Chapter 82: Chapter 82: The Touch
GRAYSON’S SMILE was bitter, tinged with a self-awareness that spoke of deep internal conflict.
"I’m not sure I know anymore."
The weight of the admission settled between them, a choice neither was prepared to make.
Mailah studied his face in the warm glow of the restaurant’s amber lighting, searching for some glimpse of the truth beneath centuries of carefully constructed walls.
She clasped his hands, her voice a slow, steady balm. "You don’t have to figure it out alone."
The simple offer seemed to catch him off guard.
His supernatural energy, which had been coiling around him like protective armor since Evelyn’s departure, began to soften at the edges where her fingers made contact with his skin.
"You’d want that?" he asked, voice barely above a whisper. "Even after seeing what I’m capable of?"
"Especially after seeing what you’re capable of," Mailah replied, surprising herself with the certainty in her voice. "Because now I know you have a choice. And you chose to listen when I asked you to be kinder to Evelyn."
Something vulnerable flickered across his features—hope, perhaps, or disbelief that she could see past the intimidating exterior he’d wielded like a weapon moments before.
"I want to walk," she announced suddenly, sliding out of the booth before he could object. "Somewhere quiet, away from curious stares and supernatural politics and three centuries of baggage."
Grayson blinked at her abrupt change of subject, then glanced around the restaurant where their presence had created an ongoing spectacle of barely concealed fascination.
"Where did you have in mind?"
"There’s a park about two blocks from here," Mailah said, already pulling on her jacket. "Nothing fancy, just trees and pathways and the kind of normal that doesn’t require managing anyone’s fear."
The corner of his mouth twitched upward—not quite a smile, but close enough to make her pulse quicken. "Lead the way."
Twenty minutes later, they were walking along the winding paths of Riverside Park, their footsteps creating a gentle rhythm against the worn asphalt.
The evening air carried the crisp bite of approaching autumn, and Mailah found herself grateful for the jacket she’d brought as the temperature dropped with the setting sun.
Grayson had shed some of his earlier tension, settling into something less overwhelming now that they were away from the crowded restaurant.
"You’re thinking very loudly," he observed, glancing sideways at her with amusement dancing in his storm-blue-gray eyes.
"I’m thinking about you," Mailah admitted, then immediately felt heat rise in her cheeks. "That sounds ridiculous."
"What about me?"
She watched as he reached out, almost instinctively, to brush a stray hair from her cheek.
But his fingers hovered inches away from her skin, trembling almost imperceptibly, as though he were fighting some internal battle about the simple gesture.
"The way you... don’t touch me," she said, the words coming out as a breathless rush. "Like your instincts tell you to, but you stop yourself. Like you don’t know how."
The observation seemed to catch him off guard.
He let his arm drop to his side, looking at his own hand as though it were a foreign object.
"I suppose physical contact has always been instinctual rather than conscious for me," he said slowly. "Physical coordination is the same."
"Everything about you is instinctual," Mailah said without thinking, then realized how that might sound.
"I mean—your supernatural abilities, the way you command attention, even the way you intimidated Evelyn earlier. It all seems to come naturally to you."
Grayson stopped, turning to face her with an expression she couldn’t quite decipher.
"Not everything," he said quietly.
"What do you mean?"
Instead of answering, he reached toward her face again, his hand hovering mere inches from her cheek without making contact.
His fingers trembled almost imperceptibly, as though he were fighting some internal battle about the simple gesture.
"This," he said, his voice rough with something that sounded suspiciously like uncertainty. "Being gentle. Touching someone without... purpose."
Mailah’s breath caught at the raw vulnerability in his confession.
"You don’t know how to be affectionate."
It wasn’t a question, but he answered anyway, his hand still suspended between them like an offering he wasn’t sure she would accept.
"I know how to seduce," he said, each word carefully measured. "How to touch and taste and take what is needed. It’s instinctual, as you said—the way an incubus lures its victims. But this... wanting to touch you just to feel your skin, not because I’m feeding or because it serves some strategic purpose... that’s entirely foreign territory."
The honesty in his admission made something tender unfurl in her chest.
Without hesitation, she reached up and covered his hovering hand with hers, guiding it to rest against her cheek.
The contact sent a shock of warmth through both of them.
Grayson’s eyes widened slightly, as though he hadn’t expected such simple touch to feel so profound.
"It’s not that complicated," Mailah said softly, leaning into his palm. "You just... touch because you want to. Because it feels good. Because it makes you happy."
"Happy," Grayson repeated, testing the word like something foreign.
His thumb traced a gentle arc across her cheekbone, the movement tentative and wondering. "I’m not certain I remember what that feels like."
"What does this feel like?" she asked, tilting her head slightly into his touch.
He was quiet for a long moment, his supernatural energy wrapping around them both like silk, warm and protective rather than overwhelming.
"Like coming home," he said finally, the words so soft she almost missed them.
"Like finding something I didn’t know I’d lost."
The sentiment was so unexpectedly romantic that Mailah felt her heart skip several beats in rapid succession.
She’d been prepared for clinical observations or supernatural explanations, not poetry that made her chest ache with longing.
"Grayson," she whispered, not entirely sure what she meant to say next.
But he seemed to understand anyway. His other hand came up to frame her face, his touch reverent and careful, as though she were made of spun glass that might shatter under too much pressure.
"I don’t know how to do this," he confessed, his forehead coming to rest against hers. "I don’t know how to want someone without wanting to consume them. I don’t know how to be close without being dangerous."
"You’re not dangerous to me," Mailah said with more certainty than she felt.
"Aren’t I?" His breath ghosted across her lips, warm and intoxicating.
"I’m a creature designed to drain life force through physical intimacy. Every instinct I have is calibrated toward taking, not giving."
"But you’re fighting those instincts," she pointed out, her hands coming up to rest against his chest, where she could feel his heart beating in a rhythm that seemed entirely too fast for someone who wasn’t technically alive.
"Right now, you’re choosing to be gentle instead of predatory. That has to count for something."
"It counts for everything," he said fiercely, his grip on her face tightening just enough to make her breath catch. "But that doesn’t make it safe."
"I don’t want safe," Mailah surprised herself by saying. "I want real. I want you—whatever version of you that is."
The words seemed to shatter something inside him.
His control, so carefully maintained, began to fray at the edges.
She could feel his supernatural energy responding to her proximity, wrapping around them both in waves of heat and electricity that made her skin tingle with awareness.
"Mailah," he said, her name a warning and a prayer wrapped into one syllable.
"What?" she whispered, moving closer despite every rational thought screaming that she should step back.
"Do you understand what you’re asking for?"
"I do."
The challenge hung between them like a dare.
Grayson’s eyes darkened, storm clouds gathering in their depths, and for a moment she thought he might actually kiss her right there on the park path.
Instead, he did something completely unexpected.
He laughed.
The sound was rusty, as though he hadn’t used it in decades, but genuine and warm and utterly disarming. It transformed his entire face, making him look younger and less otherworldly, more like the man she was beginning to fall for than the ancient demon he claimed to be.
"What’s so funny?" Mailah asked, though she was smiling too, caught up in the infectious joy of his amusement.
"You," he said, still chuckling. "Standing here in a public park, asking a centuries-old incubus to show you what you’re asking for, as though we’re discussing what movie to watch."
"Are you saying I’m naive?"
"I’m saying you’re fearless," he corrected, his thumbs stroking gentle patterns across her cheekbones. "And completely unpredictable. And absolutely terrifying in the best possible way."
"Terrifying?"
"You make me want things I’ve spent lifetimes learning not to want," he explained, his expression growing serious again. "You make me hope for outcomes I’ve convinced myself are impossible. You make me believe I might actually be capable of being someone worth loving instead of just someone worth fearing."
The raw honesty in his words made her throat tight with emotion. "You are worth loving."
"You can’t know that," he said quietly. "You’ve seen glimpses of who I might be, but you haven’t seen what I’ve done. The lives I’ve destroyed, the people I’ve manipulated, the centuries of choices that brought me to this point."
"Then tell me about them," Mailah challenged. "Stop talking in vague warnings and supernatural metaphors. Tell me what you’re so afraid I’ll discover."
Grayson’s hands fell away from her face, and she immediately missed the warmth of his touch. He turned away, staring out at the darkening park as though searching for answers in the lengthening shadows.
"I’ve killed people, Mailah," he said finally, his voice barely audible. "Not directly, not with weapons or violence, but through feeding. Before I was exiled. Humans who got too close, who I couldn’t resist taking from when my control slipped."
The confession hung heavy in the evening air between them.
"How many?" she asked quietly.