Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices #1)(70)
Author: Cassandra Clare

“Do they?” Will said softly. When she didn’t answer, he leaned back on his hands. “Tess,” he said. “Come over here and sit by me.”

She did. It was cold and damp on the floor, but she sat, gathering her skirts up around her so only the tips of her boots showed. She looked at Will; they were very close together, facing each other. His profile in the gray light was cold and clean; only his mouth had any softness.

“You never laugh,” she said. “You behave as if everything is funny to you, but you never laugh. Sometimes you smile when you think no one is paying attention.”

For a moment he was silent. Then, “You,” he said, half-reluctantly. “You make me laugh. From the moment you hit me with that bottle.”

“It was a jug,” she said automatically.

His lips quirked up at the corners. “Not to mention the way that you always correct me. With that funny look on your face when you do it. And the way you shouted at Gabriel Lightwood. And even the way you talked back to de Quincey. You make me …” He broke off, looking at her, and she wondered if she looked the way she felt—stunned and breathless. “Let me see your hands,” he said suddenly. “Tessa?”

She gave them to him, palms up, hardly looking at them herself. She could not look away from his face.

“There’s still blood,” he told her. “On your gloves.” And, looking down, she saw it was true. She had not taken off Camille’s white leather gloves, and they were streaked with blood and dirt, shredded near the fingertips where she had pried at Nate’s manacles.

“Oh,” she said, and began to draw her hands back, meaning to take the gloves off, but Will let go of only her left hand. He continued to hold the right one, lightly, by the wrist. There was a heavy silver ring on his right index finger, she saw, carved with a delicate design of birds in flight. His head was bent, his damp black hair falling forward; she couldn’t see his face. He brushed his fingers lightly over the surface of the glove. There were four pearl buttons fastening it closed at the wrist, and as he ran his fingertips over them, they sprang open and the pad of his thumb brushed against the bare skin of her inner wrist, where the blue veins pulsed.

She nearly jumped out of her skin. “Will.”

“Tessa,” he said. “What do you want from me?”

He was still stroking the inside of her wrist, his touch doing odd delicious things to her skin and nerves. Her voice shook when she spoke. “I—I want to understand you.”

He looked up at her, through his lashes. “Is that really necessary?”

“I don’t know,” Tessa said. “I’m not sure anyone does understand you, except possibly Jem.”

“Jem doesn’t understand me,” Will said. “He cares for me—like a brother might. It’s not the same thing.”

“Don’t you want him to understand you?”

“Dear God, no,” he said. “Why should he need to know my reasons for living my life as I do?”

“Maybe,” Tessa said, “he simply wants to know that there is a reason.”

“Does it matter?” Will asked softly, and with a swift motion he slipped her glove entirely off her hand. The chilly air of the room struck the bare skin of her fingers with a shock, and a shiver passed over Tessa’s entire body, as if she had found herself suddenly naked in the cold. “Do reasons matter when there’s nothing that can be done to change things?”

Tessa reached for an answer, and found none. She was shivering, almost too hard to speak.

“Are you cold?” Lacing his fingers with hers, Will took her hand and pressed it to his cheek. She was startled by the feverish heat of his skin. “Tess,” he said, his voice thick and soft with desire, and she leaned toward him, swaying like a tree whose branches were weighted by snow. Her whole body ached; she ached, as if there were a terrible hollow emptiness inside her. She was more conscious of Will than she had ever been of anything or anyone else in her life, of the faint shine of blue beneath his half-closed lids, of the shadow of light stubble across his jaw where he hadn’t shaved, of faint white scars that dotted the skin of his shoulders and throat—and more than anything else of his mouth, the crescent shape of it, the slight dent in the center of his bottom lip. When he leaned toward her and brushed his lips across hers, she reached for him as if she would otherwise drown.

For a moment their mouths pressed hotly together, Will’s free hand tangling in her hair. Tessa gasped when his arms went around her, her skirts snagging on the floor as he pulled her hard against him. She put her hands lightly around his neck; his skin was burning hot to the touch. Through the thin wet material of his shirt, she could feel the muscles of his shoulders, hard and smooth. His fingers found her jeweled hair clasp and pulled at it, and her hair spilled down around her shoulders, the comb rattling to the floor, and Tessa gave a little cry of surprise against his mouth. And then, without warning, he ripped his hands from her and pushed hard against her shoulders, shoving her away from him with such force that she nearly fell backward, and only stopped herself awkwardly, her hands braced on the floor behind her.

She sat with her hair hanging down around her like a tangled curtain, staring at him in amazement. Will was on his knees, his chest hitching up and down as if he had been running incredibly fast and far. He was pale, except for two fever splotches of red across his cheeks. “God in Heaven,” he whispered. “What was that?”

Tessa felt her cheeks turn scarlet. Wasn’t Will the one who was supposed to know exactly what that was, and wasn’t she the one who was supposed to have pushed him away?

“I can’t.” His hands were fists at his sides; she could see them trembling. “Tessa, I think you had better go.”

“Go?” Her mind whirled; she felt as if she had been in a warm, safe place and without warning had been cast out into a freezing, empty darkness. “I … I should not have been so forward. I’m sorry—”

A look of intense pain flashed across his face. “God. Tessa.” The words seemed dragged out of him. “Please. Just leave. I can’t have you here. It’s—not possible.”

“Will, please—”

“No.” He jerked his gaze away from hers, averting his face, his eyes fixed on the floor. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know tomorrow. Anything. Just leave me alone now.” His voice broke unevenly. “Tessa. I’m begging you. Do you understand? I’m begging you. Please, please leave.”