" I’m not so jaded I don’t remember,” she said, eyes shifting away from his. “That feeling, like everything is broken. Breaking.”
She placed a hand in his, and lifted the other to touch his neck, lightly. He twitched at first, then relaxed. He still had a mark there where Suzao had choked him in the cafeteria.
Then she was moving her fingers back toward his ear, along the scar Ryzek had cut into his neck, and he was leaning into her touch. He was warm, too warm. They never touched like this. He never thought he wanted them to.
“You make no sense to me,” she said.
Her palm was on his face, then, her fingers curled behind his ear. Long, thin fingers with tendons and veins always standing at attention. Knuckles so dry the skin was peeling in places.
“All that has happened to you would make another person hard and hopeless,” she said. “So how…how are you even possible?”
He closed his eyes. Aching.
“Still, Akos, this is a war.” She brought her forehead to his. Her fingers were firm, fitted to his bones. “A war between you and the people who destroyed your life. Don’t be ashamed of fighting it.”
And then a different kind of ache. A pang of longing, deep in his gut.
He wanted her.
Wanted to run his fingers along her strict cheekbone. Wanted to taste the elegant birthmark on her throat, and to feel her breaths against his mouth, and to wind her hair around his fingers until they were trapped.
He turned his head, and pressed his lips to her cheek, hard enough that it wasn’t quite a kiss. They shared a breath. Then he pulled back, stood up, turned away. Wiped his mouth. Wondered what the hell was wrong with him.
She stood right behind him, so he could feel her body’s warmth at his back. She touched the space between his shoulders. Was it her currentgift that made his skin prickle at the contact, even through his shirt?
“There’s something I have to do,” she said. “I’ll be back soon.”
Just like that, she was gone. "

― Veronica Roth , Carve the Mark (Carve the Mark, #1)