"Dangerous gamble."
I turned the words over in my head while Laurana's thumb traced patterns along my jaw. Her touch was warm. Warmer than it should have been. The thermal regulation ability bleeding through her skin like a promise.
"Is that what I am to you? A gamble?"
"You are many things." She leaned closer. Close enough that I could see the faint lines around her eyes. The ones that appeared when she smiled but stayed when she stopped. "A complication. An opportunity. A student I should maintain professional distance from."
"But?"
"But I find myself increasingly disinterested in should." Her hand slid from my jaw to the back of my neck. Fingers threading through my hair. "You saved a child using an ability that should not exist. You are building something real with women who should be your rivals. You are defying a system that was designed specifically to contain people like you."
"People like me."
