At his tone. At the look in his eyes. His eyes. When I was fifteen, I bought a malachite rock for luck at a new age store and have kept it in my nightstand ever since. I’ve held that stone in my hand a million times, have worried it between my thumb and fingers so much that I’ve actually worn it smooth on one side. And yet never—in all those years, in all the times I held it and studied it and wished over it—have I seen eyes the same deep, mysterious color. Until now. Sebastian’s eyes are exactly the same shade as that stone—an odd, grayish green with rings of dark forest around the pupil and the outside rim of the iris. They’re breathtaking, spellbinding. Exciting as all hell. And the look in them, right now, is twice as hard as any malachite ever could be. It’s a startling revelation, one that yanks me abruptly out of the strange fuzziness I’m feeling. My body shudders at the abrupt wrenching and it takes every ounce of strength I have not to reach for him. Not to give in to the craving building inside of me, a craving that’s for something I can’t quite name but that I know is about more than sex.
