Chapter 158: ¹⁵⁸: focing to stay sane

Chapter 158: 1??: focing to stay sane

"That look on your face..." Kael said, gasping slightly, while all I could do was breathe as hard as I could, trying to get some fucking air into my lungs between all of this.

For some reason, the way he had said them made it sound as though he had noticed something about me that I hadn’t even realized I was showing. I searched his face, waiting for him to finish whatever thought had suddenly interrupted him.

I furrowed my brows, waiting for Kael to complete the sentence, but he was just looking at me with a blank expression. There was no smirk, no challenge in his gaze like there had been only seconds ago.

Nothing. That somehow made him even more difficult to understand.

The way this man flipped between his emotions was beyond me. One second, he was one person, completely confident and seemingly amused by everything I said, and the very next second, he would become someone else entirely.

It was as though I could never predict which version of Kael I was going to get. And today, more than ever, I had no idea what was happening inside his head.

"What about it?" I asked, still gasping slightly as I tried to steady my breathing.

I watched him closely as I felt his hand land on my cheek softly. The gentleness of the gesture caught me off guard, especially after the intensity that had filled the room only moments ago.

He started caressing my cheek as if it were some fragile thing that would break if he were even a little rougher.

I didn’t move. I wasn’t sure whether I didn’t want to or simply didn’t know how to react. There was something strangely careful about the way he was looking at me now, something that didn’t fit with the Kael I had been arguing with only moments ago.

Kael moved his eyes from my face to my eyes as he took a deep breath. His gaze remained fixed on mine, and I could almost see the thoughts moving behind his eyes. His expression slowly changed again, the intensity returning to his features the longer he looked at me.

"It fucks up every resolve that I ever create inside my head, Athena." He said the words so sourly, almost as if they had burned his tongue the moment he admitted them out loud.

I stared at him. Resolve? What kind of resolve was he talking about? And why did it sound as though admitting that one sentence had been harder for him than any of the things he had said to me before?

Kael was usually so damn certain of himself. He rarely hesitated. He rarely allowed anyone to see him struggling with something.

Yet now, he was in front of me and practically admitting that I had somehow managed to interfere with whatever decisions he had made inside his own head.

I didn’t know what to make of that. I closed my eyes as I felt his thumb move from my cheek toward my lower lip, wanting to feel the gentleness of his touch without any other disturbances.

I knew how strange that probably looked. Just moments ago, I had been angry with him. I had been questioning his behavior, questioning his intentions, and reminding myself of exactly what our ridiculous agreement meant.

Yet here I was, allowing myself to focus on something as simple as the softness of his touch. It felt different. Not like an obligation. Not like something either of us had to fulfil because of the arrangement between us.

There was a strange sense of care in it, and that was exactly what made it so difficult for me to ignore.

I could feel myself becoming lightheaded, and I hated that I couldn’t even understand why. Was it because I had been holding my breath? Because my thoughts were running too quickly?

Or because some part of me had started noticing things about Kael that I had spent so long refusing to acknowledge? I didn’t want to think about that last possibility. I couldn’t.

I finally pushed back my desires, the desires I knew were completely forbidden in this; whatever this was between Kael and me.

I had to remind myself of what this was supposed to be. An agreement, a plan that I myself had deduced nothing more.

I opened my eyes again, my chest rising and falling so hard from my rapid breathing that if anyone saw me like this, they might have assumed I was doing it voluntarily, trying to seduce the man in front of me.

Except I wasn’t. There was nothing like that in my mind right now. I wasn’t trying to seduce him. I wasn’t trying to provoke him.

For once, I wasn’t even trying to win whatever strange battle we seemed to find ourselves trapped in every time we were together.

Right now, strangely enough, all I was feeling was a need. Not that of just lust that I had thought I would always feel but something else, something deeper. Something I couldn’t understand. Or maybe something I didn’t want to understand.

That possibility frightened me more than I wanted to admit. Because understanding it would mean admitting that whatever was happening between Kael and me might not be as simple as I had always convinced myself it was.

I swallowed, forcing myself to push those thoughts aside before they could take root. I couldn’t afford to let myself become confused by him.

I wanted an answer. If he was going to tell me that I was destroying every resolve he had made, then I needed to know what those resolves were in the first place.

" What resolves do you have in mind regarding me, Kael?" I said, finally gathering enough control over myself that I could maintain my gaze with Kael without having to take a break to gather myself together.

My voice wasn’t as steady as I wanted it to be, but I didn’t look away. "Why do you even need to have a resolve regarding me?"