At last the coughing slowed. She rolled onto her back and stared up at Julian and the sky behind him. She could see a million stars, and he still had his halo, but there was no longer anything funny about it. He was shivering, his black shirt and jeans plastered to his body, his face whiter than the moon.
“Emma?” he whispered.
“Jules,” she said. Her voice sounded weak and rough to her own ears. “I—I’m all right.”
“What the hell happened? What were you doing in the water?”
“I went to the convergence,” she whispered. “There was some kind of spell—it sucked me out into the ocean—”
“You went to the convergence by yourself?” His voice rose. “How could you be so reckless?”
“I had to try—”
“You didn’t have to try alone!” His voice seemed to echo off the water. His fists were clenched at his sides. She realized he wasn’t shaking from cold after all—it was rage. “What the hell is the point of being parabatai if you go off and risk yourself without me?”
“I didn’t want to put you in danger—”
“I almost drowned inside the Institute! I coughed up water! Water you breathed!”
Emma stared at him in shock. She started to prop herself up on her elbows. Her hair, heavy and soaked, hung down her back like a weight. “How is that possible?”
“Of course it’s possible!” His voice seemed to explode out of his body. “We are bound together, Emma, bound together—I breathe when you breathe, I bleed when you bleed, I’m yours and you’re mine, you’ve always been mine, and I have always, always belonged to you!”
She had never heard him say anything like this, never heard him talk this way, never seen him so close to losing control.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she said. She started to sit up, reaching for him. He caught her wrist.
“Are you joking?” Even in the darkness, his blue-green eyes had color. “Is this a joke to you, Emma? Don’t you understand?” His voice dropped to a whisper. “I don’t live if you die!”
Her eyes searched his face. “Jules, I’m so sorry, Jules—”
The wall that usually hid the truth deep in his eyes had crumbled; she could see the panic there, the desperation, the relief that had punched through his defenses.
He was still holding her wrist. She didn’t know if she leaned into him first or if he pulled her toward him. Maybe both. They crashed together like stars colliding, and then he was kissing her.
Jules. Julian. Kissing her.
His mouth moved against hers, hot and restless, turning her body to liquid fire. She clawed at his back, pulling him closer. His clothes were wet, but his skin under them was hot wherever she could touch it. When she placed her hands at his waist, he gasped into her mouth, a gasp that was half incredulity and half desire.
“Emma,” he said, a word halfway between a prayer and a groan. His mouth was wild on hers; they were kissing as if they were trying to tear down the bars that held them inside a prison. As if they were both drowning and they could breathe only through each other.
Her bones felt as if they had turned to glass. They seemed to be shattering all through her body; she crumpled backward, pulling Julian with her, letting the weight of his body push them both down into the sand. She clutched at his shoulders, thought of the disoriented moment when he’d pulled her out of the water, the moment she hadn’t quite known who he was. He was stronger, bigger than she remembered. More grown-up than she had let herself know, though every kiss was burning away her memories of the boy he had been.
When he leaned closer into her, she jumped in surprise at the wet coldness of his shirt. He reached down and grasped the collar, tearing it over his head. When he leaned back down over her, the expanse of his bare skin stunned her, and her hands slid up his sides, over the wings of his shoulder blades, as if she were articulating the shape of him, creating him with the touch of her palms and fingers. The light scars of his old Marks; the heat of his skin, filmed with salty ocean water; the feel of his smooth sea-glass bracelet—he took her breath away with the Julian-ness of him. There was no one else he could be. She knew him by touch, by the way he breathed, by the beat of his heart against hers.
The touch of her hands was undoing him. She could see him unraveling, piece by piece. Her knees came up to clasp his hips; her hand cupped the bare skin above the waistband of his jeans, gently as the ocean at low tide, and he shuddered against her as if he were dying. She had never seen him like this, not even when he was painting.
Gasping, he tore his mouth away from hers, forcing himself still, forcing his body to stop moving. She could see what it cost him in his eyes, black with hunger and impatience. In the way that when he drew his hands away, they dug into the sand on either side of her, fingers clawing into the ground. “Emma,” he whispered. “You’re sure?”
She nodded and reached for him. He made a sound of desperate relief and gratitude and caught her against him, and this time there was no hesitation. Her arms were open; he went into them and gathered her up against him, shivering down to his bones as she locked her ankles behind his calves, pinning him against her. As she opened herself, making her body a cradle for him to lie against.
He found her mouth with his again, and as if her lips were connected to every nerve ending in her body, her whole self seemed to spark and dance. So this was what it was supposed to be like, what kissing was supposed to be like, what all of it was supposed to be like. This.