Darkside Sun by Jocelyn Adams

across his features like a summer breeze giving life to a morning-still lake. “Now, ask your questions.”
    There were so many I didn’t know where to start. “How do I already know and use most of the words and terminology in the book? Like veil and rift?”
    He shrugged, but his expression made me think he wanted me to make a connection I hadn’t yet made. “They’re the most accurate words to describe the anomalies, I suppose.”
    My chest tightened at some thought that was trying to break through, one I held off. “Yeah, I guess that could be why.” Remembering what happened when I unlocked the book, I asked, “Why was there a sudden windstorm in my room when I read the title? Because it ate my blood? Also, last night was the third instance I lost time yesterday, and I want to know why.”
    My pack disappeared. He grabbed me by the front of my shirt and yanked me forward. I ended up straddling him on the seat, my palms pressed against the rock of his chest. Whimpers and shallow breaths heave-hoed from my lips.
    A humming energy surrounded him, eating along my skin as if looking for a weak part to crawl inside me. And dammit, I wanted to open myself and invite it in. Midnight blue veins pulsed and glowed beneath the skin of his throat and part of his handsome face, scrolling designs that appeared more like a living tattoo than a simple pattern of veins.
    “When was the other time?” He spoke through clenched teeth. “I caused one in my office. The book caused the other. Tell me when the third time happened.”
    He held me out far enough I could see him without going cross-eyed, but I looked away, afraid to get caught up in those beautiful windows to his dark soul.
    “No, look at me, Addison. Look at me, and tell me what I want to know. And the wind. Tell me about the wind.”
    He’d called me by name again. Shit. And how could he not have known about the gale force that had rushed through when I’d said “Mortal Machine” the first time? It must have happened to him before, right? “Will you let me go if I do?” Part of me wanted to stay right where I was, straddling a hot professor in the back of my car. Jesus. My skin became hyper-sensitive everywhere he was touching me, even through the fabric of my clothes.
    “Perhaps.” Heat reached up through my jeans from him. He was unnaturally warm, almost feverish.
    When I met his gaze, my mind went on walkabout. Nobody could be that gorgeous. Was he even real? I could have fallen into him and happily drowned, but I gave myself a mental kick and wiped off the stupid smile growing on my lips. Losing my mind.
    “The wind seemed to come from the book, or maybe me, I’m not sure,” I said. “The lock on the book sliced my finger and sucked up my blood. Is it supposed to do that?”
    He smiled with what I took to be pride, and his hand slid along my back, filling me with erotic fire. “It needed to taste you to see if you’re worthy.”
    “Worthy of what?” Afraid I’d start tearing his clothes off to get my hands on his bare flesh, I pushed against him, but he didn’t relent. “Forget it. Never mind. As for the time loss, it was in my room,” I said, still straining against his cotton-covered pecs flexing under my hands. “That’s why I was late for class this morning … yesterday morning … whenever it was.”
    His study of me intensified, and considering it was damn tense before, that was saying something. “Are you certain?”
    “I checked my watch. Started breathing out snow when the thing on the other side of the wall started pulling the thread, unraveling the veil. Something kind of hit me like it did in your office earlier, like a shockwave, and my body froze up until my roommate came in. I checked my watch again, and half an hour had gone by.”
    The instant his arms relaxed, I scrambled out of his lap and pasted myself against the door again, my flesh alive with tingles everywhere he’d touched me. “That’s a very specific