Touched by Corrine Jackson Read Free Book Online Page A

fall asleep so close to the fire.”
    My body came triple-espresso awake. Asher sat next to me just out of touching distance.
    “I wasn’t asleep.” I checked my walls to ensure there were no chinks, since he didn’t seem able to hurt me when they were in place. Common sense told me to walk away, but that could be interpreted as fear or weakness.
    “Of course, you weren’t,” Asher said. “You always snore when you’re awake.”
    My vow of silence was forgotten as I studied his dark eyes. It really wasn’t fair that such a jerk should be so appealing. I didn’t understand my desire to touch the scar that glowed in the firelight and shoved my hands deeper in my pockets to fight the urge.
    “I don’t snore.”
    White teeth gleamed when he smiled. He liked getting a rise out of me, but his smile had a hesitant quality I hadn’t noticed before.
    Good, the new powerful me thought. He should be cautious.
    As if to gauge my mood, he studied my face. His gaze dropped to my neck, and he frowned. “Your bruises are gone.”
    “That’s what happens to bruises when they heal.” My casual tone hid my anxiety that he’d noticed when no one ever had.
    He smiled as if he knew a secret. “It’s only been a little over a week. Shouldn’t it take longer?”
    I suppressed an urge to bite my lip. Maybe I shouldn’t have healed the marks, but I’d been sick of people looking and wanting to ask about them. I shrugged.
    His eyes narrowed, and I remembered he didn’t like it when I shrugged by way of response. More questions lingered in his eyes, and I didn’t want to answer them. I started to rise.
    “Wait.”
    He didn’t put out a hand to stop me, but his voice had the same effect: I froze.
    “What?”
    “I wanted to apologize,” he said, his low voice serious. “For what happened. On the patio.”
    The nervous stops and starts sounded odd coming from him in his clipped enunciation. I had the inappropriate urge to smile and clamped down on the impulse.
    “I didn’t know that would happen. I thought I could control myself when I touched you, but . . .” At a loss for words, he stared into the fire. “I’ve never met anyone who could do what you do.”
    That makes two of us.
    “What is it you think I can do?” I asked.
    Those eyes swung back to mine and flicked to the shadows. “You want me to say it here? Where others might hear?”
    I’d forgotten we sat in the middle of a crowd. My entire attention had focused on him, with my body inclined toward him, as he leaned toward me. Our physical proximity and my obliviousness to it scared me. My vow to keep my distance had lasted about a minute.
    “Forget it.”
    I stumbled to my feet to get away from him. I didn’t know if he realized he’d reached out to delay my retreat, but we both reacted to it. He jerked his hand away with a frustrated, tight expression as I stepped back, slamming into a blond boy I didn’t recognize. Too drunk to save himself, the boy fell toward the fire, his light eyes blurry and unaware.
    Both of my hands tangled in the scratchy wool of his letterman’s jacket as I scrambled to steady him, stepping so close my vision was filled with his pale face and the mole nestled next to his large nose. When his leaden weight began to topple us both, Asher’s hands were there, reaching around me to pull us both upright. His arms pressed into my side, his warmth registering through layers of clothing. The shock of his body against mine from back to thigh overwhelmed me, and I braced myself for the heat wave. And yet . . . Asher didn’t attack.
    The stranger staggered against me, and a log shifted in the fire beyond his shoulder. The burning piece of driftwood wedged at the top of the wood stack tumbled on a collision course with his head when its support collapsed. Asher’s right hand whipped out to knock the burning wood into the bonfire. As the chunk of driftwood flew backwards, it sent sparks up into the starry night.
    Seconds later, Asher