Chapter seven

I bit down on my lip to keep from making a sound.

"Charlotte."

I spun around.Isaac stood in the doorway of the girls bathroom, his hand pressed against the door frame, his eyes taking in the scene in one second.

The tap running. My arm under the water.

My face."Get out," I said sharply. "

This is the girls bathroom.""I know."

He walked in anyway and let the door swing shut behind him.

"Give me your arm.""Isaac...!""Give me your arm, Charlotte.

The water is making it worse."I looked down. He was right.

The skin from my fingers to my elbow had gone red and blotchy, the burning now a deep throb that made my eyes water.

I turned off the tap.He crossed the bathroom in three steps and stopped in front of me.

This close I could see the slight tension in his jaw. He was angry. 

Not at me but at whoever had done this."Wrap the towel around yourself," he said, pulling the hand towel from the rail beside the sink and holding it out without looking at me.

I stared at him."Charlotte." His voice was low and careful. "I need to be able to reach your shoulder.

The towel is so I'm not...." He stopped. "Just trust me."

My face burned almost as much as my arm. I took the towel from him and wrapped it around my chest, tucking the end in. "Fine. Close your eyes."

He closed them.I turned slightly and pulled the collar of my shirt off my burning shoulder, draping it down my arm. "Okay."

He opened his eyes. He looked only at my arm and shoulder, his expression focused and clinical.

Then he lifted his hand and placed it gently over the worst of the redness near my elbow.The warmth from his palm was different from the burning.

It was deeper and softer.I exhaled shakily,  tears climbing my eyes."It works faster with...." He stopped.I looked up at him. He was already looking at me.We were close.

Much closer than the poolside had been, than the corridor, than every other time he had appeared out of nowhere to pull me back from something dangerous. The bathroom was small and now the air felt very warm.

"With what?" I asked.

My voice came out quieter and shaky than I intended.His eyes dropped briefly to my lips."Isaac.""I know," he said quietly. "I know you told me to stay away.""Then....""I know," he said again. "But I felt this from across the building. I felt it the second it happened and I couldn't...." He shook his head once, short and frustrated, like he was arguing with himself.

"I couldn't stay in my seat."The burning in my arm was already fading under his hand. The bond hummed in my chest, warm and insistent.I hated how much I didn't want him to let go.

But he did sooner."It's not going away fast enough," he said, his eyes on my arm."It's better than it was," I said."Not enough." He looked up at me again. That same careful, measured look.

"You know what would work faster."

I did know.I had been trying very hard not to think about it since he walked in."Isaac....""Tell me to leave," he said. "Right now, tell me to walk out of here and I will."I opened my mouth.I should have said it.

The word was right there. Leave. One syllable. I had said it to him before. I could say it again.But my arm was still burning and he was still close and the bond was pulling at something in my chest that I was running out of strength to hold back.

I closed my mouth after seeing something change in his eyes.He lifted his free hand slowly and rested it against my jaw, his thumb brushing lightly across my cheek.

Gentle and dizzying me.I didn't pull away.He leaned in and his lips touched mine.It was soft at first and very careful. The same kind of careful he used for everything, like he was always aware of exactly how much pressure to use and where. 

The burning in my arm dulled immediately, the warmth from the kiss spreading down through my fingers and up across my shoulder like something was unlocking.I exhaled against his mouth.

His hand slid from my jaw to the back of my neck and the kiss deepened, slow and warm, and I stopped thinking about wolvesbane and Lydia and Mia and everything else that lived outside this small bathroom.

There was only the cold tile against my back and his hand at my neck and the way his lips moved against mine like he had been holding this back for a very long time.I had been holding it back too.I didn't want to admit that.

But I had.His mouth moved from my lips to the corner of my jaw, tracing downward, and a soft sound left me before I could stop it.And suddenly his kisses grew harder and insistent.

I pressed my hands against his chest and pushed, breathless.He stopped immediately.We both stood there breathing. His forehead almost rested against mine, his hand still at the back of my neck, his eyes closed.

"Isaac."

My voice came out unsteady."I know," he said.

He didn't move away. "I know, Charlotte.""This can't happen.""It's already happening.""Then we have to stop it." I pressed my hands firmer against his chest and this time he stepped back. 

I let out a long slow breath and looked down at my arm. The redness was gone.

The burning had completely faded. "Thank you," I said. "For my arm."He said nothing.I pulled my shirt back up over my shoulder and let the towel drop to the rail. My hands were shaking slightly.

I pressed them flat against my sides."You should go back before someone notices you're gone," I said.He looked at me for a moment longer than was comfortable. There were things inside his head that he wasn't saying. 

I could feel them even without being able to name them. The bond made everything between us very noticeable than it should have been."Mia did this," he said quietly. "

The wolvesbane in your book.""I know.""I'm going to....""Don't do anything." I shook my head. "If you do something about it she'll know that you're watching out for me and it'll get worse. Just leave it."His jaw tightened. "I can't just leave it.""Isaac." I looked at him directly. "

I have been handling Mia since fifth grade without any help. I know how to survive her. What I can't survive is drawing more attention to whatever this is." I gestured between us. "So please.

Go back to the contest."There was a long pause.

"Fine," he said.He turned and pushed through the bathroom door.I waited until the sound of his footsteps faded completely. Then I sat down on the edge of the sink counter and pressed both hands over my face.

My lips were still warm.But I knew....I needed to be more careful. I needed to be so much more careful.****That night, I lay on my bed and stared at the ceiling and tried to be honest with myself."I was falling for him."I didn't want to say it, even just inside my own head, because saying it made it real and real things had consequences.

But it was becoming harder to pretend.

Every time he appeared, every time he put himself between me and something that could hurt me, every time he looked at me across a room like I was the only thing in it worth looking at, something in me responded to it. The bond, I told myself. It's just the bond.

But I had read enough about mate bonds in biology class to know that while the bond amplified what was there, it couldn't create something from nothing. You couldn't be pulled toward someone you felt absolutely nothing for.

Which meant some part of me had already noticed him before the wolvesbane bush.I pressed a pillow over my face and groaned into it.