DEAREST

PART 5: PLATINUM BRILLIANCE, Ch. 2

2

I hear Luciana move in the méridienne behind me.

I'm looking out the window, and when I turn to see how she is—she may just be moving in her sleep—I see her with half-closed eyes, looking up at the ceiling with the dreamy confusion of someone who has just woken up and is studying her surroundings.

"Ah, you finally wake up."

She just realizes that I'm there in the room when I talk to her. I have the instinct to smile gently at her so as not to alarm her, and I walk towards her, to take a seat in the small space on the edge of the sofa, by her waist.

With her wrist resting on her forehead, she asks me in a whisper:

"What happened? How long have I been sleeping?"

"I brought you to my room after the manifestation ritual, you've been sleeping since then."

She looks at me dazedly and examines my face as I speak to her.

"I'm sorry for falling asleep."

"Don't worry, it's perfectly normal," I explain. "Your body must recover the energy it spends using magic."

"Then... that's how you feel when you use too much energy. I feel..." While searching for the word, Luciana raises her hand over her face and examines it as if it were an object new to her. I understand that feeling perfectly: as if you were floating in the air, without the limits of a body to reach, finally experiencing the true extension of your own soul. It's a perfect but terrifying sensation, "... as if I weren't here."

"Maybe you need to rest more," I say. "And eat something."

As soon as I mention the word, her stomach growls. I call the maid in the waiting room and give her orders to bring Luciana's dinner.

I can feel her eyes on me as I direct my words to the maid, and, for some reason, it's as if I could sense a strange power coming from her gaze. In a matter of seconds, it disturbs me, agitates me and empties me. It shakes me inside.

The maid bows and leaves.

I bring my hand to Luciana's cheek as soon as I hear the click on the closing door, and caress it, feeling the warmth and softness of her slightly rosy skin.

"I'm not feeling very well," she murmurs.

"Will this help?"

I lean down, undoing the distance between her lips and mine. I hear her gasp when I reach her mouth, half surprised, half dazed, and I can feel the damp heat emanating from her face, the fever of her drowsiness.

I feel her hands on my waist, squeezing my skin a little and pulling me a little closer to her, so that I can feel her stomach under me. The softness and warmth of this closeness feels pleasant. I put my tongue in her mouth, and with the tip I caress the thin and smooth layer of the skin inside her upper lip. I'm well aware that the maid will be back in a few minutes. I want to warn Luciana about this, but at the same time I don't want to talk; I want to put a lock in this little moment behind closed doors.

Her lips move away from mine and then she begins to spread small warm wet kisses on my cheek, creating a path to my ear and then down to the space in my neck. I can feel the tip of her nose on the skin of my neck as she inhales the scent of my hair and the tingling of nerves along some strands of hair while caressing them gently with her fingers. The tingling sensation remains in my nerves even when I raise my upper body again, with my heart coming out of my mouth. She scans my face with an impatient and wandering look, which seems to me the most exquisite and perverse eyes I have seen.

I hear the click on the door again. We keep staring at each other with hungry eyes as the maid enters the room with the trays.