful when she sleeps. There is something almost unfair about it.

     Her hair is spread across my pillow in a wild tangle of fiery red locks, some strands caught beneath her cheek and others fanned around her like a halo. Her mouth is slightly open, curved at one corner by what looks suspiciously like the remnants of a smile. One hand rests beside her face, fingers curled loosely against the pillow, utterly relaxed in a way I have never once seen her while she is awake.

     For the past half hour, I have done nothing but watch her. Call me a creep; I probably deserve it, but I could watch this girl all day. She could spend six hours doing something mind-numbingly boring—counting grains of sand, perhaps, or reading the same page of a book over and over—and I would probably sit beside her and watch anyway. There is simply something about Danica that has caught my attention and refused to let go, whether I wanted it to or not. And, for the record, I absolutely did not want it to. At first, I told myself it was nothing. A fling, something temporary and uncomplicated that would burn brightly for a little while before we inevitably went our separate ways. Danica was exciting and infuriating and impossible, and I figured that was all there was to it: a distraction, a bit of trouble.

     I was an idiot.

     Because the more time I spent with her, the further I fell. It happened so gradually that I barely noticed until it was too late. Somewhere between the arguments and the laughter, the stolen glances and late-night conversations, she stopped being a passing interest and became the person my thoughts seemed to orbit without permission. Eventually, I got so thoroughly wrapped around that girl's finger that I spent an entire hour at four in the morning wandering around looking for her favorite flowers.

     Four. In. The. morning.

     The sun wasn't even up. Do you know how difficult it is to find lilies in a garden at four in the fucking morning? Apparently, extremely. The bouquet is sitting in a vase on my nightstand now, the pink and white flowers almost painfully bright against the darkness of my room. They look completely out of place here. I have never brought flowers into my room before. The roses and scattered petals Bodhi and Garrick have left on my bed do not count. Those were a joke, not romance. But these are different. I brought these here because of her. Because Danica likes them and because, somehow, her preferences have become important enough to me that I am willing to stumble around half-awake in the middle of the night searching for the right flowers simply because I know they will make her smile.

     That realization should probably frighten me more than it does. The past month has proven one thing with brutal efficiency: I have absolutely no idea how to exist normally around this girl anymore. Maybe the bond between Sgaeyl and Azare really does extend to us in some strange way. Maybe there is some invisible thread between Danica and me, some inexplicable connection that refuses to loosen no matter how far apart we are. Because every time she leaves, something in me notices. There is an emptiness beneath my ribs that I cannot seem to explain, a strange absence that only disappears when she is close again.

     And right now, she is close.

     Close enough that I can hear the soft rhythm of her breathing. Close enough that the warmth of her body has turned my bed into the only place in the world I want to be. I should probably wake her; instead, I keep watching. Her nose wrinkles and I bite back a smile. Her eyes flutter a moment later, lashes trembling against her cheeks before she lets out the softest, sleepiest yawn imaginable. She stretches beneath the blankets, arms reaching overhead as she slowly drags herself toward consciousness.