#Chapter 84: The Kiss

Agnes & Elijah Agnes Elijah’s lips left mine just briefly so that we could come up for air, and as we inhaled deeply and raggedly, the space between us felt like it hummed with static, the air thick and heavy like a grassy field just before a storm. My heart was racing like a warm drum in my chest, each beat loud and insistent, like it was trying to make itself heard above the rush of blood in my ears. For a moment, neither of us moved. We just stood there, our foreheads pressed together, our breaths mingling in the charged air between us. His hands were still on me—one resting against the curve of my waist, the other grazing the line of my jaw—and it took everything in me not to pull him closer again. “Elijah…” I murmured, my voice barely audible even to my own ears. But before I could say anything more, his lips were on mine again, harder this time and far more insistent, as though even he couldn’t bear the distance we had just created between us. My