Read Online Locked in Silence: Grimm's Circle, Book 5 by Shiloh Walker - Free Book Online Page B

apart the individual thoughts, they were in the back of her head, like the dull hum of a conversation she could barely hear.
    Finally, he asked, “When does it seem to be the most clear?”
    “When you’re thinking about me. Or like now—if you’re talking to me.” His thumb hit a particularly tight spot to the right of her neck, and despite herself, she groaned. Then, as he focused on that knot of tension, she let her head fall forward, all but sagging against the cool, glass window.
    “But not all the time?”
    “No. And I think if you try to keep me from hearing you, I wouldn’t hear you,” she said, frowning as she focused and tried to pick up the trail of his thoughts and discovered she couldn’t.
    She could still hear that dull roar of his thoughts, but nothing she could pick apart and focus on.
    “This is interesting. We should see who else it works on,” he said.
    Absently, she murmured, “I told you, I don’t hear others this clearly.” But she was too focused on what else she was picking up from him…something warm, bright…an oddly shimmering thing. Emotion, she realized. One she could only describe as pleasure. Happiness, even.
    Without understanding why, she somehow knew he was…happy. Pleased. Slipping away from his hands, she turned around and stared up at him, studying him. “You’re happy about this,” she said, frowning.
    Something akin to surprise flashed through his eyes. Then he shut it down and that odd warmth she’d been feeling was abruptly cut off. He lifted a brow and signed, What makes you think that ?
    “The fact that I was feeling it from you?” she said, shrugging. “It doesn’t make much sense to me—if somebody told me they were hearing my thoughts, I think I’d be pissed.”
    She went to edge around him, but he caught her arm.
    “You haven’t been locked in silence for hundreds of years, Vanya. I have. Having somebody who can hear me at all, well, it’s not unpleasant. It isn’t as though I cannot block you out, as you’ve already pointed out. I imagine it’s somewhat discomfiting for you, however.”
    His pale blue eyes held hers. There was something so raw in that look—so intimate, so unsettling.
    Without realizing what she planned to do, she reached up and touched a hand to his throat, felt the warmth of his skin, the slow, steady beat of his pulse under her thumb.
    “It’s not discomfiting,” she said quietly, stroking her thumb over his skin.
    “This doesn’t bother you?”
    His eyes…damn it, she was getting lost in his eyes…
     
    Vanya’s dark gaze locked with his.
    He could hear her heart racing.
    Could hear the slight hitch in her breathing.
    And when she reached up and touched his skin, her palm against his neck, he watched the brown of her eyes darken to black.
    “No,” she said quietly, her voice husky. “It doesn’t bother me.”
    Careful to keep up a mental shield, he thought, Let her go now. Put some distance between you…
    This was his student. Just a month past her death. Just a child.
     
    No, she wasn’t a child.
    Despite her youth—she was twenty-three, young even by mortal standards—there was a wisdom in her eyes. But still, he couldn’t be doing this.
    She went to withdraw her hand, but suddenly, Silence couldn’t stand for her not to be touching him. He needed her hands on him, needed her to touch him.
    Need…one he’d ignored for far too long.
    He caught her hand, pressed it back to his neck.
    Then he caught the back of her head.
    Watching her eyes, watching for any sign that this was unwelcome, unwanted, he slowly lowered his head.
    Vanya’s eyes went wide.
    Her tongue slid out, trailing across her lower lip, and Silence dipped his head, followed that path with his own tongue. Her nails curled into his neck, bit into his skin, and he shuddered. Wrapping an arm around her, he stroked a hand down her back, palmed her ass and brought her hips against his.
    She groaned into his mouth, and he swallowed the sound